PRIME business club

A short workshop for people over 45, living with a disability, who are at a crossroads in their worklife.Find out how to identify skills, interests and hobbies that may help you move into employment or self employment. Free to all including lunch 

Contact Sue Massingham on 01548 857467 to book a place

Date: 6th March 2007 

A short workshop for people over 45 who are at a crossroads in their worklife.Find out how to identify skills, interests and hobbies that may help you move into employment or self employment. Free to all including lunch and travel costs up to £5

Contact Lin Meek on 01278 422301 to book a place

PRIME has released a free and updated guide to Working Tax Credit for the coming financial year.

Working Tax Credit is a kind of reverse income tax that you should get if your household income falls below a certain level.

It is something you are entitled to as a working taxpayer and it is run as part of the tax system by the HM Revenue & Customs.

This PRIME guide explains how the scheme applies to self-employed people over the age of 50. Despite the bad press Working Tax Credit often receives, PRIME believes that for the self-employed it can be a valuable lifeline, so it’s worth checking out this brief guide to see if it might be useful to you.

Working Tax Credit - a brief guide for self-employed people aged over 50

This year we have also explained the basics of Child Tax Credit, as an increasing number of people over 50 have responsibility for looking after children - about a quarter of those contacting PRIME according to other research we will be publishing soon. Thanks to everybody for filling in the forms.

The guide provides examples for the tax year starting on the 6th April 2007 and ending the 5th of April 2008. The numbers for the current tax year 2006 to 2007 are similar but you get slightly less money.

Otherwise details of the scheme haven’t change significantly. The welcome hike in the “income disregard” introduced this year will continue into FY 2007-2008, which will mean far fewer people facing hassles and demands to return overpayments if their circumstances change.

Fears on this point discouraged many from claiming, which is a pity as Working Tax Credit (and Child Tax Credit) can help out with your basic living expenses if your business is going through a bad patch. Working Tax Credit is also very useful for those new to self-employment whose businesses are not yet making much money.

There is no universal grant for starting a new business in the UK. Working Tax Credit is as close as the system here gets to encouraging small business start ups. So it would be silly to ignore it if you qualify.

UPDATE

We’ve updated the links above to point to the print-ready version of the guide produced immediately after the 22 March 2007 Budget. This incorporates some minor changes on the Childcare element of Working Tax Credit.

If find the text too small you may prefer the original A4 text version

Date:Friday 2nd March 2007 - Sunday 4th March 2007

Friday 2 March 1pm - 7pm
Saturday 3 March 10am - 6pm
Sunday 4 March 10am - 5pm
Venue: Olympia, Kensington

PRIME has a stand (C50) at the show, and is also giving talks and holding a drop-in one-on-one information clinic.

PRIME has a limited quantity of FREE tickets. To claim your free ticket, which is good for two people, ring PRIME’s Freephone number 0800 783 1904

One Life is a large event with over 300 exhibitors and a programme of more than 100 seminars. The show is organised into six zones, and we are in the “Life begins” zone. There’s also a “Be your own boss” zone devoted to starting your own business, training, holiday and personal development zones. It’s advisable to book in advance for the seminars, which are free.

Tickets cost £15 on the door, or £12 if you book online from the exhibition organisers (over 60s get £2 off). Or call their Ticket Hotline on 0870 272 0001 (Lines are open 9am – 9pm).

Nearest tube: Kensington Olympia (District Line). Overground train services run by Silverlink and Southern go to the same station.

How do you start or grow a business if you don’t have much money? The answer according to US marketing guru Seth Godin is to focus on the advantages that your lack of resources brings. and build a business that consciously makes use of them.

This is not a collection of money-saving hints and tips. Instead it’s about something much more important. It’s about getting your business model and marketing strategy right so your success does not depend on resources you don’t have but is instead based on exploiting to the full what you do have. That’s why The Bootstrapper’s Bible is already a business classic.

Download The Bootstrapper’s Bible by Seth Godin

Don’t be put off by Godin’s American style. By page eight he has got the local cultural references over with and is well into a solid comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of rich and poor businesses. The remaining 90 or so pages is inspirational stuff, and likely to spark practical ideas about how you can turn your situation to your advantage.

A note on printing the PDF: it prints out fine on A4 as long as you select landscape.

Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction to business grants and loans

Grants to ordinary businesses are relatively rare in the UK, and vary from place-to-place and time-to-time. There has to be a reason why a grant-giving body would want to support you - for example to regenerate a particular run-down neighbourhood, to encourage the survival of some craft skill or to ameliorate some economic disaster afflicting a particular industry.

Except in the last case, a grant can be thought of as a kind of bribe to change your business behaviour. Expect there to be strings attached.

Applying for a grant can be a very complicated process, and even if you get it the grant will often only cover part of your project costs. You will still have to find the rest from other sources.

Q: Where can I find a grant?

A: Local Business Links are a usually a good source of information about any publicly-funded grants currently on offer in your neighbourhood. For example, grants are sometimes available for doing up premises or improving shop displays, particularly in regeneration areas. The geographic area in which such grants are available is often very precisely defined.

If you are involved in the agricultural sector or certain types of rural business a complex system of financial incentives and schemes apply. This is the most heavily grant-aided part of the economy, but as usual strings are attached and finding your way to the money can be difficult, The best place to start is Defra itself.

Internet search sites can help find a wide range of public, private and charitable initiatives. Apart from Google, there are some specialised funding search sites you can try - notably Grantnet and J4B.

Be cautious about web sites (or firms) that say there is a myriad of unclaimed government grants out there and that then offer to find you one for a fee. Don’t pay until they get you the money!

There is no government grant available to everyone who wants to start a business. This is an urban myth.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Jones, one of the dragons from BBC 2’s Dragon’s Den and the tycoon of ITV 1’s forthcoming Tycoon has an interesting mixture of tips, opinions and business resources on his site.

There’s also a forums area you can contribute to (don’t forget to add your web site address if you’ve got one at the end of your posting - it’s a good habit to promote your own site at every opportunity).

PRIME has issued a revised, shortened and updated guide to franchising that you can download for free from here. Buying a franchise - a brief guide to the over 50s from PRIME 2007 is based on a much longer research report we published in October 2005 which contained results from polling nearly a thousand people about the pros and cons of franchising.

The new guide is a third the length and omits the academic results and analysis to concentrate instead on the practical lessons learned.

In less than 70 pages it explains exactly what franchising is and what’s involved in becoming a franchisee. It retains the earlier reports 10 detailed case studies of people who have gone ahead and done it. Also included are tips on dealing with franchisors, and a comprehensive jargon guide. References to useful sources of information have been updated.
So if you are considering franchising now you have a choice of reading. The new short Buying a franchise - a brief guide to the over 50s from PRIME 2007 and the original study Franchising for the over 50s from 2005 with full survey results and more quotes and comments.

Wednesday 21st February 2007 - Wednesday 11th July 2007
Moorgate, every other Wednesday for 20 weeks

Forward at 50 is aimed at women over 50 who are ready to start a business. It’s free and there is no upper age limit. Run by London Metropolitan University, a PRIME partner, it offers a tried-and-tested programme of personal development, business training and networking in just 10 days spread over 20 weeks.

The course starts with an introductory morning on February 21st, and then runs fortnightly on every other Wednesdays from March 7, at 10am to 4pm, till mid July. There will also be a ceremony for those completing the course in September.

Topics covered include:

• Assessing your Strengths and Weaknesses
• Practical Finance
• Market Research
• Sales & Marketing
• Presentation Skills
• Negotiating Skills
• Time Management
• Networking Effectively
• Problem Solving
• Real life case studies

Previous courses in this series have been heavily oversubscribed, so you are advised to apply early. This time there will be two groups who attend on alternate Wednesdays.

The workshops will be be held at the University (Moorgate Campus - Moorgate tube), but you can live in anywhere within reach to qualify. Travel bursaries will be available to some trainees to enable them to attend. There is no upper age limit.

If you are interested, please contact:
Katy Roberts or Hilary Farnworth on 0207 320 1573
email k.roberts@londonmet.ac.uk or hilary.farnworth@londonmet.ac.uk

Information Files
167-F50_Application_form.doc

167-F50_2007_recruitment_flyer.doc 

167-Forward_at_50_poster_2007.pdf

Project web page at London Met

Small firms in the UK are having to wait longer to get paid than in the past. And their customers pay more slowly than those dealing with larger firms, according to a study of company accounts conducted by Siemens Financial Services.
In 2006 the small, owner-managed firms in the study had to wait an average of 80 days to receive payment, compared to 69 days two years earlier. By contrast the large firms whose books were examined got paid in 47 days.

More at Freelance UK

The High Street banks are by far and away the main source of start-up loans in the UK. But they won’t always lend to older people, particularly if you have a poor credit history or no collateral. So here we list some organisations that might be worth approaching if the banks have turned you down.

Most are CDFIs - non-profit organisations running a loan scheme to level the playing field for some particular group or to encourage business to set up in a particular area.

Q: What’s a CDFI?
A: A Community Development Finance Institution - a kind of small non-profit bank specifically set up to help those who cannot access money from mainstream banks and building societies. CDFIs in the UK are recognised in law and properly regulated. More from www.cdfa.org.uk

Coverage is patchy. CDFIs are relatively new in the UK and have not yet reached many parts of the country. Because CDFIs generally will only lend to those turned down by conventional banks they don’t compete with them, instead reaching out to customers the banks don’t serve. As a result the big banks generally don’t see CDFIs as rivals, and indeed have actively supported some CDFIs in getting established.

Typically the loans available from CDFIs are “loans of last resort”. You often have to have been turned down by a regular bank before you can apply. Interest rates are usually similar to those you would have to pay for a business loan from a conventional bank, but they do vary considerably - from a low of 3% to a high of around 30%.

Loans from even the most charitable CDFI are still loans that need to be paid back to keep the fund going - they are not grants. So the businesses people are proposing have to be sustainable and viable in exactly the same way as if you were approaching a commercial bank.

The CDFI will check out each application in businesses terms - indeed possibly more thoroughly than a conventional bank would, because the applicant usually isn’t putting up collateral such as a valuable house.

This makes getting a loan through schemes of this type generally slower than going to a bank. CDFIs are interested in whether the business will succeed, not just in how much your house can be sold for should it fail,

You can find a much longer list of CDFIs - many of them serving very specific geographic areas, from the CDFA, which is the sector’s umbrella body. Here we concentrate on an illustrative selection known to PRIME. Those indicated as PRIME partners have a specific commitment to helping the over 50s set up in business.

Aspire Micro Finance
Available in: Belfast, Newtownabbey, Mallusk, Lisburn and Derry/Londonderry areas of Northern Ireland. Aspire uses a micro-finance approach for deciding who to loan to, which means that it first lends small amounts to establish trust. If they are paid back on time you can apply for larger loans. Aspire prefers to deal with clients who are already trading, even if just in a small way.

Bristol Enterprise Development Fund
Available in: Bristol, Bath and the rest of the former county of Avon. Won’t lend to businesses involved in gambling, drinking, clairvoyancy or any activity which may offend public taste. Does do expansion loans for firms that have been trading for more than 12 months, as well as start-up loans.

Capitalise Business Support
Available in: Sussex including Brighton & Hove, and parts of South Kent. Capitalise is a subsidiary of Ten Sixty Six Enterprise Limited, the local enterprise agency for Hastings and a PRIME partner.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let renowned marketing expert Dr Alan Rae talk you through the essentials of doing business - for free. Adapted specially for PRIME from his course One Man Brand, each programme lasts 30 to 40 minutes and consists of Alan talking you through the key business principles accompanied by illustrations and slides. You can access them instantly now from your PC. Just click on the links below.

1. What’s Your Story

2. Telling it in Writing

3. Telling it Face to Face

4. Telling it On-line

It’s very simple - just click on the link, wait about 10 seconds for the programme to load, and - if your machine is capable of handling the podcast format, sit back and listen.

Most machines will run this course without difficulty, but if you are finding it blocked on a work machine try it from home - some firewalls block the flash podcast format.

It requires a browser with Macromedia Flash installed and a PC or laptop with sound capability.

Once the programme is going you can jump backwards and forwards in the programme using the page up and page down keys.

Free: marketing workbook

There’s also an accompanying 20-page workbook by Alan Rae, called “Your marketing plan”, that we are making available for a limited time only. It helps you define your customers and work out how best to approach them. Download your copy now by clicking on the link below (PDF format), then print it out and go through it with a pen or pencil to get started on Your marketing plan.

Skype allows you to make cheap calls to normal phones worldwide - and free calls to other people with Skype. You install some software on your PC to get it working - or buy a Skype handset from somewhere like Tesco.

You need also Internet access - home broadband is ideal. As a result small and home businesses have been much more active in adopting this way of making cheap phone calls than big businesses or the public sector, which are saddled with more complicated Internet arrangements.

There is discussion of the pros and cons of Skype in the forums.

Date: Monday 19th March 2007, 9:30am to 3:30pm.
Venue: The Auction Mart, Thirsk Rural Business Park, Blakey Lane, Thirsk, YO7 3AB

Over 50?
At a crossroads in life?
How about working for yourself?

Come to a free workshop run by PRIME in association with the North Yorkshire Forum for Voluntary Organisations.

Your day will consist of you learning more about yourself in a self-employment context. You will be given information on what help is available and where to get it. The day will also include practical sessions and useful group discussions.

For more information please call PRIME on 0800 121 8321

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