The media hype may yet go to hysteria, Recession, repossession and retrenchment are the buzz words of the day, the markets are up then down like a seesaw in your local park should it not have been removed by your local health and safety gestapo from the council.

  Hard times can be a good time to start your own business either full or part time, people and companies are more willing to do a deal, your new landlord with his empty shop will be more than willing to give a rent free period after all you may be lining his pocket for a fair number of years so what is 3 to 6 months rent free in the life of the lease probably no more than a 10% discount if that.

 Fit out teams, builders, plumbers and their suppliers are all willing to discount so make sure you haggle hard and if they do not play ball find someone who will. Every one you are now talking to will want your business so get that discount because when it comes to you selling your services the ball will be on the other foot my friend.

Selling your services will be a challenge but the secret is to add value. We ourselves have just opened a new childcare day nursery www.firestationdaynursery.com Here we have added indoor soft play areas ninety inch screens and all sorts of technology that appeals to the parents and children alike, yes its a bit more expensive than the one down the road, but your child is getting the best.The parents can see the value for just a few pounds a week more. Telling your customers you are the fastest, cheapest.most reliable is old hat give them something they want and prove it, add something that they will value and keep on improving it.

I class myself as a beginner’s expert, what is an expert you may ask. Well my definition of an expert is someone who has made every mistake in the book. O!Boy have I made every mistake in the book. I personally started in business over twenty years ago and have run a variety of small business, employing up to one hundred and twenty, people at one time. When I started in business there was no Internet, no Google where you can type in a keyword and get ten thousand options, we had no computer to hide behind, we had to go out and research by cold calling, you had to talk to people, sell your idea, you got the feeling for it, if it was crap you soon found out. Gut feelings by talking to people will tell you if it will work, your computer wont. ASK, ASK, AND ASK.

  There are lots of ways to ask, you can stand on your local high street, on your retail park outside Home Depot/ B&Q. Do a market survey, run a competition, give away balloons to the children. Run an advert in your local paper, this list is only limited by your number of ideas, till you get the answer you require. I believe Gerald Ratner when he lost his company, could not get funding for his new venture, a health club in his local town, so he put an advert in his local paper for membership with a nice artist impression, and he received over six hundred applications. This enabled him to secure the funding to open his new health club.

Types of business: When you launch your new business what experience do you have? For example, if you have taken a course in cake making and decoration and want to open a cake shop, the best thing to do is go and work in a cake shop. You will learn all the basics from food hygiene to customer service through to ordering the ingredients in bulk, you will learn who are all the local suppliers along with how much business you could expect to do. Always start at the bottom this is where you will learn the most, after all you may even find you do not enjoy it, and that alone will save you thousands of pounds in starting a business.

       Remember also that there are hundreds of college and private courses from art and design to hotel and pub management that will help in your chosen vocation. As well as buying an existing business, where the current owners can be locked in to help you learn the ropes. To franchises were everything is systemized and a lot of the ground work has been done for you. We all know we can make a better hamburger, but can you deliver a better service like Stelios?

Show me the money: I often am asked to invest in start up business, but I am a great believer in starting a business with little or no funding, if you can manage this you are truly an entrepreneur, it gives you such a good grounding and you will make every penny count. Then you can easily prove to an investor that you are worth backing. There are loan schemes like the DTI and the Princes Trust you can approach, but a word of warning! Should you require a bank loan or want to re-mortgage your property do it before you leave your employer, as it is so much easier to have a loan accepted as employed than self-employed, mainly because everything is approved on your current circumstances’

Support: You will not believe how much of this you will need. Husbands, boyfriends, wives and girlfriends if do not have it, forget it.

Unless you do what I did and change your partner, a bit extreme I know but it worked.