Did I ever tell you that you're my hero?

When I started in the world of HR and legal consulting in the 1970s, the expert was an expert and the client was widely treated as someone who was not expected to know or understand anything. I worked with people who routinely used jargon that no-one could understand, and being an expert was more of a cult than a technical attainment.

I did work at the advertising agency that also employed Douglas Adams, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that in his book the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy the "Bastablon advertising team were the first shot against the wall when the revolution came"

I left that job when my boss left and although I applied for his job, someone who knew nothing about HR or employment law was given it (he was, of course, a man - these were the days of the Madmen of advertising). I realised that they didn't worry about whether I could do the work, or handle the responsibility - it was the status and the pay they thought I could not handle!

I left and in 1980 formed Irenicon - the company I run today. Our earliest clients were trade federations and we used to say with pride we had the Butchers, the Bakers and the Candlestick makers (the National Federation of Meat Traders, The National Association of Master Bakers and the British Hardware Association); to which we added the National Pharmaceutical Association - which gave us drugs to add to our list.

The micro-businesses we grew up serving were full of people with great expertise in what they did. They were so much cleverer than I could ever be in doing what they had trained to do and did for a living. I hated the way many professionals treated their clients in those days, and so we (the founding Directors) started to talk about our clients as heroes. And so they are.

The daily battle of creating, sustaining and building a small or family business over the long haul is nothing short of heroic. The business world is full of 'mega' heroes who made a million or bought an island and we hear a great deal from them. But they are no more representative of how business is run than an international footballer represents how we play football on the local village green.

For years I felt deeply inadequate that I had not attempted to make a million or take over a global market in whatever. I was busy paying my bills, serving my clients, and getting my kids through school and college. That's what most business people are doing.

In the intervening decades, the high street has transformed beyond all recognition and the local businesses we served are mostly replaced by out of town national and global chains - though I am happy to see Farmers Markets and some local High Streets making a come back. Then it was worth visiting the High Street since each one had its own unique butcher or baker or local hardware store. Now one out of town Mall is about the same as another with the ubiquitous chains making everywhere the same.

We still service the micro-business community which is increasingly an online, virtual or 'back bedroom' kind of community. It is full of busy parents, or singles, making what they can. It is still a fabulous act of bravery and commitment to start a business and stay in your local community - doing the school run, doing a neighbour's shopping (and taking in those endless Amazon deliveries while everyone else is out at work!).

The small business entrepreneur is the heart of a stable community. We pay our taxes - we are not global or rich enough to get out of it. We are not offshoring, we are buying our kids their school shoes and spending our money locally. Despite this, we are taxed and regulated as if we had a massive compliance department and finance department. But we soldier on.

It has been my privilege over the last forty years to help with so many of the problems our heroic clients face. From EU Digital VAT to GDPR to the looming IR35 threat - we have been through a lot - and that is only in the last few years, never mind what we went through before.

I'd just like to say you don't have to make a million to be a success - you don't have to destroy the planet or bankrupt the world. If you are doing your work, making your business pay your bills and contributing your taxes and to your local community, you will always be my hero. Thank you for all that you do.