Sources of Advice when Starting a Business

I will be describing the sources of advice when starting a business. These are:

-Solicitor/Lawyer
-Accountant
-B.I.S (Department for Business Innovation and Skills)
-C.A.B (Citizen Advice Bureau)
-Local Authority
-Mentor
-Family

I will also be explaining who they are? What they do? and How can they help me in starting a new business?

-Solicitor/Lawyer: is the person who gives you advice about legal matters in setting up your business. The business process should be proper and legal because this helps your business to avoid crises. A solicitor/lawyer can also help you to identify the possible problems and helps you to take actions to prevent them- protecting your business from risk and saving your money.

The solicitor/lawyer can help you about the company structure of your business by explaining all the different options and advise which the best one for your business and also a solicitor/can also set up the option you have choosen and when it comes about choosing your business premises a solicitor can help you to apply for your business license and also help you to fully understand the terms of the lease such as: increasing the rent, service charges, restrictions. 

Therefore, a solicitor/lawyer is very important in business society because if someone sues you and your business, a solicitor/lawyer will help you find solutions to solve the problems or complaints.

-Accountant: an accountant is the right person to ask for help when it comes to money matters because a good accountant will help you to avoid paying unneccesary tax. She/He knows all the allowances and legitimate expenses and will make sure that you can claim all the money back. An accountant gives me advices about tax.

You should talk to an accountant before you open a new business because it is not good waiting for a long time (a year later) to discover tips that would have saved your money.

An accountant can give you advice whether or not you are better off to launch as a limited company or to operate as a sole trader. They will also advise on partnership issues and should generally steer you in the right direction.

-Family: Setting up a new business with my family advice gives you self-confidence of what you are doing because of their support. It also helps you a lot because it would be easy and convinient for you to get ideas on how to encourage customers/clients. It also presents unique challenges over and above the usual problems a startup phases.

Family advice is very useful because you can use them to help the next generation to survive their business.

-Local Authority: The local authority can led you money and gives you low interest rates to encourage you to set up your own business by helping you and your business to learn what kind of services you may need to use and know about. These include collecting business rates and approving planning applications, enforcing health and safety, environment and trading standards requirements and issuing parking permits.

-Mentor: A mentor is the person who provides advice base on her/his experience and expertees on how to survive and prosper your business in business society.

A mentor can help you on how you should run your business properly by giving ideas and advices and she/he also helps you to make decisions for your business to be successful and not to fail.

-B.I.S (Department for Business Innovation and Skills): is the department who gives you ideas about the economic growth by investing in skills and education to advertise/promote trade and bosst innovation and they can also help you and other people to start and grow a business. They also protect all the consumers and reduce the impact of regulation.

B.I.S can help you to gain new skills that you may need to compete the global employment market. They can help you to research about the business industry , which is very important to help economic growth of your business. They also provide you a lot of information about the consumer law, which is you can get ideas how to use the consumers/customers right.

The most important about B.I.S is that they can help you to get better regulation by reducing the amount of regulation and they can also help your business about the businesses cut time, save money and to be more efficient.

-C.A.B (Citizen Advice Bureau): is the department who can help you to resolve your financial issues such as debts, benefits, employment, and housing. They can also help you to resolve your emotional problem such us being descriminated against by somebody else.

You can get advice from CAB by phoning them or face to face.
 

"As a conclusion, I would use both individual and organisational (formal and informal) advice for starting up my business.

The first step I would do is to go to consult a solicitor/lawyer to get information about all legal matters and legal processes in business and then, I am going to consult an accountant to get information about money matters which is can help me to avoid paying unneccesary tax and get some ideas how on to manage the money.  

After consulting a solicitor/lawyer and an accountant, I am going to a mentor who has got the same business as me and has got an excellent experience of running a business to ask for help, advice and train me on how to be a succesful businesswoman. Secondly, I am going to ask my family, relatives and friends about their opinions, ideas and advises in running a business.

Therefore, I would also go to consult other organisation such as: BIS, CAB and Local Authority because these organisations can give me the right advice with all the bases of my business including terms and regulations, financial issues, location for my business and more."

Business Plan

"Business Plan"

 

Business Overview
 

Introduction:

A's Fashion Clothing will be located in South East London because the rent is lower than in Central London, my business will be a fashion clothing for girls/ladies, it is in secondary sector and tertiary sector because my staffs and I will make the clothes from different kind of textiles and once we manufactured and produced the products I will put them in the store and put the images for online shopping.

I have chosen this kind of business because a lot of people love shopping, especially girls/ladies, including myself always want the new clothes for themselves to be always in trend.

I have decided to set my aims and objectives for my business. These are:

Aims:
-To be still in business and keep trading for the next 2 years.
-To diversify the business in 3 years from selling girls/ladies clothes to boys/men clothes.
-To increase sales by 20% throughout the store in next 2 years.
-To extract as much money as I can from products/services every year.
Objectives:
-I will implement 2 new ranges of products every 6 months.
-I will provide knowledge training for my staffs about the products, a week before they put them in the shelves.
-I will sell 5% more clothes every 3 months.
-To increase £5,000 profit every quarterly.

Competitive Advantage: I can say that my business has got 3 main advantages among other businesses; firstly, as a owner of the company business I can say that I have passion in Fashion (clothing) because I love clothes and I am also confident that my business will be fine. Secondly, I have enough money in the bank to start and open a small business. Lastly, I am 100% sure that my business will manufacture and produce an excellent quality of clothing that may 100% satisfy my customers and will talk about. This will also help me to get more customers and this will may be the good start to get a good reputation/image of my own business in 2 years.

Marketing

-SWOT Analysis and Critical Success Factors:

In this unit of assignment I am going to analyze my business via SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) Analysis.

Strengths (Internal):
•I have passion in fashion (clothing).
•I have enough money to open a new business.
•Another strength of my business would be if my factory manufacture and produce good quality clothing this may satisfy customers and there would be a chance that they will tell others about my products and this will help my business to get more customers and this might be the start to get a good reputation/image of my own business.
Weaknesses (Internal):
•I don't have any experience running a business.
•Time: It will takes time to finish and produce all my products.
•High rent, when I pay high rent the less chance I gain profits.
•Another weakness of my business is when I decided to expand and when my business starts getting bigger, is the harder to maintain quality control. The more of each product I produce, there will be some clothing that is damaged through the process of production and if it gets in the hands of a customer they might complain and spread the word that the quality of my clothes are not that great as they expect.
Opportunities (External):
•I might do Products offers (student discounts, buy one get one 1/2 price).
•Another business opportunity is that my business may get a chance to network with other business people and get the chance to expand the business to other places/countries it could be nationwide or worldwide.
Threats (External):
•Competitions with other brands this include the prices of my products, it should be the right price of each clothes to encourage people to buy my clothes.
•Location: I have to be careful and think wisely where to open my business. I must choose the place where the population is big and the rent is low. 
•Legal changes make it hard for me to open a new business.
•Business Failure: I may be bankrupt and ends up losing all my savings.

-Market Research:

A's Fashion Clothing's main target market is people who love clothes especially for those people who have passion in Fashion. (Babies: 0-36 months, Girls: 4-14 y/o, Ladies: 14 and Above).

For market research I will be doing a survey to find out what customers would like/love and if any ideas will work on my business, there would be at least 20 questions in the survey; first 10 questions will be about themselves, and the last 10 questions will be about the business and competitors.

I should do the first Survey before my business launch and should be taken/done every quarterly in the first 2 years of my business and the next survey should only be taken/done when it's necessary for the following years. This may help my business to improve the quality of service and also help me to gain more profits for the business and it is also help me to get more ideas of what customers would like/love and also to know what customers expect from the business.

-Promotions Plan:
This is my marketing strategies for my small business, most of these strategies will work to the public and will help my business to be known in the business world. 

• Posters: This will help my business to catch customer's attention.
• Word of Mouth: Nothing will cost my business but it helps me to create customer's relation and trust based on their experience.
• Point of Sales Display: Customers can see the appearance and style of my products (clothes) that I am selling.
• Social Networks (Twitter, Facebook,etc): This is easy to use and it will help my business to promote/advertise my products in public.
• Celebrity Endorsement: It will help my business to establish credibility.
• Pay Per Click (Google):The fastest way to create strong internet presence and get in front of potential customers.
• Loyalty Card: This will help my business to encourage the regular and new customers to always come back to buy my new collection products.

Team and Management Structure

-I will identify the skills and experience required for myself and for my staffs.

As a manager of the business I have skills and experience such as:

* I have strong leadership and interpersonal skills.
* Motivation to drive targets and objectives within the store/online
* A thorough understanding of Profit and Loss
* I have a retail management background with a fast paced, high street retailer/online.
* I am determined and committed to be a successful businesswoman.

As an owner of A's Fashion Clothing I am current looking for 2 store assistants; 1 part timer and 1 full timer who have got these skills and experience.

*A person who has got excellent customer service skills.

*A person who is confident, friendly, punctual and hard-working.

*A person who has 1 year experienced working as a retail assistant.

Job description:

Sales assistants are at the front line of a fast-paced sector where no two days are ever the same. Far away from the world of office desks and boring business meetings, expect to meet a whole range of people every day. So if you've got an outgoing personality, this is the perfect job for you.

Your main task as a sales assistant is to ensure that customers have an enjoyable shopping experience and spend lots of cash so the business can keep going. As part of this service you'll be expected to:

• Welcome and advise customers (so practice your smiling)
• Ensure the clothes are well displayed (an organised shop is a happy shop)
• Handle payments
• Arrange ordering and delivery
• Receive deliveries from suppliers
• Keep the shop floor clean and tidy

-Management and Legal Requirements
A's Fashion Clothing is a Sole Trade business organisation it is in Secondary and Tertiary Sector; secondary sector because we buy the textiles and turn it into clothes and tertiary sector because my business provide service by selling my products to public.

The first Legal Requirements of being a Sole Trader is to register my business name with Local Business Register to ensure that is not lawful and does not contain certain words and description that are restricted.The Register will advise you if your name contains any such restriction and will either obtain permission from the Secretary of State or else where on your behalf or assist you in choosing an alternative name at no extra charge.

I already have decided on the legal type of the business and what its name will be, either apply online or download a Business Name Application Form and  I will post the completed form to this address:

National Business Register
Somerset House
6070 Birmingham Business Park
B37 7BF 

Enclosing a cheque (payable to Local Business Register) for your membership and registration fee plus the cost of any other services required. I can also do an online search  to see if the name you want is available for use before you complete an application form.

On receipt of my application, The Local Business Register will check that my name is legal (advising where changes are necessary) and search all business and company names databases (plus Trade Marks if requested). Once we are both satisfied that my name can be used and that it does not conflict with an existing name, we will add it to The Local Business Register database and prepare my certificate. This confirms the name that The Local Business Register and I  will protect against "passing-off" and, when displayed, it will meet all the display requirements of the Companies Act.

-Legal compliance requirements: tax and VAT Obligations, health and safety.

A Sole Trader is a type of business has legally no separate existence from its owner. The person is therefore fully liable for the debts of the business. Sole traders will usually transact business in their own name.

Although we do not offer this as a service in itself there are a number of ways we can help.

A sole trader is the simplest, non-regulated form of trading where an individual acts solely on his own account; he/she makes all the decisions on business matter and takes all the risks. The main advantage is that the sole trader takes all the profit generated by the business but the disadvantage is that they are also personally liable with HM Revenue and Customs there is little or no paper work involved to start trading.

To register, you need to fill out and complete the Form CWF1 from the HMRC site.

• Income Tax: as a sole trader I will need to submit an annual self assessment form to the Inland Revenue and keep accurate and up-to-date  records of all business transactions and accounts. I will also need to pay income tax and National Insurance contribution any on profits. Losses can be offset against tax on other income.

The Inland Revenue will send you a Self Assessment Tax and National Insurance form to fill in.

• Tax: I will have registered as "self-employed", I won't automatically be VAT registered.

Once I reach a certain annual turnover (£61,000 at the time of writing) I will need to register for VAT which they can help me with. To register please see this website of VAT Registration.

Financial Budgets and Forecast.

-A's Fashion Clothing Start-up Costs.














 -Sales and Breakeven Forecast.



 -12 months Sales Forecast