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Not as regards the careers counselling and education / careers guidance services which are a very important part of my business. People only start looking for this kind of support when they hit a problem and need an (instant) solution.

There's also only a small amount of benefit to be had from targeting and approaching the decision-influencers at their conferences.

Teachers and university lecturers naturally feel that all education / careers guidance problems should be sorted out by internal or state-funded resources (though state provided careers guidance is now largely limited to an under-advertised national telephone / web service). Also, they will only "sell" services that are available to all their students, regardless of the income of their parents. Fee-funded services like mine aren't affordable to most low income families.

Perhaps even more importantly, I'd be appalled if I generated too much business at any one time because I couldn't handle it. I'm probably in a similar situation to ithastobedone and any other craft-based worker.

I sell quality of work and individualised career guidance reports; you can't provide that unless you do a lot of hard thinking and research for each client. I never want to repeat the experience I had once of working from 6.00am to 12.00 midnight every day for 15 days because my most important corporate client had given me large recruitment and management development projects to do simultaneously.

The obvious answer - recruiting short-term help - would be more hassle than I'm prepared to volunteer for because there's so much variation in the standard of assessment and reports that individual career consultants write.

The small business world probably divides into those who are properly entrepreneurial and commercial (whose businesses may become large ones) and those who are simply self-employed professionals (for whom their businesses are mainly a paying hobby). I'm in the second category of business owners - it often surprises me how much that basic difference in motivation affects so many individual marketing and business decisions.

Surely matters such as the type of product you sell, the type of customers who buy and affordability all affect what decisions you reach re off-line or on-line advertising? Also whether you go for straightforward advertising or rely on simply making potential customers aware of you and what you do.

Our customers are very thinly spread throughout England (anywhere from Yorkshire to Bristol) with many of them being from the South-East. They're a very small minority of the total population and want lots of information before they're prepared to make their decisions about suppliers. They'll only need information from these suppliers once or twice in their lifetimes. It would cost a bomb to reach them by off-line advertisements.

The DWP job seekers' "quiz" was described as a "scientific approach to measuring personal strengths" - which it certainly isn't. There are professional guidelines laid down by the UK's learned body - the British Psychological Society -for psychometric testing and psychometric tests. I can't think of a single professional guideline that wasn't breached by this abomination.

I'm staggered DWP didn't realise they'd be rumbled on this one. Everyone completing the "quiz" was given the same feedback about themselves (even if they gave different answers each time they did the "quiz"). Some smart "techie" types looked at the computer programming for this "quiz" and showed us how the scam worked.

Psychometric testing is an important part of the education and careers guidance / career development services I offer. This rubbish scheme by DWP feels like a personal affront.

The reminder to ask about paying by instalments for services / products not affordable as a lump sum might be a useful one for those of us with an instinctive horror of "debt".

Depending on your age, you might be able to access the Prince's Trust business support package.

It'd be worth your while to talk to your local Chamber of Commerce and different banks about your plans - the staff should be aware of any local initiatives to support new small businesses.

Are you planning to offer "doggy daycare services" as part of your range of services? It's a wonderful way of improving cash flow during the low periods for holidays.

Walmart already fills that niche????

A far higher percentage of employees' earnings go on paying for their housing costs in the UK than in other countries, whether they're buying their homes or renting them. An increasing percentage of people will never be able to afford to buy their own homes, even if they're on better than average earnings. We have to do something about the housing market because of the social and economic consequences to the UK of unaffordable housing, an extreme shortage of the more affordable homes and the lack of security created by short-term tenancies.

To try to make work pay and ensure people don't lose the homes they rent (privately or from social landlords), the state pays Housing Benefit where tenants' earnings - or benefits - are insufficient for them to meet their basic living costs as well as pay rent. Rents have risen far more rapidly than inflation because affordable housing is in such short supply - it's a landlords' market - so taxpayers' contribution to Housing Benefit has also gone up as rapidly.

It'd be great if employers increase employees' earnings and it would reduce the amount of Housing Benefit paid. I'm doubtful, though, whether most employers could afford to provide pay increases large enough to offset the rent hikes. The only way out I can see is for adequate rental controls to be put in place.

It's sky-high rents coupled with low-paid work that drives up the benefits bill because by far the largest item of expenditure is housing costs. Most people who claim Housing Benefit are working (I think around two-thirds of claimants are employed).

Rather than cut benefit, a sane government would think about introducing rent controls and increasing the percentage of affordable homes built. This government does the opposite -it's required social housing providers to charge more than they used to (so more of their tenants need to claim higher amounts of Housing Benefit); and it's allowed developers to reduce the number of affordable homes they must build when developing new housing estates.

Child Allowance is another benefit that's paid regardless of whether someone's in work or not.

If someone was offered

Maggie was a bit of a curate's egg ("good in parts").

She was one hell of a shock to the system - the political classes and media had to get used to the big boss being female and not One Of Us by class or training.

She was an extremist by nature so she got a lot done (some of which she should not have done - eg she got us into the Falklands War by some ill-judged penny-pinching that persuaded the Argentinian Junta we wouldn't resist an invasion).

Her mistakes were big ones (eg Maggie thought there was no such thing as climate change or society) and other people paid and are paying a very heavy price for them. More positively, though, she made us face up to a lot of problems which had been hanging around for decades - eg over-manning at management level and elsewhere in commerce and industry. When she embarked on a political course, she was unusually resolute in seeing it through.

If you're trying to sell your expertise, it's often easier to do this by making an informed comment on your sector's leading newsletters / blogs than any other way, I think.

I "sell" largely psychometrics-based careers counselling and job search support to all age groups (17 - 60+). I need to show I know my stuff on psychometrics (for example) so I post comments on articles evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of different psychometric tests and testing procedures / methodology. I go through a similar process commenting on features about careers guidance services, careers guidance for teenagers and graduates, graduate employment, employment and the over 50s etc.

As with all posting and blogging, I know I should do a lot more (and do it consistently). Even some activity, though, is better than none, surely?