SME Safari: Liverpool

Today caps the end of a big week for small firms. A week in which government issued its response to the late payment consultation, SME spend targets were published, Business Academy Live went live, and I had the privilege to see enterprise in action.

The third SME Safari of 2026 went north to the great city of Liverpool. As a reminder, these are visits that connect SME policy makers and product owners from Department for Business & Trade with founders in their real-life trading setting.

Special thanks to Frank Mckenna and his team at Downtown in Business for hosting this day; from the moment we were met at Lime Street with quality transportation (thank you Joe from Escape Chauffeur!) to the amazing businesses visited, it was an incredible day of discussion and hearing what’s on the minds and to-do lists of entrepreneurs.

The businesses of the day were Andrew Dwerryhouse, Sean and William of Sutcliffe, Andrew Binns and Nicola Docking of Poke Marketing and a lunchtime roundtable with Bill Addy of Liverpool BID, Elaine Bowker, Cynthia Cartwright of Wong’s Jewellery, Kaleidoscope, Steven Hesketh FIH and Jennina O’Neill, Centre Manager at Metquarter shopping centre.

These are the key takeaways.

• Attracting & retaining talent: all the businesses wanted to talk about their talent pipeline. Key points raised included the cost of employment in view of rises in National Insurance and minimum wage and how this is leading to re-calculating finances to re-assess hiring plans. The point was made that when new hires start on the minimum wage, this is creating demands for higher salaries from longer serving employees who don’t see a big enough gap between new starter salaries and their own. There was a passion for taking on apprentices and the city region is well served with City of Liverpool College which is a leader in provision of business grade training, but there is frustration in the processes that need to be followed to onboard young talent. An idea was mooted, based on experience from The Hospitality Hero, to bring back the Saturday job via introducing some form of national impetus that would see every 16-18 year old matched with a Saturday job so they could gain experience of sales and customer service.
• Growth via assured revenue: there was a repeated theme from all companies that they were averse to taking on external funding to grow and would prefer to scale via proven revenue. One company that has been operating successfully for 40 years spoke about not wanting to grow too fast in fear they would trip over their feet, another is about to hire 9 new people in the next 6 months with this expansion based on committed contracts having been secured ie they know the revenue coming in will match (and hopefully exceed) the costs going out. To enable growth, there were requests including ‘cheap finance’ ie if finance was inexpensive to secure, they would access it and buy equipment to grow, and a call for consideration of an incentive for businesses who are bringing staff back into offices as this is stimulating the economies in which they are based ie staff coming to work spend on going out to lunch/entertainment etc.
• Civic pride: it was so gratifying to hear how the businesses are navigating trade, but also how they are spending time and money in the community. One company hosts an annual event that raises in excess of £100,000 for a local charity, another has become a B Corp and spoke passionately about their environmental and sustainable goals, and the founder of the company transporting us around town is on a mission to improve fostering in the UK. Not that I needed reminding but it goes to show that building a base of successful businesses builds safe and kind societies.

Thank you to all businesses for sparing your time and sharing your views. And thank you, Frank & Downtown in Business, for such a memorable day. Your points have been heard.