Welcome

Listen iconPRIME provides free information, events and training to help you start your own business or become self-employed.

You can sign up for a free start-up pack and newsletters by clicking on the flower symbol to your right. And you can find PRIME support partners in your area by typing a town name or post code into the “Find Nearest” box, also to your right.

Laurie South CEO of PRIME“Enterprise isn’t just about youth”, says Laurie South, PRIME’s Chief Executive. “People of any age can set up in business, but it’s particularly useful for the over 50s as there are not a lot of other options. Older people still face difficulty finding an employer willing to give them a job.”

A selection of the best articles are shown below. To find more use the search box at top right, or to see the most recent items go to News.

PRIME’s service promise can be found here, and there’s more about the charity itself at About PRIME.

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Starting a new business in Belfast

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Date: Wednesday 19th November 2008
Time: FREE Exhibition with workshops 9.30am to 4.00pm, followed by buffet and networking for registered PRIME attendees at 5pm, then presentation 6.30pm to 7.30pm
Venue: Ramada Belfast, 117 Milltown Road, Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast, BT8 7XP

Status: PRIME event after HMRC event
PRIME is attending HMRC’s Business Advice Open Day, and is running its own [...]

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Olderpreneurs expect to sell their businesses

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More than half of the visitors to this site taking part in a recent PRIME mini poll expect to sell their business as a going concern when they are ready to exit the business. A further 16 per cent also expect to keep it going, giving it to family or a friend.
Do you expect to [...]

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Women in health-based businesses - London

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Are you over 40, female and thinking of starting a business in any of these areas?
Acupuncture
Aromatherapy
Healthy living
Massage
Nutrition and Diet
Personal Training
Reflexology
Sports Massage
Sports Physiotherapy
If so London Metropolitan University, a PRIME partner, has developed a free 10 day course especially for you.
It starts in October 2008, and there’s still time to apply. Funding is coming from the London Development [...]

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Save on business books

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PRIME has teamed up with publisher Kogan Page to get you a discount off any of the publisher’s books. Kogan Page specialises in business books, and have many relevant small business titles. To get the discount just order via this PRIME book shop link, which shows a selection.
At the moment the discount is running at [...]

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Universities open up free business resource library

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It’s now possible for anyone to freely access a huge resource library created for small businesses and startups by a consortium of UK universities. You can go straight to the search and browse page of the collection, called VentureNavigator, without having to register or login.
The content includes:

Accounting
Advisors
Angel Investors
Brand
Business Model
Business Plan
Communication
Compensation
Competition
Customers
Distribution
Entrepreneurship
Equity
Finance
Fundraising
Human Resources
Innovation
Intellectual [...]

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How to identify your best and worst customers

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Are some of your customers stars, bringing in money, skills and enhancing the reputation to your business? And are others quite frankly duds, bringing you hassle and actually losing you money on each sale?
Simply asking these questions can lead you into making some useful changes to the way you do business - so you do [...]

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Garry Stephenson of SkyHiFotos

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Garry Stephenson, 55, has set up an innovative photography company just months after being made redundant.
Garry, from Cannock in the West Midlands, was made redundant at Christmas from his job inspecting motor homes for a large local vehicle importer. His company SkyHiFotos.co.uk offers photography from an unusual angle – taken from the top of a [...]

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BBC Radio 4 on finding a job after redundancy

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Philip Black has recently been made redundant at the age of 57. This programme in the Radio 4 Learning Curve strand follows him round London Olympia, talking to various exhibitors at the One Life Live show about what if anything they could do to help.
Back in the studio, presenter Libby Purves interviews Laurie South [...]

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BBC 2 show on those too young to retire

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UPDATE: Extra
Interviews with Sir Alan Sugar, Professor Colin Gray and Laurie South of PRIME.
On Friday the 8th of February 2008 at 7pm BBC 2 is showing “Too Young to Retire” - a special edition of The Money Programme about people who are building successful businesses in their 60s and 70s.
One of the older entrepreneurs featured [...]

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Business grants - myth and reality in 2008

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This is an update to an earlier post on the same topic. Our basic position hasn’t changed:
Remember: grants to small businesses are relatively rare in the UK, usually have strings attached and are unlikely to give you 100 per cent of the money. Customers are the real people who can grant prosperity to your business, [...]

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Hundreds of thousands of over 50s want work

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Some 800,000 people between 50 and state pension age are currently inactive but want to work, according to a new report commissioned by PRIME and written by leading economist Christopher Smallwood.
The majority of new businesses are created by people in their forties and fifties - indeed business owners aged over 50 account for 15 per [...]

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Free PRIME guide to working for yourself

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The printed paper version of “Working for YOURSELF - a practical guide to sales, marketing and preparing a business plan for people aged over 50″ is now available. You can still download the guide as a PDF, but if you would prefer a paper copy just email us your details and we’ll post you a [...]

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