EDINBURGH and Glasgow have been acclaimed as the top entrepreneurial hotspots outside London. That might be the case for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), but it’s our smaller towns and villages that are home to the 200,000 self-employed people running their own businesses and contributing to their local communities.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has mapped Scotland’s self-employment sector – 479 Scottish towns, cities and suburbs – and has discovered that smaller, wealthier, rural towns in the northern half of the country are more likely to have high levels of self-employment, whereas poorer towns elsewhere, especially those which used to have a large industrial employer, have much lower levels.

Poverty and social mobility are barriers, says Andy Willox, the FSB’s Scottish policy convenor. Research shows that you are less likely to set up on your own if you have few skills, have little in the way of cash reserves, if you don’t have a car or own your home.

“We need to get behind those people and places that want to change their circumstances,” says Willox. “Boosting self-employment and business activity could help turn around some of Scotland’s most disadvantaged places.”

Jillian Anderson agrees. She is managing director of Kilpatrick Blane Services in Greenock, having bought the small business from her to help her to provide for her family and be there for them as they grow up.

“There are many people in Inverclyde and in Scotland already working hard to make this a better place for us all to live,” she says. “But there are yet more wonderful individuals, perhaps not currently working, in jobs or retired, who are ready to take the leap to self-employment. We need to nurture that spark. Help people to make the next move.

“It’s not just about providing basic information, grants and half-day training sessions. It is my belief that we should be offering a more complete business incubation model, which incorporates not only start up premises but also computers, software and communication infrastructure and advice. Also, access to IT, book-keeping, HR and marketing experts who could help with the actual work involved in establishing good practice for individual businesses, in-house business mentors.

“We need to ensure that the people who take the leap into self-employment are supported.”

Anderson’s point about mentors resonates with Michelle Smith, who launched her award-winning virtual assistant and bookkeeping business, ValueAdd Business Solutions, in 2011. She says the one thing that would have made a difference for her in the early stages was a mentor.

Smith had been running her business for about three years before making the decision to engage a mentor. “I wish I’d done that sooner, as the help and support really helped me focus,” says Smith.

“As the only director, I didn’t have that person I needed to chat with. The mentor helped guide me when times were tough."