The Long View

I was walking down the street a few days ago. There is a shop that I pass from time to time. It’s not a large store, but it obviously has been reasonably successful. Although they are not clients of ours, I know who owns it and I would guess, but I don’t know, that they […]

The dust is now settling after the rush to get tax returns submitted by 31 January. One week before the deadline we heard that 4 million 2021 tax returns were still outstanding. As of the 31 January deadline, the total outstanding was still 2 million. We had submitted tax returns for virtually all of our

I could not resist this small play on words. The title could just as easily have been “to or for?” Let me ask you a question. Is it just part of human nature that we tend to react positively to things being done “for” us, but negatively when we think things are being done “to”

As you may know, we used to produce a monthly paper newsletter, and this lasted about 12 years. We had a short break and then came back online last January, but this time it is weekly. As we are now a year old, I thought that I would look back at that first article which

How often have I said that? But it’s true and the pace of change for all of us in so many ways is certainly not slowing down so we all need to keep learning. Change is happening faster now than at any time in my working life and if we want to succeed in business,

When I have an occasional spare moment, I browse through LinkedIn. You see so many facets of life on that platform. It’s probably the same with others but I don’t have time to read them all. I am also very fortunate that I have tenuous connections on LinkedIn with contacts in Kenya. I may not

One of the things that I learnt a number of years ago was that I was the one in command of my life. Alright, there are always things going on around us that impact on what we do, but ultimately, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you are in

Last week I explained how a new member of our team posed this question to me – “What do YOU do?” So let me ask you the same question. You cannot answer, director, shareholder, owner or any such title. What do you actually do day to day in your business? It’s an interesting and revealing

We had our Christmas meal in Inverness last Friday. It is an opportunity for our offices in Inverness and Elgin to come together, relax and chill. Just before this, the media circus was kicking up a storm about some of Boris’ parliamentary advisers being caught out a year after they had been fooling around and

Last Friday I was visiting a couple who recently retired and had sold their business. As they no longer had business premises. I met with them (and their cat) at their home. The cat had been abandoned and had been rescued as a kitten. The cat was asleep when I arrived but woke and came