Comments on: Business Link – gatekeeper or facilitator?

By: Alex Bellinger

Alex Bellinger — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:32:14 +0000

Ed, no problem at all, in fact the expression of strong views is relished on this blog as on most. I think Business Link really does need to think through what it is and what it’s going to deliver. I’m not entirely sure they’re absolutely sure what they’re about yet. The last thing we need is a clearing house for overpaid, private consultants!

By: Ed Holdsworth

Ed Holdsworth — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:35:17 +0000

Sorry if that was strong, I’ve quietly put up with the state of affairs for some time and felt it important to be frank, many businesses in our area are unhappy with BL but there is little we can do to change things as they exist in a bubble and not many people speak out. For clarification, BL is not just for startups. We are in an Objective One area and it would be interesting to know how much of the funds actually got to businesses and not consultants, I mean real figures not headlines and spin that mislead the public.

By: Alex Bellinger

Alex Bellinger — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:41:33 +0000

Don’t hold back Ed, will you? My guess is BL doesn’t position itself as a resource for already successful businesses. My impression is it’s more for the pre-startup, startup, and very small business. Am I wrong? Maybe someone from BL would care to comment?

By: Ed Holdsworth

Ed Holdsworth — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:05:56 +0000

Balanced article. My personal experience is that BL is ineffective, slow , negative , a burden on resources and out of touch with how money is made and business sustained. I think it has lost its way and is more interested in its own targets than the interests of SMEs. Unfortunately most successful companies would rather carry on making profits and growing than waste precious time with BL initiatives and their diagnostics.

By: Alex Bellinger

Alex Bellinger — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:38:56 +0000

Stuart H, interesting suggestion re Live Chat. I think the BL website is actually a very useful resource.

Stuart J, David hmmm … I’m not sure what type of brokerage BL has in mind. Achieving a level of consistent high quality of advisers across BL must be their aim. Let’s see how things change. I think a lot of people are appreciative of the service they receive.

By: David

David — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:44:36 +0000

Very poor experience of BL.

‘Advisor’ showed no genuine interest, could not offer any helpful advice, answered a personal mobile phone call during the meeting, showed signs of being hungover (coffee and water taken at the same time), did not offer any drinks(!), had no knowledge of grants system, did not show any interest in our business model, put down the local social and economic market by going into extensive detail about how her son had to re-locate to London to find work and was only interested in filling out ‘to do’ forms.

As a professional, and having dealt with financial institutions, accountants, experienced businessmen, etc i was not impressed by the attitude or service (or lack of it) from the advisor.

Rating 0/10

By: Stuart Jones

Stuart Jones — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:47:32 +0000

I phoned our “new” Business Link recently to ask if they knew of a company which would maintain my business’s PCs (hardware & software) and was told they didn’t recommend firms and had I tried Google!

Thanks.

By: Stuart G. Hall

Stuart G. Hall — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:17:02 +0000

Yep, what you say makes good sense. Inspired by this I’ve put together a quick proposal for making the businesslink.gov.uk website more user friendly by introducing live chat to provide a more responsive human face – see http://www.stuart-hall.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/11/3086298.html