Small Business

Tips from a TED Talk Coach on how to connect with your audience for those vital 18 minutes

Julie Bernstein held the pottery cup high above her head. She then released her grip. The cup slipped silently downward until it lightly hit the edge of a small, cement landing base placed near her feet.

---

Small Firms Association wants easier terms for firms repaying warehoused taxes

The Small Firms Association (SFA) is seeking easier repayment terms for small businesses that warehoused their tax debts during the pandemic and are now facing difficult trading conditions.

---

Premium

Signs of financial distress appear in late SME payments

Late payments are becoming a growing problem for small businesses with more than four in 10 saying the issue is worse than a year ago, according to a new Kantar/Close Brothers survey.

---

Tips to reduce your stress levels in these worrying and traumatic times

Heart-wrenching, anxiety-provoking, stress-inducing, hope-stealing, hope-restoring.

---

When employees start heading for the exit, how can you turn attrition into attraction?

For the last few years, almost every organisation I met has had openings and posts to fill in its employee base.

---

Leadership: Taking what you have learned from the gym floor to the boardroom

“I was a national level all-around gymnast from the time I was six to 16,” Lisa Cafferata told me. “I’ve had good coaches and bad. And I learned from both.

---

Gallery

Skillnet aims to connect small firms with larger corporations

Irish software startup Tigim is teaching firms how to speak plain English to help win more customers and foreign talent.

---

A St Valentine’s Day love letter to all employees

Well, folks, by the time you read this on Sunday morning, I should be taking off from Dublin on a flight to Phoenix to facilitate my first in-person conference in nearly two years.

---

Sharing third-level research banks with cash-poor, ideas-rich SMEs

In today’s fast-moving world, investment in research and development (R&D) is essential for every company to stay competitive, but for smaller companies, financing and adequately resourcing R&D can be more difficult.

---

Angel investors aim to pump €10m into ‘genius’ start-ups

A group of angel investors is looking to plough €10m into Irish start-ups that can make a positive social or environmental “impact”, as well as generate returns.

---

Taxpayers no longer the biggest shareholder in Bank of Ireland

The Government has cut its stake in Bank of Ireland to 6.93pc meaning it is no longer the single biggest share holder in the bank, according to a stock market filing.

---

Gallery

Premium

The year of the deal: how private-equity firms turned a predicted slump into a boomtime

Veteran entrepreneur Denis O’Brien, one of Ireland’s wealthiest people, knows a thing or two about a good deal.

---

Premium

Rising tide is not lifting all boats as SMEs get left behind

Is Christmas cancelled? This ominous question headlined the economics update in Goodbody’s daily research note yesterday morning.

---

Gallery

Premium

Retailers having to adapt fast as shoppers navigate latest restrictions

New Covid restrictions are proving to be a mixed bag for Irish retailers, with some doing a roaring trade and others feeling the hit from shuttered nightlife.

---

Gallery

Premium

Restaurant trade: Big beasts put small rivals on the hook

Days before Austria went back into lockdown to tackle a fourth wave of the pandemic, Dublin-based restaurateur Gareth ‘Gaz’ Smith was back in his old stomping ground of Vienna to blow off some steam. Surveying the once-busy Mariahilfer Strasse shopping street from the rooftop of his hotel, Smith – who spent six years working in the Austrian capital before returning to Ireland – spotted just four people.

---

Guinness startup hub to cater for 220 firms after €10m makeover

The Guinness Enterprise Centre, a startup hub nestled in the old stables of Dublin’s landmark brewery, has just gotten a €10m makeover.

---

Investments in startups surge to overtake pre-pandemic levels

Startups across the island of Ireland are now raising more money than they were pre-pandemic.

---

Gina London Opinion Reap the benefits of extra effort on networking skills

“I have been solely task-oriented,” my client admitted. “I thought the project proposal I presented would be approved based on all the data and information I provided. On merit alone. I hadn’t really thought about the people who would be needed for the approval.”

---

Digital spending a priority for small businesses post-pandemic

Tech investments are now front of my mind for SMEs as the country emerges from the pandemic, according to a survey from Salesforce.