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Linda Walton writes: 'We need to talk to thrive'
Linda Walton, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses' South Bucks and Aylesbury branch, on why firms need human contact to help them through the credit crunch.
Last week I went up to London. I drove to the station and bought a rail ticket and parking permit from a machine with my credit card.
The station bookstall has an 'honesty bucket' for paying for papers – I took advantage of that.
At the Underground I inserted my through ticket into an electronic barrier and did the same when I emerged into the sunshine at Victoria. After my meeting I picked a sandwich and a drink from a 'serve yourself' shop and, as I paid by credit card once again, I exchanged not a word with the assistant behind the counter.
In my three hours of travel I made not a single contact, even of the briefest kind, with a fellow human being.
My 'journey without connections' got me thinking about our increasingly contactless society and how it is playing out in my business life as well as my personal life.
I hold three bank accounts, all with the same bank, but I could not tell you the name of one person that I could speak to if I had a problem, nor how to contact such a person.
No doubt I would have to rely on a stranger in some call centre, helpful perhaps, but remote, to whom I would be no more than a number.
The FSB is feeling quite frustrated at the moment after hearing from so many of our members that the extra government money for business is not trickling down through the banks and other distributors to the entrepreneurs that need it.
In response we have demanded the creation of a 'corporate mediator' to stand between businesses and banks to 'facilitate the relationship' between the two. Gordon Brown has just responded to the FSB's national petition 'Keep Trade Local' – his response is to promise the setting up of a 'Grocery Supply Code of Practice Ombudsman' so that hard-done-by suppliers to big retailers have someone to complain to if they feel they have been treated unfairly.
Business Link, one of the best-known brands for business support now calls itself a 'signposter' rather than a direct deliverer of advice.
These are just three examples of an acute problem in today's business world today – the decay and disappearance of personal relationships.
A Corporate Mediator cannot be an effective substitute for an entrepreneur and his or her bank manager understanding and trusting each other.
An Ombudsman only gets involved after a problem has arisen - surely the better approach is for big retailers to create trading relationships with their suppliers that allow both to make a fair profit from the deal from the outset.
Business Link has always got a mixed press from FSB members, directly related to the quality of the person that they have fielded to assist them. How can Business Link possibly police the quality of advice that their 'signposted' members will receive?
Right here in The Vale people who are losing their jobs are setting up in business on their own for the first time.
They are embarking on a new life. They will need practical help and advice. Sure, they can go on to some website and get general information, but what they are going to need is personal guidance from a human being that they can connect with and who takes the trouble to understand their issues: in short, a person in whom they can trust.
You don't get confidence from a computer screen or a glossy brochure.
So my appeal this month is to our banks and to our well-intentioned government advice networks.
Take such money as you have to support businesses and invest some of it in financing personal contacts and connections on the ground – people to whom entrepreneurs can talk and with whom they can establish that kind of individual relationship that can make a difference between success and failure.
Only with this kind of support will our small businesses be able to steer us out of recession.
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Weather for Aylesbury
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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