Federation of Small Businesses

[Chippie]

I am considering joining the Federation of Small Businesses. Do any of you have current membership or past experience of it? If so, is it worthwhile? I have been a member of the Chamber of Commerce locally for 9 years and consider it good value most of the time, but have no experience of the FSB. I would appreciate your thoughts.

 

[DanMartin]

This thread will be helpful.

 

[Simon-M]

The FSB is pretty powerful at lobbying the Government for change that aides small businesses. You also get FREE legal advice should you need it.

We have been members for a short time only and to be completely honest have not found too much benefit from it. For the cost of joining though it is not very much and it does go to supporting small businesses nationally.

Simon

 

[Chippie]

Thanks you two, the thread from last year was also very useful.
Much appreciated.

 

[FSB member]

I have been a member for 30 years, It has saved me a fortune!!! The legal support is very good, The Co-Op bank deal is the best on the market, the card processing is better than I could get on my own, and when I fell into the clutches of a useless Accountant and got investigated it was dealt with by them for nothing. ( the accountant would have charged me for getting me off the hook that he had hung me on) Take it from me, like most people who run businesses, I don't join things, but I know where I am well off, and I sleep well knowing that if anything serious happens to my businesses I get real help for less a year than my shops staff throw in the bin in a week. I too support the the Chamber of Commerce but sadly it pretty weak in my area, and is short of funds to undertake anything serious. FSB members get the accounts every year and it gives me quite a warm feeling knowing that the business community can run a well funded organisation mostly on Volunteers. A bit like the RNLI it works well when you need it

 

[mke]

it works well when you need it

and the legal advice hotline on its own is more than worth the subscription fee.

There is a lot to it, but much of that is about how much the local/regional members put in to organising it all on a voluntary basis. However, that's about "value added" rather than core value. Which is immense for any small business owner with their head screwed on.

Forget about whether the "member benefits" of supposed discounts on third party services are cheaper elsewhere. They are irrelevant, or at best peripheral. The core benefits are of indispensible value.

 

[Chippie]

Thanks all, I have now joined!