A business forum is an Internet-based "community" where members share advice and provide a shoulder to cry on. For some small business owners, especially those who operate out of their homes, a UK small business forum may actually be the only contact they have with their business peers.

What is free small business advice worth?

There's a saying that "free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it", but there’s ample evidence which proves that this just isn't always true. Sure, there are crackpots everywhere and many of them try and come across as small business experts. The thing about any well-run small business forum is that they come with built-in "crackpot detectors". Let me explain...

The purpose of a UK small business forum is to bring together small business owners from around the UK. Many business types are represented in these forums and every member has a different level of expertise. Forum members post questions and receive answers from other members. As time goes by, the forum community builds up a sort of self-regulating membership where the "crackpots" are either forced out of the forum or, at the very least, become quite easy to detect. With a little bit of common sense you can easily filter the good advice from the bad.

It's not all questions and answers.

Many times other small business forum members will not be seeking advice, per se. They may have an interesting experience that they want to share with other members, or they may have breaking news, such as a credit card scam, that they want to warn other members about. Some of the bigger forums even organize business and social events that are held in the local communities. Events like these can be your lifeline to sanity if you're normally "all work and no play".

You are judged by your posts in a UK small business forum.

Treat your membership in a small business forum just like you would treat a host if you were a guest in their home. Don't start off by making posts that are self-appreciating. You don't want to come across as a braggart or a windbag. Introduce yourself by name; mention the name of your business and what you do. Then make a brief statement about what you hope to get from the business forum as well as what you hope to contribute to it. Watch the messages and if you have something intelligent to add, fire away. Just remember – you don’t want to be excluded from the forum because of bad forum etiquette!

David
small Business Resource