Institute for Independent Business explained, by Martin Ramsden FInstIB

Reading this page means there's a good chance that you have been searching for information about the Institute for Independent Business - often referred to as the IIB.

My name is Martin Ramsden, Managing Partner and co-founder of Capitis Business Solutions. I'm wondering what your interest is! Perhaps you are:

• A Managing Director / Owner of a business (often called an MDO, or Owner Manager)?
• A client of an accredited Associate (Executive Associate of the IIB?
• interested in becoming accredited due to the significant benefits in being able to offer the IIB Business Support Program(me)™?

If you are none of these, do please let me know!

Whatever your reason, I'm happy to help if I can, to explain what I am doing, about my fellow accredited Associates, and some of my pragmatic views about the Institute for Independent Business. If you think you need a trusted business adviser, local to you (wherever you are), I can help to arrange this. If you're within reasonable travelling distance I'll be pleased to meet you, or otherwise happy to talk on the phone.

If you are considering becoming an accredited Associate, and you are doing your due diligence to check out the IIB - I strongly suggest you do. I did, as do most new Associates.

My view, as a Fellow of the Institute for Independent Business, is that it has not been very good ... at getting its message across. This is changing for the better, but there's still some confusion.

I should add that some of this confusion is also created by some of my fellow Associates, who seem to think they (or their companies) are part of the Institute. For the record, we are all independent but are part of the IIB Alumni™ - which is a very large and extremely effective network of accredited Associates. Several thousand business people have trained, become accredited, and collaborate to share experiences, advice, knowledge, and ultimately to help our clients as well as our own professional and practice development.

There is some nonsense being written about the IIB on the web - usually by anonymous people with some very weird ideas. In fact, according to them you could have the following word association:

• Institute for Independent Business rip off
• Institute for Independent Business scam
• Institute for Independent Business fraud
• Institute for Independent Business complaints

There will always be those who fail and will find every excuse under the sun to blame the IIB for their own failure. Incredibly some comments about the IIB are from people who have never even tried the training and building a practice, they 'think' they know and magic up their own ill-conceived ideas as fact.

As a Fellow of the Institute and having been accredited since 2002, I have some pragmatic views. I have been very active thanks to the opportunity that I seized, and it wasn't an easy decision. If only I knew then what I know now, I would not have hesitated.

If you are thinking of becoming an independent advisor my suggested reading is:

• Working for yourself
• A practitioner's view of the IIB

If you want to even things out and let me know who you are (you'll find how to contact me below or in the above linked pages), I will be pleased to hear from you. On one condition, that you tell me something about yourself, what you are interested in (and why), and how you feel I can help.

Whatever you decide to do and whatever journey you take - I wish you well!

Sincerely,

Martin Ramsden

p.s. don't forget to check out the reading I suggested!

Contact Email:
Email 1: click to reveal@capitis.co.uk or
Email 2: click to reveal@iib.ws