• Ask around: What small businesses lack in budgets, they gain in a network of like-minded entrepreneurs, supporters and advisors who have been there before.
• Utilise everything around you: Make bold moves and find alternative ways to adapt and apply other experiences in order to get things done.
• Exchange services: So you need to get into a high profile event to meet potential partner or clients, but the event cost £5k. What do you do? How about reaching out to the event sponsors for a free pass in exchange for some good PR.If that doesn’t work,connect with media partners to go with them in exchange for you offering them free business service. If you can’t offer them anything,find out what they need and see if it is something someone in your network can deliver on.
• Be creative: Use your imagination, especially in difficult situations. No matter how silly the idea may be at first, get your mind going! You need to think inside the box, outside the box, look into the other box, destroy the box and build it from scratch, try every possibility.

Remember if you never ask, the DEFAULT answer is always ‘no!’ Resourceful people turn challenges into advantages; it takes consistency and some bending of a few rules to graduate from CHO to CEO.