The 4^th of July has long been associated with American Independence Day, and this year, in Britain, voters around the land will be exercising their right to independent thought and casting their ballots for their next Members of Parliament (unless they don’t have “the right kind” of ID of course, in which case they will be disenfranchised).

This Independence Day, I wanted to draw attention to another kind of independence: running your own business. I took the plunge 6 years ago and now run 3 businesses – Make Me A Plan, the Healthy Habits Academy and Ekam Health & Wellness. Here are my top tips for supporting independent businesses, as we come up to the “Independents’ Weekend” support local shopping campaign on the 6^th and 7^th July.

1. Search local, not just for top/paid hits on search engines. Adding your local town or area to an internet search for the product or service you need, might just surprise you at what is available locally.
2. Humans are the antidote. If you are thoroughly fed up with being in call centre queues, parcels turning up late or squished or not like they looked like online – go to a shop and talk to a real person. Get their advice and enjoy the interaction and browsing experience.
3. Recommend to friends and family – the local word of mouth grapevine is still the most powerful form of marketing going and independent businesses will be super happy to gain referred custom this way.
4. Compliment independent business owners. They are usually performing several roles to run the business and serve customers – take the time to say how nice their shop window looks, how smart their website looks, how you enjoyed the content of their latest newsletter.

Next fortnight, I’ll be writing On Measure – do drop by and size up your thoughts on the matter. Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this subject you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime,

Happy Planning

PS If you want some other free tips for your business life, check out the Working Well blog – out fortnightly on Wednesdays, courtesy of Make Me A Plan’s Productivity Expert, Penny Le Kelly. Browse the latest edition here:

https://www.makemeaplan.com/news/uk-politics-the-workplace-a-friendly-guide/