Category Archives: Business

My Life Plan

Posted in banking, Business, city, finance, law, Lifestyle, london, money, student, Uncategorized by

So where am I now and how do I feel about it? Honestly? I’m in a good place. I’m happy. Even typing this, I’ve had to stop and think “am I really happy or am I just saying it because I don’t want readers to think I’m a sad wreck?” I can hand on heart say, life is good. It’s not without its challenges, but life is good. I remember being a fresh-faced 16 year old, making what I thought were over ambitious plans for myself but not really having much focus. 10 years later and a mixture of life and love has seen me go down different paths. I’m a 26 years old, single mother to THE most amazing 5 year old (we’ll come to him another time), I have a great job and career that I love and am about to embark on the next chapter of my life that will see me finally go to university. As it goes, if I died tomorrow, I would be proud of what I’ve accomplished but I want more. For those that have read my post on “Starting a Business”, you’ll know I’m a massive advocate of writing a business plan and reviewing it regularly. As far as I’m concerned, my life is my business so you better believe I have a plan! I’ve reviewed it regularly, sense-checked my progress and often changed it in response to life events and different paths I’ve found myself on. At 16, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew I was going to do A levels and wanted to work in either Law, Banking or Medicine so opted in to Maths, Chemistry and Biology. Although I’ve always been quite smart, I quickly discovered I lacked drive and motivation and only now realise it’s because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was stuck in that common rut of “I have to continue my studies but I have no clue what I’m doing”. Towards the end of the first year, I applied for a “summer job” at a bank and then decided to stay and take a gap year. That gap year lasted 9 years (whoops!) but my goodness I needed it! During that time, I set myself a goal that my salary must always be higher than my age. Simple, maybe somewhat shallow, but a goal is a goal and it’s kept me on my toes. In those 9 years, I’ve climbed and bank hopped to my current position and built up a nice little knowledge bank but also professional network. Whilst my work has given me a lot of exposure to the legal profession, I’ve found my interest in the law has come mainly from helping friends and family out of tricky situations so it was only right that I consulted my trusty “life plan” and see how I could further develop myself. To date, I haven’t documented my plan but as Habbakuk says, “write the vision, and make it plain…” and so this week, I’m off to buy a journal to write down my vision for my life that I can regularly review and support with affirmations and wise words. In terms of detail, I’m not sure how deep I’m going to go with it, but I’m trying a lil thing! 

Watch this space x

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Productive Mornings

Posted in Business, Lifestyle, Relationships, student by

For some strange reason, I’ve been waking up around 5am every morning this week with ideas for new blog posts.

To put this in perspective, I’m definitely in a ‘long term relationship’ with my bed. We’ve got a thing going on. Definitely. I recently discovered my 5 year old son can make his own breakfast and boy oh boy has this worked to my advantage! I don’t set an alarm because I’m cranky if woken out of sleep. Instead, I let myself wake up naturally, which prior to this week, has always been just before or bang on 8am followed promptly by me prodding my son to get up, brush his teeth and make his breakfast. Smooth. This little discovery has earnt me an additional 10 minutes in bed every morning! Not to be knocked! 

So back to this early morning thing. I feel as if I’ve given myself a reason to wake up early in the morning and honestly, I think I like it. In a post further down about my imminent university start, I mentioned that I need to plan and get organised and you know what, my body agrees! I’ll be working full time and going to uni full time in the evening and was getting some advice from a solicitor friend of mine. She told me that by the time I get home from uni after also having a long day at work, my brain will probably need a break and I might find it more beneficial to go home, chill and get up early in the mornings to study with a fresh head. Whilst I absolutely loved the idea in theory, I just couldn’t see myself ‘breaking up’ with my bed. We’ve been through so much! But in all seriousness, this blog has given me a reason to wake up early. It’s kickstarted a new routine for me and I intend to fully embrace it! 

So whatever goals you’ve set yourself, think about what needs to change or improve in your life to make it happen and then more importantly, effect that change! We have all been given a purpose and a design for our life but it’s up to us individually how far we go towards reaching our true potential. Whether it’s changing your morning routine like me, removing certain people from your life or even healing broken relationships, start doing what you need to do to make your ambitions a reality. 

Next on my list: eat breakfast before leaving the house. Pray for me looool. I’m on a journey

X

Starting a business

Posted in Business, Uncategorized by

I’ve been lucky enough to have worked as a business relationship manager in banking for the past 7 years and have looked after businesses from start up right through to large corporates and want to use this blog to pass on atleast some of the knowledge I have acquired.

Today I want to look at start up businesses and 5 key considerations or actions. There are obviously more, but these are a great start.

1. What will the business be
This may seem like an obvious question but you’d be surprised at how many people when questioned, don’t actually know it can’t articulate it.
Are you selling a service or product?
What is/are the service/s or product/s?

Once you have a basic idea, you can move on to the next stage.

2. Plan and prepare
This is quite a meaty chunk and I’d imagine, this is where the majority of your “pre-start” time will be spent. A lot of people straight away think, “Right! This is the part where I write my business plan!” Wrong! Put down the business plan and research.

Research
Whenever I wanted to do anything, they’d say, “Give us all the information and facts so we can make an informed decision.” The same applies here. Before you make any more decisions on what shape the business will take, get some information. Below is by no means an exhaustive list, but use they’re basic “joggers” to help point you in the right direction.

– what legal structure will I be? (I.e Limited, sole trader, Limited Liability Partnership, Charity)
– who else does what I want to do?
– how well do they do it
– why do they/don’t they do it so well
– what can I replicate?
– what would I do differently?
– what will my USP (unique selling point) be?
– who will my customers be? (Demographics)
– what demand is there for what I am selling?
– how will they pay me?
– when will they pay me? (In advance or credit)
– how much will it cost me to source goods?
– do I have enough money?
– will I need to deal internationally?
– will I need to trade in different currencies and what effect might this have on my profits?
– what legislation is applicable to my industry?
– will I need a license to trade?
– what is the market like at the moment for my industry and are any changes coming?
– do I need any qualifications and if so, what and how can I achieve them?
– will I have a physical high street presence or be virtual?
– where?
– how much will it cost
– will I need to take on staff?
– what legislation applies?

As I said, this is just to get you started. Start with a basic question and “funnel” down so you can make your research detailed. Once you have all of this information, writing your business plan will be a lot easier.

Business plan
This is in effect your blueprint for your business. I think a good business plan is specific, sets clear objectives but more importantly, it is a working document. As a start up, you should be reviewing your business plan regularly to check progress and to also see if you are still on the same course. If not, why? Regular reviews will allow you to either alter your business so that you are back in line with your plan, or may even demonstrate that actually, the business plan needs amending to reflect a new direction the business is moving in.
Find a good template as this will help you cover off the necessary considerations.
I quite like http://www.bplans.co.uk but you may find you want a simpler or even more detailed one so have a good look around.
Barclays offers a simpler template on their site

http://www.barclays.co.uk/Startupsupport/Writingasmallbusinessplan/P1242559649359

3. Build you support network
A lot of people wait until they need something before they start looking for advisors. As a new start up, you could save yourself a lot of time and money in the long run by seeking out good advisors early on. You may not necessarily to their help straight away but it’s definitely good practise. A lot of smaller businesses can quite easily look after the bookkeeping and accounting themselves but it’s definitely worth having everything finalised by a professional. Above I mentioned deciding what legal status to take and often an introductory chat with a solicitor can support this decision. There are pros and cons to the different structures but it’s also worth getting some advice from an accountant, as there may be tax advantages to one more than the other due to your nature of business or turnover.
Friends and family can often be a great support, but make sure you gauge the level of support they can and are willing to provide from the absolute get-go. Personally, unless you are setting up a family business, try to keep this to a minimum.

4. Stay organised
Setting up a business can be very time-consuming and stressful but remember to keep a balance, especially if you have a family. Set realistic goals and allocate yourself time to work on them but also give yourself some down time. The last thing you want is to put every living hour into the business and then come to resent it.
Anya Hindmarch says “I have a phrase that was quoted to me which is “as you leave the office at night, fire yourself mentally and come back the next day as you successor”
In order to stay productive, know when to take a break and come back to it. (Especially when writing your business plan!)

5. Keep up to date with industry news and legislation
This is pretty self-explanatory but definitely worth doing. Find out if there are any reputable news feeds you can sign up to and keep up to date with relevant news via newspapers and websites. You may find you watch the news a lot more than before!

Finally, whilst starting a business is not without its challenges, it can be extremely rewarding. With the right mindset and discipline, you can make this work.

Good luck x