I've found a great new way of keeping people engaged, and it doesn't cost a penny.

Like most entrepreneurs, I love getting stuff for free. Now I know that's pretty much true of everyone; we all like a freebie. But there's nothing quite like the early phase of a start-up (unless you're on a Boo.com-style 'burn a load of VC cash' strategy) to boost your appreciation of getting stuff you want without having to put your hand in your pocket.

These days it's actually easier to find free stuff than it's ever been. Thanks to the internet, you can get all sorts of information, and all manner of services, without having to fork out a single penny. OK, so if it's any good, you usually only get a Lite version, and they make you shell out for the proper one. But if you're starting out these days, there's all kinds of useful stuff that you can get your hands on without making much of a dent in that precious cashflow.

That's not to say you couldn't get decent cheapo stuff in the 'old days', of course. For instance, I bought all my original office furniture for a song from a company that had just gone bust; my first computer came courtesy of a school that was junking all its old machines. OK, so it wasn't very pretty. But it worked perfectly well, and I loved it all the more because I thought I'd bagged a bargain (for me, one of the truly great pleasures in life).

These days, I don't cut corners as much. I have a proper phone system instead of a second hand one, I don't buy swivel chairs in a fire sale, and I actually employ someone to clean the office rather than doing it myself. But I've never lost that obsession with keeping costs down (stinginess, you might call it). And I tell anyone who'll listen that it's a great skill for an entrepreneur to have, particularly at the moment.

Anyway, this is a very long-winded way of getting to my point, which is that I've recently discovered one of my best ever staff benefits - and part of the reason why it's so great is that it's completely free. What happens is that one lunchtime a week (ish), we all get our sandwiches in and one of my staff spends 15 minutes telling us about something. The subject can be absolutely anything they like - their family history, something from their degree course, something they've seen on TV - whatever.

I absolutely adore it, because I almost always learn something I didn't know before and probably should have done (this week was about the origins of the Ulster problem - why have I never been taught about this?). I also get to find out more about what some of my people are interested in ouside work, which invariably makes them much more interesting. It's also really popular, which I'm sure is great for engagement levels. And best of all, it costs absolutely nothing.

So I'd heartily recommend it. Although as someone who makes a living from being paid to solve other people's problems, I'm not sure I want people to realise that the best solutions can sometimes be right there in front of you - for free - all along.

Make the most of employee anniversaries. It's good for you, them and everyone else.

It occurs to me that it's been a while since I talked about stuff that's actually going on in my business at the moment. And since I'm guessing MT didn't ask me to do this because they were desperate for my views on Nick Clegg (who I met once by the way - very dapper), I thought it was about time I did. Or before I know it, I might start turning into Liz Jones or Jan Moir, and there can't be many fates worse than that.

Anyway, you'll be pleased (or possibly ambivalent, or maybe even irritated) to hear that, curiously enough, we've just had our biggest ever month. Like, in the history of time. Now I don't think this proves that everything's hunky-dory again - by the looks of it, it may turn out to be a slightly freak result. But it's an encouraging sign, if nothing else.

That's not what I wanted to talk about, though. This week one of my staff celebrated their five-year anniversary of coming to work for me. She joined as a clueless grad who didn't really know anything about anything, at a time when the business was tiny and I didn't really have a clue, and she's been with me right the way through to the present day (when I still don't have much of a clue, but I'm a lot better at faking it). I was so excited about this momentous occasion that I both bought her a present, and took her out for lunch. On expenses, of course.

There are two things I wanted to say about this. First, I think it's really important to celebrate milestones like this. It sends out a great message to the rest of the staff both about the quality of the company (if you're capable of hanging on to a graduate for five years you must be doing something right), and about the qualities you prize in your staff (loyalty, dedication, hard work, and so on). This girl is now one of the most senior people in the company, having joined as one of the most junior. It's great for our most recent recruits to see that people who stick around and work hard can develop and progress like that. So I made quite a big deal about her anniversary, and her achievements during those five years - which hopefully she'll appreciate too.

The second point is that I found it a big ego boost - something I think entrepreneurs really need from time to time. It's amazing to think that this talented person take a gamble to come and work for me when I had nothing much to offer her but a vision, and has stayed put for five years because she clearly felt the job was doing enough to stretch her talents. OK, so I know she hasn't done it for free or anything. But it still made me feel all warm and fuzzy about my little company for a while.

Most of the time, to be honest, I find people stuff a bit of a headache. But there are occasions, like this, when it can give you a boost like nothing else.

As with this coalition stuff, entrepreneurs have to be good at making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Last week you may recall me banging on about how inefficient democracy was a means of getting stuff done. Well, judging by the apparently rapid progress of all the coalition stuff this week, I may yet have to eat my words (never my forte). I'm normally pretty cynical about politicians, but after watching the Dave & Nick love-in the other day, even I was left feeling reasonably upbeat about the chances of it working out. Who knows - maybe this will be a new political dawn, where former rivals put aside their personal animosities for the sake of the national interest.

Or maybe not.

Still, given all the dire warnings after the Election about how disastrous a hung Parliament would be, all this new-found coalition optimism got me thinking about something my old non-exec said to me a few years ago. It was just after my most important employee - the guy in charge of sales - decided to defect somewhere else for a pay deal that was about twice as much as I could afford to offer him.

I must confess I slightly panicked when I found out. I had no idea how I was going to replace him, and I knew that the two sales people who worked directly for him would take it really hard. At that point, we were a bit smaller than we are now - and when you're that size, the loss of key people can be the difference between success and failure. So I rang this wise old boy for some advice, and this is what he told me: 'You have to remember, SD: every problem is an opportunity in disguise'.

Now at the time, I really wanted to smack him with something. What a load of trite nonsense, I thought. There's no upside to this problem whatsoever, I thought. The old codger's lost the plot - it's so long since he's been at the coal face that he doesn't recognise a crisis when it's staring him in the face, I thought.

Irritatingly, though, he turned out to be right. To be fair, so was I, at least to some extent - I had a look around for a replacement, and couldn't find anyone that I liked or trusted enough to give the job to. So in the short term, I decided to run the sales team for a while myself, to make sure the two remaining staff didn't feel abandoned. And when I did, it soon struck me that one of them - although still pretty young and inexperienced - had a lot of potential. So I spent a lot of time training and mentoring him, and six months or so later, I put him in charge of sales. To be honest, he was still way too inexperienced for it, but I decided to take a punt - and it paid off big time. The guy in question is now the character I've previously referred to as Mammon, my top salesperson and, after me, probably the most important person in the business. What's more, he's much better now than his predecessor ever was. So losing the first guy did actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Since then, whenever I've lost someone good, I've tried to use it as an opportunity - a chance to bring in new skills and experience that we don't already have. The thing is, no matter how unpromising the situation looks, there's almost always a way to turn it to your advantage. And the better you are at that, the better you'll be as an entrepreneur.

Democracy has its place. But that place definitely isn't the world of business...

I've been thinking a lot about democracy this week (I'm guessing I'm probably not the only one, given the wall-to-wall Election coverage). Although this isn't exactly the first chance I've had to vote, it's the first time I've felt like my vote might actually make a difference to the final outcome - and that has made me think a bit more about the whole process.

Now don't get me wrong. Democracy is, generally speaking, A Good Thing. I am unquestionably glad that I don't live under an oppressive dictatorship, and can vote for any idiot I like to run the country. I also appreciate the sacrifice of those who have fought for democracy, and so on and so forth. But observing democracy in action, particularly during the last week, I've concluded two main things.

One, it's a licence for nutters to talk rubbish. I know that to some extent this is the price you pay; that you've got to take the rough with the smooth etc etc etc. But elections really bring the zealots out of the closet, and it's even worse now that the internet provides them with the perfect platform to share their ill-considered views with the world. Looking at some of the stuff online this week, and the sheer viciousness of some of the 'debate', I can't help feeling that we'd be better off if some of these people were a bit more oppressed.

Second, it's not exactly very efficient, is it? By the looks of it we can't even run elections these days, let alone use them as a basis for sensible government. If it turns out to be a hung parliament, as looks increasingly likely (I can't face staying up to watch it tonight, some of us have work to do on Friday), that sounds to me like a recipe for a disaster. Imagine if you tried to run a business by picking three people with completely different views on strategy, and then putting them in a room to agree on how to do things. You'd never get anything done. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens here too.

So while I've been encouraging my team to exercise their democratic right this week, I hope they get it out of their system by Monday. Because when it comes to business, different rules apply. A democratic electoral system is all well and good (albeit this Election hasn't been a great example). But if they disagree with my decisions at work, I don't want them thinking that they get to throw me out. Nor do I want them thinking that they get a say in every decision I make (consultation processes are one thing; decision-making by committee is quite another). In fact, when it comes to business, I can't help feeling enlightened despotism is a much better bet than democracy.