Eight conversations, one guide: introducing More Than Numbers

When we started Giving You More Than Numbers, we had no real idea whether anyone would listen.

What we got back after Season 1 genuinely surprised us. Business owners told us it was the first time they had heard an accountant talk to them rather than at them. That was the whole point, so hearing it said out loud meant a lot.

Season 2 went further. Eight episodes, eight sets of guests, and eight of the subjects that every small business owner runs into but rarely gets to talk about honestly.

Why we made it

Not everyone has eight hours to spare.

We know that. You are running a business. You might catch an episode on the school run or half of one on the way to a meeting, and then three weeks go by and you have lost the thread.

So we went back through the whole season and pulled out what actually matters. The takeaways. The numbers. The moments where a guest said something that made us stop and rewind. And, importantly, the questions worth asking yourself afterwards.

More Than Numbers: The SME Survival Guide from Season 2 is 24 pages. You can read it in about twenty minutes. You can act on it the same afternoon.

What is inside

Each chapter covers one episode, with the core theme, the top takeaways, a standout quote and a guide to who it is most relevant for. There is an episode map at the front so you can jump straight to whatever is on your mind right now.

The eight topics:

1. The numbers that actually matter. The seven figures every owner should know, and what they are telling you.

2. Getting more from Xero without living in it. Using it as a decision tool rather than a filing cabinet.

3. Busy is not a business strategy. The difference between activity and progress.

4. Tax planning without the panic. Why the conversation belongs in April, not March.

5. People, pressure and performance. Hiring your first employee without storing up pain for later.

6. The owner's headspace. The bit nobody puts in the business plan.

7. Building a business with an end in mind. Are you building an income or an asset?

8. Decisions that shape the business. How to decide when you will never have all the information.

Three things you can use before you even download it

Turnover and profit have to be read together. A business turning over £500,000 and spending £499,000 is in trouble, and its turnover figure will not tell you that. Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.

Your bank balance is not the truth. It might be hiding VAT owed, corporation tax due, pension contributions or a loan repayment that has not landed yet. Healthy today does not mean healthy on the 22nd.

A bad decision made well beats no decision at all. You can learn from a decision that did not work. You cannot learn from one you never made. Waiting for perfect information is itself a decision, and usually a worse one.

There are another fifty or so like that in the guide.

Get your copy

More Than Numbers: The SME Survival Guide from Season 2 is free to download.

All eight episodes are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Search for Giving You More Than Numbers.

And if you would rather talk it through than read it, that is always an option too. Call us on 01827 780550.