RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 09 November 2005

In this week's issue:

• three questions to ask yourself before you start a business
• culture and etiquette when trading abroad
• some pointers for registering for VAT
• pricing a broadband Internet connection
• the Institute of Business Advisers (IBA) website reviewed

Small business answers

If you have any questions about your business idea or target market, or need help tracking down a grant, subsidy or business support in your local area, then send an e-mail with your query to the EnterQuest information team and we'll do our best to help.

Send your question to enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.

To access over 800 factsheets, guides and small business reports, go to www.scavenger.net.

Weekly stir

Three questions to ask yourself before you start a business

Starting a new business or going through the process of starting up can be a complicated and time-consuming process, but it's only going to be as complicated as you make it yourself.

In fact, some people won't even get their new venture started at all because of the mess they make of it or difficulties they encounter that are often of their own making. At the end of the day, getting your new business successfully off the ground is more about thorough and smart personal preparation - and for heaven's sake, we don't mean spending week after week writing a business plan either!

Preparing yourself to start a business will, in its most simple terms, boil down to asking yourself three basic questions.

1) What do I need to know?
2) Who do I need to know (or tell)?
3) What experience or specific skills do I need?

When you look at these questions closely and tackle them individually you'll quickly find yourself focusing on the core of what starting a business is all about, and the key things you need to personally consider in your start up preparations.

Let's go through these questions one at a time.

1) What do I need to know?

Before you begin your journey down the start up path it will make a lot of sense to ask yourself this question. You can't sensibly act or begin developing a start up plan until you've prepared a checklist of questions or prompts about the information you're lacking and need to find out before or during your start up preparations.

This will include finding information about the size, needs and trends in your target market; regulations and statutory obligations; how much capital you need and where you'll get it from; the suppliers you'll need and where to find them; who your competitors are and what they're doing; and how much time you'll need to spend running the business. This checklist of prompts about what information you need to know and find out is an ideal starting point for your personal preparations.

This guide to sources of market and business information will provide you with some useful starting points.

2) Who do I need to know (or tell)?

This follows on from the first question, and you should prepare a thorough list of everyone you need to contact BEFORE you start up. Some of these people may be statutory contacts such as HM Revenue & Customs, Companies House or your local authority, depending on the legal status of your business.

A lot of this will boil down to people you should contact who will help you set up and run your new business, such as your bank manager, accountant or insurance broker, and it will also be a good idea to contact a small business adviser at your local enterprise agency who will be able to offer free advice and support to help you through the start up process.

But who else do you know or would like to know that will be able to help you get your business off the ground? Your suppliers, your friends and family with business connections and experience, and other small business owners in your area will be able to help you with spreading the word and marketing your new venture. The editor of your local newspaper may also be interested in what you are doing and there should be local business networks and clubs you can join that will be a great way of getting your name around and learning from people like yourself who have done this already.

If you're still unsure, our factsheet on the key organisations you need to contact when starting up will help you to understand this process.

3) What experience or skills do I need?

This is something that too many people who are planning to start up do not honestly address. If you begin trading and immediately get out of your depth because you personally haven't got the experience, acumen or know-how required to run a business, you'll sink without a trace very quickly.

A lot of people start up a business in a sector where they already have experience through a previous job, or maybe just know a lot about the type of business because it's a hobby or something they've always been interested in. But the problem with just about everyone who does this is that they don't have the experience and specific skills required to run a business on a day-to-day basis.

The areas where new business owners quickly come unstuck are in managing finance and cash flow, sales and marketing, managing people, business admin, regulations and statutory duties. How much of this sort of stuff can you honestly, hand on your heart, say you are totally confident about and will be competent at handling from day one in your new business?

There are plenty of courses around at your local further education college, enterprise agency or Chamber of Commerce to help you develop your business know-how and acumen, thousands of how-to books on Amazon and other bookstores like WHSmith, and dozens upon dozens of online resources and self-help guides for budding entrepreneurs - check out this guide to sources of free and low-cost online training for businesses as a starting point.

Of course, starting a business involves many more questions than the three we've highlighted here, but by concentrating on these three questions at the very beginning of your personal preparation, you will be giving yourself and your start up plans a very clear and practical focus.

Marketing tip

Culture and etiquette when trading abroad

If you conduct any business abroad, or plan to do so eventually, it's important to understand the differences in culture and business etiquette when you're dealing with foreign customers. This is important even if you're only doing something as simple as liaising with an eBay user in another country over a product you've bought or sold on the site. You need to think about issues like:

• Accepted tone of voice (or tone and style of written communication).
• Dress code and personal presentation.
• Following up on meetings, phone calls or e-mails.

The following resources and tools provide information about doing business abroad in terms of understanding culture and making sure you get the etiquette right.

• Communicaid is an extensive information resource covering business etiquette and culture around the world.
• UK Trade & Investment offers a useful beginners' introduction to foreign language and cultural issues.
• Kwintessential Language and Culture Specialists offer tips and information about dealing with business card etiquette in different countries, as well as a number of practical training courses covering different languages and cultural issues.
• The National Centre for Languages offers training and skills-building resources for export businesses and those that want to make their information available in different languages.
• Finally, the Eurodicautom database is a useful reference tool covering most continental languages.

You can also check out dozens of our practical factsheets dealing with all aspects of trading abroad, from choosing a foreign sales or import agent to deciding how to despatch goods, at our Scavenger research website. And you can find hundreds more practical tips and tactics to improve your sales and marketing efforts and results in the UK Small Business Marketing Bible.

Legal tip

Some pointers for registering for VAT

VAT registration can be one of the more complex tasks that a new or growing business might have to take on. But for smaller businesses it is usually relatively simple, particularly now that you can register online at the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website.

Here's a brief guide to getting started with VAT registration, and some links to resources where you'll be able to find more detail.

• Firstly, note that VAT registration isn't compulsory until your business reaches a certain total turnover during the preceding 12 months. At the moment the threshold is £60,000.
• This doesn't stop businesses with a turnover below that figure from registering if they feel it makes sense from the point of view of their overall tax affairs, however.
• There are three different VAT rates, which apply according to the goods and services you buy or sell. For example VAT is zero-rated for food (in other words, you don't charge VAT on food products) and is 5% for books. The most common rate in the UK is 17.5% for most other goods and services.

How to register

• You can register in writing or online. To register in writing, you'll need to call the National VAT Advice Service (or your local tax office) and ask for the registration form relevant to your business. To find out where to send completed forms, see this list of addresses.
• If you only need to register using the VAT1 form, you can register online at the VAT Online Registration Service.
• If you have queries, HMRC offers a list of frequently asked questions about the VAT process.
• Our factsheet on understanding and registering for VAT also provides step-by-step guidance on the process.

The UK Red Tape Buster also has more information on the legal aspects of registering for VAT and trading abroad, as well as hundreds of factsheets, scenarios and frequently asked questions about all aspects of small business law.

IT tip

Pricing a broadband Internet connection

Broadband prices are falling all the time, and it's easier than ever to get connected. So this week, we've put together a quick price survey of four of the most popular providers offering connections suitable for very small and home businesses - BT, Tiscali, Wanadoo and AOL.

Using the table you can compare prices and connection speeds, but be aware that many of the packages offer extras such as antivirus software and additional e-mail addresses, so it's worth checking out the details of each offer.

And if you're looking to develop your own business website to sell to customers via the Internet, why not check out the Small Business Builder, a unique tool to enable a complete novice to set up a website or online store.

New business idea

Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK.

Here is this week's idea:

• Community Profiler

Just one word

Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.

Do you know what the word 'mores' means?

a) commercial jargon for items of high value
b) customs, habits or ways
c) people over the age of 18
d) the averages within a specified set of figures

Answer at the end of the Bulletin.

Website review

The Institute of Business Advisers (IBA - www.iba.org.uk)

Acting as a starting point for potential and existing business owners seeking a reputable adviser, the IBA's site offers a number of resources for small businesses. But how user-friendly and accessible is it?

• Navigation and presentation - the homepage is clearly presented and the IBA's key tool for small firms, the Adviser Locator, is prominently signposted. Once you click through, the tool is easy and intuitive to use thanks to a helpful search engine with drop-down boxes which are usefully categorised by type of advice, type of business and location. The homepage does feature a half-screen of redundant white space, though, which could be engagingly populated with current news or other topical information.



• Accessibility - alas, as with so many of the sites we have reviewed, accessibility options seem to have fallen by the wayside on an otherwise comprehensive and well-designed site. There are no options given here at all - given that the site uses images, a text-only function and the opportunity to adjust text size or view the content in foreign languages would be welcome.



• Content and usefulness - the Locator tool is a great resource for small businesses keen to engage an independent adviser, and the site also provides other sources of help for business users - reviewing its codes of conduct and ethics can help you to benchmark your adviser against industry standards, and there's also a helpful factsheet detailing what a business advisory session should usually entail.

  

• Relevance - although most of the news on the site is targeted more at the adviser community than at small firms, it is fresh and regularly updated, and business users can read press releases on issues like the recent Business Adviser of the Year contest.

  

An ordinary score of 10 for the IBA, which manages to provide some practical assistance for small firms as well as offering engaging information for its community of adviser subscribers.

Our rating - 10/20

Did you know?

You can join a campaign against congestion charging

Plans to introduce congestion charges in towns and cities across the UK have recently been announced, and the Government has asked 44 local councils to investigate the potential of introducing charges in their areas. Business representatives like the Forum of Private Business (FPB) have hotly criticised the plans, pointing to the negative effect that charges appear to have had on small businesses in London. It's running a campaign against the scheme, to which small business owners are invited to add their voices.

There are more viruses than ever before

Antivirus firm Sophos has revealed that October saw the biggest rise in the number of viruses circulating around the Internet since it started keeping records back in 1988. Virus numbers rose by 1,685 in October compared with September, with the majority of problems coming from new variants of existing strains, rather than completely new bugs. Sophos also reports than one in 60 e-mails sent in October was infected by a virus.

Worth a visit

Looking for workspace?

There are plenty of helpful online directories you can use if you're looking for serviced or managed workspace for your new business in the UK. Search Office Space provides an online directory of serviced workspace by town and county, and the Tavistock Directory lists managed workspace around the UK.

Worth a read

Billed as 'essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs', this book addresses the difficult subject of finding and developing a viable business idea that, as well as being unusual and interesting to the entrepreneur, is also likely to convince financial backers. The step-by-step approach makes the book easy to follow and digest, and the use of case studies provides a practical and realistic flavour. Check out:

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Good luck

The EnterQuest Team

This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought where appropriate.