ACPR Blog

For anyone thinking of becoming a freelancer, my advice is to plan, plan, and plan some more. This applies double for mums and dads. If you have children you may have more financial pressures and more need to make a success of freelancing. You are also likely to have less time to work in, and no time to go back and make up for mistakes that you made when starting in business.

To make sure your freelance business is set up correctly, go on a start up course at your local enterprise agency. You will find out about whether you are best starting off as a sole trader or a limited company. You may get the chance to speak one-to-one to a business adviser about your plans: make sure you ask for an appointment if not. And chat to the Inland Revenue, who have a team of friendly and helpful advisers for people embarking on self employment. You’ll make a better start armed with all these facts.

As a parent, the other thing you need to plan is childcare. Some parents manage to work without it, but you will find yourself working evenings and weekends to make the most of time when your partner is available for childcare. This can lead to a fairly joyless relationship. Try to set up some regular childcare: if you want to avoid costly care while starting up do a regular playdate swap with a friend or get grannie to commit to a time to help out each week.  At the very least this gives you a chance to make vital calls without little voices in the background. As your career takes off you may want to find a childminder or nursery, or just take things slowly until you get a whole six hours a day when your child starts school.

Working freelance as a parent is an amazing experience: you will find that you can cram more in than you ever did as an employee and still be there when your child needs you.

Antonia Chitty is author of Family Friendly Working(www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk), A guide to Promoting Your Business (www.prbasics.co.uk) and a number of other parenting and health books. She has a book on earning a living from writing, The Commercial Writing Guide coming out in July 2009. You can find out more about her own freelance writing career at www.antoniachitty.co.uk and her PR business at www.acpr.co.uk

For anyone thinking of becoming a freelancer, my advice is to plan, plan, and plan some more. This applies double for mums and dads. If you have children you may have more financial pressures and more need to make a success of freelancing. You are also likely to have less time to work in, and no time to go back and make up for mistakes that you made when starting in business.

To make sure your freelance business is set up correctly, go on a start up course at your local enterprise agency. You will find out about whether you are best starting off as a sole trader or a limited company. You may get the chance to speak one-to-one to a business adviser about your plans: make sure you ask for an appointment if not. And chat to the Inland Revenue, who have a team of friendly and helpful advisers for people embarking on self employment. You’ll make a better start armed with all these facts.

As a parent, the other thing you need to plan is childcare. Some parents manage to work without it, but you will find yourself working evenings and weekends to make the most of time when your partner is available for childcare. This can lead to a fairly joyless relationship. Try to set up some regular childcare: if you want to avoid costly care while starting up do a regular playdate swap with a friend or get grannie to commit to a time to help out each week.  At the very least this gives you a chance to make vital calls without little voices in the background. As your career takes off you may want to find a childminder or nursery, or just take things slowly until you get a whole six hours a day when your child starts school.

Working freelance as a parent is an amazing experience: you will find that you can cram more in than you ever did as an employee and still be there when your child needs you.

Antonia Chitty is author of Family Friendly Working(www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk), A guide to Promoting Your Business (www.prbasics.co.uk) and a number of other parenting and health books. She has a book on earning a living from writing, The Commercial Writing Guide coming out in July 2009. You can find out more about her own freelance writing career at www.antoniachitty.co.uk and her PR business at www.acpr.co.uk

SMALL BUSINESS OFFERED A FINANCIAL BOOST: Win a £10,000 start-up grant from BT Business

To celebrate Small Business Week 2008, BT Business is looking to help one budding entrepreneur take their business to the next level with a GBP10,000 business grant.

A panel of judges, including the managing director of BT Business, Bill Murphy, will select a winner who in their view not only has a brilliant, innovative and unique business idea, but who also demonstrates the pioneering qualities needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Bill Murphy said: “The entrepreneurial spirit is so important for the UK economy and we at BT Business feel it’s vital to support the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing opportunities like this”.

“Initiatives such as Small Business Week show us that there is so much entrepreneurial talent out there – that we want to help one of our future success stories get off to a great start.”

An entrepreneur with an idea for a new venture or established businesses that needs an extra cash boost to launch a new product or service or expand into a new market could really benefit from this substantial business grant.

To be in with a chance of winning, entrepreneurs need to submit a written explanation of the plans for their business, and explain how they would spend the money. A shortlist of five will be chosen and the finalists will be invited to London later in the year to meet the judging panel and make their case for being awarded the cash prize. The winning business will also be eligible for a complete free audit of their information technology and communications systems by BT experts.

The deadline for entries is 6pm on December 31, 2008. Full details of the business grant competition are available at: www.bt.com/businessgrant

Small Business Week brings together small businesses with BT Business, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), everywoman, Business Link, NatWest and Growing Business. It tackles issues such as the economic climate, home and flexible working, responsible business practices, mentoring, innovation, and winning and retaining business.

A range of initiatives have been launched during Small Business Week to help small businesses survive in today’s climate and plan for the future. These include a region-by-region mentoring directory, detailing programmes available across the UK and guidance on how to access them, and a series of webinars, events, clinics and guides. Full details of the week are available at: www.sbw08.co.uk

Lilach Bullock is a renowned virtual PA who helps to support business people from her own office. And the successful entrepreneur is offering telephone seminars on how to set up similar ventures. She said: “These are a great way for people to find out about setting up their own VA (virtual assistant] company - which has to be attractive in the current economic climate.

“People simply dial in from the comfort of their own home and participate in the session.”

The next phone seminar hosted by Lilach, a finalist in the National Virtual Assistant of the Year Awards 2007 and Mumpreneur of the Year Award 2008, is on Friday, November 14 at 8pm. Lilach also runs one-day workshops on setting up a virtual assistant business. For more information and to book a place on a free phone seminar call Lilach on 01442 231663 or email info@asklilach.co.uk

From Hemel Today

A recent survey reveals that more people are starting a business to strengthen their financial security despite the current economic climate. Why? The leading reason was fear of redundancy, with flexible working and not having to answer to your boss following close behind.

Recent figures released by Companies House and the British Banking Association show further signs of business confidence. Over 27,000 new Limited Companies were incorporated in England and Wales in July 2008.

The research was carried out by business consultants www.getsetforbusiness.com who surveyed Over 200 businesses established for less than six months on their motivations for becoming self employed.

When starting a home business, you know there are loads of benefits. You’re in control of your time, save hours on your daily commute and have a comfortable place to work. Now, new research from home business website Enterprise Nation shows that you can gain in the region of £30,000 by starting a business from home. A home office will add to the value of your home PLUS you will save on  ever increasing fuel costs and motoring expenses. (more…)

From the author of Family Friendly Working, inspiring ideas for making money when you have kids

Are you trying to make a tough decision about returning to work after having a baby? Has having a second child made the cost of childcare outweigh what you earn? Or are you struggling hard to combine being there for your schoolchildren with your job? If you are looking for a solution, visit www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk and sign up for the new free e-course. It is packed with ideas to help you create your own family friendly business and find out your rights to flexible work. What is more, it comes straight to your desk top for you to fit in when you have a moment: no need to arrange childcare. (more…)

Everyone has heard of coaching, but is this just a new trend that will go the way of things like Feng Shui or something that could make a big difference to your life?

From personal experience, I’d say the latter, It took just one session with Suzy Greaves of The Big Leap back in 2003 for me to see that there was a better way to earn a living. I quit my job, fed up with attempting to do five days work in four, yet never getting enough time with my daughter. I then launched ACPR, and have enjoyed the ups, and the downs, of self employment ever since.

But what about the cost? (more…)

If you want to get coverage for your business, wouldn’t you love a double page spread in a womens magazine? One of the ways to do this is to sell your story.

 Your story usually needs to be out of the ordinary - read the magazines to see what they cover - but sometimes simply overcoming struggles to set up your own business may be enough. Magazines will be interested in ‘Triumph over Tragedy’, so if you have come through illness, divorce or loss of a loved one, your story may appeal.

You can simply buy the magazines and look for contacts inside: some womens weeklies may even have a form for you to fill in. Alternatively, you can send your story off to an agency, where journalists with contacts will try to place it for you. Have a look at

• www.cash4yourreallifestory.com (women’s magazines)
• www.cash4yourstory.co.uk (newspapers)
• www.frontpageagency.co.uk
• www.photo-features.co.uk
• www.whereonearthgroup.com/kiss-tell
• www.talktothepress.com
• www.eanews.co.uk/stories.asp

If you make crafts, there are a number of ways to sell them online, even if you don’t have the knowledge to design your own website or a big budget to get someone to do it for you. There are several websites that offer you the chance to have your own virtual shop in a virtual mall. Look at sites like Mumzmall and WAHMall. There are also sites like Etsy or Tuggle or Dawanda where, although sellers have their own page, there is less of the feel of an individual shop. If you’re an artist, I’ve just found Mini Gallery World.

When joining any of these sites, you get the benefit of the fact that they already get visitors, whereas if you start your own website you have to do the work to get people to visit your site. So, when choosing, ask the site owner for visitor statistics, and if you can, ask other sellers on the site how their sales are doing. The sites listed may ask you to pay listing fees, sales commission and/or monthly fees or annual fees. Your fees will go towards the upkeep and promotion of the site. Find out what they are doing to keep the site profile high and attract in new visitors. Also, find out how easy it is to direct people to your items or page or shop as you should do your own promotion and marketing too.

If you want more ideas to help you promote your crafts, download the free PR mini guide, Selling Your Cards and Crafts which I have written. If you want more in depth help, look at A Guide to Promoting Your Business.