Catching up with finances.

So, the course date is 2 months away and I have done a quick recce of my finances; it would appear that I have just under £50 to 'blow' on stimulating a few more enquiries.

I should say at this point that having spoken to several other people I have probably been unduly harsh on myself in some of my budgeting - for example I have costed mileage in at .40 p per mile (reviewed to .35 as the true cost of running my specific car) - most people I spoke to have taken the cost of just fuel or, often, nothing at all. Similarly I have put a cost on my mentoring time which, arguably in opportunity terms is not valid.

Any way I am sticking with my decisions and will decide how best to use my remaining budget - network events, promotion or straight-forward advertising? You don't get much advertising for £50, but I am very tempted to give it a try in view of the tight geographical area I'm looking at and the 'fuzzy' nature of my target market.

This will leave me penniless for the purpose of the challenge, but there are no overheads likely to occur, so I think an 'all or nothing' mission is called for!

Will keep you informed of advertising and results.

To bill or not to bill?

Sort of a long range question here.

I am delighted to have been invited back to my old seat of learning in Oxford (OK, the University formerly known as Oxford Poly). Obviously with long student holidays nothing will happen now until well into September, so it shouldn't impact my £100 budget (I'm rather hoping to have cracked it by then!) and I am quite happy to deliver the presentation for free, particularly as it is basically an advertisement for the course. The big question, should I go for traveling expenses, or should I put this down to marketing with an element of social pay-back?

There's plenty of time to decide..

The logo - another favour.

A bit of a delicate one here - I could end up shooting myself in the foot, but it does highlight the pitfalls of calling in favours.

So, lets say, I have a friend who wanted a logo for his business. He approached an old friend who he knew to be something of a whizz at graphic design. (It was a bit of a cheek as they had not really been in communication for several years). The friend kindly said yes, however that was several months ago and there is still no sign of the logo. I am - sorry - my friend is - convinced that the finished product will be superb and well worth the wait (and will represent a significant saving in professional costs), however he would really like to put something on his website and stationery now!

Of course, the simple fact is that if you are going to abuse people's time & skills you have to accept your place down the pecking order - usual business rules don't apply! He'll just have to wait. I expect something might appear on this site soon!

More Social Media

I went to an interesting presentation last night arranged by #surreydigital <see, that's a hash tag!

I had expected to learn lots of secrets on how to use Twitter effectively and to be disillusioned of my view that its just thousands of people all shouting louder than each other. In reality what we got was an amusing but relatively uninformative talk from a BBC chap called Jon Jacobs @thoroughlygood <don't know what that's called, but they use it on Twitter.

 The best word I can use to describe the overall message was 'reassuring'. There were no dramatic insights, but there was a realisation that far too many people just shout, and some wise words to 'be yourself, admit failures and be spontaneous', which, if I'd bothered to formulate my thouhts before, might well have been what they were.

Any way, I am reasonably sure that Twitter has a place in this particular business, so have allocated a set period of time each day. Starting Monday,of course.

By the way, apparently there's something called Tweetdeck, which helps you to filter content. And I still won't follow any celebrities.

PS> Call me a killjoy, but I have absolutely no intention of starting random words with a tw..  - that would be twidiculous. (well, just the once..)

An interesting decision.

Having chosen to distance myself from Strode's College, they have become interested in us working together (treat 'em mean to keep 'em keen, we would have said in my more boisterous days!).

The Director of Continuing Education has now suggested that we get the course accredited for EdExel WorkSkills, which will allow them to obtain funding for jobseekers.

On the plus side, any accreditation will add value to a start-up business and it will cost me nothing (no cash - it will cost me time!).

On the downside, what they are after bears no resemblance to my course but is all about a strange version of skills requirements - a quote from the guidance book 'they can watch videos of 'Dragon's Den' to identify skills used by successful entrepreneurs'. Really? What planet are they on?

Overall, I think it must be worth doing - cue the inevitable paper avalanche...

Deal tracking - its about finding positive outcomes!

Firstly, what on earth is 'deal tracking'? Deal tracking is the process of taking a deal back through all of its stages to ascertain which people/events were influential in the outcome. In fact, it can be applied to all life events (so should, perhaps be life tracking, but we are here to talk about business).

Many people instinctively do one or 2 stages of deal tracking (eg: I got that deal because Mr X referred me; and I know Mr X through the golf club), however for various reasons (time, fear of losing credit or just disinterest) we seldom go further. It is the going further that reveals the most interesting results.

If I track my path to this business the latter events would be:

• I started mentoring as a logical extension to teaching. (pat on the back the those who made the suggestion).
• I went teaching alone because I felt the college weren't marketing it very well (pat on the back to me).
• I  applied to Strodes because my sister urged (nay nagged!) me to do so. (Pat on the back to my sister).
• My sister suggested it because I had come back from the States & was looking for a different direction (no pats).
• I was in the States to renew a relationship with the proverbial 'old flame'. (And I would have sworn that no good came out of that - so a grudging pat on the back to Her).
• It was easy for me to decamp to the States because my house was rented out and I was temporarily living in my friends' pub (pat on the back to my friends).

This could go on for a long time, but will delve into my personal life - as will many of your transactions - so needs to be a private thing.

There will also be many tangents - for example people on my course at Strode's picked up details in Tesco's, so you can pursue both - 'why were you in Tesco's?' and/or 'why were you interested in a business course?'

Isn't this a waste of time? Personally I think some selective tracking will be the best time you will ever spend - contacts and events you had written off as 'a waste of time' will re-emerge as influential in positive events - this is a message I would love to convey to anyone who makes blanket comments such as 'networking is a waste of time' or 'advertising doesn't work'. Do a bit of tracking and I guarantee you will be surprised by the positive outcomes.

Back to money. The root of all evil!

Everyone comes at business from a different angle; some people are lucky enough to get a rolling start whilst still on salary, others have a need to earn from day one. Similarly, different business models will generate income at different rates - mine has no realistic chance of creating proper income before September, when courses start.

Avid readers might have picked up that I have involvement in another business, though I haven't been particularly active in this for the last couple of years.

In order to replicate some of the tougher situations, I have created a strict rule that any work I do (for my other business or for anyone else) I will pay myself no more than £60 a day, which seems to be a benchmark 'stacking shelves in Tescos' figure. So that is what I was doing yesterday (earning, not stacking shelves..)

Incidentally, I did a rough business plan over the weekend - a full 6 pages! It has helped me to refocus my efforts.

Being busy & earning money!

No blog yesterday because I was out all day (and much of today) doing what I'm supposed to do; teaching and networking.

Had my first mentoring job in the morning, which was quite surprising as I had always assumed that mentoring would follow teaching by some distance - still, we know what they say about assumption, don't we?

Without disclosing actual figures, I had to make decisions for the sake of the £100 experiment how I would treat time & mileage. I have decided to cost in face-to-face time at the hourly rate paid by Strodes College (which is by definition market rate) and mileage at 40p per mile. In the short term traveling time will not be counted.

On this basis, and accounting for an installment for PI cover (which I postponed til the last minute), my budget has now recovered to about £52 - burning a hole in my pocket...

The evening networking was organised by a Quango called Enterprise First, who do roughly what I do, but at no cost. Nothing is ever that simple, and if I can teach you just one thing it will be to embrace your competition, don't distance them - you will be surprised how many opportunities there are to work together.

Social media - how to use it

Further to my previous post regarding my IT prowess, I have decided to upgrade my computer skills from 'poor' to 'average'. This isn't due to any flash of inspiration, or a crash course in IT, simply the realisation that lots of the people who claim to be good on computers are referring to the ability to handle Word, Exel and perhaps a bit of Powerpoint - all things in which I consider myself reasonably proficient. Also I'm feeling a bit smug having taught myself a few HTML commands and made several successful changes to my website!

The new area where my skills and knowledge are averagely low are in the arena of social / new media, which I do feel will be a useful tool to reach my intended market - ie people considering or embarking on start-up business. The name is out there on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook, but as yet I haven't really worked out how to use these as an effective marketing medium. The temptation - particularly on Twitter is simply to round up as many followers as possible and shout loudly - though I am reliably informed that is not the way (unsurprisingly!). There are lots of training courses out there but - even if my budget permitted - could I really spend time and money learning how to 'Tweet'?

The business plan.. Confession time

OK, time for a little confession - I dish out some good advice (if I say so myself!) but I don't always follow it.

On this occasion I m specifically referring to my business plan, or lack of one. I do have excuses - firstly that things to date have been rather self-propelling and have created their own momentum; secondly I have actually looked for flaws and problems just to help me to gain more direct experience and to answer 'what if' questions. Anyhow, the result is that I have rather lost my way on marketing and that my mud-flinging has become a bit ineffective (A bit of mud-flinging is OK, but you should at least know which wall you are flinging it at!).

Excuses aside, I still maintain that a business plan is essential, It needn't be a literary masterpiece - 'fag packet' is fine as long as it covers the bases and is realistic in its assumptions.

So, that's the weekends task - create a business plan and stop being a hypocrite!

Presentation to a job club.

This morning I presented the £100 business to a local job club, followed by a Q & A on business start-up matters.

They were diverse in background, but were wonderfully engaged and interesting. It's easy to get carried away, but it would be marvelous to think that one or more of them will take the self employment route and go on to build a successful business - and why wouldn't they?

Mind you, it did take £2.20 out of my budget for parking....

Business and TV

Just a thouight, but it does appear that TV and media have managed to grab hold of the world of business, put some kind of formula on it and essentially destroy the notion of small business.

For many decades people were entirely happy with the term 'small business man' - it denoted a job or career as credible as any other and perhaps even gave you  a certain cachet in the community - especially if you employed a few people. Now, of course, 'small business man (apart from being sexist) smacks of lack of ambition; to be taken seriously you have to be an 'entrepreneur'. (Quote Alan Sugar 'surely entrepreneur is a title bestowed on you, not one you give yourself'). Whilst there are a few useful small business book, by far the majority are those by TV personalities, with titles like 'The first billion is the hardest' or 'how I conquered the world from my Grandma's fridge' (OK, I made those up, but you get my drift).

The truth is that most people who start a small business want just that - a small business. A decent living and then something to sell or pass on as an inheritance; whilst we will all daydream about Lear Jets, Bentleys and castles in Scotland we fundamentally just want to get up in the morning, do an honest job and sleep at night. Of course, this wouldn't make good TV!

Before I go, 2 more things: First, have you ever encountered a single person (yet alone a group of 20) as sociopathic as those on The Apprentice?  Second, if anyone spoke to you like the Dragons speak to their contestants, wouldn't you just slap them?

Working from home

Clearly on a £100 budget renting an office isn't an option so working from home is my only alternative. It does have advantages, such as the capacity to crawl out of bed at 7.45 and be at work by 8.00, the total avoidance of the M25 (OK, not an absolute requirement of office working) and, of course, it's cheap - though not actually free.

The last time I worked from home I was married with a teenage kid and the main downside was 'at home' was largely interpreted as 'available' so I was bombarded with various domestic requests. This was, to an extent, mitigated when I created a garden office - which was more expensive than renting but did more than recoup its cost when selling the house, so definitely classified as an investment.

This time I am free and single (young?) - I'm also quite sociable by nature - so the key risk is that of going 'stir crazy'. Of course once I'm up and running, I will spend a good portion of my time customer facing, so this won't be a problem. In the meantime I compensate with visits - and human contact - to the gym (good) or the pub (less good).

Interestingly I have been offered corners in offices at very reasonable prices - offers I might well pursue when I have cracked my start-up budget.

8th June - image and perception

One thing about you and your business is that, once people have met you they will judge you on your capabilities - until that time they will judge you on your image which is why it is important to create a good image from the word go.

Probably the silliest corner I have cut is not having a landline number (I made a decision at a personal level not to install one, and obviously my business budget won't now stretch to it). By way of mitigation I have persuaded a friend to 'lend' me the use of an office address for correspondence, so at least things feel more solid.

I am certain that I will never lose a contract through being effectively home-based and working from a mobile phone, but I'm terrified that I might not get the opportunity to see the contract in the first place!

5th June - The big lie - time & money

The greatest of all cheats (or self deception) is the concept that time is a free commodity - time is of course the most valuable commodity we have as we know for certain that it is going to run out..

This manifests itself at every level (both within the business and in a lot of what we are bombarded with). Posit the daily forum-style postings such as 'do your own SEO for free' or 'I do my own accounts - it costs me nothiing'.If this is done in office time then you should have a fairly good idea of the actual cost of your time - in terms of cash and opportunity cost - whereas  if you really have nothing better to do on a Sunday evening than trawl through key words or wade through figures (or, more disturbingly, if you consider this your hobby!) then you might possibly describe it as free. However for most of us 'spare time' is actually more valuable than work time for the simple reason that we have less of it.

From my own perspective, I have to date spent about 100 hours on this project, some of which was at the expense of my former employer (cue big argument - OK it was between the Bank Holidays, when my only role was to be there 'just in case'. In many cases where they are seeking redundancies employers will overlook and even support this activity). The rest was spent in either what would normally be free time or in 'other work' time (more in future  posts) which I have confessed above can't be described as free - I guess I will put it down as investment in capital - hopefully to be recouped on sale of the business!

For practical purposes, I will cost my face-to-face time at the same rate of my lecturing earnings, which seems a realistic benchmark.

A greater crime, of course, is to under-value other people's time. I think we will revisit this whole time/money theme a few more times!

6th June - Early marketing

The topic is marketing, so obvious this entitles me to talk in cliches; and the first big cliche of marketing is that nothing works but everything works (also paraphrased in the great quote '50% of my marketing budget is wasted, I just wish I knew which 50% it was).

My early assumption was that I would be selling primarily a 6-week course and that some mentoring work would follow in due course. For this reason I aimed my marketing very locally and primarily at the course. In fact, most of the early interest has been in mentoring and my first confirmed order has come from within the Public sector and about 30 miles away..

I have also received positive responses from Local Authorities but negligible response from direct marketing  though I'm quite sure this will follow - after all, no contact is ever wasted!

3rd June - Networking

Now I have caught up with myself! Today I attended a First Friday networking event in Guildford (A little plug for there First Friday). Everyone has different views on networking; I am convinced that it works but often takes a lot of ‘deal tracking’ to discover this fact.

Anyway, I favour First Friday because it is informal and unstructured – you have the opportunity to introduce your business – which I did – but none of this compulsory one-minute stuff.

There is, of course a cost to this – mileage, parking & refreshments. I cycled to the event so avoided the first 2 – I had a pint of beer (£3.60). After a big argument with myself I decided that this was not a business cost as I could have had lime & soda like several others people, so I’ve put £1.00 on the costs. I think this is the ‘squinting’ I refer to in the title.

At a practical level, I was unlikely to meet any potential candidates but could see potential benefit in making professionals (accounts, employment lawyers) aware of what I was doing. As it turned out I met and chatted to a lady who ran a job club with 50 members. I am presenting to them next Monday. Serendipity?

2nd June - Cheating and favours

Firstly, I’d like to clarify that the ‘cheating’ referred to in the heading relates not to any dishonest or even unethical acts, it refers to the lies we have to tell ourselves to fit our budget. Key amongst these is accounting for time, which will be covered, but there is also the aspect of calling in favours, which cannot truly be described as free.

When I described my concept to a certain friend, he immediately replied ‘so you’re creating a community of blaggers?’. I have a feeling he wasn’t entirely joking! He did, however go on to do me a big favour (thank you Adrian).

The key thing about favours – particularly from friends -  is that they have to be earned and they have to be repaid so in reality it’s a loan (a loan of time and skills) but I’ve a funny feeling that repayments won’t show in future accounts; I will have to do something with my conscience about this.

The first big favour – and interesting lesson learned was a website. Having spent several days of my employer’s time (no comment needed) fiddling about, I recognised that this – to put it mildly – was not one of my core skills. I posted on Facebook asking for help and received several responses along the lines of ‘have you asked so-and-so?), but no direct offers of help. So I asked ‘so-and-so’ (thanks Phil!) and the job was done!

1st June - Expanding the business

OK, so it’s a bit premature. All I have done is decide on a name  (if you didn’t know, there is no need to register a name as a sole trader) , buy some cards and get a domain name – surely a bit early for expansion surely? It’s probably more honest to say I expanded the concept. Plan A was (and is) to deliver courses in a pub environment, but many people I discussed this with said words to the effect ‘why don’t you do mentoring as well?’. At first I was reticent – surely millions of people offered this? Having done a lot of searching, I realised that there were a lot of related services out there (many delivered by ‘official’ bodies such as Business Link) and lots of consultancies but very few independents offering what I describe as ‘low-level, personalised advice’.

                                                         

So the BTM now meant Business Teaching & Mentors, rather than Business Training & Management.

31st May - Spending the budget

If you’ve read my first post, you will realise that this blog is running some way behind reality and that the £100 actually came to life in April, when I was on a full-time contract which left me little time to run a sideline business. I did know that the contract was due to end imminently (though ultimately it was I ended it).

So, having set a budget, what is the first thing a man must do? Yes – he must go out and start spending! The main business involved teaching in pubs, so I planned to put postcard-sized notes on pub and shop notice boards. These were ordered from Vistaprint – cost £22.93 (inc VAT – I’m not likely to register in the near future). Of course, the card has to stimulate action  in this case a website seemed the best thing, so on to Pickweb for a domain and email. That looked easy – ‘build your site in just 5 minutes’ reality – the site went live as per first post on 20^th May, though I did have holding content. Cost £17.39 + £5.50 per month (it is likely to be at least 2 months before money comes in, so add £11 to the outgoings). Incidentally, the overall hosting cost would be about half the price if paid in one hit but that’s the downside of a tight budget.

27th May - Good advice & bad advice

The success of this venture leans heavily on my belief that if you ask the right questions, in the right way, people in the know are generally very happy to offer advice and support. Of course this does depend on getting the right advice from the right people – these might be the people formally qualified or those 'qualified by experience'.

It’s a personal opinion, but I would always ignore advice from anyone who starts their response with ‘It’s easy you just….’ Or ‘I have a mate who….’. You also need to be aware that for every person offering quality advice, there are probably 5 who just want to be smart or put you down. Ignore them!

On a more serious note, once you start asking focused and relevant questions, people who actually know the answers will start to come out of the woodwork and in a networking environment (more of which later) you should get introduced to the people best able to give that advice.

26th May - The £100 challenge

In my search for relevant topics to teach, I spent significant amounts of time hanging out on business forums mainly looking at what questions people were asking. There are a number of recurring themes (many of which will come up in due course), but one of the most frequent laments was cash – either in the form of ‘I’d love to start a business, but don’t have any money’ or ‘I have a great idea, but no-one will lend me the £20,000 I need to make it work’. Just for fun, I have set myself a personal challenge to set up this business on a budget of just £100. Obviously this will involve calling in a few favours, cash juggling and perhaps some self deception on values – all of these will unfold throughout this blog.

 

Whilst £100 is probably a bit tight, I do hold firm in view that it is a positive thing to start a business lean and build from that point, conversely it is extremely dangerous to pump too much cash in to start as efficiency goes straight out of the window. Back in the Dotcom Boom, we all grew very wary of these VC-backed companies with executive furniture, fancy offices and flash cars who seemed to take delight in making losses year after year. Similarly I am deeply concerned by statements like ‘when I win the Lottery I’m going to open a restaurant’. Give me passion and a tight budget any day!

25th May - Where ideas come from..

Probably the most scary opening sentence I have seen in a business plan (and I kid you not) went ‘Me and my mate was in the pub’.

Notwithstanding the awful impression it makes, it is certainly true that some significant developments in my plan evolved from pub conversations (I can remember the conversations, so clearly not a wild night out).

Having learned that many Private Schools are charities and are obliged to make facilities available I had assumed that my venue would be one of these schools. A good friend (thank you!) questioned this logic – do people really want to sit in classrooms? (It is true that most of the negative comments on my college course related to the environment and strange chairs). Won’t it be strange pitching up to an empty school? Surely a pub would be a better venue? Now, pubs I know a bit about; they are generally quiet early in the week and any sensible publican will welcome a few extra sales and the longer-term marketing potential that extra clients can bring. So, another big decision was made.

24th May - My battle with IT

We all have strength and weaknesses; in the business context my nemesis is IT, which intimidates & frustrates me in almost equal measures. (My co-director of my other business would almost certainly tell you my biggest weakness is admin, but that’s another story).

This particular project has been forced back by almost 6 weeks by multiple computer failures – a problem compounded by the fact that I was driving daily to Hounslow, so trips to the computer shop could only be done on Saturdays. Having sat unopened for 6 months (my contract allowed me full use of their in-house IT, so my own had been neglected) I had to replace first a graphics card, then a wireless card (there is no logical explanation for this dual failure). Then, having finally got the hardware sorted I set about booting up and downloading the numerous spam emails & software updates – at which point the system completely fell over and refused to start. Another trip to my friendly computer shop – this time to be told there would be a 10 day wait for repairs. Incidentally, it is apparently quite normal for this to happen.

‘Why don’t you just buy a new computer?’ I was asked – the answer really is ‘I have absolutely no idea’.

Now everything is functioning, but I am about to kick my computer as I struggle with software issues to access and update my website, so kindly put together by a friend in New Zealand.

23rd May - Finding the start point.

I’ve made an active choice not to blog at weekends though that doesn’t mean there will be no business-related activity going on. Anyone who has started a business will tell you that Monday to Friday 9-5 are just a distant dream.

Very few businesses start with a ‘Eureka’ moment; there is generally a period of months, years and possibly even decades of thoughts, wondering and mental ping-pong before things start to happen. I can’t say for certain where this particular journey began but, for convenience I will start on my return from America following a (predictably) disastrous relationship.

I was lucky to be offered a contract in my established industry which was likely to last up to a year, but also wanted to be awake to other avenues that might be open to me. My sister, rather randomly, suggested that I apply to a local college for a business lecturer role (part time). Out of interest rather than genuine enthusiasm I fired off a speculative email with no intention of following it up. By coincidence, Business Link had cut all of their courses and the college were looking for someone to deliver a course on Business Start Up; clearly I was the man!

Skip a bit – with precisely no teaching experience (but quite a lot of experience of starting businesses and helping start-ups) I was now delivering a 6 week course to students. The results were quite pleasing – I learned quite a lot and I believe that I helped them. The college is well respected but had one shortcoming (apart from the inevitable Public Sector confetti-factory of forms and pieces of paper to complete) their marketing was – and is – abysmal – a point raised by most of the delegates. I had suggested working with them to market the course but then, if I was going to put my time into marketing, did I really need the college? So an idea was born.

20th May - The website & the show

Today my website went live and I visited the Business Startup Show at Excel, London. The cost was £31.20, plus £4.40 for coffees with an accountant I had a meeting with.  Mind you, we chatted mainly about finance business so I can allocate that one to the finance business; just the travel amounts to almost a third of my start-up budget so I really need to start recouping some cash!

On a positive note it was a good show, I made some interesting contacts and – best of all – emerged more convinced than ever that my services are valuable and viable.

You will guess from the fact that my website is live that that this one has already had a few twists & turns to get to where I am now. My blog aims to be a warts and all account of the business journey, from  the evolution of the idea, through to it’s execution and taking in false starts and blind alleys as well as successes and celebrations.

The ending is (hopefully!) a long way off, and I hope it will be a happy one – but there are no certainties in businesses – no – not even taxes!