Well that was a strange month
You know how you just tick along in life and then suddenly a door opens unexpectedly, and you just have to walk on through and see what happens.
Well it did. So I did!
Back in 2023 I was invited to be on Mailchimp’s Customer Advisory Board - a year-long role working directly with their leadership team in Atlanta to help shape the products and services they offer.
It was an interesting year that gave me a greater insight into Mailchimp’s goals, values and thought process. It also meant I got to know a lot of their leadership team personally (and had a fabulous trip to their head office in Atlanta!).
2 years later, those relationships opened another door.
Mailchimp and Quickbooks (a leading accounting software) are both owned by Intuit. There are 5.5 million SMEs in the UK, 20% of which are also Intuit customers using one or more of its products.
As there are so many SMEs, the government is prioritising helping them grow and thrive in order to support the economy. So Intuit have taken this opportunity to use their “clout” by setting up a brand new UK Small Business Growth Council to give SMEs a voice at the highest levels as the government develops its policies.
So when Intuit reached out to Mailchimp’s head office to ask who they would recommend for the council, they suggested me (blush).
Obviously I accepted, so that means I am now one of 18 small business owners out of their 1 million customers on the council.
What happened next.
Shortly after dealing with all the paperwork, I received an invitation from the Department for Business & Trade to join in a three-day residential at the government-owned Wilton Park - a beautiful 16th century manor house and park in West Sussex that they use for “dialogues”. The week before European leaders had been there discussing the future of Ukraine.
The DBT is planning a new Small Business Growth Service and wanted feedback as to what we, as SMEs, need to help them shape it. There were 15 SMEs from across the country, of which I was the ONLY one-person business (despite there being 4.125 single-person businesses in the UK!), speaking to about 50 representatives of the DBT, British Chamber of Commerce, British Bank, Federation of Small Businesses etc.
It was fairly eye opening. Not only have I been running businesses for 16 years, I’ve also worked with a huge number of other businesses and get to hear your priorities, challenges and concerns. So that meant I HAD to speak out as all those other voices and experiences were right there with me in spirit.
So that was my comfort zone well and truly thrashed.
The first iteration of the Small Business Growth Service is due for launch in June 2025 - I suspect it will be a soft launch as it’s impossible to get everything done in that time scale, but hopefully it will be a positive step.
And then…
The Intuit UK Small Business Growth Council had our inaugural event on 1-2 April 2025 in Westminster. It was full of pinch-me moments with meetings at 10 Downing Street, the Palace of Westminster and The Old Admiralty Building (overlooking where they do “the changing of the guards”).
Key items on the agenda were:
Democratisation of AI so that small businesses don’t fall behind
Helping SMEs adopt digitalisation to drive efficiencies, growth and profitability
The issue of late and payments and unfair payment terms by larger businesses, which causes such huge challenges for in particular SMEs, many of which fail as a direct result of cashflow
As a council we had an absolutely packed schedule, whizzing around Westminster in a convoy of black-cabs wrapped for the event. We sat down and discussed these issues with many government representatives including Jonathan Reynolds, the Secretary of State for Business, James Carroll and Roisin McCarthy (the Prime Minister’s Special Advisors for Business), Terry Corby of Good Business Pays and Liz Barclay, the Small Business Commissioner and MP Samantha Niblett.
Surely this is the sort of thing that happens to other people? Apparently not.
And this is just the beginning.
My role on the UK Small Business Council is for a minimum period of 2 years. We have big plans, and a voice exactly where we need it to be heard. I’m excited to see what we can achieve together.
