But what else is round the corner for a business which touches 800 million people around the world (a billion predicted by August this year), crashing through borders and cultures like an out-of-control juggernaut?

One of our mentors, Ph.Creative, has just produced this intriguing chronological infographic, which applies some blue-sky thinking to the future of Facebook. Some ideas are less likely than others (Facebook Airways, anyone?) but many of the concepts here warrant serious consideration, for example a Facebook payment platform, a bank, or a search engine to challenge its rival, Google.

Whilst the concept of a Facebook community is taken to its logical conclusion - becoming the fourth largest nation on earth by 2025 - you don't have to be a Dr Strangelove conspiracy theorist to appreciate the company's immense growth potential - if the public and the markets are willing.

Visually based on the Facebook Timeline, it's also a lovely showcase for ph Creative's design skills. Check it out at http://ow.ly/97ZiP

Young entrepreneurs make big promises, which is exactly how it should be in the first instance. But their long-term success is predicated on their finding and retaining great delivery cornerstones.

Fortunately the Internet is largely populated by such people, such as those who provide its content. Everyone who has had a successful career being self-employed has learnt basic delivery skills, including how to deliver projects on time to an agreed specification.

These people are cherished by companies of all sizes who need a safe pair of hands, often on a causal basis, to do everything from unblocking a sink to ghost writing a blog for a successful entrepreneur.

Sometimes, these self-employed people take a backwards leap and return to full employment. This can be to find a safe haven in tough economic conditions or because they feel the company they are joining has long-term prospects, such as a trade sale or public flotation.

Smart companies are also scouring the employment market for fresh graduates who show signs of gumption. Their actual degree might be irrelevant, so they look for other factors, such as a proven ability to run a student society or run club nights. These demonstrate their ability and willingness to deliver on time under difficult conditions.

As the company grows, the lines of communication become more difficult, and it is common to find successful companies suddenly struggling to deliver. This is often because the entrepreneur's ability to make promises has escalated to the point of insanity.

Every mid-size company remembers the specific time and place where the team explained to the entrepreneur in words of one syllable that they should never, ever again promise a delivery date without consulting them first.

Licking their wounds, wise entrepreneurs send themselves on a project management course and then hire the best, grown-up, professional project managers they can afford.

Someone who knows about the key elements of delivering a project on time is Graeme Shaw, an ex-Royal Navy officer who is now head of station upgrades for London Underground.

It is not a surprise to find an former military man in this role. Such people are used to delivering difficult tasks under extreme political pressure, with the daily concern of making sure nobody in their team gets killed.

As the project size increases, you might assume that processes becomes more formal and better understood. Actually, the complete opposite is the case, according to Graeme Shaw, head of station upgrades for London Underground.

He told me that whole rainforests have been sacrificed to produce the safety and operational manuals required for even the most modest London Underground station refurbishment. So while I spend much of my time desperately trying to make entrepreneurs follow any kind of process, he has the opposite problem.

Many of the written down processes are irrelevant and arcane, while the unwritten rules are impossible to formally challenge.

Shaw's first task with any new team is to ask them to look at the processes and abandon those that are pointless or which duplicate effort. He is a strong believer in psychometric testing, a very useful tool in building the high-performance teams that he needs to deliver complex projects on time.

2012 is clearly the year of big Olympic promises in London. The first tranche seem to have been met, as the venues look as though they will be ready. The next promise, around how the Games will bring huge economic benefits to the UK are still open, and I encourage all entrepreneurs to step up to this challenge; one of delivery, not promises.

But what an exciting week it's been for football fans. Spurs boss Harry Redknapp was cleared of tax evasion - just in time to throw his hat in the ring for the England manager's job. Redknapp's performance in court was poetic in its innocence.

The wind of public opinion was not on HMRC's side. Whilst these cases are rarely about right and wrong, I suspect that HMRC was looking for a high-profile scalp; but instead of creating a bogeyman, they allowed Redknapp to play the role of victimised folk hero. His headline quote was: "I am completely and utterly disorganised. I write like a two-year-old and I can't spell."

Perfect credentials for England's new manager role, one might think.

Can people in business learn anything from Redknapp's tribulations? Well, what also came out of the case was Redknapp's reliance on a litany of advisors. It's as though "Redknapp plc" had a raft of non-executive directors, none of whom were willing or prepared to take full or long-term responsibility for the business. Fiscal irresponsibility (which leads to going broke) and fraud (which leads to jail) are two very different things, but court cases like this would not arise under either circumstance if there was adequate financial oversight.

The reason Redknapp might yet bag the England manager's job is also exciting. The incumbent (aka holder of "Most Poisoned Chalice" award) has just resigned. Fabio Capello made his comments in the Italian media which made his position with the Football Association completely untenable.

What went wrong? Well…

- He commented on a politicially sensitive issue, namely racism.
- He disagreed 100% with the FA's position.
- Oh, and the first that the FA found out about the conversation was when other members of the media rang them up asking for comment.

None of this points to happy families at the heart of English football.

There's another lesson for businesses here: nobody likes a public spat. Boardroom hurly-burly is much more widespread than any of us would like to admit, but a crucial job of management teams is that "what happens in the boardroom, stays in the boardroom".

When reputations or egos get tarnished in publicly aired disputes, the result is almost always a loss of value and goodwill.

There's more on financial management and boardroom issues in my book, 'From Vision to Exit, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Building and Selling a Business'. Available on Amazon and in all good bookshops now.

It was the promise by the big five banks to lend more money to small businesses in order to encourage growth in the economy.

Well, the numbers are now in from the British Bankers' Association (BBA), and they show that the banks have failed to meet their lending targets. But before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, let's look a little deeper.

The banks only missed their target by a sliver - they lent £74.9bn out of a target of £76bn. Not a big failure, assuming the numbers have been added up right!

The BBA claims that the shortfall is due to too few small firms coming forward and asking for credit. There must be some facts to support that, so it's obviously part of the problem. But my feeling is that it's as much about quality as quantity and that there are too few credible businesses coming forward.

These are unusual times. The banks have dug a big hole for themselves and the economy and, as a result, a couple are now owned partly or mainly by us. Whatever they do, it's difficult to find a good word, but our criticism would be even more venomous if their fiscal profligacy continued.

So the banks have to be more diligent in their assessment of new business propositions, not less so.

Until a couple of years ago, many so-called "business managers" in banks were untrained, inexperienced and not much more than glorified salespeople.

But most of the banks have tried to significantly up their game, training their business teams to be more business savvy and alive to the needs of their customers. They will need these skills to sift the wheat from the chaff and walk the knife-edge of allocating lending in a way which demonstrably supports small businesses whilst rebuilding their balance sheets - something that we urgently need to bring back confidence and stability.

It's a two way street. The responsibility for hitting next year's lending targets lies as much with prospective business borrowers as it does with the banks. Banks exist to lend money, so we can only hope that a normal service will soon be resumed.

To conclude, businesses seeking facilities should have:

- A well-rounded and credible business plan
- A robust and risk-assessed strategy which allows for multiple business outcomes
- Clear and measurable objectives, including how facilities will be repaid
- Sound business processes and a commitment to apply rigour to good financial management
- Transparency and strong communication skills to build and maintain trust.

If we deliver all these things and the banks won't lend, then that's the time to complain.

For more information on sources of finance and practical financial management, you can read my book "From Vision to Exit - The Entrepreneur's Guide to Building and Selling a Business", available on Amazon and in all good bookshops now.

The Kauffman Foundation, which created the GEC, is also not afraid to court controversy. True to form Jonathan Ortmans, a senior fellow at The Kauffman Foundation, sparked some debate at the official launch of the GEC in Liverpool when he stated that entrepreneurs do not necessarily require funding to start a business.

Many in the auditorium disagreed. Their opinion was that part of government's duty was to provide significant grants to help people start their businesses.

I agree with Ortmans. I always advocate that it is very dangerous to give entrepreneurs money; they tend to spend it on fripperies and then come back, hand open, asking for more.

These fripperies are not limited to expensive office furniture and generous expense accounts. They also include money spent with unscrupulous marketing companies, web design agencies and persuasive consultants, who promise much, but usually deliver very little by way of tangible results for early-stage companies.

When mentoring, I always explain that in the first days there is no need to formally start a business, find premises or spend any money on marketing materials such as brochures or web sites. Entrepreneurs should first concentrate first on eliciting some cash; probably from someone they know already.

Once they have a cash surplus, they can formally establish their business entity, ideally helped by someone who knows how to deal with the necessary administration, such as a friend with relevant skills or a local bookkeeper.

I explained this approach when I delivered a sales workshop to recent graduates of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) the day before the GEC launch. This was part of my remit in my new role as Entrepreneur in Residence for the city of Liverpool.

The delegates had a good range of realistic business ideas based on their own individual passions. These included event management, training and services for care homes, children's book illustration, five-a-side football, vintage clothing and audio production.

Nobody felt that they had challenges in delivering their services; their real issue was finding repeatable revenue. My advice was to approach their friends first for a small amount of revenue. Close friends, including family members, are an obvious first port of call, but this can be extended to anyone they might have met along the way who might trust them to deliver a professional service.

While my sales workshop always covers traditional sales techniques of qualifying and closing, the most practical elements for these delegates were simple techniques on how to network and a four-line e-mail that improves their chances of securing a meeting.

I also suggested they first delivered a small item of work, as larger orders can involve long and expensive decision cycles. If the first order is a small one, any perceived risk is reduced.

This is important, as their young age and relative inexperience will act against them in most commercial environments. But on the positive side, any potential customer would be very impressed by their energy, passion and desire to please.

I hope all the LJMU students will attend the GEC, be inspired by the famous speakers and receive practical help from the many fringe events. If they do come, they would be well advised to bring along a friend, especially a friend who might also become their first customer.

The Global Entrepreneurship Congress can be found at www.gec2012.com

This will be good news for the banker-bashers, but probably deserves closer examination.

Hester is hardly a newcomer to finance, but he took the helm of RBS after the meltdown of 2008, so cannot be held responsible. He's the man trying to put things back together and ultimately get a better deal for the taxpayer - the same people who've been baying for his blood.

Alas, poor Hester - the unwitting victim of a negative media and a negative populace!

Hester's plight illustrates the obsession with remuneration as the be all and end all of reward - a blinkered approach that deserves significant debate and challenge.

So here are my Top Ten Tips for getting the best out of your employees - I hope they're useful in running your own business, but see if you can spot something strange…

• Create the right environment for your employees. Focus on maximising the benefits of your infrastructure and the vibe of your workplace.
• Regularly celebrate success and remember the importance of making work fun.
• Encourage inclusivity and participation. It's a team game.
• Encourage innovation and new ideas. Reward original thinking and make it safe for your employees to contribute.
• Make sure your management style is open and supportive, not closed and controlling.
• Take the well-being and advancement of your staff to heart. Mentor and train them to help them achieve their goals.
• Place people in roles that interest and inspire them. Don't try to put round pegs in square holes.
• Recognise achievement by praising and rewarding individual and team performances.
• Use benchmarking to ensure that your salaries and benefits are competitive.
• Consider the benefits of widening your company's ownership through share participation. Did you spot it? Only the last two of the ten points above relate to remuneration and reward. According to industrial psychologist Frederick Herzberg, money causes dissatisfaction if it's inadequate but adds nothing to satisfaction once a member of staff believes they are being paid fairly.

So if you have to deal with the day-to-day motivation of the troops, the key drivers are:

• Financial security (that's safety, not size!)
• Job satisfaction
• Learning and development
• Recognition, appreciation and reward

So you can put down the chequebook. In the talent wars, it's not the strongest weapon at all.

Want to find out more? Read my book, 'From Vision to Exit, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Building and Selling a Business'. Available on Amazon and in all good bookshops now.

Sales management is a thankless task, even in the best of times. Steadily increasing revenues have to be delivered every quarter, requiring good people management as well as expert organisational skills.

In the worst of times, customer decisions are often deferred, leaving sales pipelines empty further than three months ahead. There may be plenty of attractive-looking prospects, but recessions make converting them ever more difficult, especially if buyers sense an air of desperation in the people selling to them.

This is especially true for companies that are purely product-based. Customers become more frugal and less likely to replace products when times are hard. My advice to business owners is to try and re-position your company as a service provider.

At least a fifth of every product offering can be defined as a service, such as support or training. All you need to do is ask the customer what they want; more often than not they will ask for additional services.

The dream of every sales manager is to have a healthy pipeline of customers who provide them with recurring revenue as part of a long-term service contract.

Managing a sales pipeline should be the same process as managing people, with a service rather than a product mentality. This approach will seem more natural and thus sit well with both your salespeople and the customers themselves.

Some companies end up at this point by accident; others set themselves up specifically to take advantage of this mutually advantageous business relationship.

Steve Booth started his sales career in advertising and then moved to a security company specialising in closed circuit television systems for retailers. He soon realised that the value was not so much in the hardware itself, but in the data that it generated.

While preventing shoplifting was important, much more valuable was to use the captured data to help improve retailers' knowledge of the footfall around their outlets. Margins in retailing are notoriously thin, so any competitive advantage is highly prized.

His first foray into this business in 1997 was not a success, ending up in administration. Booth puts this down to bad timing, difficult market conditions and the wrong combination of unproven technology and investors.

In 2002 he started again and formed Springboard, which now provides automated customer counting services for high streets, shopping centres, retail parks, entertainment centres and even transport interchanges.

Among Springboard's customers is the British Retail Consortium, the trade association, which uses Springboard's system to monitor shoppers' activity.

Retailers spend significant amounts on marketing to get people to visit shops and once they are there an even greater effort is made to convert them into regular customers.

Crucial to this process are the valuable services that Springboard provides on a recurring basis, which must make their sales manager sleep much easier at night.

The recurring revenue concept is a fundamental part of Springboard's business model. The company develops a long-term relationship with a client, providing a continuing service based on measurable outcomes. While the software and hardware are interesting for the technical people, they are seen merely as detail in the delivery process, rather than an end in themselves.

This neatly summarises the business challenge of every high-tech start-up, including those where I was responsible for selling the software. Smart people had written clever software that had dozens of potential practical applications, but none that were yet proven in the real world.

What was needed was to combine hot technology with a real social driver to deliver a genuine business benefit. Looking back, I was mistaken to try and sell technology as a product.

If I had re-positioned the software as a service, not only would it have been easier to sell on an incremental basis, it would also have ultimately delivered a long-term and recurring service revenue, once proven.

Springboard can be found at www.spring-board.info

People who run businesses use various titles. If you've read my other posts you'll have noticed I use the term Chief Executive or CEO. That's because I believe it is your role is to be the Chief - to Lead and not to Manage.

I prefer not to use the title "Managing Director". If you want to grow your business and have it working for you and not the other way round your role should evolve so that you are not "managing" the business at all. In other words you live as much as possible in "why" and less in "what"; more in belief and less plan; in context not content. Therefore in my own business I am CEO not because it sounds grander but because it describes the role I do and how I want to see it develop.

So what is that role? At Shirlaws we believe that the role of the CEO of any business - including SMEs - can be described in three simple concepts:

• Set the context
• Manage the energy
• Coach don't play

Set the context means it is your job to understand the "why" and know where you are going. You create the dream. It means you are "above" and often 6-12 months "ahead" of the business, allowing your team to run the today. It also means you hold the context so that every decision in the business is simple to make in a contextual not content-driven space. It means you understand where you are in your Business Lifecycle, understand and hold the business to the contextual choices you have made in terms of Risk, Market Position, Product etc. I will be discussing Business Lifecycles in depth in my next post.

Manage the energy means it is your job to create the belief in your why and to create a compelling vision for your team. You sit above the business and your job is to "feel" your business like an organism and know when things are not right. It is to support the energy and enthusiasm of the team and the key relationships you have outside the business.

Coach don't play means you're not on the field any more. Your job is to build the confidence and skills of your team (over time) so that they have the ability and belief and are given the responsibility to play the game - you create the big picture and then support, observe, and encourage. You coach. That way your team runs the operations of the business and you get to grow the value and scale of the business.

You'll notice that none of these concepts say "run the business" or "deliver the bottom line". That's because to have your business work for you, you will need, in time, your senior team to do these management tasks for you. In fact my whole theme in contributing to Mike's website so far (managing in context, setting the why) has been about getting your business into the position where it is bigger than you and is not dependent on you. That means your role changes to the fascinating and stimulating role of entrepreneur - and not manager.

For many SME owners that may not seem possible right now. But if you follow the ideas set out by Mike's Mentors it will become possible. At any event you will have the choice of how much day to day management you want.

WHAT TO DO NOW

Review your job title - are you calling yourself a leader, or a manager?

Review your role within your business - are you leading by example and coaching your team to follow, or are you doing / playing too much yourself?

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to join MikeSouthon.com and share the special offers that his Mentors are providing.

If the general prognosis for the patient is stable to improving, what's the outlook for the UK's entrepreneurs? In an economy with no or slow growth, it's looking like a 'zero-sum' game. Some businesses will grow by taking market share from their less successful or less visionary competitors, with little or no change in the overall size of the cake.

There's a message here. If your business is growing, take time out to consider why. What are you doing that your less successful competitors are not? Identify your competitive advantages and leverage them for all they are worth!

Taking time out and being a perfectionist can pay off. Sir Clive Woodward, manager of England's successful World Cup winning rugby team, said that when his team won a match, they would go back to the classroom, work out what they did well and how they could improve on it. If they lost, they went to the pub!

Find out more about Guy Rigby >