After a decade of helping dozens of small businesses across the West Midlands grow and be successful, Matthew and Doug decided that if they could get their joint knowledge into the form of written, practical, straightforward advice, they could share the advantage of it with a much wider community.

This was what generated Getting Down to Business. When asked about what prompted their decision to write a business advice book, Matthew explained that the writing process helped to ‘marshal our thoughts and capture the benefits of all that experience’.

So far so good – but it wasn’t all plain sailing. The first big obstacle, to which all writers can relate, was setting on the clearest and most coherent structure for presenting the advice. As Matthew put it, ‘it’s one thing to engage a client in conversation over several weeks, quite another to organise the experience of working with many clients into a logically flowing narrative in which the sections both stand alone and hang together’. He and Doug remember the relief when, half-way through, the ‘eureka’ moment came, and they found the right arrangement of sections and chapters to embrace all of their experience.

That was the content taken care of – but how were they actually going to get published? Mercifully, Doug knew a former client, Sue Richardson, a director of a marvellous team of publishing professionals. She supplied Sarah, who edited their work and kept them to schedule. is site down This made it a relatively smooth journey to the wonderful moment when the edited manuscript was handed over to the proof readers. Now excitedly looking forward to seeing the book published in all its glory in September, Doug and Matthew say that the terrific response and the support that they had from the professionals that they engaged to help them complete the project was one of the most rewarding aspects of it.

When asked what they want their readers to take away from the book, above all else, they say it is the awareness of how to monitor what you do, in order to be sure that you are doing what you need to, and to know how to make changes if not. This is what Matthew and Doug want to give to business owners, and this is what Getting Down to Business can provide.

To pre-order your copy at the special pre-release price of £9.99, visit the online shop on the website. Come to Launch Night on September 16th to collect your signed copy and meet the authors!