The Really Practical Guide to Starting Up Your Own Business
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Preface You picked up or clicked on this book because you are thinking of starting your own business and really want someone to show you how to actually go about doing so. I have been giving advice to people in the UK wanting to start up for over two and a half decades. It is the practical advice that people want to know - but I have found very few books that provide it. This is why I have written this book. You can read any number of tomes on business theory, but if what you are after is a really practical guide to take you through step by step all the things you need to consider and action THEN THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU !!! Opening Chapter `IS SELF EMPLOYMENT REALLY FOR ME?' It is vital to recognise you are at a crossroads in your life. Before you consider going off down another road you need to ask yourself FOUR QUESTIONS:- 1. Do I have the necessary skills/experience to do what I am thinking of doing? 2. Do I have the necessary attributes? Am I that sort of a person? 3. Have I got enough money? Will I need to borrow? 4. Will I have the support of family and friends?' Each question is addressed in some detail including the attributes you will need. Market Research Chapter `You may think you have come up with the greatest idea for starting a business. Your family and friends tell you it can't fail. You may know of someone already running a similar business in another part of the country, or perhaps a franchise operation, which is making a fortune. You may be right in your assumptions, but until you venture out into the particular area you want to trade in and talk to potential customers about what you have in mind and listen to what they are telling you they need, until you find out what it is all going to cost, until you amass as much information you can about your competitors including their strengths and weaknesses - you are going to be taking a huge risk and are likely to fail.' Competition `One of my favourite philosophies of life is that it is not too difficult to be better than the other people out there in competition with you. If you bother to do that little bit more, if you pay attention to the detail, if you think about things from the other person's point of view, the customer, then you will indeed be better than most others who tend to `broad brush' their way through life - who do enough just to get by'. This is one of a number of personal observations throughout the book, based on years of talking and LISTENING to people. Marketing Chapter `Having done your research and talked to a number of potential customers you will hopefully have identified a product or service that enough of them said they needed, couldn't obtain, or were dissatisfied with existing suppliers, which you could supply at a profit. You may feel therefore, that all you have to do is open up for business, tell everyone you are now open and wait for the business to roll in - WRONG!!! Unless you understand how to `trigger the buying motive' in all the things you do to `market' your business you will not get past first base. So it is vital to understand what makes any of us buy something? Why do we buy it and what are we thinking when we make that decision. We are attracted in the first place by the `Features' of what something is, what it looks/ sounds like, but what makes us buy something is what it will do for us, the `Benefits'' This chapter then explores this whole subject as well as all aspects of marketing. Selling Chapter `REALLY PRACTICAL TIP Never quote a price off the top of your head. If you are discussing a job and someone asks you how much you are going to charge, turn it round and say `What were you expecting to pay?' Let me go away and provide you with a quote reflecting your budget, but let me also quote you for what will give you a `quality job first time around'. That should shame them in to not settling for their `cheap' alternative!!!' There are a great many `REALLY PRACTICAL TIPS like this throughout the book. Legal Chapter `The Two Legal Chapters cover 1. The Legal Structures - Pros and Cons and 2. How to legally protect your name, ideas, to ensure you get paid, employ staff, the need for insurances and generally obey commercial law'. Financial Chapter `This is the part of starting up a business where most people's eyes glaze over, the `too difficult to deal with' bit. Unfortunately unless you make an effort to try and understand it you could place your business in jeopardy. This subject was written assuming `nil knowledge' and in lay language. Whatever you do don't just leave it and hope it will be alright on the day'. Taxation Chapter In starting up and running your own business you are responsible for your tax affairs not your Accountant. You will get a Tax Return and you need to understand your responsibilities and avoid fines, or in extreme cases imprisonment'. This Chapter takes you through all aspects of Taxation. Other Chapters cover Business Planning, Start Up Funding, Time Management and Networking. Finally use all the help that is available starting with talking and listening to a Business Adviser at an Enterprise Agency/ Chamber of Commerce. Have them challenge your Business Plan before you start.
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About the Book
This book really does what it says on the cover and guides the reader in an easy-to-read, practical way on every aspect of the know-how needed to plan and start up their own business. From advice on putting together a business plan to useful tips on how to avoid the many pitfalls likely to be encountered, this is a compendium of how to do it and what problems to look out for. It will be invaluable both when setting up and running your own business. In over 25 years as a business adviser and trainer, Kim Hills Spedding has helped more than 5000 people set up businesses in the U.K. and understands that it is very often the very practical matters that are the most difficult hurdles for anyone setting out alone in business.
About the Author
Kim Hills Spedding has run a business in this field for over 25 years, the first ten years running an Enterprise Agency in Oxford. Many of the suggestions in his book are based on things he and his team did to ensure they provided a sound basis and example for the 3500 businesses they helped start up in Oxfordshire in that time. Since then he has been a self employed independent business advisor/ counsellor/ mentor, giving one to one advice , as well as a trainer presenting Business Planning courses in Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, for both Pre - Start and Existing Businesses, thereby helping many more businesses to start up and further develop.