How to start your own business for entrepreneurs

Product Author Bios

Robert Ashton has started three small businesses and sold two. He has also been instrumental in starting a charity and recently established a social enterprise. He has experienced the highs and lows of running his own company and knows how lonely life can be when you’re your own boss. He believes that entrepreneurship is an attitude as well as a skill. He says that all successful entrepreneurs take control of their own lives. The best entrepreneurs however, also improve the lives of those around them. Robert works with entrepreneurs of all kinds, advising growing businesses, evolving charities and social enterprises. He is a popular business speaker with a reputation for plain speaking and practical tips. A prolific author, Robert also writes regularly for a number of business and consumer magazines. He is increasingly becoming a social activist, challenging convention and encouraging innovation.

More than 300,000 people start a business every year. That number will rise over the next year or two if the current economic downturn leads to widespread job losses.  It is a fact that many people choose to turn the threat of redundancy into the opportunity of self employment.

It is also a fact that when economic growth is low, business failure rates are higher. There has never been a greater need for a simple, explicit, practical business start-up guide that can increase new business survival rates in tough, as well as good times. People today need a start up guide that holds nothing back and tells them all they need to know. How to Start Your Own Business for Entrepreneurs does exactly this.

Of course for many, starting their own business is a lifestyle decision.  It is an aspect of the growing trend away from full time employment to freelance or portfolio working.  The boundaries between traditional employment and free enterprise are becoming increasingly blurred. How to Start Your Own Business for Entrepreneurs guides you as you pick your way through the no man's land that separates these two worlds.

Table of Contents

...for Entreprenuers

About the author

Acknowledgements

Introduction           

PART ONE: BEFORE YOU START

1: See your future as an entrepreneur – crystal clear                    

2: How to find your biggest business opportunity                          

3: How to be really sure your business idea will fly                        

4: Business structure - building in room to grow                            

5: Finding the perfect place – business premises                             

6: Starting up or taking over an existing enterprise                       

PART TWO: PLANNING TO SUCCEED

7: How to write a convincing plan                                                          

8: Where to find the money you need                                            

9: Advisers and mentors and why they’re important                     

10:Timing is everything – how to decide when to start                    

PART THREE: FINDING CUSTOMERS

11: Where to look for the best customers                                       

12: How to develop the right brand and image                             

13: Your winning marketing message                                          

14: How to make sure your website’s a winner                  

15: How to get good PR and keep on getting it                

16: Marketing in a nutshell                                                    

17: Ways that anyone can be good at selling                     

18: Reputation – making friends and influencing people              

PART FOUR: MANAGING YOUR BUSINESS

19: How to do your book-keeping without tears                            

20: How to make your profits bigger                             

21: Financial factors to watch as you start to grow                

22: How to minimise risk and sleep well at night                                                                              

23: Your first employee – how to take this giant leap               

24: How to manage your business day to day                          

PART FIVE: LOOKING AHEAD

25: Building value into your business                                   

26: Lifestyle or wealth – a chance to reflect and review those goals

Index       &nbs