Courting a little controversy, making a little mischief and having lots of fun is part and parcel of a company culture that encourages staff to challenge the norm, make decisions quickly and act like entrepreneurs.

This is a lot easier to do in small businesses when everyone knows everybody else and personal relationships and trust are strong. The tricky bit happens when your business grows to a size where it‘s not possible for everyone to know each other personally.

At this point most companies typically resort to formalising the fun in an HR document that sets the parameters of what‘s expected and what‘s not. The problem is that these documents tend to focus on the things you can‘t do more than the things you can, which makes the company appear very dull indeed. And because these tomes tend to come from HR, it makes them sound dull too, which is very unfair.

Expenses are a typical example of one of these policies. A senior executive at one company I know once told me that six people were involved in the sign-off procedure for expenses. Rather radically, and not without protest from some in the finance department, they decided that everyone would sign off their own expenses. The doubters felt this would give carte blanche to the chancers and cheats. The outcome? Nothing changed. Expenses claimed remained the same and five people could devote their time to growing the business.

In most instances, the instincts of your staff will be profitable ones but even if they‘re not, as long as they‘re constantly pushing the boundaries, you‘ll end up with a great tale to tell and you‘ll have created a culture where everyone loves working.

I did a speech the other day to a group of headteachers from girls‘ schools, and I said: "Look for the naughty ones. Look for the girls who are falling outside your normal 'I‘m going to be a doctor and I‘ve got my 10 O-Levels‘ because they‘re your entrepreneurs: the ones who don‘t quite fit in, the ones who seem to have a strange view on the world, the ones who you never would choose as head girl because you never know what they‘re going to do next. They‘re the interesting ones because they‘re probably the wealth creators of the future."

You need to have a vision and find something unique that no one else is doing. Then you go out there and you sell it, every single day of the week. I get an A4 pad and I make staff divide it into four, put the date at the top, and every day they have to do a minimum of four marketing activities.

Whatever else they do - they can flush the loo, tell their staff off, fiddle with the paperwork, talk to their accountant, do their day job - they do four a day. A couple of weeks later, someone from this one might ring you up. And then you have to find somebody who can actually deliver your vision because if you get bogged down in actually doing it, you can‘t be out there selling.

If they want to take the risk - and they do need to understand that 90% of businesses fail in the first five years - then they need to do it and get it out of their system otherwise they will always regret it.

It is a risk but there are fantastic rewards for the ones that are successful. But there is no easy road to fast bucks. There is an awful lot of hard work and long hours but if that‘s what turns you on, and you are not just doing it for the money, then write a plan and get started.

I think you‘re either an entrepreneur are or you aren‘t. My parents had their own businesses so the entrepreneurial spirit must have always been in my blood. I even used to buy and sell bikes at school, so I knew it was only a matter of time.

I actually started Sofa Bed Centres in 1985, two years before selling beds as Dreams. I started out selling sofa-beds, expanded the range to include beds, opened a few more stores and then from there realised that beds were the way forward and rebranded as Dreams. I had always wanted my own business and was always buying and selling things from home in my 20s. Just after I turned 30 the opportunity arose, so I just had to take the plunge.

Being an entrepreneur is the new rock‘n‘roll. It‘s suddenly become fashionable. The latest series of Risking It All demonstrated our new appetite for all things entrepreneurial.

But the big thing that alarmed me about my bunch of start-ups on Risking It All was a lack of many of the basic skills necessary for running a business. One of the contributors didn‘t know how to add and subtract VAT. Another didn‘t know the difference between turnover and profit. These people were risking their entire life‘s savings without having grasped the fundamentals of business. Luckily, their blushes were saved in the edit.

We all have our business dream. The place where we picture ourselves in five years‘ time. The problem is that it‘s easy to dream. Unless you‘ve got the basic tools and understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur - the ability to turn a profit from a deal - things will turn sour.

It‘s a sad fact that there are very few ways to learn how to become an entrepreneur other than just getting on with it. Schools don‘t teach it. Many business degrees are very theoretical and management-oriented. It‘s almost as if the educational establishment has looked down its nose at this career choice.

Brighton University has realised this and has started to do something to about it. It‘s started the oddly named 'Bee Purple‘ project. It‘s a university-wide project aimed at getting students from all subjects thinking about practical entrepreneurism. I recently participated in one of their workshop events with some chaps from Green and Blacks chocolate and several other local entrepreneurs.

We need more projects like this that ordinary people can attend to ask questions and learn from those who have made it. There‘s an opportunity waiting there for someone who can recreate the energy and simplicity of the Brighton events for the general public.