Posts Tagged ‘business plan’

Starting a Business: Five Things to Do Over Christmas

by admin on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Christmas is a time to relax with your family and friends, eat too much food and indulge in a little too much alcohol.

Unless, that is, you are an aspiring entrepreneur.

In that case, Christmas is the perfect time to do some research and planning for your new business. Not only is 2009 just around the corner but, if you’re currently working for someone else, these few weeks are probably one of the few occasions when you can spend a day or two planning your business.

So what should you do?

Five Things to do for Your Startup this Christmas

  1. Work on your business plan: You’ve been putting it off for ages - nows the perfect time to put the finishing touches to your business plan (or get started if you haven’t already). Join acfuse for free to download our free business plan template.

  2. Do some reading: You can never know enough about your niche - or about starting a business. Use Google to help you find information about your niche and identify the people who are talking about it in blogs and websites. Then take a trip to your favourite bookstore (or Amazon for that matter) and find interesting new books about your niche or starting a business - a Christmas present for your business. You’ll also find useful articles in our business startup resource section.

  3. Build Your Profile: Create profiles on relevant social networking sites and forums. LinkedIn is great for building business contacts. Twitter can help you find people who are active in your niche. Acfuse.com is great for finding investors and partners (if we do say so ourselves). And forums are always good for building your profile and keeping up-to-date with what’s going on.

  4. Start a blog: A blog is a great way to give your business personality, demonstrate your expertise and attract new visitors to your website. Even if you haven’t started your business yet you can always start blogging about your experiences as an aspiring entrepreneur or use it to provide useful information in your niche (building your reputation and contacts for when you do launch).

  5. Think: Set aside a day, if you can, just to think about your business. Find somewhere that you won’t be disturbed. Bring a pen and lots of paper. Then just think. Ask yourself questions. Challenge your ideas and see how you might be able to improve them. Sometimes just a few hours thinking can help you define your strategy and even come up with exciting new ideas. If nothing else, you should walk away reinvigorated and ready to move your business forward.


Have a great Christmas!

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General, Planning · No Comments

Borrowing From Friends and Family: Pros and Cons

by admin on Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Are family and friends a good source of finance for your business?


If you’re struggling to raise finance for your business idea it might be tempting to raise the money you need from friends and family. There’s good chance they’ll help but is it a good idea?

Borrowing Startup Capital from Friends and Family: The Pros

  1. You Can Get It -Borrowing from banks will often require collateral, finding investors means having a big enough idea to deliver a return for you both. If you don’t tick either of those boxes, family and friends may be an option.

  2. No Interest - Friends and family will probably not ask for interest payments - saving you money. You may not even have to give up any equity.

  3. Flexible Repayments - There’s a good chance that you won’t have to pay back what you borrow on a strict schedule - handy when your cash flow is unpredictable.


Borrowing Startup Capital From Friends and Family: The Cons

  1. You might lose it: It’s a fact of life that some businesses fail. How will you feel if you can’t repay what you borrow?

  2. They might back you anyway: I say anyway, as in, even when your idea isn’t that good. Finding bank funding or investors to back you means proving your business plans are sound and that your idea is likely to make money.

  3. Mixing Business and Personal: What happens when Dad wants to get involved in the business because he lent you the money? Do you really want to mix your business and personal lives in that way?

  4. Lack of Professional Advice: Finding an outside investor usually means finding someone with experience in business - and maybe even contacts in your industry. Either way, they can bring more to the table than just money.


Ultimately many small businesses do turn to family and friends when it comes to finding finance for their startup idea. It can work, but it’s certainly worth giving it a little thought before you start hitting up Mum and Dad at the Christmas table this year.

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Finance and investment, Planning · No Comments

Planning Your Marketing in 2009

by admin on Friday, December 19th, 2008

What are your plans for 2009?


2008 has been a challenging year for small businesses - and the economic outlook isn’t looking all that rosy for 2009 either.
Marketing in particular is something that should be high on most startup businesses’ agendas for the coming year.

Getting those first few clients and customers makes all the difference.

So how do you market yourself in a downturn?

Top tips for planning your marketing in 2009


Justify Your Expenditure

Marketing should drive sales. Whether you look at it over the short term or take a longer ‘brand building’ view, every penny of marketing expenditure should help you achieve a clearly defined business goal.

If something is ineffective then you can either choose to cut that activity or to make the changes necessary to ensure that it does work. Often the problem is not with the idea itself but with the execution.

To analyse your marketing effectively you need to be able to measure the response you get. If you don’t currently have a plan to measure your marketing response rates, then that’s our next tip for 2009.

Measure Everything

You wouldn’t put money into a savings account without knowing the interest rate. Marketing is an investment just like any other – the purpose is to use marketing to grow your business. If you invest X you want more than X back.

As a startup with limited resources this is doubly true.

For each marketing activity you undertake (from placing an ad in the paper to buying a new sign for your shop) set down clearly defined goals that you want to achieve. Once you have the goals written down you can start to judge how effective each activity is in achieving those goals. If it doesn’t stack up, you need to change it.

Start with Small Tests

If your budget is tight the worst move you can make is to bet the farm on a single marketing strategy. It is better to test new ideas with small investments of time and resources. If you get the response you want, it’s easy to scale them up.

Don’t Be Afraid to Get Your Hands Dirty

If you are serious about the success of your new business then you need to be prepared to do whatever it takes. Successful entrepreneurs don’t get away with saying, “I don’t like networking so I won’t”.

If knocking on doors is the best way for your to start getting customers then get knocking. Do not allow yourself to avoid the obvious answers just because you don’t like the look of them - especially when money’s tight.

Replace Anything You Stop

As a startup you can’t simply move from one marketing idea to the next - they should all be working together to build your brand and develop new business. So, if you decide to cut a marketing activity don’t leave holes.

Replace cut marketing activities with new ones. Often this will mean replacing marketing that is financially expensive for marketing with little financial outlay.

For example, you may decide that the flyers you tested are not effective. Building an online presence may be more effective but what you save in cash terms you’ll need to make up for in time committed.

2009 will certainly be challenging but the startups and small businesses that emerge as the winners will be the ones who meet the challenge, not simply hide away until the storm passes.

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Marketing, Planning · No Comments

Setting SMART Goals for 2009

by admin on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

As they new year approaches a lot of entrepreneurs will start reviewing the successes and failures of 2008 and planning for 2009.

Of course, planning for your business is a great idea - but how do you ensure that the goals you set are goals that you can achieve and not just wishful thinking?

One way is to set S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic and Time Based.

Setting Specific Goals


Specific goals are detailed, clearly defined goals. ‘We’re going to improve our position in the market in 2009′ is not clearly defined. What does ‘improve’ mean, which ‘market’? Be as clear about your goals as possible.

Setting Measurable Goals


Measurable goals takes clearly defined and adds a number. Achieving 10% growth in sales is measurable, reducing costs by £5000 is measurable. ‘Improving customer service’ is not measurable but ‘increasing customer retention rate to 95%’ is measurable.

Setting Agreed Goals


Everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction in order for you to achieve the goals you set down. Even if your entire business consists of just you, there are still others with whom you should discuss your goals. Is you significant other behind you? What about your bank manager, your suppliers or your professional advisors?

Setting Realistic Goals


Goals are designed to motivate and provide you with a direction to focus your energies. Big goals are great, but, if 2 months into the year you realise that you have no chance of achieving them then they can actually serve to demotivate.

Setting Time Based Goals


SMART goals have a deadline. The new year provides an ideal time frame for achieving your newly set goals - in 2009. However it’s often useful to set shorter term goals to measure your success against and ensure that there are no ‘down’ periods. What will you aim to achieve by July 1st? What’s the goal for the end of January?

As always, be realistic with the amount of time you allow yourself - too little and it’ll be unrealistic, too much and it won’t challenge you. But once you’ve set your time based goals don’t allow yourself to ‘move’ the goalposts.


One of the best ways to help set and keep on track to achieve your goals is to find a business mentor to work with.

Join acfuse.com for free and find a mentor for your business.

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Planning · No Comments

Is it time to quit your day job?

by admin on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

It’s the dream of many entrepreneurs to walk into work, hand in their notice and never look back.

Free from the shackles of the 9-5 you’ll be able to focus on building your business and enjoying the life you’ve always wanted.

But is quitting your day job really the right idea?

Three questions to ask before you quit the day job


Do You Have Enough Money?


This could be all three reasons as it’s the most obvious and the most critical. New businesses need money to run and to grow.

You need money too. You need money to live on, to pay the mortgage and to fall back on in case of any emergency.

Before you pack in the day job you need to do some serious planning. How much is your business going to cost to set up? How much will it cost to run each month? How much do you need personally?

Add all these together for the next 12 months and you’ll start to get a feel for the kind of money you’ll need to have set aside. Of course, you’re new business should be earning money as soon as possible but how realistic are your projections?

What happens if you only do half as much business as you hope? What is customers and clients take longer to pay you?

Plan your finances in detail and get professional help where you can. Always underestimate the amount of money you will make and overestimate the amount you will have to spend.

If, after all that, the numbers still make sense, you need to ask …

What can you do while still at work?


Is your day job really holding you back from following your dreams or is there work that you can be doing to help move them forward - and still keep the monthly paycheck?

Many successful businesses can be started part time - putting in the hours in the morning, at nights and on the weekend. There are 168 hours in a week, you’re at work for 40 of them. Even if you get a solid eight hours sleep a night you’ve still got over 70 hours left.

What could you accomplish by spending 20 of those hours working on your business?

If you can find ways of getting hanging on to your salary while still building your business it’ll be much less risky when you finally do take the plunge.

Are you really ready?


You’re never too young to start a business.

But it it is possible to be under-prepared. Do you know enough about your industry? Do you have the skills, the qualifications and the contacts?

Ever good entrepreneur wants to get started on their business idea yesterday - but sometimes the best bet is to do as much as you can pre-launch to ensure your success when you do go it alone.

If you can do that with a salary, why not?

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General, Planning · No Comments