Today, I’ve spent time reading the comments sections of recent FT articles about SMEs and seeing some of the quite disparaging comments levelled at SMEs, thought that it might be useful to reflect a little on what it is like to be involved in running a small business.

1/ Paying the staff. What keeps me awake at night, more than anything else, is worrying about making the payroll each month so that our staff get paid. Paying our staff comes before EVERYTHING else (including paying myself) and I’m sure this rings true for many SME owners.

(cont) Many of my employees have worked with the firm for 8+ years & i’ve seen people join us out of school/university, who go on to start families, make lasting friendships and take on mortgages. Which always feels like a big responsibility to have as a business owner.

(cont) It’s often said that working in a small business is like being in a family and that is very much the case. In an SME, there is very little hiding away from employees in some distant ‘C-Suite’ floor or shielding yourself behind an HR department.

(cont) In a SME you’ll often be working closely alongside all staff, and you have to face the music, on a daily basis. So making the payroll each month counts above everything else, no question.

2/ Workload (or, doing too much work and not getting paid enough for it). When you run your own business, there is no downtime, no respite from work. You’re a potential client and, for whatever reason, decide to call me at 3.45am to talk about work? Your call will be answered.

(cont) Also, if you do call me at 3.45am, you won’t hear me complain or be rude, you’ll still get great customer service. We'll make what you need to happen, happen, even at 3.45am. That’s because I (and our staff) really, really do care about the business.

(cont) Or how about, I’m on a train going somewhere (a meeting?) & have somehow managed to finish responding to emails... so now I have some time to improve the website copy or write a LinkedIn article. And try to post something meaningful on our company Instagram account.

(cont) And then time to log in to the accounts software and see how cashflow is this week. Which reminds me to chase up a few suppliers who are late paying us. Then remember that I completely forgot to forward an invoice to our bookkeeper months ago from a company which is...

(cont) threatening legal action unless it’s settled right now... And one of our drivers had a parking ticket last week which needs paying, and I remember that our vehicle insurance renewal is coming up in a few days and this also needs to be sorted out...

(cont) Another email pops up and it's a customer telling me that a competitor has made them a better offer, can we do anything about it? And just now, whilst doing all of this, one of the staff calls me to say that the fire alarm has started going off for no apparent reason...

3/ To be continued...