This article delves into the nonobvious of starting a business whether a brick and mortar or an online business. This article further discusses various corporate responsibilities and the legal obligations coming with the start of your business.
Whichever business you thinking of starting in any industry, you first need to have a solid knowledge, ability and skills about the industry you want to provide your product or service to the community of choice.
When you decide to start a business, you need to make sure that it is what you want to do and not something you think you will try out. If you think it is something that you want to try out, you better stick to your day job for the rest of your life because it is the safest option.
Some people are not destined to be business owners that's simple as this. Hence, why are the statistic about business failure in their first or second year? Because starting a business requires grit, determination, consistency...as well as planning, finances and staffing.
You need to conduct market research to determine the feasibility of your business idea. Your market research should be quantitative(deal with numbers and statistics) and qualitative( method, concept and experiences). You will need to conduct a throughout competitors analysis it is a must because you cannot overlook your competitors either indirect or direct competitor in your industry. By conducting market research you can find a gap in the market and fill it with your new product or service or improve on what is already available bringing out a new method or innovation by discovering what's not available.
Your detailed market research should help you complete your PESTEL analysis in more detail, them the SWOT analysis will help you to determine and identify internal strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities and threats that shape current and future operations helping with the development of strategic goals.
The latter should help you start your Business Plan which you would need to complete in detail. Your Business Plan should include the result of your market research, Pestel and SWOT analysis. Your marketing strategies and tactics, your financial planning, customer acquisitions, business operation, business goals, the price of your products or services, your competitors, your suppliers, the location of your business and staffing needs...
Your Business Plan is a moving vehicle don't get stuck living in a Business Plan 3-5 years away. Focus on what you need to do in a month, in a week, and today. Ask yourself what do you need to do to have success today? write it down in your 5W1H Operational and Tactical strategic plan.
Then work your butt off, hustle and go and work harder than anybody else in a consistent, trustworthy manner.
Your Operational and Tactical strategic plan is your monthly plan. It contains your actionable business goals using the 5W1H (Why, What, Who, Where, When and How). These criteria of the Holy Grail help you set actionable strategic business and marketing goals in a detailed fashion.
The 5W1H plan is a very detailed operational and tactical plan. Each criterion needs to be defined and broken down into bigger objectives and then further broken down into small objectives developed into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Target) business goals and each goal must be timebound and have its execution plan.
Your Operational and Tactical plan is included in your Business Plan at a later date. This plan helps you speak to the right audience for your business and informed you of what you have to offer to your community. It helps you determine your business and customer demography as well as your market. It helps you decide on your type of customers either B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to consumers).
It helps you discover your business purpose and philosophy. It helps you set up deadlines for action on your business goals. It helps determine the location of your business, your supplier, customers, competitors, products and services. It helps you with the execution of your business goals and your marketing execution.
You will need to develop a pricing plan that will determine your business positioning within your industry. It helps to decide on your business structure either a cost leadership business, a differentiator business or a middle of the road business, whichever pricing structure you decide on always aims to provide value for money.
The 5W1H helps you determine the quality of your product or service because of your pricing plan. The more expensive is your product or service denote a high quality or a quality item or service. The cheap or cheapest price denotes a low quality of your product or service. It helps you determine the vision and ethos of your business as well as your mission statement and value proposition.
The 5W1H need to be part of your Business Plan and incorporated into the defined sections of your Business Plan. When you start a business it is important to update your Business Plan every two months for a year, because as you progress forward you need to write your steps. Then in your second year, your Business Plan needs to be updated twice a year or more. You will need to record your goals achieve with the date you completed them. These are called your milestones.
As you grow and have settled suppliers and stakeholders and you managed to acquire staff and pay them to support you and grow the business you need to update your Business Plan yearly for the number of years you are in business.
If you don't do it your business after several years may fail and most business owners would blame anything moving or a crisis or the government or the weather but themselves for their lack of accountability and responsibility towards their own business.
You will need to start your Marketing Plan which is your tool to market yourself to your audiences. You need to write your marketing goals, strategies and tactics, as well as your marketing campaigns using the 5W1H. In your Marketing Plan ensure that you write the success of your campaign and systemise the strategies and tactics that give you that success. You will need to record the failed marketing campaign and re-adjust using the 5W1H.
You will need to segment your market to access the right group of customers or potential customers for your business within your industry and to get a competitive edge over your competitors ensure that you develop a specialist niche or offer much better services or products or have other attributes that differentiate you from the competition.
Needless to say that you cannot market yourself to everyone therefore segmentation is a must to speak to the right people and know to yourself that 80% of what you do only 20% of your segmented population will access it. Your business must relate to its audience, provide an answer to a need with a solution and value for money doing this you will ensure recurring sales, return customers, loyal customers, advocacy, referrals and become to of mind.
Your business from its start must have system thinking(internal business processes) this includes your plans, strategies and tactics and systemised processes use to ensure consistent sales, low cost and recurring incomes to ensure profitability, policies and procedures to ensure that you protect your business and the customers, suppliers, associates, stakeholders is aware of what your business offers, tolerate and conditions of sales. You must update regularly your system thinking as you grow through your years of business.
Depending on the type of business you start up you can be subjected before starting with legal obligations and abide by the UK law regarding some product's safety and regulations. You will also need to register your business type to the HMRC ideally before starting but if you don't you have three months to do it before being fined. If you want to be a Limited business you will need to register your business at the Company House and pay the fee associated with your registration.
Your registration is for tax purposes, however, you will not be paying any tax until you go over your Personal Allowance (£12,570) once your income exceeds this amount after your Allowable Expenses deduction, you will be paying income tax on your income over the personal allowance. If you declare your income and they are less than your personal allowance you are not paying any taxes and you don't have to pay your NI depending on your business structure if you don't reach the small profit margin.
When you start up your business you are not obligated to collect VAT(Value Added Tax) for the government until you reach the VAT threshold of £85,000 if your income exceeds this amount you must register for VAT and add to your prices the right VAT % for your products and services.
When running your business ensure that you uphold your corporate responsibility. Corporate responsibility is about the impact your business makes on society, the environment and the economy.
Your business should have an effective CR programme contributing positively to all stakeholders as well as adding value to your business. Your CR programmes should operate sustainably.
Environmental Responsibility
Ethical Responsibility
Philanthropic Responsibility
Economic Responsibility
Social Responsibility
Your business should have a comprehensive CRS strategy, your business should make multiple commitments that address all areas of corporate social responsibility: environment, social and supply chain as well as sourcing.
CRS is important because it ensures that a business acts ethically, considers human rights and is aware of the social, economic and environmental impacts of what they do — and acts on this.
You are legally obligated when starting a business to record every expense and income. The biggest benefit you get from recording your income and expenses is: monitoring your cost, and your sales, viewing your products or services' performance and adjusting your marketing strategies and tactics accordingly.
You are legally obligated to keep a record of your customer's interactions, work carried out on their behalf, suppliers, stakeholders and staff in a secure filing cabinet under locking keys or in a secure database or online secure system. Because you'll be made responsible if any data breaches under the GPRS 2018. You must keep all data a maximum of 6 years even 10 years before archiving the data.
You are legally obligated to abide by the Health & Safety law and rules when you run a business and ensure that you are aware of them to avoid being fined, sanctioned or shut down. Depending on your type of business you must have the relevant poster and information displayed in your business visible to your visitors, contractors, stakeholders and customers. You must have an accident report book and record all incidents, accidents and near-miss in it and keep the book for a minimum of 3 years from its last entry as well as a first-aid box. This law applies to all businesses.
Conclusion
Starting a business can be daunting especially when you do not know what you are getting into. However, if your decision is solid and you have a strong desire to succeed as well as know in-depth what you want to provide to your chosen community; it should be just fine.
It's highly advisable to seek support early on, with your must-have plans, legal matters, financial advice and business support, as well as a mentor. With the right support, you can execute and gain the confidence needed to startup.
Now if you don't find a company to help you because your funding is slim at startup, don't let this come in your way because there is also an alternative.
Girlfridayz can help you start up the right way with various services offered. In our online store, you can purchase your Business Plan and Marketing Plan template plus guide, an e-book about market research, an e-book about funding, an e-book about record-keeping for sole traders and SMEs, a playbook about marketing - The Core + The Cellar and the Operational and Tactical strategy plan (the 5WH1).
We provide you with all the support you need to start up the right way through reading, using a pre-designed detailed template with a guide, a marketing book attached to a mentoring support system, monthly business support and marketing consultation. Therefore you benefit from all the support needed to startup a business either brick and mortar or online.
We help complete our plans if you experience difficulties and we start your online presence by designing your website according to your chosen types with added marketing value content. We also help you with your social media presence and advice you on the best platform to use. We help you with the admin of the business and startup the record of your income and expenses.
With our standalone business support system, you can access our business blogs discussing most areas of business topics and marketing free constant support through reading or if you prefer access our free podcast about business and marketing that you can download for free another free constant business support for startups or SMEs. You can access for a minimal fee our business tools calculators for your business and marketing.
We offer you a complete comprehensive start-up business and business growth system with our various services offered for startups and SMEs to achieve better sales. Using Girlfridayz Limited specialist services you will feel supported with your business through and through.
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