ACPR Blog

Get inspired when you hear Antonia share her tips for promoting your business or talk about how becoming a mumpreneur changed her life, and can change yours too.

March 2010

24th March Practical PR For South East Womens Business Service in association with the Athena Network and 1066 Enterprise

April 2010

21st April Antonia is speaking to the West London Businessmums’ Networking Lunch Times and ticket to be announced shortly

26th April Antonia is visiting Networking Mummies Dorset to run two Masterclasses and answer questions over lunch

May 2010

16th May Get great Mumpreneur Tips, Harrow when Antonia Chitty speaks to Excelsya.

28th May Q and A with Mums the Boss Leicestershire

June 2010

27^thJune Brighton Baby Expo Brighton Racecourse & Conference Centre 10am-4.30pm

September 2010

18th September The Mumpreneur Conference

October 2010

5th October The Business Mums Conference Brighton

I’ve just had a very confusing press release all about how confusing business energy tariffs are. Apparently there is new guidance to make it easier for small businesses, but because different energy suppliers have interpreted the rules in different ways, that’s not helped either. If you have business premises and want to see if you can get a better deal for your power supply, there’s a free guide to download from Make It Cheaper.com. They can also advise you on switching to a better deal.

Seventy-five percent of all businesses survive in the first year, but half of those fail during the next six years. The non profit organisation Small Business Administration lists from their research 7 key success factors:

1. Start for the right reasons
2. Good Management
3. Sufficient Capital
4. Location, Location, Location
5. Sufficient Planning
6. Sustainable growth and expansion
7. Have web presence

Their research shows you need to be successful in many areas to be a successful entrepreneur. However, there is one common area of failure, Insolvency Helpline UK states on their website: “50% of all failures are caused by cash flow problems”.

When starting a business many competing priorities need to be dealt with and Brad Rosser previously right hand man from Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson suggest in his presentations:

• Pay a little bit more if it means you can spread-out payments
• Spend the cash on items that bring in cash and not the back-office (more…)

New research released today reveals that, with banks becoming more reluctant to lend to small firms during 2009, a growing number of cash-strapped small business owners turned to friends, family and personal credit cards to fund their businesses during the recession.

The study, conducted by commercial credit referencing agency Graydon UK and business support organisation the Forum of Private Business (FPB), questioned over 750 UK businesses on their individual experiences of financial and credit management during the last six months of 2009, as well as their expectations for 2010. 

The results reveal that inhospitable bank lending conditions prompted 28 per cent of business owners to turn to friends, relatives and company directors to secure funding for their business, with a further eight per cent of businesses seeking financial support through directors’ personal credit cards. According to the study, 40 per cent of those looking for credit during the second half of 2009 were unsuccessful in accessing finance, with 52 per cent refused business loans and 38 per cent refused extensions on their overdraft facility.  (more…)

If you run a small business you are likely to have struggled with late payments from certain clients. And it looks like this problem is not restricted to the private sector. A new survey shows that  Government and its agencies are still paying small businesses late despite making commitments over a year ago to pay within 10 days, according to the FSB-ICM ‘Voice of Small Business’ Annual Survey.

The report found that local Government is likely to pay one in four invoices late, and central Government and Government agencies make one in three payments late. This is despite putting a Prompt Payment Code in place and central Government promising to pay within 10 days at the start of the recession in 2008. 

But what can you do about it? Check out the Better Payment  website which has some excellent templates for letters to chase up late payments and lots of advice to help you use legislation to get your money on time. (more…)

Just a quick reminder: VAT rates go back to 17.5% today. If you’re confused, here’s a short explanation about VAT from John Crawford, Managing Director of www.thevatconsultancy.com:

 VAT is a tax that’s charged on most goods and services that the majority of businesses provide in the UK. In broad terms, VAT is charged when businesses sell goods and services between each other, and also when they sell these to consumers. During 2009, the standard rate of VAT was 15%, and so 15% of the cost of most items you bought went back to the Government as tax.   

If the rate was originally 17.5%, why did it go down, and why is it now going back up?

The rate went down at the end of 2008 to 15% to help stimulate the economy and encourage consumers to continue to make purchases. It was the lowest possible rate allowed by EU law but promised to only be a temporary measure to help consumers through a difficult period. Alastair Darling announced earlier in December that the rate will return to 17.5% to bring back more money into the Government to pay for the services which we use. 

When is this rise going to take place?

The VAT rate will change from midnight on 1st January 2010 to 17.5%, and therefore many items and services that you buy will, in theory, become 2.5% more expensive overnight.

Why won’t items like train tickets get more expensive?

There are certain items, regarded as ‘essential supplies’ by law for which VAT is not charged, such as food (but not meals in restaurants or takeaways), newspapers and stamps as well as train, bus and air travel.

I’ve got a bill that says the VAT rate is 5%. Is this going to go up by 2.5% as well?

Certain goods, such as domestic fuel and power, energy saving materials, sanitary hygiene products, and children’s car seats, have been classified by the Government as ‘reduced-rate’ items. The reduced-rate will stay at 5% in January 2010. 

Is the VAT rate likely to change again?

The VAT rate is set by central Government, and the only other recent time it has been changed was in 1991. The VAT Consultancy predicts that we will see another rise by the end of 2010, probably to 20% but there has been no mention of this from Government as yet.

More than half of businesses have resisted the worst of the recession by innovating, creating new products and services, according to a new survey by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and ICM.

The FSB-ICM ‘Voice of Small Business’ Annual Survey 2009 reveals that 53 per cent of businesses introduced new or improved products and services last year, and 51 per cent intend to continue innovating next year, showing that small businesses are keen to grow and develop, despite the tough times.

The FSB argues that small businesses are the solution to getting the UK out of recession in its election manifesto, Small Business, Big Vote: The Route to Recovery – FSB 2010 Election Manifesto, in which it shows that small businesses are innovators and job-creators, with more than 80 per cent of new jobs created by small businesses in the five years to 2007.

The ‘Voice of Small Business’ survey indicates that there is more good news from the small business sector: 27 per cent of the 10,000 respondents said their profitability increased over the last year and 30 per cent said their sales volume had increased over the last financial year.

This research, the most extensive survey of the small business sector since the start of the recession, reveals that despite the difficulties they have faced over the past year, small firms are already leading the way out of recession and back into growth. (more…)

A Birmingham teenager has gone from selling sweets in the school playground to building a company worth £1 million in less than five years. Swimming against the tide of stories about young people out of work – and in trouble – 18-year-old Matt Lovett established internet marketing company WOW Media in 2007. The group now operates more than 20 websites, employs six people and has a monthly turnover in excess of £25,000.

Matt may be just 18 but he’s an old hand when it comes to business, having set up his first – a school sweet shop – aged 12. A regular user of online cashback sites, Matt believed he could create a better service so, using savings and sweet shop profits, started British Rewards from his bedroom while revising for his GSCEs.

Whilst he left school with only 3 GCSEs, the site is still running today, with over 200,000 registered members.

It was the beginning of Matt’s collection of cashback websites, offering online shoppers promotional discounts, vouchers and cashback on goods and services by household names and high street favourites, from Argos and Asda to Dell and Dixons. The sites typically offer up to 70% discount on standard listed prices, with retailers paying to advertise their wares, generating sales and gaining new customers. (more…)

A new review of the state of online business reveals the startling statistic that nine out of every 10 fail. Fortunately, there are ways of ensuring that your operation is the one in 10.

Every week 8.6 million people shop online in the UK. It is a multi-billion pound industry that has grown 5000% in a decade and at its height last Christmas accounted for £1m in spending per hour.

So the potential market for a web business is massive but that doesn’t mean making money online is simple and straight forward. In fact, it is a battlefield on the cyber high street and if you don’t know the pitfalls chances are you are going to fall into one.

For example, did you know that according to Google research 90% of its users never go past page one of results. So even being on page two means you miss out on nine out of 10 people.

To help its ecommerce clients to achieve success, UKFast has drawn upon its ten years of expertise to create a definitive guide to avoiding failing online.

The four key points are:

1. Keep pace with technology

2. Know what the search engines want

3. Focus on the customer experience

4. Be flexible

“The internet has made the world a local high street. However, there are so many shops crammed in that it can be difficult to stand out,” reveals UKFast MD Lawrence Jones.

“You need to know exactly what you are doing or you will come unstuck. The world is full of dot com failures,” Jones adds.

To get the full report “Four critical reasons why businesses fail online” visit the UKFast website at: www.ukfast.co.uk

Business Link is helping businesses to understand how the postal strike could impact on them, and is offering practical advice on contingency planning. The Business Link website has just launched a dedicated webpage with ideas on what businesses can do to mitigate any disruptions to their operations.

Businesses are encouraged to check this webpage at www.businesslink.gov.uk/postalstrike for practical tips and links to other sources of useful information. If you do need to use the Royal Mail during the strike, Business Link suggests that you consider:

• contacting your customers to let them know that their goods may be delayed
• taking outgoing mail to a Post Office as it is more likely to be collected there than from a post box
• sending post by Special Delivery or by courier – but check with Post Office staff that these services are running
• using alternative businesses to deliver items to customers
• paying bills online or at banks, building societies and Post Offices as late payment may result in interest charges or penalties.