Tag Archive for Business Ideas & Planning

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How to become a driving instructor

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By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

You’re not alone if you’re thinking about becoming a driving instructor.

Due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, there are more learner drivers looking for instructors than ever. According to recent research from insurance firm Marmalade, there are currently around thirty learners to every driving instructor (also known as an Advanced Driving Instructor, or ADI) in Britain. Current instructors have seen a 227 per cent increase in enquiries since 2020, which equates to an average of an extra 8.24 enquiries each week.

What’s more, 30 per cent of instructors are turning away five-ten enquiries per week, meaning there isn’t enough supply. In response, some driving schools are offering fast-track ADI training to deal with demand.

The Marmalade research also reveals that, since the start of 2020, instructors now have on average 27 per cent more pupils, which is nearly six more pupils. Over a third (35 per cent) of instructors now have around 21-30 pupils at any one time. 

“There has never been a better time to become a driving instructor,” said Ian McIntosh, CEO of RED Driving School. “The lockdowns over the last 18 months have created huge

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Hot Business News Today

How to become a driving instructor

by  •  • 0 Comments

By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

You’re not alone if you’re thinking about becoming a driving instructor.

Due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, there are more learner drivers looking for instructors than ever. According to recent research from insurance firm Marmalade, there are currently around thirty learners to every driving instructor (also known as an Advanced Driving Instructor, or ADI) in Britain. Current instructors have seen a 227 per cent increase in enquiries since 2020, which equates to an average of an extra 8.24 enquiries each week.

What’s more, 30 per cent of instructors are turning away five-ten enquiries per week, meaning there isn’t enough supply. In response, some driving schools are offering fast-track ADI training to deal with demand.

The Marmalade research also reveals that, since the start of 2020, instructors now have on average 27 per cent more pupils, which is nearly six more pupils. Over a third (35 per cent) of instructors now have around 21-30 pupils at any one time. 

“There has never been a better time to become a driving instructor,” said Ian McIntosh, CEO of RED Driving School. “The lockdowns over the last 18 months have created huge

Read more...

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Should I go sole trader, partnership or limited company?

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By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
You’ve finally mustered up the courage to wave goodbye to your boss and are now going solo. Surely you didn’t think this would be easy, did you?
As a matter of fact, many who have made the same choice know that this is just the beginning.
This is the time for a series of decisions to be made. You can take comfort in the fact that once your company formation is in place, each step along the way will be easier.
A key decision to be made when starting your own business, or becoming self-employed for the first time, is to decide what type of business structure you want to follow.
There are a number of options, all of which have their merits and differ in legal and taxation terms – but your four key options are as follows:

Sole trader
Partnership
Limited liability partnership (LLP)
Limited company

Simon Renshaw, director of AABRS, explains what you need to know about each.
On your own as a sole trader
By opting for the sole trader route, you and your business are effectively one and the same – from both a tax and legal perspective.
This means that you

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How to get more from your business plan

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Originally written by Dan Matthews on Small Business
A business plan is an essential tool for start-ups and established organisations alike. It helps you make sense of your offering, the market in which you operate and other essential factors such as costs, revenue and projected profit.
But most businesses have no formal plan, perhaps because most entrepreneurs see little value in creating a rigid strategy that becomes obsolete within a few weeks of its completion.
They have a point, but those who reject the idea of planning wholesale risk missing out on a golden opportunity to isolate needless spending, spot opportunities and expand into new markets.
Jonathan Dowden, Product Marketing Manager at Sage, argues for a new approach to business plans, one in which bulky, static documents are eschewed in favour of practical information that changes as fast as the markets they describe.
“For start-ups it can actually be quite dangerous to write a business plan,” he says. “Unless you have data then you can’t know what will happen. If you go down the route of traditional business planning methodology then the template becomes, not an objective document that helps your business, but something that falsely convinces you that the idea is going to work.
“It’s

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Opening a restaurant: the key ingredients to start-up success

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Originally written by Ben Lobel on Small Business
The way we dine out has been transformed in the last decade with independent cafes and restaurants opening on every corner and food stalls booming throughout multiple UK cities.
As an entrepreneur who is thinking of opening a restaurant, it is important to consider the time, money, legalities and commitment needed to start a food business. However, many of these considerations are often forgotten.
Many food businesses that start as an idea and quickly grow into a brick and mortar venue without sufficient planning can often face hurdles in the future, such as cash flow problems and even liquidation.
It’s frustrating for any business owner to see their hard work dissolve, so by seeking professional advice and investing in time to set up your business properly, you have a better chance of running an effective and profitable restaurant.
Here are 10 ingredients for a profitable restaurant start-up, from Bobby Kalar, managing director of Yu Energy.
1. Deciding on a concept
You may have an idea already in mind or you may still be at the drawing board, but choosing what type of restaurant you want to offer, your target audience and its unique selling point are important to think about

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Five successful business ideas for 2021

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Originally written by James Birch on Small Business
Starting a business in 2021 takes a lot of courage, persistence, hard work and imagination. The current economy means firms in general are struggling to hit their bottom lines, but the world still needs new business ideas, innovative concepts and people with the nerve to take the risk and try them out.
If you’re one of these people, you need to know that you aren’t alone in your dreams of starting a business. More than three-quarters of all businesses in the UK are single-person enterprises and self-employment has nearly doubled in the last 20 years.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the most successful business ideas that we have seen in 2021.
>See also: One in five Brits say they want to start a business in 2021
1. Teaching online
The pandemic has created a significant demand for online education. As children couldn’t attend school for months, parents sought ways to boost their child’s progress. The government is investing a lot of money in tutoring to help young people get back on track. While having a teaching qualification is usually essential for working for established companies, you could easily offer your services to your network

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

Five successful business ideas for 2021

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Originally written by James Birch on Small Business
Starting a business in 2021 takes a lot of courage, persistence, hard work and imagination. The current economy means firms in general are struggling to hit their bottom lines, but the world still needs new business ideas, innovative concepts and people with the nerve to take the risk and try them out.
If you’re one of these people, you need to know that you aren’t alone in your dreams of starting a business. More than three-quarters of all businesses in the UK are single-person enterprises and self-employment has nearly doubled in the last 20 years.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the most successful business ideas that we have seen in 2021.
>See also: One in five Brits say they want to start a business in 2021
1. Teaching online
The pandemic has created a significant demand for online education. As children couldn’t attend school for months, parents sought ways to boost their child’s progress. The government is investing a lot of money in tutoring to help young people get back on track. While having a teaching qualification is usually essential for working for established companies, you could easily offer your services to your network

Read more...

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Books for summer reading take a focus on the future

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Originally written by Stephanie Spicer on Small Business
The Beginning of the End – a practical guide to retirement preparation for the small business owner, by Dr Terri Bourne

The title of this book may sound rather ominous but could equally be called the start of things to come. It is essentially about exiting your business – but as Bourne explains this could be a long time off. And it may be that you don’t sell your own business at all, you may retire without selling.
With the experience of having set up seven different business Bourne understands the hard work and investment that goes into running a business and making it successful. She also understands that many business owners focus on building and running their businesses and not looking at how they will ever exit them.
This is a very engaging and fluid read – and Bourne provides online, a free workbook to help business owners work through their own ideas and fashion a personal and private record of all the steps they can go through.
These steps take the business owner through assessing your options and reasons: why you need to sell or want to sell, what you want to do, how you

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Hot Business News Today

Books for summer reading take a focus on the future

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Stephanie Spicer on Small Business
The Beginning of the End – a practical guide to retirement preparation for the small business owner, by Dr Terri Bourne

The title of this book may sound rather ominous but could equally be called the start of things to come. It is essentially about exiting your business – but as Bourne explains this could be a long time off. And it may be that you don’t sell your own business at all, you may retire without selling.
With the experience of having set up seven different business Bourne understands the hard work and investment that goes into running a business and making it successful. She also understands that many business owners focus on building and running their businesses and not looking at how they will ever exit them.
This is a very engaging and fluid read – and Bourne provides online, a free workbook to help business owners work through their own ideas and fashion a personal and private record of all the steps they can go through.
These steps take the business owner through assessing your options and reasons: why you need to sell or want to sell, what you want to do, how you

Read more...

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Start-up valuation – an investor guide to valuing a start-up

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Originally written by Matthew Cushen on Small Business
A start-up valuation is an area of business where entrepreneurs are least confident.
This is not unusual. Valuing a business is the area where new entrepreneurs, and many an experienced one, are least assured. It seems like a black art, with its own language and with few rules.
As an example, yesterday I was chatting to an entrepreneur who’d had a stellar career in large business, had a very different view on a (large and growing) market, and from that had innovated a very interesting proposition. She was, quite rightly, super confident — until I asked what valuation she hoped to place on the business when raising some equity funding. The conviction evaporated. After some circling around the question she mumbled a number, with no rationale other than some sense it might be what other businesses had raised at. Only one thing was clear — we’d both thought her number was incredible (both astonishing and unbelievable).
Starting at the very basics, here is a starting off point when thinking about a start-up’s valuation, highlighting the important language and an example:

Valuing a start-up is only vaguely related to valuing an established business. A mature business will usually

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