In any big business you get individuals specialising in certain areas of management - finance, sales, marketing and human resources, for example. A small business has one or two people doing all these things, so they need somewhere to go to get all that kind of information. In one of its surveys, VirginBiz also discovered that many small business owners get all their advice down the pub after work from friends who run other small companies. VirginBiz has a forum section divided into areas such as IT, legal, financial and people - the kind of areas where problems might arise and advice might be sought. There are a lot of handy hints and tips to be found in this section, but Edozie admits that the forums haven't been a raging success.
People tend to want facts immediately, and come and look up information.
Not all of them want to wait days for a reply. Nevertheless, it's not far to go to get advice on the internet. With free internet access services such as Freeserve proliferating, and unmetered access like Surftime and LibertySurf, small business owners are now finding time to look around the internet without fear of running up huge bills. And they are discovering how much information is freely available. However, the internet provides more than information - it can provide a direct link to key official bodies and government departments that all small businesses need to deal with at some stage.