Your Mentors
The UK Small Business School idea started off as a bit of an accident while on a big family holiday. My grandson was borrowing money against his future chores to buy ice cream. He had no idea that even if he did all his chores, he wouldn’t be able to earn enough money to pay back all his ice cream money borrowings! And then it hit us… he was acting like so many of our small business owner clients acted! He didn’t understand his cashflow and wasn’t able to manage his spending against his money coming in.
After working out how to explain cashflow, accounting, taxes and business to a my grandson in simple language he’d understand, The UK Small Business School was founded!
If he can understand the lessons – I have no doubt you will to!
Bryan Hopkins
I qualified as a charted accountant in the 1970’s and ended up as an accounting lecturer where I taught accounting for over 20 years. I wrote and co-authored what was known, in accounting circles at least, as “the bible”. I loved my cricket and rugby and there was hardly a local match I attended where I didn’t bump into a former student.
Over the year the accounting standards grew and so I also provided continuing professional development and education to those already in practice and working at the big accounting firms. I acted as an expert accounting witness in court cases, consulted to small business as well as businesses listed on the stock exchange. I also ran a small investment company on the side that used my accounting skills and knowledge to determine which companies to invest in – and which to avoid!
When I left the teaching profession I went into investments full time for one of the big life companies – running a team that was investing customers savings and pensions in listed companies. This required using my accounting and other business knowledge to determine which businesses were going to be good investments for the pension and which businesses and industries to no invest in. This is why the real secret, super power to growing a profitable business is in having a sound working understanding of accounting – not just being tax efficient!
Craig Hopkins
My son followed in my footsteps as an accountant and after doing his time in the big firms set up his own private accountancy practice. What started as a conversation about his son and ice cream slowly moved to comparing stories about clients and people we knew that were running businesses – but had about the same understanding of money, business and accounts as my grandson! It was a long, long list with some sad and unhappy stories in there.
My son, in his accountancy practice, already had some basic education they provided to clients as a way of helping them improve their business skills in certain key areas. He has a passion for helping entrepreneurs and investors starting out in business. From these conversations and our combined unique skills and background, the UKSBS was born. Instead of helping just a handful of clients, with our 50+ years of experience we could help many more with our online classroom than I could have ever helped in a lecture theatre over the years!
As the holiday rolled on (and the request for more advance funds to by ice creams came in), the conversation continued. We could both name more clients and former clients that had not been afraid to work hard, but hadn’t cracked it financially! Their bank accounts didn’t reflect the time, effort or unique skills they had – because they didn’t understand business at the level they should have.
Bryan Hopkins
I qualified as a charted accountant in the 1970’s and ended up as an accounting lecturer where I taught accounting for over 20 years. I wrote and co-authored what was known, in accounting circles at least, as “the bible”. I loved my cricket and rugby and there was hardly a local match I attended where I didn’t bump into a former student.
Over the year the accounting standards grew and so I also provided continuing professional development and education to those already in practice and working at the big accounting firms. I acted as an expert accounting witness in court cases, consulted to small business as well as businesses listed on the stock exchange. I also ran a small investment company on the side that used my accounting skills and knowledge to determine which companies to invest in – and which to avoid!
When I left the teaching profession I went into investments full time for one of the big life companies – running a team that was investing customers savings and pensions in listed companies. This required using my accounting and other business knowledge to determine which businesses were going to be good investments for the pension and which businesses and industries to no invest in. This is why the real secret, super power to growing a profitable business is in having a sound working understanding of accounting – not just being tax efficient!
Craig Hopkins
My son followed in my footsteps as an accountant and after doing his time in the big firms set up his own private accountancy practice. What started as a conversation about his son and ice cream slowly moved to comparing stories about clients and people we knew that were running businesses – but had about the same understanding of money, business and accounts as my grandson! It was a long, long list with some sad and unhappy stories in there.
My son, in his accountancy practice, already had some basic education they provided to clients as a way of helping them improve their business skills in certain key areas. He has a passion for helping entrepreneurs and investors starting out in business. From these conversations and our combined unique skills and background, the UKSBS was born. Instead of helping just a handful of clients, with our 50+ years of experience we could help many more with our online classroom than I could have ever helped in a lecture theatre over the years!
As the holiday rolled on (and the request for more advance funds to by ice creams came in), the conversation continued. We could both name more clients and former clients that had not been afraid to work hard, but hadn’t cracked it financially! Their bank accounts didn’t reflect the time, effort or unique skills they had – because they didn’t understand business at the level they should have.
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Small businesses have allowed both my family and my son’s family to have opportunities that we wouldn’t have otherwise have had. Small businesses are the backbone of an economy and job creation and wealth creation.
Our goal is to add enormous value to you and your business so that every year you can get bigger, better and more profitable!