How I help

Julia Chanteray at The Joy of Business provides business support, advice and mentoring for small businesses in Brighton, Sussex and London.

The businesses I work with make more money and have more fun along the way. I'm there to help you learn from my experience of growing businesses, and my work with hundreds of small businesses over the last eight years of running the Joy of Business.

We meet up every 2 weeks for a couple of hours, and we keep in touch by phone and email in between.

We develop a strategy for taking your business forward, and then work out what you need to do on a day to day basis to make this happen, all the time reviewing and refining the strategy. My job is to keep you on track with the important things which are going to make a real difference to the business.

You might also be interested in the one off business strategy planning sessions

"Every time I met with Julia I became clear about what I was doing - she helped me to feel that I could take on the world and really make this business work"

Have a look at what Julia's clients say

What sort of things do you help with?

Every business is different, but so there's no set recipe for success. Mostly, what we're looking at is:

• Marketing - what's going to bring in money for your business? We'll look at your branding, where you're positioned in the market, and how you can be a remarkable business that everyone wants to buy from
• Money - I help some businesses raise funding from my friendly bank managers and my network of angel investors. For other businesses, we'll look at how you can expand using your cashflow and plan this out.
• Operations - At every stage of a growing business, there are different challenges. You might need help with processes, staff, recruitment. I used to be Operations Director of my web hosting company, so I love this part.

Some people just need help with their branding and marketing, so we'll maybe work together for 3 months to put the changes together and start bringing in the new customers.

Other clients have been with me for 2 years, as their business keeps expanding and they have new challenges to meet along the way. See if you can guess which is which from my client list.

How much does it cost?

There's a flat rate fee of £395 per month for businesses in Brighton and £595 for folk in London (to cover my travel time) This covers two meetings a month and phone and email support in between meetings.

if you're not in Brighton, Sussex or London, the one off business strategy planning sessions would be great for you.

How do I know if it's right for me?

Let's meet up and have a coffee and talk about your business and where it's going. Then, once I've asked you lots of nosy questions, I can say whether you'd be better off working with me. I'm very honest about this, and I do tell people when it's not really going to be worthwhile to pay me to help them, or if I can suggest a couple of ideas there and then which are going to sort things out, I'll do that completely free of charge.

If you're up for coffee and a chat, give me a ring on 01273 685 363 or email me

If you're thinking about it, but want to know me better, why not subscribe to the email newsletter, start following me on twitter or get the blog, Julia Talks by RSS/email.

And if you want to know more about the clients I help, read about a couple of typical situations.

Grants for business support

You might be eligible for a grant to pay for some of the costs of business advice and mentoring.

Julia Chanteray