Paul Atherton (16 August 2017)

Paul Atherton, who is the owner of N1 Visual Solutions, explained his experiences of operating his own business. N1 Visual Solutions develops ideas into effective forms of visual communication. They provide internal and external signage and graphics, large format digital print, and window graphics and displays.

In the talk, Paul outlined some interesting and useful points based on his own experiences from running his own business. He said that people need to be prepared and always bring their own business card. It is very important because it can help others remember them better than just talking to them. You don’t know when and where you may meet potential customers or future co-operative partners.

Paul explained that you should not call everyone in business an entrepreneur because they are not. He found that people confuse entrepreneurs and small business owners. In his opinion, they are totally different. He explained that entrepreneurs, in his opinion, are less driven by some moral authority or economic reward and more by fear of failure and missed opportunities. Small business owners are the people who build businesses incrementally and bit by bit.

His last main point was that organisation is the key to making a business successful. Everything needs to be organised, whether in life or work, in home or work place. Organisation can help improve efficiency and effectiveness of doing things, avoid making mistakes and reduce the failure rate. It is a useful point which needs to be considered when people are operating their own businesses.

Based on a report by Linjia Gan