PRIME business club

Tutoring web site the Tutor Pages is offering a free 65-page ebook on how to set yourself up as a private tutor.

 Contents include:

www.thetutorpages.com/free-tutoring-ebook

Getting British Business Online, the governmnent backed-scheme that offers UK small businesses a free web site, is now live.

Partners include Google, Enterprise UK and Paypal.

You get:

A free web address: Choose from any available ‘.co.uk’ domain name.

A free web site: You build your site using an easy Wizard-type tool provided by Google, which lets you upload your own words and images.

Try it now at www.gbbo.co.uk

If you’re over 50 and thinking about starting a business in the Bristol area, then contact PRIME about getting a mentor. PRIME has recently completed training mentors in the area, who are now ready to talk to you. This is a completely free programme.

Here’s what Harri Harrison, who is running the scheme, has to say about it:

PRIME mentoring is specifically for people aged 50+ who are just beginning to think about setting up their own business. It is about exploring initial thoughts around self-employment. It is an opportunity to have a soundingboard, to check ideas and to discover the best way of moving forward.

Somebody once described this as having ‘a critical friend’ - that’s probably a good description.

We think mentoring is most useful for people at the early stage - when thay are are just starting to think about setting up in business. But mentoring has also been used successfully in many walks of life, and is an increasingly popular learning method for personal, professional and business development.

Mentoring is popular in the business world, where talking to a mentor can be helpful to entrepreneurs as they prepare their business plans, or it help more established businesses to progress.

If you would like to find out more about this new resource, please contact Harri Harrison at harri.harrison@ace.org.uk

PRIME has teamed up with UK business set-up specialist Clever Gecko to offer our members a FREE Health Check for their businesses.

To get this offer go to the special PRIME landing page.

Business Doctor is predominately aimed at those people who have already started their own business and would just like some advice on how they are doing. The check-up will give you an opportunity to discuss any concerns you may have about your business but also for the Doctor to highlight issues that may not be obvious to you.

If you are still just contemplating starting your own business then Business Doctor can still help by assessing your business idea for viability.

Clever Gecko is one of the UK leaders in business start-up services, dealing with every type of business from a window cleaner to a corporate consultancy. With unrivalled access to their Partners a Clever Gecko client can, on average, save up to 54% on things like stationery, printing, logo design, website design/hosting and insurance. So whatever your business, a call to Clever Gecko is probably one of the best calls you’ll ever make.

They understand that starting your own business can be a very stressful time; full of questions,uncertainties and worries and sometimes you just need a helping hand. Their friendly, plain language, hands-on approach makes them perfect for people starting out in the business world.

Disclosure: We are not taking any commission or affiliate fee on this offer to enable the maximum saving to be passed on to you. PRIME has asked Clever Gecko to offer this service FREE to our clients so that they receive the greatest benefit.

The government is backing a scheme by Google, Enterprise UK and a number of other partners including PRIME to get more British businesses online. The campaign will kick of later this month with the launch of a set of free tools to simplify the building of a straightforward business web site, hosted by Google. 

The scheme is called Getting British Business Online (GBBO). It is a nationwide campaign that will offer small businesses located in the UK the tools and knowledge to do business online from their own free website.

You can pre-register your interest by leaving your email on the GBBO web site.

We’ve not yet seen the automated web site building tool, so we’ve not had a chance to check out how good it is or what the limitations are. But here’s what GBBO promise.

You get:

A free web address: Choose from any available ‘.co.uk’ domain name. If the name you want is already taken, the system will suggest another.

A free web site: You complete a short form online and and the system promises will create a customised, professional looking website, tailored to their business type

Free online marketing: All sites created will be listed for relevant queries in the Google search engine.

 
PRIME has worked with Enterprise UK and the relevant government department BIS before, which is why we are think it is worth keeping an eye on how this scheme develops. The web site is free, so if it’s any good it’s probably worth investigating to see if it’s suitable for your business. There are also likely to be a number of training providers offering courses to help people who need it. Some of these may not be free.

For businesses that already have a web site GBBO is promising another set of tools to help them perfect and market their web site. But is too early to say anything more about them.

GBBO FAQ
 

PRIME has teamed up with UK web site specialist Mr Site to offer a discount of up to 40 per cent on the company’s simple all-in-one web site creation packages.

With the discount a year’s use of the Beginner package will cost you £15 rather than £19.99, a year of the Standard package £22.74 rather than £34.99, and of the Pro package £59.9 rather than £99.99.

These prices include the registration of your own domain name (such as www.example.co.uk or www.example.com), the use of Mr Site online web site creation tools, templates and shopping cart, plus hosting for a year.

To get these prices go to the special PRIME discount link and enter the word “PRIME” into the offer code box. You can upgrade between the levels at any time, so you don’t have to worry too much about making the right choice now. If you want to continue using the Mr Site service after a year prices revert to the normal level - these are shown at the foot of the page. Currently they are £20.28 annually for Beginner, £34.88 for Standard and £95.88 for Pro.

The different levels differ mainly in the number of pages you can display and the amount of space you can use for your text and images. The Pro package has the best ecommerce support and features to help make the site more visible to search engines. But all come with a shopping facility with images and stock control, the ability to take payment from customers via Paypal, and with email box. You can use an existing domain name you have already registered.

We know from polling on the topic and what people tell us at events that setting up a web site has long been seen seen as a high priority by most business starters (see Olderpreneurs all want their own web sites) from 2007. But not everyone is confident about how to go about it. Setting up a web site can seem daunting if you have spent your life doing something other than keeping up with Internet technology.

Mr Site’s all-in-one approach keeps things very simple. To get a web site going you need to register a domain, find a host, design your site and upload all your content. With Mr Site you do all these things from the same place using your normal web browser, and you pay from them all at the same time with a single subscription you know in advance.

The firm is one of the leaders in easy web sites in the UK. We also like Mr Site because its product is well documented, so if you don’t know what you are doing it you can read an explanation which by web standards is relatively free of jargon.

Mr Site is more business-oriented than the blogging tools which are probably its main rivals when it comes to ease of use. Even the Beginner package comes with one shopping page, which can have up to 99 items on it, each with their own image. The standard package allows up to 49 shopping pages, the Pro 98.

The payment system for taking money from your customers is Paypal-based. Paypal is a large international electronic payment service owned by eBay. This means that you have to sign yourself up separately with Paypal for a Paypal account, and pay Paypal transaction charges. But the big plus is that you can get up and running fast and you don’t need to worry about processing credit card payment or getting credit card merchant status.

Customers can pay you straight off your web site (or by email) using a credit or debit card - they don’t themselves need to sign up with PayPal. Paypal can also handle cross-border payments and currency conversion, for an extra fee.

Of course Mr Site isn’t the only way of getting a web site up and running, but we reckon the all-in-one approach makes it very suitable for people new to creating web sites, and its business focus makes it appropriate for PRIME’s audience.

Of other options, there are many. We cover some of them in the site credits description of how this web site is done. For www.primebusinessclub.com we use a lot of Open Source software, which is cheap or free, but quite complicated. Since we have people who already understand these things it is rational to use their labour time, instead of spending money we don’t have.

But for a person starting out on their own without existing Internet skills the learning curve could be high, and the time spent could divert effort from other areas of the business that need it more urgently.

This means that only some of the blogging options are worth considering, especially those aimed at beginners with the hosting included, so there is much less of a technical nature to do. Some of these services are free, usually because they are advertising funded, and they can be good way of getting something up quickly and starting to learn about web publishing.

You can instantly set up a free blog at Blogger.com (owned by Google), and at Wordpress.com, to name two well-established and well supported ones, with huge communities of users. Typepad only has a 14-day free trial, and thereafter is quite expensive, but is also very beginner friendly and tends to appeal to people in the media or arts or who have visually-appealing products.

Social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter may be enough if all you require is an online presence that is mainly about yourself, and they are all free. But all three suffer from a trivial image, and Facebook in particular is still blocked by many traditional businesses that fear their employees will waste time on it. This means that though such sites can be very helpful to your business if it relies on word of mouth and personal contact, you may also need a conventional web site too where you can present your offer in a serious manner.

Another option worth investigating if you plan to start trading from your site and taking payments for goods is BT Tradespace. The basic service is free, and you get a shop and the ability to take payments using Paypal. This service also offers opportunities for networking to find customers and suppliers, and for some businesses may be a good place to start.
 
Disclosure: We are not taking any  commission or affiliate fee on this offer to enable the maximum saving to be passed on to you. PRIME has asked Mr Site to hand all the available discount on to our clients in the form of a lower offer price.

Extract from www.tfl.gov.uk  

JOB seekers can now benefit from half-price bus and tram travel to make it easier to get to interviews, libraries, Job Centres and other amenities.

Eligible Londoners in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance or the new Employment and Support Allowance can now get the same half-price travel concession that those on Income Support currently receive.

The move is part of the Mayor of London’s Economic Recovery Action Plan.

Click here to read the full story

Go to www.london.gov.uk to find out if you are eligible

Anyone over 60 in London should qualify for FREE travel anyway, at least at off-peak times. You can get a “Freedon Pass“. This is available to men as well as women from the age of 60 (even though men don’t qualify for a pension till later). It doesn’t matter whether or not you are working or not - age and residence are the only criteria. How to apply.

Serviced-office giant Regus has launched a series of offers to help cash-strapped small firms beat the recession. Pride of place among them is three-months free space for new startups.

“You have to start somewhere”, says Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of Regus. “I began at the bottom so I know what it takes to get things moving. Despite the gloomy economic outlook there is still opportunity for businesses to flourish.

“Through our Get Started campaign we want to encourage people to fulfil their entrepreneurial dream by making it easy for them to set up a new venture - giving them and the economy a much needed boost.”

You can apply online here by submitting brief details of your business or planned business. Competition is likely to be fierce, so it is a good idea to apply early. Places on the scheme are limited.

Here is what successful applicants get. If you have a clear plan and are ready to get started then Regus will provide free office space for up to three months. If your business plan is not yet finalised Regus will provide day offices for intense planning and meeting rooms so you can can meet with potential partners, suppliers and customers in a professional setting.

The scheme is also backed by British Chambers of Commerce, which will be running a series of mentoring sessions for new entrepreneurs in Regus centres across the country.

“We believe the key to kick-starting the economy is to help our entrepreneurs create new enterprise”, says Mark. “I’d encourage other private sector companies to support the movement and develop similar packages.”

Mark launched Regus 20 years ago after thinking up the idea on a business trip to Brussels. He noticed how many business people were forced to work from hotels for lack of a more professional environment they could simply rent at short notice as and when they needed it. His first business centre along these lines - in Brussels, has since expanded into a global chain of 950 business centers in 70 countries.

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 (opens in new window), which shows a selection.

At the moment the discount is running at around a third off regular prices, made up of 25 per cent off from Kogan Page and 10 per cent off courtesy of PRIME, but we’ll be reviewing the exact deal in August.

UPDATE: It’s now running at 19 per cent, made up of 10 per cent from PRIME and nine per cent from Kogan Page.

Disclosure: Currently PRIME gets a further 10 per cent of the discounted price from any purchase you make. We are hoping this new revenue stream go a little way towards helping to fund the free guides we ourselves produce.

If you are still thinking about whether to start in business or not, the Essential Business Guide has an 80-page workbook to help you think through the issues. You can download it as a PDF for free to read or print out. The company - which writes books and courses for small businesses, also has two worksheets (in Excel format) you can also download.

If you don’t have Excel on your machine you can still make use of the worksheets. If you get yourself a free Googlemail account it comes with other free software, including a spreadsheet program that can read these files.

All the 150-or-so books from WeBooks.co.uk can be read for free online. The publisher makes its money if you buy a normal paper book or a printable PDF version should you tire of tabbing through page-by-page. But it is perfectly practical to read the whole book for free online, or at least dip into the relevant sections.

Here are some of the titles in the business list.

Book-keeping and Accounting for the Small Business
(Peter Taylor) A useful guide to managing accounts & choosing accounts software, as well as information on double entry bookkeeping, double entry accounts and small business tax.

How to Start Your Own Gardening Business
(Paul Power) All about starting a business in the gardening industry, including writing a gardening business plan, financing the business and managing the accounts.

Preparing a Winning Business Plan
(Matthew Record) A full guide to writing a business plan. It explains what a business plan is, why you need one and how it should relate to your business idea, objectives and projected growth.

Raising Finance for Your Business
(Mark Blayney) Covers funding a business, getting a business loan, as well as looking at the lending market and other sources of finance.

Raising Start-Up Finance
(Phil Stone) Covers different ways of building capital, sources of finance including business grants and business loans, as well as how to assess the true cost of borrowing money.

Setting Up a Complementary Health Practice
(Patricia Bishop) Setting up a health business, including information on working from home, the start-up costs involved, marketing your business and achieving a healthy work-life balance.

Setting Up and Running a Limited Company
(Robert Browning) How to start a limited company, from writing a business plan and choosing a company name to dealing with company accounts.

Start and Run Your Own Business
(Alan Le Marinel) Guidance on starting and running a business, tips on preparing and managing accounts, and ways on raising business finance.

Starting a Business in the Country
(Wendy Pascoe) An in-depth look at starting a rural business - including start-up costs, rural advertising, working from home, marketing and research.

Starting a Sandwich - Coffee Bar
(Stephen Miller) How to set up and run your own coffee and sandwich business, from planning and creating your own identity, to hiring staff, sourcing suppliers and the daily running of the shop.

Starting and Running a B and B
(Stewart Whyte, Nigel Jess) Covers starting and running a small bed and breakfast business, including conducting a feasibility study, writing a business plan and financing the business.

Starting and Running a Catering Business
(Carol Godsmark) This guide includes a wide range of information, from writing a business plan, marketing, promotion and retaining customers.

Starting Your Own Business
(Jim Green) From the initial start-up costs, writing a business plan and marketing your business, to the different types of businesses and how to go after government grants.

Starting Your Own Childminding Business
(Allison Lee) Detailed guide to starting a daycare business, including the regulations, start-ups costs and running the business.

The Kitchen Table Entrepreneur
(Paul Power) Covers the initial stages of starting a business, including conducting market research, writing a business plan and self-motivation.

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.

There’s an interesting business story behind the work itself. It’s based on a book Godin wrote about 10 years ago. In paper form it sold about 10,000 copies before going out of print. Godin then got the rights back and adapted it into a downloadable e-book that Amazon sold for $3 a pop for another 18 months. Godin then decided there was one more thing he could do to extract value from it - turn it into the current 103-page PDF and put it out completely free.

Within a week of this free version becoming available Godin estimates that more people had downloaded and read it than both previous versions combined. This of course brought him no new revenue - but it did powerfully promote his more recent in-print books that do. So at very little cost to himself he has got large numbers of people sampling his product.

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.

Gordon Jones’s excellent Shoestring booklets are practical and brief, and pack a lot of good advice into 24 pages each. Written from a UK perspective, they concentrate on affordable actions small businesses can take.

PRIME Business Club users get all three booklets for £15.50 including post and packing, which is £2 off the usual price.