Category : Business News

Most successful entrepreneurs reach a point at which they need to consider expanding their business. This could mean taking on extra staff, updating equipment, bringing in new technology, or moving to larger premises.

However, there is always a balance to be struck between keeping a tight rein on finances and making the necessary investment to move your business to the next level. It can be tempting to put the decision off for as long as possible, but here are six tell-tale signs that expansion should be on the cards now:

1. Your Business Can’t Fulfil Customers’ Orders On Times

A major sign of the need for expansion is the inability to fulfil orders on time – particularly where these were previously easily deliverable. This can be an indicator that there is general pressure within your business’ processes, rather than issues with an individual order.

If these problems continue, both your business reputation and growth can be compromised. It could also mean competitors will take advantage, picking up orders that your business has turned away.

2. You and Your Staff Feel Swamped

You and your employees are working 10 to 12 hours a day just to stand still. You’re feeling pressured every time the phone rings. Workers are telling managers that their workload is problematic. If you do nothing in this situation, you risk losing employees and suffering from burnout yourself. Official statistics show the number of cases related to stress, depression, or anxiety in the workplace totalled 440,000 in 2014/15.

3. Cash Flow Is Suffering Because Payments Aren’t Being Chased

Managers are so busy delivering on the order book that they don’t have time to keep on top of chasing unpaid invoices. You may well notice that cash flow is suffering as a result. Half of start-up businesses fail within five years and cash flow issues are the biggest reason.

4. The Marketplace Is Changing

The introduction of new regulations, disruption from technological changes and changing market forces can all put an extra burden on you and your staff. As such, it may be necessary to take on a new employee in order to deal with various changes to the marketplace in which you operate.

5. Your Business’ Reputation Is Suffering

Three out of four customers say they spend more money when they get a good customer experience. So ensuring that you are able to meet – or exceed – client expectations can pay dividends in the long run.

The alarm bells should start ringing if you notice negative comments on social media or an increase in the number of complaints. If your business is losing customers, you need to act swiftly to prevent a downward spiral.

6. Your Business Feels Crammed into an Untidy Space

If you’re operating between piles of stock and paperwork, it’s time to take a look at bigger premises. If you’re operating from home, maybe you need to look at office space instead? If you have recently taken on more employees, does your current premises have the required welfare facilities to meet health and safety legislation? These are all considerations that need to be made before making the decision to move your business.

So, What Can You Do as Your Businesses Expands?

There are several steps which can be taken to aid with the process of expansion. Outsourcing a number of roles is an excellent method for relieving the burden on overworked employees. Typical areas businesses look for help with are accountancy, marketing, social media, and administration. Alternatively, you could train staff to perform multiple functions to ensure that workload is spread more evenly.

Could you expand into an adjacent unit or a larger unit on the same site? Getting larger premises is more straightforward if a business is dealing with the same landlord – and you don’t need to provide a new address to customers. Shared office space which can be hired by the day is a great option for start-up owners who have been operating from home.

How Can Simply-Docs Help?

Simply-Docs provides ready-to-use documents and legal contracts ideal for businesses, including employment and health & safety documents. To talk more about how we can help your business manage a change of premises, simply contact our friendly team today.

Flexible working is an increasingly popular trend, fuelled by changing social dynamics and the ability for many professionals to carry out their work from virtually any location with a Wi-Fi signal. It refers both to flexible patterns of work as well as to the choice of working remotely from home or elsewhere.

Flexible working is an attractive prospect for many employees who are parents with young children or have other caring responsibilities. Employers need to reasonably consider all requests for flexible working.

So what’s in it for your business? Isn’t it better to have your staff all in one place, somewhere you can manage them? Recent studies suggest not. Flexible working isn’t just about creating a pleasant atmosphere for your workers, or moving away from micro-management and presenteeism. In fact, you may well find that flexible working increases profitability in a number of ways:

Reduce Your Costs

A study by Vodafone UK has revealed that implementing flexible working could save UK businesses £34 billion. For example, hot-desking, where workers on different shifts share desks to maximise use of office space, can reduce rental costs. Businesses can save not only by renting less square footage but also in paying less for heating and lighting.

Improve Productivity and Customer Service

As there’s no commute involved for homeworkers, employees could potentially be available to work earlier or later. A study by IBM into their own alternative workplace programme revealed 87% of employees believed their productivity and effectiveness had improved since they started working from home.

However, employers must ensure homeworkers have an adequate and safe working space. For instance, implementing robust health and safety policies can avoid many problems which could otherwise be very costly in the long run.

Attract Better Quality Candidates for Jobs

The benefits of allowing flexibility at work means that a wider range of people are able to apply for positions – including parents who need time to look after young children or semi-retired workers. Consequently, your business could gain an advantage by being able to select candidates with as wide a skill set as possible. Accessibility to a wider pool of potential employees can give your business the edge and ensure that the best candidates don’t end up working for a competitor.

Improve Staff Loyalty

Flexible working boosts morale and reduces the risk of stress and burnout. A happier workforce is less likely to have a high turnover of staff and all the associated costs. On the other hand, failure to offer flexible working arrangements may also mean that employees take their skills and experience to a rival company with a more flexible approach.

Future Trends

Acas notes that “New technology has … accelerated the opportunities for people to work from home and to stay in touch with colleagues and the emergence of a … ‘4G’ workforce has provided an extra dimension to the need for flexibility.” As the technology revolution gathers pace, it may be time to consider introducing or formalising flexible working policies to future-proof your organisation.

Simply-Docs has a wide selection of ready-to-use document templates to help small businesses implement flexible working while reducing costs – including contract amendments, and flexible and home working documents. To talk more about how we can help your business manage a more flexible approach to working, simply contact our friendly team today

Is opening a shop your dream? Do you long for the day you’ll have your own business and meet new customers every day? Be prepared for long hours and months of careful preparation before you can get your store up and running. Once you’re established, though, it’ll be a rewarding enterprise.

Here are our top 10 tips for those starting a retail business:

1. Decide on your budget and research the law

How will you finance your business? Consider whether you’ll need a loan, or funding from a partner or investor. You need to know how much money you have for stock, premises, staff, marketing, and branding. Getting realistic figures for all these areas is important at the start of any business.

Create your business plan and factor all your costs into it. What legal rules do you have to follow? For example, you’ll need public liability insurance if you’re opening a shop, and you’ll need to comply with food safety rules if you’re selling foodstuffs.

2. Do your market research

You can’t decide what you’re going to sell, where you’re going to sell it, and how, until you’ve tested the market. There are various ways of doing this – look at statistics for retailers in your sector and anecdotal evidence from retailers in the places where you’re considering opening.
When it comes to choosing your products, you have to ask the question: is there demand? You may wish to get a market research company to test the water for you. It’s also worth researching potential suppliers carefully for cost and quality.

3. Profile your ideal customers

Creating a profile allows you to be focused in your decision-making. You’ll need to think about where they live, what jobs they do, their income and leisure habits, what their problems are, and how your business can solve them. How do they shop? Do your ideal customers like to browse in store, or do they make most of their choices online?

4. Decide whether you’ll need a physical store or be selling solely online

Most retailers use a mixture of the two approaches. Most stores have online versions where customers can order products. Even without a store on a high street, you’ll need to think about product storage and how you’ll get your products to your customers.

5. Decide on a pricing structure and your terms and conditions of sale

You’ll need to work out the cost per item. That includes raw materials, the cost of processing and packaging, staff costs, storage costs, the cost of power to your shop, the cost of business rates, and other business costs. Once you’ve done that, you can work out the mark-up you’ll need per item to make a profit. Don’t forget you need to draw up your terms and conditions of sale.

6. Set up your website

Decide whether you’ll be writing and designing your own website, or whether you’ll call in a web designer and copywriter to give your site a professional polish. Will your designer buy the domain name and host it for you? Is there after-care in their price?

If your site is an e-commerce one rather than just informational, take a look at some of the best-designed sites with good ratings on review sites and find out who created them. There’s nothing more frustrating to customers than an online shopping cart which doesn’t work.

7. Find your premises

Finding the right location for a shop is vital. You’ll need to look at footfall in the area, the mix of other retailers around it, whether there are competitors close by, the kind of building you’re leasing or buying, the cost of the lease or mortgage, and the business rates. Will your premises need major refurbishment?

8. Decide on your branding and how you’ll deal with customers

This isn’t just about signage or letterheads. Your brand should extend from your shop and website, to your business cards and staff uniforms. How will complaints and queries be dealt with? How will your brand be managed on social media? Will you do that in-house or outsource it?

9. Hire staff

Your staff are the first point of contact for your customers – you need people who will become advocates for your business. Selecting the right people is vital. How will your team blend together? It’s important to ensure you have some staff with prior retail experience. They will help you train those who are new to the sector.

10. Decide how you will market your new business

You should have a marketing budget to ensure your retail business is a success. There are various ways you could spend it – advertising in newspapers, in magazines, or on TV and radio, customer promotions, and marketing on social media. It’s important to have a plan, and to decide whether you need external help from a marketing or social media company.

The hard work starts here! Simply-Docs has a range of customisable, ready-to-use documents which will help any retail start-up control their legal costs. They include customisable website terms and conditions, sale and supply of goods agreements, and internet, e-commerce and website agreements.

For more information about our services, contact our friendly team today.

A recent study by HR Magazine has found that UK employees have some of the lowest levels of engagement with their work in the world. But, with business cultures differing from country to country, are there any lessons from abroad that we can learn to make our companies more efficient and profitable?
With that that thought in mind, and using Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Germany as examples, we’ve decided to take a look.

Sweden

In many ways, Sweden is well ahead of the curve in relation to many socio-economic issues. Unemployment is low, as is the national debt and inflation, and labour productivity levels are well above the global average. In addition to this, the Swedish public enjoy excellent standards of living.
So what is the Swedish business culture like that has helped guide our Scandinavian cousins to such success?

Flexible working hours

Sweden is a country obsessed with creating a good work-life balance. In fact, The Independent recently reported, in a bid to improve happiness and productivity, Sweden is currently moving towards a six-hour working day.

Indeed, many of the country’s most successful businesses have already successfully implemented this change – including the Toyota centre in Gothenburg, which made the switch 13 years ago. Since then, the company have improved staff morale, reduced their employee turnover rate and increased profits.

Free perks and healthcare

In recent years, Swedish businesses have made giant strides in promoting health and wellbeing within their workforces. And, among the plentiful perks provided by many Swedish companies, free or subsidised healthcare schemes are high on the list.

For example, employees over 50-years-old are often provided with free medical examinations every couple of years. Plus, many companies provide their workforce with free fruit and subsidised daily meals to help encourage healthy eating.

What can we learn?

Want proof? Inspired by the Scandinavian model, a Liverpool-based marketing agency recently started trialling a six-hour work day and is already enjoying the benefits.
Companies that support health in the workplace typically have a greater percentage of their employees at work every day. For this reason, productivity levels are typically high within Swedish companies. Furthermore, after retirement, Swedish citizens enjoy one of the highest life expectancies in the world, so they must be doing something right.

Denmark

As with their Scandinavian neighbours in Sweden, corporate culture in Denmark focuses on cultivating a happy and motivated workforce. Arguably, though, the Danes place an even greater emphasis on the Law of Jante. For the uninitiated, the Law of Jante dictates that team success is more important than individual achievements. Consequently, the typical Danish corporate hierarchy reflects this principle.

Flat management structures

Many Danish businesses work in small teams without managers, thus creating a flat hierarchy. Without a manager to steer proceedings, teams have to find a way to work together effectively, with all members contributing equally to the cause.

Similarly, many Danish companies make a special point of celebrating their successes together. As everything is a team effort, no individual is worthy of more praise than another when it comes to celebrating company wins. As such, everyone gets recognised for their efforts – no matter how big or small.

What can we learn?

In British business culture, power relations and hierarchical organisations are common. For this reason, Brits tend to defer to seniority and lines of communication get passed down by rank.
However, as a rule, employees in Danish companies are encouraged to work independently. The benefit of such a structure is that all employees feel empowered by a sense of responsibility towards achieving the same goals. This, in turn, makes them feel more motivated, while celebrating successes as a team means everyone gets to feel valued.

All in all, then, a flat management structure can help to cultivate a workforce of empowered employees that feel valued and responsible for a company’s success.

Japan

Japan is an ancient culture with many unique traditions, customs and rituals that extend into the country’s business culture. Although such formalities might seem mysterious from a Westerner’s perspective, you’d be hard pressed to argue that they don’t work given the fact that Japan have developed into an economic powerhouse.

Daily motivational rituals

Many Japanese companies start the day with a morning assembly where workers meet to sing a company song or recite motivational slogans in unison. To the casual observer, this might seem strange. However, to the Japanese, these rituals act in the same manner as a daily pep talk, or other such motivational techniques.

Status equals power

In Japan, face-to-face meetings are a crucial part of building working relationships with clients and colleagues. When meeting in person, it is customary that the highest ranking attendee sits at the head of the table and is addressed first when discussions commence. This behaviour is representative of Japanese culture, which values the wisdom of its elders. From a business perspective, it’s an illustration that respect is earned as a virtue of experience.

What can we learn?

Daily motivational rituals are a great technique for ensuring the long-term goals of a company remain fresh in employees’ minds. Although you might not want to go to the lengths of the Japanese, motivational talks and slogans can help boost staff morale, when used appropriately.

Older generations seem to never tire of telling younger people that they lack respect for older generations. Although this is a sweeping generalisation, in relation to how you conduct yourself in the workplace, there is a lesson to be gleaned.

In most cases, people are promoted within companies because they have displayed high levels of skill and aptitude. Therefore, if you disagree with a manager, it’s probably best to remember they are where they are on merit, and to air any grievances in private.

Germany

It’s perhaps too easy and not always accurate to summarise German business culture into a list of stereotypes. Nonetheless, it is impossible to ignore the fact that Germany is Europe’s industrial powerhouse, the world’s second largest importer and the only country rich enough to save the eurozone from recession. So, those traditional stereotypes must carry some weight, right?

Structure is function

Many German companies choose to enforce strict rules, regulations and processes to ensure all tasks get completed correctly and on time. In some companies, non-compliance to enforced regulations carry penalties, which vary based on the severity of the offence. Although this method for conducting business offers little flexibility, the Germans believe that the benefits of a high degree of consistency far outweigh the negatives.

Plugging the skills gap at source

The Germans treat education very differently to most other major European countries. In upper secondary schools, for example, many students take vocational courses and enter into apprenticeships. For this reason, a far greater proportion of Germans leave the education system 100% job-ready.

For jobs that require a higher form of qualification, in the majority of cases, state-run universities complete the education of potential employees on behalf of German companies. Nonetheless, in Germany, there is no stigma attached to vocational qualifications. Therefore, if you are talented enough, there is no reason that you can’t rise to the top of a German company, even if you don’t have a degree.

What can we learn?

Although the typical British workplace is also governed by rules and regulations, as a rule, they tend to be far less implicit than in Germany. For instance, verbal agreements, unwritten rules and ‘gentleman’s agreements’ still play a vital role in the organisational structure of many UK-based businesses. In theory, therefore, lifting more liberally from the German template should allow more British businesses to attain a higher level of consistency and reliability.

In regards to qualifications, in the UK, intense competition for jobs means that three-quarters of employers require a 2:1 degree. Historically, this has meant anyone without a good degree grade – or a degree at all – has struggled to climb up the corporate ladder in Britain.

Hypothetically, this has curtailed the progress of many talented individuals and stopped them from reaching their full potential. However, this year, several British companies such as Penguin and the graduate recruiters Ernst & Young, have removed degree classification from their job requirements. As a result, more talented but underqualified people will have a better chance of winning top jobs in British companies, just like in Germany.

At Simply-Docs, we provide a wide selection of ready to use business documents and contracts. For more information about how we can help reduce the amount of professional legal input your business needs, contact one of our expert team today.

Starting a new business is an exciting time, where everything and anything can seem possible. Yet, while it’s important to dream, if you don’t forge a concrete plan for success then failure is almost inevitable.So, if you’re a budding internet entrepreneur, here are 10 essential tips that will help you start your own online business.

• 1.     Identify your market

If you’re considering creating a new business, it’s important to remember that a good idea is worth nothing. Good ideas are ten a penny, and from an entrepreneur’s perspective, the most important thing is to ensure that a good idea can turn into a profitable business.

When starting out, many businesspeople make the mistake of concentrating on an idea or product, rather than a market. However, it’s the viability of a market – or, more accurately, the likelihood of demand for what you’re selling – that will determine success.

For this reason, before pressing ahead, you will need to do research. Survey your audience and look at competitors to determine if the product or service you want to offer is viable for a particular market. When researching online audiences specifically, you can also do keyword research that will allow you to determine the types of problems that people are searching for a solution to online.

• 2.     Don’t quit your day job straight away

The ultimate dream for anyone starting a new online business is to make enough money to quit their day job. Unfortunately, unless you’re either really good or really lucky, this isn’t going to happen straight away.

Budding online entrepreneurs who quit work before their new businesses really get going are often forced to take money out of that business to support themselves. However, in the initial start-up phase, where a cash cushion can make the difference between success and failure, the extra income provided by your day job could become crucial.

So, unless you have enough money in the bank to support the life to which you’ve become accustomed, it might not be the best idea to quit your day job straight away.

• 3.     Website builder tools provide the cheapest option

Once you’ve zoned in on your market and product/service, the next important step is to build a website that does everything you need it to.

Luckily, there are a wide range of creation tools such as WordPress, SquareSpace or Weebly that make the process relatively cheap and easy. As an added bonus, most website creation tools also offer hosting services, which provide crucial storage space and internet connectivity capabilities for people visiting your website.

For more information about the options available, check out the post: ‘Choosing the Right Website Builder for Your Needs’.

• 4.     Keep things simple when designing your site

When it comes to creating a website, there’s a whole gamut of design options available. However, because you only have a handful of seconds to grab and then retain a prospective customer’s attention, usability and functionality are key to e-commerce website design.

Consequently, nothing should take more than a few clicks to buy, any and all fonts need to be easy to read, and site-wide navigation must be as clear as possible. Additionally, while graphics and fancy images might catch the eye, these should only be considered if they don’t distract customers from your site’s core sales message.

• 5.     Craft copy that sells

While building and designing your website, it’s important not to forget about the power of words. After all, it’s your website’s copy that will ultimately help guide potential customers through the buying process and convince them into becoming paying customers.

If you don’t have the utmost confidence in your writing abilities, you can check out ‘David Ogilvy’s 7 Tips for Writing Copy That Sells’ for inspiration. Alternatively, hiring a professional copywriter to create sales copy for you can provide a significant return on investment (ROI).

• 6.     Pick the right domain name

It can be tempting to try to be clever when picking your company name and, by extension, your website’s domain name. Nevertheless, in a similar vein to designing your website, it’s best to keep things simple.

Keep your domain name short and easy to type, and include keywords that describe your business and the product or service that it offers. Try and be memorable – without being confusing – and only use appropriate domain extensions such as .com or .co.uk. Avoid using numbers and hyphens where possible.

Once you’ve picked the perfect domain name, it’s advisable to protect your brand by purchasing all the various domain extensions and misspelled versions. If your business becomes a success, this will help prevent potential competitors from piggybacking off your triumphs.

Furthermore, we would also suggest protecting your brand by registering it as a trademark. For more information about trademark registration and fees, go to the Intellectual Property Office website.

• 7.     Don’t forget search engine optimisation (SEO)

For the uninitiated, SEO involves implementing techniques that boost your search engine rankings while increasing the number of visitors to your website. Although SEO is a multi-faceted discipline that requires a fair amount of technical skill, there are several easily comprehensible tricks you can keep in mind.

Firstly, is the content on your website relevant to your business and does it help provide answers for the things users are searching for? Secondly, in terms of performance, is your website fast loading and is it mobile-friendly? And thirdly, does your website provide a good user experience by being easy to navigate, trustworthy and safe?

Making sure you can answer yes to all these questions will help to ensure your website is optimised for search engines and potential customers.

• 8.     Embrace digital promotion channels

The key to marketing your business online is making sure that your products and services are showcased where potential customers are looking.

For instance, both Facebook and Twitter are excellent platforms for engaging with and attracting new customers, so setting up business profiles on both is an absolute must. Likewise, creating and maintaining a blog on your website is the easiest way to establish a ‘voice’ for your brand and is therefore an integral part of almost every online business.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising should also be a consideration, as it is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get traffic to a new website. If you’re unfamiliar with the intricacies of PPC, you can read a great overview on the subject here. But, in short, PPC is a form of internet marketing provided by search engines like Google that allows businesses to create ads related to keywords that people are searching for. Consequently, PPC ads are a great way to get your business in front of a highly targeted audience.

• 9.     Don’t hide behind a screen

Customer service is just as important for online business as it is for brick-and-mortar stores – if not more so. Therefore, you need to make sure that the standard customer service channels people expect are clear and present within the design of your website.

This includes social media channels, an ‘About Us’ page and contact details. More important, however, is regularly checking your business’ emails. This is because not replying to customer complaints in a prompt fashion has the potential to significantly damage your brand.

• 10.  Continually evaluate your successes and failures

Many business niches, particularly in the online environment, are subject to rapid change. For this reason, the key to maintaining success over a longer period is constant evaluation. If you are assessing what does and what doesn’t work for your business on a consistent basis, you’ll know what to do more of and what to do less of.

Likewise, looking for new ideas and fresh concepts to implement always has the potential to provide long-term benefits. For instance, once your business is off the ground, is there scope to introduce back-end sales and upselling? Email marketing campaigns? Value-adding videos and guides? In short, you should never stop looking for ways to improve.

How can Simply-Docs help?

We provide a wide selection of ready-to-use internet and e-commerce document templates as well as website terms and conditions and privacy policies that can help reduce the amount of professional input your new online business will need.

We have invested a lot of time and effort into making sure all our documents are customisable and easy to edit. You can create terms and conditions for your website, goods and services terms and any other business legal document you might need quickly and easily.

For more information about our services, please do not hesitate to contact one of our expert team today.

Did you know that around 70% of all new businesses start off in the home? And, after a record number of UK start-ups in 2015, more home-based entrepreneurs than ever are set to take advantage of reduced overheads, non-existent commutes and increased flexibility to get their new business ventures off the ground.While working from home boasts an array of benefits, it’s certainly not always the bed of roses it may appear. For instance, staying motivated to work when surrounded by an array of domestic distractions can take superhuman levels of will power and organisation.

So, if you have recently created a kitchen table start-up – or are considering doing so soon – here are some top tips that will help keep you and your new business’s bottom line pulling in the same direction.

Boost your tech skills

As a work from home entrepreneur, it is unlikely you’ll have access to an IT department that can offer tech support the moment you need it. Yet, with just about every niche becoming increasingly tech-driven, acquiring some basic IT skills could be key to keeping your business running when you encounter a technical glitch.

Networking and conversing with clients and customers electronically is crucial when working from home. For this reason, getting active on LinkedIn groups that relate to your business and developing proficient video conferencing skills are an absolute must. Both will help you minimise the distance barrier between you and the people that matter.

Cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Google Drive are also great tools for entrepreneurs to be literate in. Exploiting cloud storage options provides a quick and easy way to share important information with others. And, for those times when you do actually need to leave the house, saving your files in the cloud provides vital access to work via connected devices from anywhere in the world.

Create an office-like environment at home

For most of us, our home is a haven for rest and relaxation; somewhere to shield us from the stress and strain of the outside world. As a work from home entrepreneur, it is therefore important to create a space that allows you to compartmentalise work from home life.

Consequently, creating an office-like environment at home is the only way to help protect you from a plethora of domestic distractions. If you can, it’s best to dedicate a whole room to your new home office – preferably one that is big enough to accommodate a desk, comfortable chair, storage cabinets, and any other office furniture you might need to create an atmosphere conducive to work.

It’s also worth noting that at least some of the money you invest in creating a home office and some expenses you incur in running it are tax deductible. However, you should always take the utmost care when calculating home office expenses, preferably with the assistance of a professional accountant.

Create and follow a daily routine

For some work from home entrepreneurs, the appeal of being able to roll straight out of bed to start work can become all-consuming. However, in the long-term, working to an unstructured schedule in this manner can significantly compromise your productivity.

The only known solution to avoiding such temptations is to set yourself working hours, and stick to them. Having a plan that includes scheduled breaks should help. Alternatively, if you’re conditioned to working office-type hours, you might want to try scheduling your working day from home in a similar manner.

Whatever system you decide to use for managing your time, consistency is key. We’re all creatures of habit, and formulating a consistent routine is the fastest and easiest way to create a mindset conducive for work.

Get dressed for work

If you don’t create a mental separation between rest and play, it becomes a lot easier to get distracted. While you may be warm and comfortable working in your jogging bottoms or pyjamas, neither are appropriate attire when it comes to motivating yourself for a hard day’s work.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit and tie all day, every day – particularly if you’re unlikely to interact with anyone else in a working capacity. Nonetheless, changing into smart/causal clothing can help you switch from a home to work-based mindset more easily, while also reducing your chances of slipping into relaxation mode.

Make sure you get your eight hours every night

In the UK, studies suggest that entrepreneurs work 63% longer than other workers. While it’s natural to want to put extra hours in to ensure your new business is a success, it remains important to find the right balance between work and rest.

Research indicates that the key entrepreneurial skills of planning, problem solving and lateral thinking are severely compromised when an individual is not sufficiently rested. Consequently, if you want to maintain the highest levels of productivity throughout the week, sleeping a little bit more and working just a little bit less may be the best course of action.

Eat healthy and make time to exercise

In addition to making sure you get enough sleep, eating healthily and keeping physically fit are very important for entrepreneurs who want to maximise their potential. And the good news is, as a work from home entrepreneur, you’ll enjoy more flexibility to make time to eat well and exercise.

So instead of letting convenience rule your breakfast choices, take the time saved by skipping the daily commute to prepare brain-boosting foods, such as eggs and fruit, in the mornings. Similarly, you can use the time saved by living so close to your office to make sure you get the requisite number of hours exercise recommended for adults each week.

Remember: over time, good diet and exercise are guaranteed to help tune your mind and body for success.

Technology is more reliable than will power

Procrastination is the mortal enemy of productivity and something that can strike anyone, at any time. If you spend all day at a computer, the internet, with its vast collection of time-sinking websites, can become a major distraction.

If you know you’re attracted to your favourite websites like a moth to the light, there are add-ons for all the major browsers that you can use to prevent yourself from giving in to temptation. StayFocused, for Chrome, allows you to limit time spent on particular websites, while SelfControl and LeechBlock offer similar equivalents for Safari and Firefox respectively.

Get the proper business paperwork

If you’re running a small business from home, you still need to comply with all usual legal requirements applicable to a small business, and this will include completing and submitting certain forms and other documents. You will also still need to enter into the usual business supply/purchase and other contracts to protect your legal position. When you’re trying to get a business off the ground, this can represent an unwelcome and expensive distraction.

At Simply-Docs, we provide an extensive portfolio of ready to use document and contract templates. Although professional legal advice should still be taken as appropriate, in many cases, using our template documents will allow you to substantially reduce the amount of professional legal input your business needs. As a result, becoming a subscriber to our services can offer substantial savings on legal fees, while also allowing you more time to concentrate on making your new business a success.

Have you got any tips for helping home-based entrepreneurs stay more productive? Then join the conversation in the comments section below.

Gift Aid

HMRC has recently introduced new model wording to be used in Gift Aid Declaration forms from September 2015 onwards. This replaces the previous model wording which may no longer be used after 5 April 2016. The three model forms cover (i) one-off donations; (ii) multiple donations; and (iii) sponsored events. The forms are for use by donors and sponsors of charities or CASCs. Although the content of the forms has changed, the new forms are to be used for the same purposes and in the same way as before. HMRC recommends that the new model wording is used but charities and CASCs may adapt the forms and/or add to the wording, e.g. by adding the logo of, or messages from, the charity/CASC and other details.

What has changed?

The new forms are simpler than the previous versions, and in particular they no longer contain unnecessary references to VAT and Council Tax.

The forms are now worded in a way that demonstrates more clearly the value to the charity or CASC concerned of a Gift Aid claim.

They now also include wording making clear that donors have the responsibility to ensure that they have paid sufficient total tax in the year to cover all their Gift Aid donations, and that they have to pay any shortfall of tax where they have not paid sufficient tax in the year. That responsibility is not a new one, but it was not spelt out in the previous model forms.

Impact and unfairness of claiming back tax from donors

If someone has donated £100 to a charity or CASC under Gift Aid but HMRC finds that they were ineligible to do so under Gift Aid (i.e. they did not pay enough tax to cover the donation), HMRC can claim £25 from him (i.e. the amount of tax which the charity has claimed on that amount), so that the donation will have cost him £125 in total. This is not what he would have expected or intended. The charity will then keep the £100 from the donor and the additional £25 it claimed back from HMRC. If instead the charity had been required to pay back that £25 to HMRC, the donor’s only cost would have been his £100 donation, and the charity would have been no worse off than if the donation of £100 had in the first place not been made under Gift Aid.

This approach by HMRC might be regarded as unfair treatment of donors – many of whom will have donated through Gift Aid when they were taxpayers and then mistakenly made further donations through Gift Aid after they ceased to be taxpayers. Apart from the issue of fairness, if HMRC pursues donors in this way, the effect might be to dissuade some people from making donations who would otherwise have done so, and charities and CASCs would then suffer. Indeed, research carried out for HMRC in 2014 found that serious deterrent messages put off eligible donors.

What will be the effect of these changes?

The Charity Tax Group (“CTG”), which represents the charity sector, had both positive and negative points to make about these changes. The CTG stressed that more needs to be done to promote awareness of the changes and that charities need to ensure that they comply with the requirement to adopt the new model forms. The CTG commented that these new shorter forms are easier for donors to understand and that charities welcomed the new forms – since they are shorter and simpler, they are expected to maximize take up by those donors eligible to use Gift Aid. On the down side, the CTG felt that the new forms’ increased focus on the personal tax status of the donor could have a “chilling effect” on some donors and sponsors.

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (“LITRG”), a group independent of HMRC which represents low income donors, was more critical of the new wording. The LITRG called on HMRC not to pursue non-tax paying people for any tax due on donations they make to a charity under Gift Aid, their reason being that it would be fairer for any reimbursement to come instead from the charity. The LITRG’s view was that when a person of limited means makes a donation, the last thing the LITRG wanted was for HMRC to pursue him for tax on the donation. The LITRG highlighted the fact that this creates a moral dilemma for charities and CASCs: although legally entitled to keep the Gift Aid tax amounts reclaimed from HMRC, should charities and CASCs reimburse it rather than letting the donors bear the cost of it? If a charity or CASC does not reimburse it, a donor might cancel the donation itself, seeing it as too risky to donate.

What should charities and CASCs do now?

Since HMRC will not accept the old forms after 5 April 2016, it is important that well before that date all charities and CASCs plan the updating of their Gift Aid Declaration forms, their online and printed statements, fundraising scripts and letters for oral declarations, and use up their existing stocks of printed forms and related material. Existing enduring declarations (i.e. declarations covering all future donations, typically used where the donor makes regular gifts to the charity or CASC) do not have to be renewed, and so there is no need to contact donors to update those forms.

On 13th June 2014 new EU business to consumer selling regulations come into force covering distance and doorstep selling. The changes will require amendments to terms and conditions allowing for a new cooling off period, provision of a model cancellation form, and tighter delivery periods: Businesses must ensure consumers have access to transaction information in a “durable medium”: New rules will apply to 0845 and 0870 telephone lines in respect of customer service help-lines. For e-commerce sites, customers will now have to acknowledge that placing an order incurs an obligation to pay, and optional extra boxes that incur costs must be not be pre-checked. Please click on Changes to Distance and Doorstep Selling Regulations for more info. Many businesses will have to revise their business processes, especially web based operations which will need to instruct their web developers to apply the requisite amendments. How easy and costly will this be to implement?

Please click on Changes to Distance and Doorstep Selling Regulations for more info.

The type of business documents that your firm uses will be dependent on the type of sector in which you operate. However, there are some documents that most businesses will be able to use. Here we take a look at some of the many different types of documents that you may need for your business:

Business plans along with business goals

One of the first documents that you will come across when starting any venture is the business plan. This is a document you draw up which outlines your goals and objectives. The business plan will generally include a management plan, along with a budget and possibly marketing strategies. During the first few years, a business plan is essential as it provides a blueprint and has strategic goals for the business to meet.

Documents relating to accounting

Keeping your accounts up to date is essential when it comes to tax time. You may have a department that takes care of accounting, depending on the size of your business. If you are doing the accounting yourself you will need documents so that you can keep track of what is coming in and what is going out. Your company may also need to write financial reports for any investors and/or shareholders.

Customer services documentation

If your company is selling products or services you may have a customer service department. This service will typically also answer any questions that customers may have and/or deal with complaints. Documents that are common and which relate to clients and the customer service department include order forms, complaint forms and brochures or leaflets with the descriptions of the services and products your company offers.

Documents for the operation of your business

There may be many different types of document that you need for the running of your business. These could include meeting minutes for use during meetings and proposals for projects. Other documents may include terms and conditions, contracts, agreements or terms of business. For your firm to operate legally you may also need several types of legal documentation.
Documents you may need for employees

When taking on employees there are certain documents that you would need. Documents such as these may include a contract of employment. If your business requires this you can download a contract of employment template and base your document on this one and tailor it to meet your needs.

Keeping all employees up to date with health and safety is essential and you will want to have a health and safety document in place in case of accidents in the workplace. Accidents can be recorded on an accident sheet or a health and safety form. Again you can download templates, which you can then tailor to meet the needs of your particular business.

The current coalition government set aside £112 million to support the Start-Up Loans initiative. It was hoped the fund would enable budding young entrepreneurs to access start-up capital more easily, leading to growth in the number of start-ups quite literally starting up in our economy. The scheme also puts young entrepreneurs in touch with mentors to help them navigate all aspects of new business, from legal contracts to PR. Chaired by Dragon’s Den star, James Caan, the project recently announced its 1000th loan.

But why are start-ups so good for the UK financially?
Start-ups and small businesses are good for the economy because they fill niche spaces and encourage home-grown business growth. Start-ups are uniquely placed to offer highly tailored services and can grow and adapt much quicker than larger organisations.

But a great idea isn’t always a guaranteed success. Here are five of the most common reasons for start-up failure.

1. Giving up
You never hear about an entrepreneur who gave up but their business carried on without them and was a success. All entrepreneurs are hard working, focussed, ambitious innovators. They believe in their product and are willing to wade through an awful lot of a mud before swimming in the river of success.

2. Overdevelopment
The simplest ideas are often the most successful, at least at first. Just look at the likes of eBay or the Slanket. Focus on reaching the majority with a simple, trustworthy product or service before adding all the bells and whistles (Facebook is another great example of this!) There will be time for product development once you have a solid customer base.

3. Poor marketing
Reaching your market – it’s crucial. Aside from all the contract templates, logistics networks and market research, you MUST reach your majority target market quickly and easily. Tools like social media make it inexcusable not to have a marketing strategy in place before you launch your product. This brings us to the next point.

4. Lack of mentor
It can be too easy to think of more experienced people in and around your sector as simply competition. But mentorships can offer superb insight into things like industry trends and marketing strategies and perhaps offer advice and point out pitfalls you’d missed. Never cast aside advice from entrepreneurs who came before you; they’ve succeeded so they must have done something right!

5. Poor prioritisation
If an entrepreneur gets bogged down in something like what colour to paint the walls in their first office or what font to make their standard terms and conditions, it’s likely some other area of the business is suffering.

To have a shot at success, young entrepreneurs need to focus on casting a wide net and utilising all the tools at their disposal. Companies like ours make it easier than ever to access clear, trustworthy information, so stay on the lookout for similar businesses that could boost your chance of success.