Writing a business plan is one of the most important things an entrepreneur must do when starting a new business. However, writing a compelling business plan is easier said than done, particularly when time can be so precious. This article outlines the key resources available to UK entrepreneurs when preparing a business plan. Use them for assistance with the writing of the plan, as well as for understanding the implications of certain business decisions you make in the process, such as those regarding corporate structure, sources of funding, and more.

1. Business Plan Pro UK software

Business Plan Pro is the best-selling business plan software available for several reasons. It is easy to use, saves time, and has over 500 sample plans to get you started. It also provides a structure whereby you can complete a plan in a methodical manner, while enabling you to benefit from a helping hand at every step.

Where: Business Plan Pro is available from www.paloalto.co.uk

Cost: RRP is only £79.99 for the Standard Edition and £129.99 for the Premier Edition.

2. Business Plan Competitions

Numerous business-planning competitions are taking place in the UK at any given time. These competitions test a wide range of skills that are often neglected by entrepreneurs. By producing a credible business plan and presenting your case persuasively, you will significantly enhance your ability to secure funding. These competitions are an invaluable resource enabling you to road test your business plan in a safe environment before submitting the plan to potential investors.

The main advantages of submitting a business plan to a competition include:

• Tap into Increased Support for Entrepreneurs in the UK
• Obtain Critical Independent Analysis of Your Business Plan
• Gain Access to Mentors and Networking Opportunities
• Improve key Transferable Skills, e.g. Presentation Skills
• Enhance Your Understanding of What Investors Want

Where: Use a search engine such as Google to find a list of competitions

Cost: Entry costs are usually negligible, although some competitions limit entry to students or locals.

3. Start-up Websites

There are a number of start–up websites that can help you understand what needs to be done and how. These websites normally consist of a mix of articles and relevant products and services from third-party vendors. Most also have specific business-planning sections to help you with your plan. The following three well-known UK sites can give you some further insights into the building blocks that make up a winning business plan.

Where: www.startups.co.uk , www.clearlybusiness.com, www.bytestart.co.uk

Cost: Free

4. Government Sites

There are also a number of government websites designed to assist people in starting a business which can also help you in writing a business plan.

• Companies House www.companieshouse.gov.uk

The website contains information on incorporation procedures. It also provides annual accounts of companies which can be purchased so as to enable you to assess the financials of comparable companies.

• HMRC www.hmrc.gov.uk

HM Revenue and Customs has an easily accessible site where you can access information and calculators relating to employing people, paying VAT, paying Corporation Tax, and so on.

Where: As above

Cost: Free

5. Local advisor

Despite the availability of a range of different online resources, there are occasions when professional advice is highly recommended. While there is undoubtedly a trade off (professional advice usually costs), there are some decisions that should be made only after consultation with professionals, such as choosing the legal structure of the company. While local accountants are a natural starting point, there are also a number of other bodies that can provide information and advice, and can point you in the right direction for more complex concerns.

• Business Link www.businesslink.gov.uk

Business Link provides information, advice and support to help people start, maintain and grow their business. It is an excellent site with some really great sections and clear sign posting to additional resources. There is also a postcode search facility so you can track down your nearest local advisor.

• National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA) www.nfea.com

The National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA) is the membership body for Local Enterprise Agencies, and other similar organisations. It forms a network of independent, not-for-profit local agencies that provide a comprehensive range of free services including a facility to search for your local agency.

Where: As above

Cost: Free

6. Funding websites

Entrepreneurs need to consider their financing at the start-up stage and most will look to outside help to assist them in financing the start-up phase. A good understanding of the implications of the various sources of funding is important, not least with respect to the various obligations arising under each. At its most basic, the sources of funding are either debt based or equity based, and each class confers certain obligations on the recipient of the funds. If the business plan is used to secure funding it will need to clearly outline the benefits to the investor, and the terms of investment, as they’ll be seeking to assess their risks, as well as the ability of the firm to generate free cash flows. Outside of the traditional sources of finance, it is also worth exploring the following sites, which explain the merits of grant or VC funding. Obviously the conditions for securing either are fairly strict, so both sites will indicate which issues you should consider, as well as information on the availability of the funding.

• J4B www.j4b.co.uk

The site allows quick and simple searches of the j4b database of business grants and loans — the most comprehensive database of its kind in the UK.

• BVCA www.bvca.co.uk

This is the website for the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA) which has over 170 full members and contains a directory that enables users to search for a local member.

7. Bplans.co.uk

Bplans.co.uk contains extensive business-planning resources and is also owned by Palo Alto Software, makers of Business Plan Pro. There is an extensive back catalogue of articles, with new additions a regular occurrence. It also contains a number of free sample business plans, some calculators. and links to a range of appropriate resources.

Where: www.bplans.co.uk

Cost: Free

8. Scavenger by Cobweb

Scavenger reports are essential reading material for anyone starting up a business in the UK. The Business Opportunity Profiles are reports on specific industries and are updated frequently. With over 800 reports in total, the range includes everything from ‘Children’s Day Nursery’ profiles to ‘Coffee Shop’ profiles to a profile on ‘Complementary Therapy’.

Where: www.scavenger.net

Cost: Individual reports cost around £5

9. Sites with demographic data

There are also numerous resources you can use in assessing likely demand for your goods or services. Websites such as www.caci.co.uk/acorn and www.upmystreet.com provide extensive free demographic data about areas based on UK postcode searches. These enable you to build up profiles of the local population and are ideal when you are looking to set up a shop to serve the local community specifically. If you want to consider setting up overseas, then websites such as www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ give an excellent insight into various local conditions in advance of undertaking more detailed localised research.

Where: As above

Cost: Free

10. Your local library

Finally, libraries can be excellent resources, helping you access information from a host of disparate sources. They can be particularly useful for researching hard-to-access data relating to markets and potential suppliers.

The Business and IP Centre at the British Library www.bl.uk/bipc/ is just one example of a new resource specifically created to support entrepreneurs in the UK. It enables users to access a range of databases including Amadeus, Economist Intelligence, Mintel, Datamonitor, One Source, LexisNexis, Dialog and the Complete Business Reference Adviser (COBRA).

Alternatively, your local library may stock one of Pearson’s excellent titles on starting a business and writing a business plan. www.pearson-books.com/bplans

Summary and conclusion

Writing a winning business plan can take time and effort. However, utilizing the above resources should make the job a lot easier and help you to gain a thorough understanding of the fundamentals that underpin every successful business. Good luck!

Article content provided by: bplans.co.uk and paloalto.co.uk

When I am asked to explain why business planning is so important, my first inclination is to quote Lewis Carroll. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road and asks:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

For me this scene encapsulates perfectly the problems of not having an over-arching goal and plan for your business. Without a plan, a business is essentially rudderless, and day-to-day activities are likely to be haphazard and reactive, in stark contrast to those businesses implementing a well thought out business plan.

The following represents a list of my top five reasons a firm needs a business plan.

1. To Map the Future

A business plan is not just required to secure funding at the start-up phase, but is a vital aid to help you manage your business more effectively. By committing your thoughts to paper, you can understand your business better and also chart specific courses of action that need to be taken to improve your business. A plan can detail alternative future scenarios and set specific objectives and goals along with the resources required to achieve these goals.

By understanding your business and the market a little better and planning how best to operate within this environment, you will be well placed to ensure your long-term success.

2. To Support Growth and Secure Funding

Most businesses face investment decisions during the course of their lifetime. Often, these opportunities cannot be funded by free cash flows alone, and the business must seek external funding. However, despite the fact that the market for funding is highly competitive, all prospective lenders will require access to the company’s recent Income Statements/Profit and Loss Statements, along with an up-to-date business plan. In essence the former helps investors understand the past, whereas the business plan helps give them a window on the future.

When seeking investment in your business, it is important to clearly describe the opportunity, as investors will want to know:

• Why they would be better off investing in your business, rather than leaving money in a bank account or investing in another business?
• What the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for the business arising from the opportunity is?
• Why people will part with their cash to buy from your business?

A well-written business plan can help you convey these points to prospective investors, helping them feel confident in you and in the thoroughness with which you have considered future scenarios. The most crucial component for them will be clear evidence of the company’s future ability to generate sufficient cash flows to meet debt obligations, while enabling the business to operate effectively.

3. To Develop and Communicate a Course of Action

A business plan helps a company assess future opportunities and commit to a particular course of action. By committing the plan to paper, all other options are effectively marginalized and the company is aligned to focus on key activities. The plan can assign milestones to specific individuals and ultimately help management to monitor progress. Once written, a plan can be disseminated quickly and will also prompt further questions and feedback by the readers helping to ensure a more collaborative plan is produced.

4. To Help Manage Cash flow

Careful management of cash flow is a fundamental requirement for all businesses. The reason is quite simple–many businesses fail, not because they are unprofitable, but because they ultimately become insolvent (i.e., are unable to pay their debts as they fall due). While the break-even point–where total revenue equals total costs–is a highly important figure for start-ups, once a business is up and running profitably, it becomes less important.

Cash flow management then becomes more vital when businesses pursue investment opportunities where there are significant cash out flows, in advance of the cash flows coming in. These opportunities need to be assessed against any seasonal variations in the business and the timing of the flows. If you are a “cash-only” business, you can bank the income immediately; however, if you sell on credit, you receive the cash in the future and hence may need to pay some of your own expenses before that income hits your account. This will put a further strain on the company’s solvency and hence a well structured business plan will help you manage funding requirements in advance.

5. To Support a Strategic Exit

Finally, at some point, the owners of the firm will decide it is time to exit. Considering the likely exit strategy in advance can help inform and direct present day decisions. The aim is to liquidate the investment, so the owner/current investors have the option of cashing out when they want.

Common exit strategies include;

• Initial Public Offering of stock (IPO’s)
• Acquisition by competitors
• Mergers
• Family succession
• Management buy-outs

Investment decisions can be taken in the present with one eye on the future via a well-thought-out business plan. For example, if the most attractive exit route appeared to be selling to a competitor, present day management and investment decisions could focus on activities that would increase the company’s attractiveness to that competitor.

Given that valuing firms is notoriously difficult and subjective, a well-written plan will clearly highlight the opportunity for the incoming investors, the value of it and increase the likelihood of a successful exit by the current owner.

Article content provided by: bplans.co.uk and paloalto.co.uk

1. you can pay 50% deposit and 50% balance when your project is finished

2. split that balance across 12 easy monthly payments.

You can purchase more items by adding to your monthly payments. It’s a great way to help your business grow!

An example is our small business starter pack at £425 (+vat). This would work out at £35.42/month which gets you a domain name, website, emails and hosting for the year.

This is a very big question and to a lot organisations the answer will be both but all too often the wrong decision or balance is made between the two.

We will try and discuss this topic by looking at an example.

One of our customers had a large online marketing budget and they purely allocated this to PPC which did bring in good results. When we were asked to evaluate the website we discovered a whole lost market. When google displayed results you only spotted this company in the sponsored results which meant every person arriving at the website came at a click cost dependent on the keywords. They appeared out of the top 5 pages of natural results for all search terms. We also found a considerable cost in the whole process of finding keywords to bid against and allocating budgets.

What we proposed was to move 25% of the PPC budget to organic SEO for a period of 6 months. We deemed 6 months as a realistic measurement time frame to cope with natural peaks/troughs in the business.

Before starting a detailed report was created of existing success rates and website analytics. This was the marker to compare against.

After just 3 months we started to see the website appear on the top 3 pages of the search engines and our analytics started to show a considerable growth in visitors.

After the 6 months were up the findings showed that organic visitors now accounted for the majority of web site visitors. We discovered that given the same company in sponsored and organic results people tended to click on the organic results, this accounted for the reduction in PPC visitors. The actual closure ratio (visitor to sale) was equal to that in the original PPC only campaign. This meant that sales had increased due to more visitors.

Based on these findings the decision was made to reduce the online marketing budget by 40% then allocate this new reduced value 50/50 between PPC and organic SEO.

This is proving very successful in more sales and also at a lower overall cost to the business.

In conclusion we strongly believe a place for both methods of search but would recommend all website owners to first prepare a marketing plan that shows how to achieve good organic sesrch and then allocate a budget to PPC.  Organic search is long term website grwoth whilst PPC is shorter term results driven.

A website launch must be treated the same way a company treats a new product launch. If you speak to a product manufacturing company or a computer software company and mention you were launching something with no marketing plan they would call you crazy.

It is very rare that an online business can sustain itself just from search engine traffic alone and the investment on search engine marketing should just be one part of your overall marketing costs.

A lot of organisations will allocate 4-5 times the cost of development into making the product a success at launch (short term) and also mid to long term. This is done because they clearly understand that it is not worth having a product if people have no idea it exists or what it can do. Based on the above why do so many companies think a website is just a cheap way of getting extra revenue. They may well spend £XXXX on a website and then 6 months later wonder why they get no visitors and no sales.

So what should you do?

When planning a website you do exactly this, plan! A full multi-year business plan needs to be drawn up that shows costs and possible revenues and benefits. This plan should include costs for finding a provider (cost of getting and evaluating quotes), design, development and test. This gets you a website but you now also need to add launch costs and ongoing marketing and maintenance costs. Too often the later marketing and maintenance costs are just not considered.

So many SEO companies to choose from?

When you employ a company to manage your search engine marketing, it is typically the case that you pay for what you get. Think about the 12 – 18 month cost as good results can’t be achieved in 1 day and you are really thinking about a long-term partnership. Before deciding on a company consider all the options and services provided by the various SEO companies available. Talk to the companies as you must feel confident in this investment.

So what should it cost?

Very hard to answer without an indication of the actual website being planned. The Return on Investment (ROI) from a search engine marketing campaign will therefore depend on the market you are competing in and the value of your products and services. From our experience it is a lot better to have less pages with good visibility and business benefit than have lots of pages which are never seen.

An example cost is very difficult to provide as each Client and every Website design has its own individual needs and requirements regarding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Praeparo examples of pricing for Search Engine Marketing Projects has ranged from £70/month to £1,000/month and tends to be a ratio of 4-5 times the initial website design and development budget.

How can Praeparo help?

With a proven track record, combined with ethical SEO methods and competitive prices you can be confident when choosing us. We don’t just throw standard tools at your needs but create a bespoke plan around our services. Our flexible pricing structures are ideal for any size business as any plan can be delivered over different time lines.