Start A Business

If you've ever watched Dragons’ Den, you’ll know how unprepared some entrepreneurs are when facing investors, often lacking key facts and figures. Having a solid business foundation and following best practices is essential, whether you're pitching to a bank, supplier, or investor. It could even reveal whether your idea is truly viable. From shaping your business concept and researching the market to choosing the right legal structure and registering properly, every step matters, especially since platforms may block unverified businesses from trading. SOS is here to guide you from concept to success.

The Business Plan

Creating a business plan can be daunting if you haven’t done this before. Finding someone that has experience in doing this will speed up this process and create opportunities and risks that you perhaps haven’t even seen at this stage. This detailed plan helps to secure funding, outlines the direction of the business with milestones, forecasts and how you're going to achieve your goals. Contact SOS if you would like support or for us to take of the whole Business Plan.

Funding Your Business

If you've put your business plan together properly you should know how much you need in your first three years of trading, including initial start up costs and ongoing costs to support your cash flow.

It also helps to look at when and how money will start to come into your business, if it will grow or dip in the year, where you will need the most financial help in that three year journey. Even if you have a financial backer or you are funding it yourself, ask yourself at what point can I pay that loan back and when will your business be able to support itself. Contact SOS to find out more.

Building A Team

Before you employ someone full-time, you should ask yourself, does this position have a shelf life, does it warrant a contracted role of say six months or twelve months, could you use temps or agencies.

Building the right team around you and planning the road map for their employment is important including the costs and return on your investment. Its not just the cost of a salary for a full timer, its everything else that wraps around that.

Do you know enough about the role to recruit people yourself or do you need help. Unfortunately there are many people out there that are great in an interview but can't actually do the job. And there are people totally unqualified to interview for certain roles. Contact SOS for support.

Business Name and Branding

Choose a memorable and unique name. We see time and time again people choosing a name that hasn't got a chance in making headway in a marketplace or there is something similar in the market or the domain name is taken. There is a process to follow when choosing a name and creating your brand. It will help you shape the whole look and feel everywhere the business appears. Creating a quirky name, choosing a name that has dodgy connotations and copying other brands doesn't help either.

Financial Systems

Depending on the nature of your business, there are a number of banks and financial institution options. For instance if you are looking to run an online business selling products you will need secure payment gateways, payment options, accountancy packages to record sales and a way of tracking orders, profit and loss. There are easy to use systems for small businesses and more complex financial systems for bigger businesses.

Data is King

We come across too many companies who don't have their data in the right places, don't know how to use it, or worse still don't collect it. Track sales, conversions, user journeys, product performance, people performance, agency performance, automate communications. SOS is built on data driven decisions and can support you here.

Customer Service and Feedback

Today, if you are giving customers bad service you cannot hide, Google reviews, Trust Pilot, and others will highlight how good or bad you are, even if you haven't set up an account with them, like it or not. Provide excellent customer service to build a positive reputation. Collecting and analysing customer feedback helps continuous improvement in your business.

Build An Online Business

When thinking about building your business online, think about what your selling. Is it physical products, digital goods, services or subscriptions, are you going to need booking features, membership or licensing? How comfortable are you with tech? Can the platform you are looking at, grow with your business or are there limitations?

What is the cost, monthly fees, transaction fees, what impact does that have on your margins? What payment options are you going to offer, and what are the fees? Is the platform optimised for search engines and what marketing platforms does it integrate with and is it secure? Lots of things to consider. Contact SOS for support and guidance.

Marketing

The marketing options to promote your business are vast and if you get it right it can give you a massive kick start. The key is choosing the right channels and media to target your audience. Do you have enough profit margin to even run paid advertising.

Quality of images, and the user journey when people are using your website can be the difference between a sale or not.

As you grow, the more eyes there are on your business including your competition. You'll need to look at your reputation and what people are saying about you too.

Throwing money at marketing platforms without knowing what you're doing can lead to a very low return on investment. Choose a team you can trust that will give your the best return on investment. Contact SOS for support and guidance.

Business Start-Up Tips

Grow too quickly and you won't be able to cope with demand and you’ll end up with complaints and a bad reputation before you've got off the ground. There are ways to launch your business for little money and knowing how to do this will save you money. Try to build up a network of supporters beforehand so they can promote your business when you are ready to launch.

A soft launch is a great way of launching a business, slowly, getting feedback, fixing things, and then go for the big official launch knowing you have everything working as it should be. It's all in the timings too. We have launched businesses who have been in the right place at the right time, partnered or collaborated with the right partners and made millions within weeks.

Contact SOS for support and guidance.

Business Location

This is really important and can be a bit of a mind field. Do you want to sell online or have a designated business address where people will come to buy products and services from you or both. If you are working from home do you want a separate address to hide your real home address?

It's also worth mentioning that unless you're a huge brand, or have thousands of reviews, people like to know you have a business address. If you want to just pick up local business then having an address in your area helps to drive business through marketing activities digitally and physically. At this stage it's all about creating trust with your potential buyers. Contact SOS for support and guidance.

Adapt & Grow Your Vision

Finally, as you grow, stay informed about industry trends and adapt your business accordingly. Visit exhibitions and meet your peers, strive to improve using best practices in your marketplace.

Continuously look for opportunities to expand and improve.

Remember that starting a business involves challenges, and success may take time. Stay focused, be flexible, and learn from both successes and setbacks. Seeking advice from mentors or professionals in your industry like SOS can also be valuable.

If you would like an initial consultation with SOS to help start your business, please contact us.