Do you remember back to when you were a small child at kindergarten and the politics that were involved in getting to play in the sandpit?

If you were nice to other children, then chances were that they wanted to share the sandpit with you, rather than the child who chucked sand, stomped on their sandcastle, gratuitously bumped into them without saying sorry etc. It’s a skill learned early and a really useful one – how to play nice in the sandpit.

I was discussing the concept of being in business and actually playing nice with a psychologist friend recently and she had a lot of trouble believing that it was actually possible to play nice in business. Her belief and experience so far was that ‘business’ had that aura of mean, ruthless, unkind, exploitative, show me the money-ness about it and that this was incompatible with playing nice and being a nice person.

I’m not sure that it’s necessary to always be ‘nice’ in business, but I certainly think one can have a minimum standard of always behaving according to one’s own notion of ‘good’ and with good manners. Nice can be a problem, who hasn’t been ruthlessly exploited when they’ve gone into a situation wanting to be nice – the other party saw you as a walkover right?

Before taking on a new partner or client, try work out whether they 'play nice in the sandpit'.

Well sort of right, but not really. As David and I move towards 15 years in business together and I had another five in a previous life it strikes me as I see ruthless, hard-nosed good-at-business people come and go, that those with the hardest, meanest edge just aren’t around anymore. The ‘nice’ guys or at least the ones who could play nice in the sandpit are still around, developing projects and deals, able to inspire others and get them involved in joint projects.

That’s why, whenever we’re about to take on board a new project with new partners and people we haven’t done business with before, David and I ask ourselves the question – are they going to play nice in the sandpit?

Photo: flickr fotologic

Fiona Boyd and David Eedle have written about their adventures with nice and not-nice sandpit characters in their book about the Arts Hub journey, Niche Content Millionaire.

Family businesses are often unique beasts with some characteristics corporate players would find most unusual. Phil Grant, Managing Partner at boutique accounting and advisory firm Nexia ASR explains to Fiona Boyd, co-author of Niche Content Millionaire what are some common areas of concern in the financial life of the family business and what to do about them.

Phil Grant shares his financial and accounting expertise regularly on Into the Mountain. He is Managing Partner at Nexia ASR, and his firm has recently launched a full service family office function, for all types of businesses, including the multi-generational family business. You can view information on the Family Office here.

One of the most useful skills I have learned as an entrepreneur is one that on the surface appears rather negative, but is really more positive. It’s about staying the distance with one’s passion and mission and not allowing distraction to take you away from your purpose– I call it the ‘Don’t go there’ principle.

I’m not sure why our minds do this to us, but if you’re anything like me you probably suffer from a degree of ‘now if I added this to the mix, how much bigger could everything be?’ It’s really useful to compare this urge to what happens when you add the wrong quantity of a given ingredient when making up a recipe that you’ve tried a million times before and you know works well, but somehow you’re tempted to ramp up your favourite ingredient just this once, and you end up with something that’s no longer edible. Read More→

Ross Turetsky founder of Grant Solutions has made  a business out of applying for government grants on behalf of his clients and has had plenty of success doing this. He talks here to Fiona Boyd about the issues faced by businesses applying for grants, and why so often they are hard to get.

Ross Turetsky and Grant Solutions handle the 100 hours + of legwork involved in submitting government grant applications for businesses.

Into the Mountain’s financial services expert, Phil Grant has recently been appointed as Managing Partner at the firm Nexia ASR. He explains to Fiona Boyd, co-author of Niche Content Millionaire about what a Managing Partner of a professional services firm does and what his particular vision for Nexia ASR is under his leadership.

Phil Grant, Managing Partner at Nexia ASR joins Fiona Boyd regularly to talk about financial issues and the business owner for the benefit of Into the Mountain readers.

This is the transcript of the videopost Fast growth startup issues, featuring Phil Grant, Managing Partner at boutique accounting firm Nexia ASR talking to Fiona Boyd, co-author of Niche Content Millionaire about how startup businesses can hit potholes in the road, even if they’re doing well and achieving their goals, and then, what to do about the bumps. Read More→