PRIME Initiative

Are some of your customers stars, bringing in money, skills and enhancing the reputation to your business? And are others quite frankly duds, bringing you hassle and actually losing you money on each sale?

Simply asking these questions can lead you into making some useful changes to the way you do business - so you do more work for the customers who are better for you.

But sometimes it isn’t obvious who the heroes and villains are. So here’s a 10-step technique  that will help you identify them.

Calculating what a given client is worth to you

1. This works most simply in businesses where you have a few clients, but if you’ve got a lot divide them up into meaningful segments that you can find or estimate figures for - e.g. those who buy food and those who don’t, the Monday crowd versus the Saturday crowd or whatever. It’s also more accurate if you do it for a longer time period, so quarterly is better than monthly, but don’t worry if your records don’t go that far back.

2. Next you need to know your own hourly staff costs. In an established business this would be the salaries plus all the costs of making someone productive - office space, equipment and so on. However in a start-up where there’s just you and you are not paying yourself much yet it may be hard to come up with a plausible figure. For this exercise a rough approximation will do. So you could just say £10 or whatever you think is reasonable. We are going to apply the same figure to all clients so it still makes for a fair comparison.

3. Now for each client or segment you are interested in tot up the total hours you spent on them last quarter, and multiply it by your hourly staff time figure. Add in any other significant hard costs like travel or material spent on that client. That will give you the cost of that client.

4. Now check what they brought in last quarter. You can keep things fairly simple. If you invoice in bigger chunks divide it up to give you a quarterly figure. And for segments tot up the quarterly income for the group - gross, without deducting any costs.

5. Subtract the cost of the client you worked out at step 3 from what they brought in. The result is a fair approximation to their relative monetary value to you.

6. Next the important bit - the fiddle factors. We all know some clients are reliable and easy to deal with, while others are a pain. So think of a fair monetary value in pounds per quarter for the joy (add) or pain (subtract), and apply this hassle factor to the value score.

7. We also need to recognise that some clients are valuable for strategic reasons - perhaps referring business to us, allowing us to build up valuable expertise or taking us in the direction we want the business to go. So we need another fiddle factor to recognise this strategic value. Again add an appropriate positive amount in pounds to any client taking you in an exceptionally useful direction, subtract money from clients who lock you into dead-end work you’d rather avoid and leave average clients alone. This gives the overall “value” of the client to you.

8. Now repeat from step 3 to 7 for all the clients or segments you wish to compare.

9. You should end up with a set of numbers, with best clients scoring high and your worst low. Note that because of all the approximations and the inclusion of intangible fiddle factors the number doesn’t represent the actual profit from each client. For that you’d need more real data, which you should eventually accumulate.
Nonetheless, this exercise is legitimate and does tell you something important. The high scorers are bringing in the most value to your business in the broadest sense. The low scorers are more of a drain and repay your efforts less. So if you have uncovered any serious duds or brilliant stars you might want to drop the duds and work more with the stars should the opportunity arise.

10. One final step may make identification of heroes and villains easier. Divide the value figure for each client by the number of hours you worked for them, which you’ve already totted up at step 3. This removes the amount of business you are getting from them from the equation, and gives you more of a pure customer-quality score. The high scorers are the ones you probably want more business with.

“Working for YOURSELF - a practical guide to sales, marketing and preparing a business plan for people aged over 50″ is a new PRIME booklet. It is currently being printed, but you can download a free PDF here of the full text.

This PRIME guide doesn’t cover everything, but concentrates on the subjects people are often least confident with - sales, marketing and putting a viable plan together.

At only 40 pages long it’s quick to read and inspiring.

Contents
1. Customers and selling to them
2. Negotiating
3. Marketing
4. Setting prices
5. Business model, business plan
6. Checking with reality
7. Sources of support
Business glossary

If you find yourself short of some reading over the holiday, you can start plotting your new business with this PRIME guide.

The square format should print out on standard A4 paper, as it’s the same width.

The production of Working for YOURSELF, written in-house by PRIME, has been partially-funded by the Equal Diversity in Practice project, which is in turn paid for from the European Social Fund.

If you’re reluctant to sell you are not alone - it is something many people feel when starting in business. But it’s one of those things that disappears with practice - and in particular as you relax and develop your own style. Here are some tips taken from “Working for yourself”, a new guide from PRIME that’s currently in the final stages of production.

Fear of selling

Many people find the thought of having to do selling frightening. And it’s the thought that’s often the problem – not selling itself.

You can do selling any way you like, and you’ll soon develop your own style. It doesn’t have to be the traditional hard sell.

Sell your own way

” The only area where my age might count against me is in sales - because I’m not a brash young salesman. But I really don’t see that as much of a drawback. I have a nice letter that I write to people and that seems to work well.”
Graham Siggs, who started his own electrical testing service after being forced to retire from the civil service at the age of 60.

Reluctance to sell is conquered by knowing your customers well enough to know how to do them a favour - by selling them the right product or service. Being an altruist and being an effective sales rep then become one and the same thing.

Beating obnoxious salespeople at their own game

The reluctance to sell we are assuming here doesn’t apply to everyone, and it probably depends on what type of salespeople you have been exposed to in the past. But it is something many people express to PRIME, and it can be overcome by developing your own approach that simply avoids practices you are uncomfortable with.

Once you start your own business it becomes necessary to find customers on a regular basis. So don’t let bad sales experiences from your past become a barrier to setting up your own independent business. Resolve to do it differently - and better.

If you have a good product or service it stands to reason that there are people out there who would welcome the opportunity to buy it. It may sometimes be hard work, but you owe it to them as well as your own business to find such people and make them a clear offer they can understand. It’s then up to them to make the decision – to buy or not.

You need to find an approach to selling that you are completely comfortable with. You don’t have to turn into the sort of person you don’t want to be simply to sell things. Do it your own way - it may well be more effective and even fun.

Three neglected facts about selling

1. Selling is not telling
It’s more to do with listening. This is as true when writing an advertisement or sales letter as in face-to-face selling. You need to have attuned yourself to what customers are actually seeking to do it well.
In face-to-face selling, don’t talk too much. Ask questions. Listen intently for what the person really wants. Then talk about those aspects of your offer that are relevant to those desires.

2. Benefits trump features
More customers are interested in benefits than features. Enthusiasts tend to burble on about features, but what most customers are after is what these features can do in practice to benefit them and solve their problems. So when talking to a customer or writing promotional material highlight the most relevant benefits.

For example, uppermost in most people’s minds when buying a pair of secateurs is the objective – bushes neatly pruned or flowers accurately cut. Or they might be thinking about what they want the process of using the secateurs to be like – quick clean cuts rather than a difficult blunt action resulting in crushed stems. They might also want a safe and comfortable grip. These are all benefits.

By contrast the facts the secateurs you are selling are made out of Type 440 high-carbon steel and have a bypass design are features. They are things that a garden-tools connoisseur or metallurgist might appreciate, and they might very well be how the quick clean cuts are achieved. But they are not things on the minds of most people buying secateurs.

Because buyers tend to be most interested in the benefits, you are doing them a favour by concentrating on the benefits first. “These will give you a quick clean cut.” You could go on to say “that’s because of the Type 440 high-carbon steel and the bypass design”. But they might think you a nerd, so you’d be better off with “and they have a comfortable grip”, or simply shutting up.

3. It’s OK to ask for the sale
Once the customer is giving out signals that they are ready to buy, don’t just plough on with your presentation. It’s easy to do this if you are nervous, but it’s a mistake. You are wasting their time and they might get irritated and start thinking of objections just to annoy you. Selling is a human activity after all, and normal emotions come into play.

Most buyers much prefer it if you get to the point. So ask for the sale. Say something like “Do you want the green one then?” or “I can give you two for just £10 more” to move things on the decision. Then go straight to taking the money.

If you have a sincere desire to see the buyer get what they want you will feel satisfaction at the close of the deal, so move to it promptly. Asking for the money should also feel natural, because money is what allows you to provide this thing that they want - your product or service.

A very short guide to sales jargon

• Benefit - something that does good to the customer, and which you believe they may value. Something that solves a customer problem.
• Feature - how a product or service accomplishes something - hopefully a benefit that the customer wants. It’s usually best to skip over features that have don’t have relevant benefits when selling.
• Offer - the bundle of products and services you wish to sell to a particular group of customers. A special offer is a variation on the bundle promoted for a limited time or to a sub-set of the customer group.
• Prospect - someone you believe could become your customer but isn’t yet.
• Solution - just means product. The overuse of this term annoys almost everyone. Use the verb form “solve” instead. Genuinely think about the customer’s problem, and then explain what your product can do to solve it.

Here’s an updated list of common business pitfalls. Below each pitfall there are links to information about how to deal with them.

The revised text comes from the new A5 paper leaflet version of an article that originally appeared on this site. We’ve checked the original links and added some new ones. Comments and suggestions for helpful links related to avoiding such pitfalls are welcome.

1. Failure to sell

New businesses should concentrate on winning their critical early customers before anything else. If you are uncomfortable with selling, try another approach. Selling doesn’t have to be the traditional hard sell, but it does need to be done. Even if you are busy now, set time aside for thinking about where your next customers are going to come from.

• PRIME’s guide to selling for beginners
• Feel bad about selling?
• Understanding customer needs
• Longer description of classic selling technique from HSBC
• Free club course on marketing (audio podcast and workbook)
  

2. Not watching the cash position

Know what you have got from week-to-week, as this is a very common cause of often completely unnecessary failure. A sudden cash shortfall can happen even if things are going well. Indeed the cash can run out just when you get very busy, as you may be spending a lot on stock or materials and not have time to watch out for pitfall no 3.

• Managing your cash flow

3. Failure to chase for payment

Chase up money promptly or they’ll think you don’t need to be paid. Don’t be embarrassed - if you have done the work you deserve to be paid. But don’t take it personally - be businesslike at all times. Regular reminders and clear terms of payment can forestall many problems, but if you have to go to law the small claims court (the county court) is quicker and simpler than many people expect.

• Dealing with late payment excuses
• How to get paid on time
• Checklist on controlling credit

4. Underpricing

Pricing is one of the most difficult things for a new business to get right, because you don’t yet know all your costs or have much evidence of how your customers respond to price. A common mistake is to overlook some major costs and thus price too low. It’s hard to increase prices later to the same customer. If on the other hand your prices are too high then achieving sales will be difficult and your marketing costs will be high. If you suspect this is the case experiment with lower prices through time-limited sales or trial offers to particular customers.

• The dangers of competing on price alone
• Regrets charging too little for too long
• Lloyds TSB on pricing your product or service
• Three firms find out how low they can go (article and audio podcast)

5. Failure to do a reality check on your basic business idea

Any entrepreneur needs enthusiasm to overcome the inevitable obstacles, but don’t let this blind you to fundamental flaws in your business idea. Think of all the dreadful singers that enter The X Factor. Though their mum likes them, and their friends say they like them, neither is the audience they need to impress. Look at your business from the point of view of your real audience, the paying customers. Are there enough of them, and will they pay enough to give you a good income when all your costs are taken into account?

• How to thoroughly research your market
• Reality check from Dragon Peter Jones

6. Ignoring seasonality

It is amazing how many types of business show a strong seasonal pattern of demand that is not obvious to the outsider. It’s not just toys, ice cream and fireworks but journalism, dog kennels and car parts. When you enter a market do all you can to quiz people in the know about its distinctive seasonal pattern. Methods used to counter big seasonal swings include adjusting pricing (as in the holiday industry), diversifying into a market with an opposite pattern and exporting to somewhere with different seasons.

• Advice for seasonal businesses
• Coping with seasonality

7. Forgetting about the competition

It’s a rare business that has no competition, so you need to think up good ways of dealing with it. Avoid entering a crowded market unless you have a very good plan for winning customers. Aromatherapists abound in some localities - which makes it difficult for any of them to make a profit. Try to make your product or service unique in some way that matters to the customer, so you are not competing head on. Take a lesson from the animal world and search out your own niche.

• Finding space in a crowded market - operating in a niche
• Changing marketing tack to beat competition

8. Ignoring legalities

Only take risks in the area you are most confident in - which for most people isn’t the law. Minimise risks everywhere else so you have less to worry about. Always check the small print in contracts before you sign. You don’t need to be obsessed with regulations, but watch that you have the necessary licences if for example you are street trading, that you obey hygiene laws if handling food and that you know the basics of employment law if you take someone on to help. Legal wrangles can waste a lot of your time or even close you down if you get it wrong.

• Health and safety basics that no business can ignore
• Check for government regulations that might apply to your type of business
• Top data protection pitfalls for small enterprises
• The legal aspects of taking on new premises

9. Taking too much money out too soon

Until the business has been running for some time you don’t know how much money to keep in reserve to cover late payment, bad debts and unforeseen expenses. So put off major expenditure on kit, advertising or yourself so you always have some money in reserve.

• How much to pay yourself during startup
• Compare yourself to others but be realistic

10. Getting trapped in long-term arrangements

New businesses are usually best off keeping things flexible, so they can move to where the money is. You don’t want to get locked into anything you can’t get out of easily. This applies to premises, hiring staff and contracts with suppliers. The big strength of small businesses is that they can quickly change to take advantage of the opportunities they discover. Don’t throw this advantage away.

• Getting the right deal - negotiating skills

The Treasury has announced the figures that will be used to calculate Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit next financial year, which starts in April 2008. The figures should be of interest to many self-employed people, because those running new businesses often have incomes low enough to qualify for tax credits.

The tax credit system provides a safety net so your income won’t fall to zero even if your net profit does - which in the early stages of a business is quite possible. You can find a PRIME’s own independent booklet explaining the tax credit system here.

So what are the major changes just announced? The basic structure of Working Tax Credit remains the same, but from April there will be a big rise in the “first income threshold”, which goes up by £1,200 to £6,420. This means that from April 2008 you will keep the full amount of whatever WTC payments you are entitled to until you reach the new £6,420 threshold.

The government has paid for this change by increasing the withdrawal rate (or “taper”") that takes effect above the threshold from 37 per cent to 39 per cent. So once your income (or net profit) rises above £6,420 you will lose payments quicker than now.

Overall this change benefits those on very low incomes up to about £7,000, and reduces the amounts paid to those making more.

Another interesting figure in the Treasury’s announcement is the “income disregard”, which remains at the very high value of £25,000 for another year. The income disregard is a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card that can be introduced into disputes about overpayment entirely at HMRC’s discretion. It allows the HMRC to ignore overpayments paid to you up to this amount if it feels like it.

HMRC’s generosity is most likely to arise in cases where it itself has itself made a mistake, and fears press or political pressure should it persist in attempts to claw an overpayment back. So the income disregard is not a right you yourself can claim, but a fudge factor that provides wriggle room for the tax authorities in cases of dispute.

The fact the figure is remaining so high indicates that there are still a lot of disputes going on - though most of these to be fair also involve Child Tax Credit, where the rules are hard to interpret.
Among other figures announced for the 2008 to 2009 tax year is the value of basic state pension paid to those over state pension age. This edges up in line with inflation by £3.40 a week for a single person, to £90.70 a week from next April.

The minimum income guaranteed to poorer pensioners (those entitled to claim Pension Credit) goes up to just over £124 a week for a single person.

This isn’t much to live on - which underlines the need to put other arrangements in place to boost your income in retirement while you can.

Some common business dangers

1. Failure to sell

New businesses should concentrate on winning their critical early customers before anything else. If you are uncomfortable with selling, try another approach. Selling doesn’t have to be the traditional hard sell, but it does need to be done. Even if you are busy now, set time aside for thinking about where your next customers are going to come from.

• Feel bad about selling?
• Basics of selling explained
• Free club course on marketing (audio podcast and workbook)
  
• Understanding customer needs

2. Not watching the cash position

Know what you have got from week-to-week, as this is a very common cause of often completely unnecessary failure. A sudden cash shortfall can happen even if things are going well. Indeed the cash can run out just when you get very busy, as you may be spending a lot on stock or materials and not have time to watch out for pitfall no 3.

• Managing your cash flow

3. Failure to chase for payment

Chase up money promptly or they’ll think you don’t need to be paid. Don’t be embarrassed - if you have done the work you deserve to be paid. But don’t take it personally - be businesslike at all times. Regular reminders and clear terms of payment can forestall many problems, but if you have to go to law the small claims court (the county court) is quicker and simpler than many people expect.

• Dealing with late payment excuses
• How to get paid on time
• Checklist on controlling credit

4. Underpricing

Pricing is one of the most difficult things for a new business to get right, because you don’t yet know all your costs or have much evidence of how your customers respond to price. A common mistake is to overlook some major costs and thus price too low. It’s hard to increase prices later to the same customer. If on the other hand your prices are too high then achieving sales will be difficult and your marketing costs will be high. If you suspect this is the case experiment with lower prices through time-limited sales or trial offers to particular customers.

• The dangers of competing on price alone
• Regrets charging too little for too long
• Experts answer 10 pricing questions
• Lloyds TSB on pricing your product or service
• Three firms find out how low they can go (article and audio podcast)

5. Failure to do a reality check on your basic business idea

Any entrepreneur needs enthusiasm to overcome all the inevitable obstacles, but don’t let it blind you to fundamental flaws in your business idea. Think of all the dreadful singers that enter The X Factor. Though their mum likes them, and their friends say they like them, a look in their audience’s eyes should alert them to the fact that they are not good singers. Look at your business from the point of view of your audience, the paying customers. Are there enough of them, and will they really pay enough to give you a good income when all your costs are taken into account?

• How to thoroughly research your market
• On the other hand you could be right
• Reality check from Dragon Peter Jones

6. Ignoring seasonality

It is amazing how many types of business show a strong seasonal pattern of demand that is not obvious to the outsider. It’s not just toys, ice cream and fireworks but journalism, dog kennels and car parts. When you enter a market do all you can to quiz people in the know about its distinctive seasonal pattern. Methods used to counter big seasonal swings include adjusting pricing (as in the holiday industry), diversifying into a market with an opposite pattern and exporting to somewhere with different seasons.

• Copying with seasonality

7. Forgetting about the competition

It’s a rare business that has no competition, so you need to think up good ways of dealing with it. Avoid entering a crowded market unless you have a very good plan for winning customers. Aromatherapists abound in some localities - which makes it difficult for any of them to make a profit. Try to make your product or service unique in some way that matters to the customer, so you are not competing head on. Take a lesson from the animal world and search out your own niche.

• Finding space in a crowded market - operating in a niche
• Changing marketing tack to beat competition

8. Ignoring legalities

Only take risks in the area you are most confident in - which for most people isn’t the law. Minimise risks everywhere else so you have less to worry about. Always check the small print in contracts before you sign. You don’t need to be obsessed with regulations, but watch that you have the necessary licences if for example you are street trading, that you obey hygiene laws if handling food and that you know the basics of employment law if you take someone on to help. Legal wrangles can waste a lot of your time or even close you down if you get it wrong.

• Health and safety basics that no business can ignore
• Check for government regulations that might apply to your type of business
• Top data protection pitfalls for small enterprises
• The legal aspects of taking on new premises

9. Getting involved with scams and con artists

The world of business has its seamier side. Be cautious of the off-the-shelf business opportunities market - some venerable scams are still active particularly in self-employed selling businesses, and new ones are always being invented. Franchises should be BFA members. If not why not?

• Is that trading scheme legal?
• PRIME’s guide to buying a franchise
• British Franchise Association site

10. Getting trapped in long-term arrangements

New and small businesses are usually best off keeping things flexible, so they can move to where the money is. You don’t want to get locked into anything you can’t get out of easily. This applies to premises, hiring staff and contracts with suppliers. The big strength of small businesses is that they can learn by doing and quickly change to take advantage of the opportunities they discover. You don’t want to throw this advantage away.

• Getting the right deal - negotiating skills

Comments please. We are preparing this list for a guide which we’ll make available (with links to helpful resources) both online and in printed form. We may also use it in future live workshops.

But have we got the right top 10?

If you use part of your home for business you can claim part of the cost as a tax deduction. But how much should you claim - and if you claim too much will you end up having to pay business rates?

You can find out from the horse’s mouth in the Business Income Manual on HM Revenue & Customs’ site. Here you can read the notes used by HMRC’s own staff to help them judge what to accept as “reasonable”.

The basic policy on home offices / workshops is set out at section BIM47815 of the manual. The good news is that the rules have recently been relaxed. Since the 6th April those working from home on a limited basis no longer need to provide records of every business expense to make a tax claim.

Instead you can make on estimate of how much of your home costs can be apportioned to your business based on the following principles.

Area: what proportion in terms of area of the home is used for business purposes?
Usage: how much electricity, gas or water etc. is being consumed by the business?
Time: how long is the space being used for business purposes, as compared to other things?

Section BIM47825 is most helpful, as it provides examples. Such as:

Bill runs a small business. He uses one small room at home as an office, exclusively for the purposes of his trade. The room represents 5% of the floor area of the house.

His Council Tax, insurance and mortgage interest bills total £4500. He claims 5%, £225.

His electricity bill for heating & lighting is £300. He claims £15, which is 5% of the total.

His total claim is £240 (plus the business proportion of his phone bill).

Although Bill has apportioned his electricity bill by floor area rather than usage, the amount claimed is small and there is nothing to suggest that his business use is significantly greater or lesser than his private use. It can be accepted as a reasonable estimate.

If any of the examples sound like you it might also be worth reading tax consultant Nichola Ross Martin’s comments on them.

What about business rates? Section BIM46840 says “A home in which a trader sets aside a room as an office is likely to attract only a council tax charge”. And a proportion of this may be tax deductible if you are using it for business purposes.

The Business Income Manual is one of many made public in the aftermath of the Freedom of Information Act. Before the manuals became available the most accessible guidance from the HMRC were the notes that came with the self-employment pages of the tax form. The latest notes contain worked examples and are also quite helpful.

Funded by advertising and run as a small business, Armchair Advice was set up by Greg Paine after he unexpectedly found himself without a job in mid career, aged 46. The site is particularly good for those newly-made redundant or worried about becoming so.

The printed paper version of PRIME’s brief guide to Working Tax Credit for the 2007 to 2008 financial year is now available.

You can still download the guide from here as a PDF, but if you would prefer a paper copy just email us your details and we’ll post you a free copy.

We are also distributing the 20-page booklet free to libraries, enterprise agencies and advice shops - so if you are one of those just email us your requirement.

Working Tax Credit is a kind of reverse income tax that you should get if your household income falls below a certain level. PRIME’s guide is written especially for self-employed people over the age of 50. It explains the scheme in only 20 pages and contains worked examples showing how much self-employed people in different circumstances would get.

More

PRIME has released a free and updated guide to Working Tax Credit for the coming financial year.

Working Tax Credit is a kind of reverse income tax that you should get if your household income falls below a certain level.

It is something you are entitled to as a working taxpayer and it is run as part of the tax system by the HM Revenue & Customs.

This PRIME guide explains how the scheme applies to self-employed people over the age of 50. Despite the bad press Working Tax Credit often receives, PRIME believes that for the self-employed it can be a valuable lifeline, so it’s worth checking out this brief guide to see if it might be useful to you.

Working Tax Credit - a brief guide for self-employed people aged over 50

This year we have also explained the basics of Child Tax Credit, as an increasing number of people over 50 have responsibility for looking after children - about a quarter of those contacting PRIME according to other research we will be publishing soon. Thanks to everybody for filling in the forms.

The guide provides examples for the tax year starting on the 6th April 2007 and ending the 5th of April 2008. The numbers for the current tax year 2006 to 2007 are similar but you get slightly less money.

Otherwise details of the scheme haven’t change significantly. The welcome hike in the “income disregard” introduced this year will continue into FY 2007-2008, which will mean far fewer people facing hassles and demands to return overpayments if their circumstances change.

Fears on this point discouraged many from claiming, which is a pity as Working Tax Credit (and Child Tax Credit) can help out with your basic living expenses if your business is going through a bad patch. Working Tax Credit is also very useful for those new to self-employment whose businesses are not yet making much money.

There is no universal grant for starting a new business in the UK. Working Tax Credit is as close as the system here gets to encouraging small business start ups. So it would be silly to ignore it if you qualify.

UPDATE

We’ve updated the links above to point to the print-ready version of the guide produced immediately after the 22 March 2007 Budget. This incorporates some minor changes on the Childcare element of Working Tax Credit.

If find the text too small you may prefer the original A4 text version

How do you start or grow a business if you don’t have much money? The answer according to US marketing guru Seth Godin is to focus on the advantages that your lack of resources brings. and build a business that consciously makes use of them.

This is not a collection of money-saving hints and tips. Instead it’s about something much more important. It’s about getting your business model and marketing strategy right so your success does not depend on resources you don’t have but is instead based on exploiting to the full what you do have. That’s why The Bootstrapper’s Bible is already a business classic.

Download The Bootstrapper’s Bible by Seth Godin

Don’t be put off by Godin’s American style. By page eight he has got the local cultural references over with and is well into a solid comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of rich and poor businesses. The remaining 90 or so pages is inspirational stuff, and likely to spark practical ideas about how you can turn your situation to your advantage.

A note on printing the PDF: it prints out fine on A4 as long as you select landscape.

There’s an interesting business story behind the work itself. It’s based on a book Godin wrote about 10 years ago. In paper form it sold about 10,000 copies before going out of print. Godin then got the rights back and adapted it into a downloadable e-book that Amazon sold for $3 a pop for another 18 months. Godin then decided there was one more thing he could do to extract value from it - turn it into the current 103-page PDF and put it out completely free.

Within a week of this free version becoming available Godin estimates that more people had downloaded and read it than both previous versions combined. This of course brought him no new revenue - but it did powerfully promote his more recent in-print books that do. So at very little cost to himself he has got large numbers of people sampling his product.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let renowned marketing expert Dr Alan Rae talk you through the essentials of doing business - for free. Adapted specially for PRIME from his course One Man Brand, each programme lasts 30 to 40 minutes and consists of Alan talking you through the key business principles accompanied by illustrations and slides. You can access them instantly now from your PC. Just click on the links below.

1. What’s Your Story

2. Telling it in Writing

3. Telling it Face to Face

4. Telling it On-line

It’s very simple - just click on the link, wait about 10 seconds for the programme to load, and - if your machine is capable of handling the podcast format, sit back and listen.

Most machines will run this course without difficulty, but if you are finding it blocked on a work machine try it from home - some firewalls block the flash podcast format.

It requires a browser with Macromedia Flash installed and a PC or laptop with sound capability.

Once the programme is going you can jump backwards and forwards in the programme using the page up and page down keys.

Free: marketing workbook

There’s also an accompanying 20-page workbook by Alan Rae, called “Your marketing plan”, that we are making available for a limited time only. It helps you define your customers and work out how best to approach them. Download your copy now by clicking on the link below (PDF format), then print it out and go through it with a pen or pencil to get started on Your marketing plan.

“The no-nonsense guide to starting a business” is a free 74-page book from Business Link, the government’s main business information service.

You can download the free guide here, or ask for the paper version to be posted to you.

The book is worth reading, and much better than previous efforts from the same stable. The emphasis now is firmly on starting a viable business, and less about regulations you might need to obey.

The practical tone is enhanced by short interviews with actual entrepreneurs scattered throughout the book, which together with tips from business advisers around England bring many of the points home.

Business Link is the main government-funded brand for supporting businesses of all sizes in England. It is run as a kind of franchise, and goes under different names in other parts of the UK, but is basically the same service.

You can find your nearest Business Link office from the web site at www.businesslink.gov.uk or by ringing 0845 600 9 006.

For other parts of the UK contact

• Business Eye - Wales
• Invest NI - Northern Ireland
• Highlands and Islands Enterprise - Scotland
• Business Gateway - lowland Scotland

There are other titles in the No Nonsense series, plus other free literature and courses available. Some Business Links also offer free one-to-one advice with a qualified business adviser, but this varies from place to place. Still, it’s worth asking.