PRIME business club

STOP PRESS: APPLICATIONS HAVE NOW CLOSED.
PRIME has obtained corporate sponsorship for four new training and mentoring posts in the North and South of England.

The training posts are full time, while the mentoring co-ordinator positions are part time (17.5 hours a week).  All the jobs will involve travel, but can be based anywhere feasible in the North or South of England.

Training Officers

To develop, organise and deliver a range of training products, such as workshops for PRIME clients and course materials. You will also help market them to potential beneficiaries and sponsors. Successful applicants are likely to have considerable experience of delivering business information and training.

There are two full-time positions, one for the North and the other the South of of England. The jobs will be home-based (for which an allowance is payable), or it may be possible to arrange a desk in a local PRIME partner organisation. Frequent travel will be required.

Job description and person spec for Training Officer

Application form for Training Officer

Closing date

Friday 5th December 2008.
Interviews: To be held on Monday the 15th of December.

Mentoring Co-ordinators

To develop a volunteer mentoring service, which we hope to extend eventually to all PRIME clients.

We are looking for two people, part-time, one based in the North and one based in the South. The job will involve recruiting, training and co-ordinating volunteer mentors for PRIME clients, initially in their early pre-enterprise phase. The successful applicants will ideally have some experience in mentoring in the context of disadvantage and self-employment.

Job description and person spec for Mentor Co-ordinator

Application form for Mentor Co-ordinator

Closing date

Friday 5th December 2008.
Interviews: To be held on Wednesday 17th December 2008.

Application requests can be sent to prime@ace.org.uk or call 020 8765 7833. Or you can download the application form and background documents from the links above.

Please note that only applications on our application forms will be accepted.

Barclays Bank is running another programme of free business seminars around the UK, in conjunction with the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies. The previous series proved very popular. The NFEA is the umbrella group for UK enterprise agencies - organisations that offer free or low-cost business support. PRIME is a member of the NFEA, and is happy to endorse the programme.

There are two types of seminar, half-day workshops aimed at complete beginners and full day workshops for those closer to starting.

The half-day events are called Let’s Talk Business Ideas and are for people still considering whether self-employment is for them.

The full-day event, Let’s Talk Starting in Business, covers finance, marketing, time management, negotiating skills, networking and writing a business plan. 

Details of venues and times are in the spreadsheets on the above links.
If you have problems accessing these links, please contact Rebecca Buckingham or call 01234 831623.

Computer giant Dell has introduced its Small Business Excellence Award to the UK, in conjunction with the Daily Express and British Chambers of Commerce.

The awards are aimed at companies employing less than 100 people that can show they have used technology to deliver “superior customer value and experience” and improved customer relationships.

Prizes include £15,000 in Dell products and services for the top UK winner, and nine other UK Finalists will get a Dell laptop and membership of their local Chamber of Commerce.

Closing date for entries is 31 May 2008. You can apply online on the Dell site. There is more background about the contest at the British Chambers of Commerce web site.

These awards have been running for five years in the US. This is their first year in the UK. The top UK winner will also get a crack at the global £25,000 prize.

Barclays is now accepting entries to its fourth annual Trading Places business awards.
You can enter if you have been trading for between three months and three years, live in the UK and have an annual turnover of under £1 million. The closing date is the 30th of May 2008

This award differs from most in that it’s about overcoming adversity. So if you have got your business going after a struggle it might be worth entering. Here are the stories of last year’s finalists.

The winner and runner up receive £10,000 and £5,000 respectively from Barclays Bank, and a selection of Microsoft business software. For more information about entering ring the awards office on 0800 085 3203 or visit www.barclays.co.uk/tradingplaces.

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, and where you should put your main effort.

But we’ve added some new links if you decide nonetheless to spend a little time hunting for them.

Introduction to business grants

Grants to ordinary businesses are not the rule 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.

Grantnet is one of three similar services for finding UK grants online. They provide a basic service free, and often have contracts with local authorities or regional development agencies to provide an enhanced service in a particular area.

www.grantnet.com

www.grantsnet.co.uk - a rival service despite similar name

www.j4b.co.uk

For example, many Yorkshire councils offer a full Grantnet service. To find it, you just put the word “grantnet” and the area you are searching for, in this case “yorkshire”, into a search engine like Google. Click to see what this looks like.

This approach also works for Northern Ireland, the Black Country or anywhere else you want to search for.

Here’s a Wolverhampton example found this way.

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.

The reality is that outside the arts, education and agriculture sectors grants to businesses in the UK are rare by international standards. Business here does not have a grants culture, but something a lot closer to a genuine enterprise one focused on customers.

In this culture grants have to be politically defensible. If a government body gives public money to one business, other businesses it competes will feel justified in complaining. So in the UK grants are not available across the board but only for purposes a minister, councillor or civil servant can defend.

So for example Nesta uses lottery money to encourage innovative and creative businesses. However, its grants are awarded on a competitive basis, and where large amounts are involved it usualy wants an equity stake - in other words partial ownership of the business.

In the UK the key source of revenue for businesses is overwhelmingly customers, during the start-up period as well as later. This after all is what distinguishes a business from a charity or public sector body.Businesses requiring more money to get going than early customers, friends, familly and the entrepreneurs’ own resources can provide have two other options.

They can seek a business loan from a bank or quasi-bank institution, or find an invester willing to put money into the business, usually in return for an equity stake.

Chasing for unlikely grants can be a distraction from putting together a strong offering that will prompt customers to voluntarily hand over money to you in return for your product or service.

Note also that your early customers will bring not just money when you most need it, but quite possibly also valuable information you can use to help guide your business. This feedback from real paying customers is something officials at a government agency or grant-giving charitable trust will be hard-pressed to match.

The printed paper version of PRIME’s brief guide to Working Tax Credit for the 2007 to 2008 financial year is now available.

You can still download the guide from here as a PDF, but if you would prefer a paper copy just email us your details and we’ll post you a free copy.

We are also distributing the 20-page booklet free to libraries, enterprise agencies and advice shops - so if you are one of those just email us your requirement.

Working Tax Credit is a kind of reverse income tax that you should get if your household income falls below a certain level. PRIME’s guide is written especially for self-employed people over the age of 50. It explains the scheme in only 20 pages and contains worked examples showing how much self-employed people in different circumstances would get.

More

Barclays Bank is running a programme of 19 free half-day business seminars around Britain, starting in late April 2007.

There are two types of seminar - about marketing and about improving profitability, both aimed at small businesses. More details on the relevant web pages on links above.

To book a place telephone Barclays on 0800 515 462 or 0845 601 0106.

Dates and locations

1. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Pontypridd, 24th April 2007
2. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Canary Wharf, London, 1st May
3. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Milton Keynes, 2nd May
4. Lets Talk More Profit, Heathrow, 10th May
5. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Taunton, 11th May
6. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Truro, 16th May
7. ets Talk More Profit, Birmingham, 22nd May
8. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Penrith, 23rd May
9. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Oldham, Manchester, 24th May
10. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Edinburgh, 5th June
11. Lets Talk More Profit, Newcastle, 6th June
12. Lets Talk More Profit, Leeds, 7th June
13. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Colchester, 13th June
14. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Southampton, 20th June
15. Lets Talk Bright Marketing, Worcester, 26th June
16. Lets Talk More Profit, Romford, 3rd July
17. Lets Talk More Profit, Canary Wharf, London, 4th July
18. Lets Talk More Profit, Newmarket, 5th July
19. Lets Talk More Profit, Worthing, 11th July

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 »

1. Business Link
Business Link is a government-funded chain of advice shops located throughout England. Different arrangements apply in other parts of the UK.These government-backed agencies will generally also know about any public-sector grants for business, although these are much less common than many people believe - and often have strings attached.You can find your local Business Link from the link above. The web site also has a good section about the different options for financing a start-up business. For local sources of start-up finance, including CDFIs operating in your area, Business Links are also worth contacting.

2. Business Eye
The equivalent of Business Link in Wales. You can find your nearest office from the map on the link above.

3. Business Gateway
Government-funded business advice network for Scotland. The link above explains the sorts of finance, loans - and sometimes even grants, available in Scotland. The banking laws are different in Scotland, so many schemes operating in England aren’t available north of the border. For more on Scottish business support see here

4. Northern Ireland
A free Start a Business Service is available right across Northern Ireland. It includes help with finding finance.

Age Positive has published a league table of 149 towns, cities and counties in England ranked by how well they are doing at providing jobs for older people. Slough is best, with 73.9 per cent of 50 to 69 year olds in employment, and Hartlepool the worst with only 31.8 per cent. The bottom 10 are:

Tower Hamlets : 42.9

South Tyneside : 42.9

Isle of Wight : 42.9

Redcar and Cleveland : 42.3

Sunderland : 41.5

Salford : 40.5

Hackney : 37.9

Knowsley : 37.0

Liverpool : 36.6

Hartlepool : 31.8

In a major overhaul of the UK welfare system Incapacity Benefit (IB) is due to be replaced by 2008 and an extra one million people over 50 eventually got back into employment. That’s the government plan anyway - but will it work?

At the moment 2.7 million people claim IB - about half over the age of 50. “After two years on the benefit, someone is more likely to die or retire than to ever find a new job. That is just not good enough,” welfare secretary John Hutton said recently.

Frustration with the low prospects of ever finding a job with a regular employer is a major factor driving many workless people to set up their own businesses. There is some state help to ease the transition in some regions under existing schemes. But it’s not yet clear whether the new plans will do much to improve the route off welfare into self-employment.