As I read the article my main thoughts were on how on earth she was able to get such awesome publicity: Half a page in the FT broadsheet that's read by hundreds of thousands of readers some of whom will undoubtedly turn into customers. Such publicity is worth its weight in gold!

Publicity aside, the article elaborated on Emma Harrison's baptism into business life after working in the public sector. Ms Harrison was named woman entrepreneur of the year in 2003 by Inner City 100, a government backed scheme.

So what can you as a small business owner learn from Ms Harrison's entrepreneurial successes and mottos?

Ms Harrison believes, and I quote "I am not trying to make a load of money, but trying to do something worthwhile." So Ms Harrison is more interested in people rather than making money. It's easy to say that when you're sitting on a £55 million fortune. But let's focus on her practical entrepreneurial insights that small business owners can implement and grow their business. These include:

1. Don't make the mistake in thinking that you are a big hairy spider sitting at the centre of the web, thinking the whole depends on you: Ms Harrison starts businesses and play the role of absentee owner. Instead of mothering her babies, she employs others to nurse and manage them while she distance herself from the day-to-day operational concerns.

3. Practice the art of delegating: Ms Harrison says "One of the mistakes many small businesspeople make is to think that they are the big hairy spider sitting a the centre of a web twitching away, and thinking that the whole thing depends on them. It does not." Taking advice from her own mentors she has recruited both chief executive and non-executive directors to fill the gaps in her knowledge, such as finance and accounting.

3. Embrace mentoring as being natural to entrepreneurship. Ms Harrison's first mentor was her father who taught her how to run a launderette and a small industrial training establishment. Ms Harrison will soon be competing against other mentors who'll feature on Channel's 4 answer the BBC's Dragon's Den - a reality TV series called "Make Me A Million" in which budding young entrepreneurs will be helped in turning £60,000 of start-up capital into £1m.

4. Diversification is key: Ms Harrison own several businesses and does not believe in putting all her eggs into one basket. What Jay Abraham call the "Parthenon Principle." Ms Harrison's new invention is targeted at asthma suffers who are allergic to bed mites. Apparently 25% of the weight of your bed pillow is bed mites. Other business include management of £300m retraining and small business support contracts through 100 offices for public sector clients. Small business also use her A4E's services.

Her A4E company was one of four foreign companies to be picked to run the first welfare-to-work schemes in Israel.

5. Hire a publicity expert or invest in an excellent publicity course that teaches you the are of getting publicity (preferably free).

There you have it, an insight into the entrepreneurial skills, practices and motto of one of the UK's small business entrepreneurs.

What's you view on Ms Harrison's entrepreneurial style and motto? Also, do you include free publicity as part of your marketing strategy?

David
Small Business Resource.