Blog
How to Take a Sabbatical from your Small Business
by Meta4 Admin | January 25th, 2026
Ever dreamed of just stepping away from your business? Perhaps with the ability to pick things back up, if and whenever you want, where you left off? Of course you have, we all have. Every small business owner has had this thought at one, or many more times, or another.
But what does planning for a sabbatical look like in …
Reset, Refocus & Rise: How to Build a Purpose-Driven Plan for 2026
by Meta4 Admin | December 15th, 2025
As we approach a new year, many business owners feel both excitement and pressure. Setting a plan can feel daunting – What if I fail? What if I succeed? Where do I even start? Those questions are normal.
Planning isn’t about perfection; it’s about clarity, alignment, and consistent action.
Reset, Refocus and Rise is a theme for 2026, and here …
Own Your Future: The Power of Starting Your Own Business Over Franchising
by Meta4 Admin | November 20th, 2025
You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that buying a franchised business automatically makes for a successful small business, and you, its proud owner.
Buy the franchise = instant business success. Right?
It’s not always that clear cut…
The average cost of a franchised business in the UK is £40K, but it can go into the hundreds of thousands depending upon …
Handling Consumer Uncertainty with more Certainty
by Meta4 Admin | October 16th, 2025
With entrepreneurship comes risk. All. The. Time. Most decisions come with a hefty investment, whether it be financial or time, and therefore a huge dollop of risk:
Will this new service return on its investment?
What if this new employee doesn’t work out?
What if we lose business to our competitors?
Just a few of the questions that keep many …
Is AI a substitute for Business Coaching?
by Meta4 Admin | September 14th, 2025
If you’re anything like me you’ve been pondering the future of AI and the impact it’s going to have on our jobs and businesses.
Whilst a huge fan on some of the technological breakthroughs, for one, in person shopping is a must for me (Amazon, who are they!?) so the automatic scanning of clothes’, rather than scanning each item individually …
How to get from 6 figures and overwhelmed to feeling balanced with a clear plan
by Meta4 Admin | August 19th, 2025
Did you know only 5% of business owners get to 6 figures? And most business owners, even though they have reached this milestone, still struggle with problems of busyness rather than productivity and doing it all as opposed to delegating. And although there’s a shift in your finances since the start up days, it can often feel like you haven’t …
“I Don’t Have Time to Scale” – The Belief That’s Keeping You Stuck
by Meta4 Admin | July 15th, 2025
You’ve worked hard to build a successful business. But now that it’s time to grow, you keep hitting the same wall and hear yourself saying: “I don’t have time to scale.”You’re not alone.
For so many ambitious business owners at this stage, time becomes the most frustrating paradox. You know growth is needed. You can see what’s possible. But …
What is the True Cost of Coaching Yourself in Business?
by Meta4 Admin | June 16th, 2025
We all know that entrepreneurs – business owners, founders, visionaries (however you refer to yourself) – have ideas flowing in all. the. time.
The ideas swirl around for days, months, even years. They take root. Sometimes they grow. Sometimes they fade. But they’re always there.
Some of these ideas make it into the real world. They reach 80% completion, full …
Why Holding on Too Tight Is Holding You Back — And What to Do Instead
by Meta4 Admin | May 12th, 2025
It feels like the right thing to do doesn’t it? When business gets tough – grit your teeth and push harder? That’s certainly a mistake I’ve made over the past 18 years in business. When you’ve seen a recession or two and been through a pandemic, our default mindset can be to hold on tight, double down and work harder.…
How to Thrive Under Pressure: Strategies for Small Business Success
by Meta4 Admin | April 15th, 2025
In the week where National Insurance rises, Trump imposes a 10% tariff on the UK and utility and platform costs show no sign of abating, there continues to be pressure placed on the cost to run a business. So, what steps should small business owners take to alleviate financial pressure to stabilise and look towards growth?
It would be all …
How to scale your successful business (with no time)
by Meta4 Admin | March 12th, 2025
Scaling a business can feel hard.
Especially if you’ve already reached good levels of success; a strong turnover (remember only 5% of entrepreneurs across the globe reach over 100K) a team in place, processes, even if it’s only a few… But when you reach this level, it means you are busy doing. You’re in the business. So, finding the time …
How to stop being the bottle neck in your business
by Meta4 Admin | February 14th, 2025
Are you stuck in the day to day running of your business?
Let’s face facts. You are ambitious, you run a successful business and work hard at it, always have. But now you want to achieve more for your business.
But you are so stuck in the day to day running, you can’t see how to extricate yourself without detrimental …
2 simple Steps to get out of Overwhelm and back into Control
by Meta4 Admin | January 20th, 2025
If you’re reading this in January, it’s that time of year when everyone is raring to go and achieve the next big thing. Perhaps you were overdue the ‘January fresh start’ and are now all too aware of the amount of changes that you need and want to make and are wondering how you’re going to find the time and …
Turning Business Upheaval to Your Advantage
by Meta4 Admin | November 29th, 2024
True love never runs smoothly. And the same goes for running a business you love too. You may have experienced a downturn in profits this year, or changes within your team, through to clients leaving or those clients you really wanted to secure not signing up. For whatever unknown reason. It may be that you have experienced all these challenges.…
How to leave your job and start a business
by Meta4 Admin | October 4th, 2024
Maybe you’re me 17 years ago…
Back in 2007 I desperately wanted to leave my corporate career and had felt that way for 5 years or more. But with little idea of what to do as an alternative and how to even go about working out the next steps I felt completely stuck. Armed with fuzzy plans of self-employment coupled …
Is Your Website Losing You Business?
by Meta4 Admin | September 13th, 2024
When was the last time you took a deep look at your own website? Most business owners rarely review their websites once they’re set up. But if you’re not actively monitoring your site’s performance, you might be losing potential customers without even realising it. How would you know ….? Yes you have access to your Google Analytics to give you …
Getting the basics right to grow your business
by Meta4 Admin | August 9th, 2024
Statistics that will shock you.
A whopping 48% of business enquiries are not followed up with. 72% switch their cameras off during meetings. (Whilst this statistic relates to employees, I’m sure you’re seeing this happen – as I do – during networking meetings all the time.) 59% of customers may not return to a business due to poor branding, which…Creatives make more successful business owners
by Meta4 Admin | July 4th, 2024
Creatives by nature love to learn – they’re curious beings. They’re innovative in their thinking – with an aptitude for problem solving and they are open-minded – happy to hear about and embrace new ways of working.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou
All-important attributes for running a successful business. …
Should I Stay or Grow my Business?
by Meta4 Admin | June 14th, 2024You set up in business to be in control of your future. Only now, you find the control you once had has been lost…
Your business is established and is doing pretty well, financially, but you are personally feeling stagnant, unfocused, and full of self-doubt.
You could continue in the same vein with a decent level of success, knowing that …
When is it time to give up self-employment?
by Meta4 Admin | April 25th, 2024
I get to see many business owners when they have arrived at the giving-up stage or got very close to. The thoughts of:
“I’m just not cut out for this.”
“I’d earn more working at Tesco’s” (there are other alternative supermarkets!)
“It’d be easier to go and get a job”.
For you these thoughts are happening far too often and …
Keep Business Fressshh and Ahead of the Competition!
by Meta4 Admin | March 26th, 2024
If business is slow…perhaps new business enquiries are dwindling and you feel like you’re making little progress, this will have a huge impact on your self-confidence and motivation.
Start with some smaller business development tasks to get your business back on track.
‘Big changes can start with very small steps. Small changes tend to snowball.’ Chip Heath
When was the …
Grow your money mindset, Girls!
by Meta4 Admin | March 6th, 2024
The number of people thinking about starting a business in 2024 has risen to 35 per cent, an increase of five per cent on 2023.
This is great news.
But male founders are expected to bring in £35,106 in the first year of a full-time business, compared to £25,213 for women. (Source: Kent Live. News)
A shocking 10K gender gap!…
Don’t make these mistakes when growing your business
by Meta4 Admin | February 8th, 2024
Niching will stunt business growth.Business owners often believe that narrowing down who they work with will mean less people will want to work them. This is incorrect.
The clearer you can get on your target market the better. The more you understand your ideal clients more of those will see and hear themselves in your marketing content; whether it’s …
Unlocking Sales Success: Harnessing the Power of DiSC
by Meta4 Admin | January 15th, 2024
How well do you know your team or your clients? How do they work best, what motivates them, what gets in the way of them achieving success?
As a business psychologist I spend a lot of time helping business owners understand the power of DiSC profiling. Most of the time people have heard of DiSC and some may have used …
Do you Believe?
by Meta4 Admin | November 29th, 2023
It’s a big question, but I’m talking about the lowly Christmas Card.
Do you believe in sending Christmas Cards?
Is it a total waste of time and money or it is a nice way to wish clients / contacts Merry Christmas? OR is it a missed marketing opportunity?
I started working with a client in the construction industry a few …
How NOT to fail in business
by Meta4 Admin | October 26th, 2023
20% of businesses don’t make it past the 2-year marker. 45% fail during the 1st 5 years and 65% during the 1st 10 years. Surprisingly only 25% of businesses make it to the 15-year point.
If you are considering a small business start-up or are several years into your business let these facts drive you to succeed rather …
How to Fix Sales Leaks in your Business
by Meta4 Admin | October 10th, 2023
Are you experiencing ‘leaks’ in your business? Perhaps potential clients not signing up to work with you or not fully completing your program or are too few clients resigning? If this is the case, you have leaks.
These leaks mean a huge loss in potential revenue coupled with a feeling that it’s a real struggle to grow.
According to research …
Have a Better Business and More Time Off
by Meta4 Admin | September 8th, 2023
The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Recently speaking with a business owner during a kickstart session it became clear that she was working 11-hour days, breaking for dinner, before working late into the night and the picking up work at the weekend. Working all available hours for clients on different renumeration, working to various service level agreements. Needless to state, she …
Is Part-Time the New Business Model?
by Meta4 Admin | August 8th, 2023
A few weeks ago, an employed friend asked me if I was still part-time. I was completely stopped in my tracks. I even felt a little bit sick.
Why working a 4-day week in my business did I feel so insulted to be called part-time?
Part-timers were people who worked in jobs 2, 3 days a week.
4 days …
Keeping Business in the Family
by Meta4 Admin | July 6th, 2023
Oxford Economics estimates;
“…there were 4.8 million family businesses in the UK in 2020, making up 85.9% of all private sector businesses. These businesses employed 13.9 million workers (51.5% of all private sector employment)”
Contributing a staggering £575 billion to the UK economy.
The thought of working with your family may send you running for the hills! Imagine working …
Helping your team be more successful
by Meta4 Admin | May 26th, 2023
People management is often cited as the most disliked element of running a business and as result business owners will shy away from hiring and delegating at all costs. After all people bring problems – sick leave, annual leave, family issues, personality conflicts and ineffective customer service. In contrast business owners are committed, focused, self-motivated, and extremely passionate about what …
Unleashing Creativity: Unique Strategies to Expand Your Client Base
by Meta4 Admin | May 10th, 2023
Guest blog by Hannah Walters at Content Coffee
As an entrepreneur you are well aware of the significance of expanding your client base to achieve growth. However, in today’s competitive market, relying solely on traditional marketing strategies may not achieve your desired results. To unlock new opportunities and propel your business forward, tap into your creativity and explore unconventional strategies. …
Make guilt free holidays in your small business a reality
by Meta4 Admin | April 1st, 2023
Financial Freedom. Quality time with family. Guilt free holidays. Are these aspirations the holy grail of running a small business?
For many small business owners, yes. These first two pursuits are commonly cited as the sole reasons many go into business for. The latter, guilt-free holidays, is an unknown entity in the early stages of startup – the feeling of …
Is it too late for Business Coaching?
by Meta4 Admin | March 14th, 2023
Inspired and productive ideas on how to grow your business come in waves. Weeks may go by where you find yourself absolutely flying high with creativity and activity. Attending meetings that feel promising, a lead to a potentially exciting opportunity, posting on socials believing them to be thought-provoking and impactful, having one to ones that appear to be going in …
Are you an expert at ‘Business Catastrophising’?
by Meta4 Admin | February 13th, 2023
Ever thought about jacking in your business because your prospective client says no? Or thinking that you’re never going to get any new business in (when invariably business goes a little quiet). And perhaps you are an absolute expert at believing the worst when a client reaches out over email for ‘a chat…’
The constant catastrophising is debilitating. It stifles …
Get out of Decision Paralysis
by Meta4 Admin | January 11th, 2023
Decision paralysis is the lack of ability to decide, out of fear of making the wrong choice. It may feel like a quirk of personality if indecision only occurs in restaurants over menu choices or deliberations over what film to go and see at the cinema. But in small business, indecisiveness has major repercussions – if you have …
Is being busy your business’ safe haven?
by Meta4 Admin | December 10th, 2022
Being busy can be a popular safe haven for some business owners. If you’re busy – you’re successful, or at least on the way to success…right?
Busy can often feel like the right place to be. A full diary. Client work overflowing. Lots of meetings.
But is this ‘busyness’ sustainable? Can your business bring in the money you …
A Franchise Versus your own Business?
by Meta4 Admin | November 9th, 2022
You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that buying and owning a franchised business automatically makes for a successful small business owner.
As long as you have the funds, buying a franchised business, you would be forgiven for believing because you have a strong and recognisable brand with intellectual property that has been proven to deliver results, a steady flow of …
Work-life balance or Life-work Balance?
by Meta4 Admin | October 13th, 2022
The small business owner tends to be harder on themselves, they set higher internal expectations and generally only take time off when… well I don’t even know under what circumstances? (Confession: I was answering an enquiry email within hours of giving birth to my 1st child!)
Whereas, according to data from the Census Bureau, in the world of the employed;…
Why Marketeers still need help with their Marketing Content
by Meta4 Admin | September 14th, 2022
‘A hairdresser cannot cut their own hair’, a quote my brilliant business coach shared many times as a useful reminder that going it alone seldom reaps the best outcome. So, if you are a graphic designer trying to create your own branding, a business coach coaching yourself or a marketeer doing your own marketing you’ll know as a creative business …
How completing a physical challenge can help you run a small business
by Meta4 Admin | August 17th, 2022
Recently taking part in a charity challenge of walking 24 peaks, in the Lake District, in 24 hours. (#24in24) really got me thinking…
It was brutal at times and highly rewarding and gloriously peaceful at others.
It took an enormous amount of physical, as well as emotional and mental strength. All of which I love to challenge myself on. Having …
11 Signs Business Coaching is Crucial for your Business Growth
by Meta4 Admin | July 11th, 2022
How many decisions do you make in your business on a daily and weekly basis? Hundreds…
How many of those decisions are made without truly assessing the consequences?
15 years in business has taught many lessons. Working closely on a 1-1 basis as well as in small and larger groups showcases up close and personal how similarly we think, feel, …
Don’t fall back into the Small Business Rat Race
by Meta4 Admin | May 11th, 2022
What intentions did you set for you and your small business that you promised to stick to post-pandemic?
Perhaps you wanted to walk more, attend less meetings, be more mindful or quite simply (but massively impactful) do the work you love working with those who you can really make a difference with. So, the question is, are you still on …
Put the Fun back into Business
by Meta4 Admin | April 1st, 2022
The Halo and the Horn Effect
Ever heard of the Halo and the Horn effect? It’s the positive first impression that leads us to treat someone more favourably. This also works with clients coming into your office or place of work. What’s the 1st impression they get? And let’s think about you in this equation. How do you feel walking …
Women in Business; How we are Breaking the Bias?
by Meta4 Admin | March 17th, 2022
I absolutely loved this year’s International Women’s Day theme of Breaking the Bias.. Working with mostly creative business owners and predominantly female business owners, it felt so easy to tap into, shout about and highlight the amazing work we are doing ‘despite’ prevailing gender bias.
Sharing four stories that threw a spotlight on what women are achieving in business right …
Start-up advice to my younger self
by Meta4 Admin | February 1st, 2022
2022 marks the 15-year anniversary of Meta4 Business Coaching. Of course, I never believed I would fail (who goes into a start-up with that mindset!?) but I also didn’t predict it still being here 15 years later either.
This wonderful and momentous milestone has got me thinking. What advice would you give to your younger self? Would they even listen? …
Are resolutions a thing of the past?
by Meta4 Admin | January 11th, 2022
There is lots of talk right now against setting new year resolutions. Maybe this is talk from people who have set new year goals and resolutions in the past and haven’t been able to make them stick. Perhaps…just perhaps, these are people we should not be taking advise from!
Goal Setting, resolutions, words-of-the-year, affirmations, are not for everyone, but if …
Setting goals that reap success
by Meta4 Admin | December 10th, 2021
Do you have a fear of setting goals? Perhaps its because in the past you haven’t (always) achieved them and your past ‘failed’ goals then becomes a big stick to beat yourself with.
Goal Setting, Business Planning, Business Strategy can appear like business buzz words that all feel a bit intangible and plucked out of thin air. And for many …
Is it Time to Re-brand?
by Meta4 Admin | November 11th, 2021
Rebranding can feel incredibly scary. I know I did it too in the recent past, having had the same brand for 10+ years. In fact, these were my exact words to the incredible design agency I engaged with at the start;
“Of course, I was nervous at first, it felt like I was handing my baby over for a …
Give your Business the Gift of NO
by Meta4 Admin | October 15th, 2021
No. Is a full sentence.
Ever wished you hadn’t taken on that demanding client who undervalues your work? Longed for the ability to decline the speaker ‘opportunity’ that wasn’t the right fit for your business? Turned down the position on the committee or board you just didn’t have the time or inclination for?
Why do we find it so difficult …
