Category: Small business

Franchising can be a great way to grow your business.  It can enable you to expand your geographical reach as well as your penetration of key markets.  It is a well-known model used all over the world by smaller companies as well as larger scale multinationals such as McDonald’s, Clarks shoes, Interlink Express and Toni & Guy. 

Franchising is also a fast-growing industry, with the latest bfa/Natwest Franchise survey revealing an industry worth £15.1bn in the UK, three times the size that it was 20 years ago.  44,200 franchise outlets employ 621,000 people, an increase of 70% over the last 10 years.

What is franchising?

Business format franchising is the granting of a license by one person (the franchisor) to another (the franchisee), which entitles the franchisee to own and operate their own business under the brand, systems and proven business model of the franchisor.” British Franchise Association

A variety of different industries lend themselves to a franchising model, but it isn’t for everyone.  Managing a group of franchisees is completely different to running your business – and one can certainly distract from the other if not handled properly.  If you think franchising might be right for your business, then here are our five top tips to ensure your franchising journey is a success:

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We all have a vision in our heads of an angel – the being that came to bring messages of good news and great joy in the nativity story – or the little girl dressed in white with her fluffy halo on her head in the school play.  But how does that work in a business context?   What is a business angel?

“An angel investor is a high net worth individual who makes use of their personal disposable finance and makes their own decision about making the investment.” UK Business Angels Association

A business angel is someone (or a group of people) who decides to invest their money in other businesses.  It is described as equity finance, as the angel would usually take shares in your company in return for the finance they are providing.  In contrast to other forms of lending, angels will usually wish to volunteer their expertise as well as their money, helping you to achieve your objectives and them to achieve a return on their investment.  One of the most famous groups of angel investors is of course the BBC Show Dragon’s Den.

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Historically, finding funding for your business was a fairly straightforward business.  You asked the bank, or you saved up enough money yourself.  But in our digital, virtual age, there are far more funding sources on offer.  Of course, the bank (or building society) is still an option, but it isn’t suitable for everyone.  There are friends and family, who can be a fantastic support for your business – both financially and emotionally.  Then come other options such as angel investors or crowdfunding.

“Crowdfunding is a way of raising finance by asking a large number of people each for a small amount of money.” UK Crowdfunding Association

Sometimes referred to as crowd sourcing or peer to peer lending, crowdfunding is the opposite of traditional lending.  Instead of asking a few people (such as a bank) for a larger sum of money, you break it down and ask for a larger number of people to invest a little.  This makes your investment much more accessible for everyday people, not just major investors with big sums of money.

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Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our VAs can add value to many aspects of your business.  In our Expert Showcase series our team deliver some of this expertise to you, with a series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide one of our marketing and social media management specialists Jenny talks about how you can use icons to boost the visual impact of your marketing – both on and offline:

As consumers, we are bombarded with marketing messages every day.  Our phones receive marketing emails, texts and even calls wherever we are.  As soon as we log into our social media accounts we are bombarded with sponsored posts and ‘suggested’ updates.  Our brains are firmly on overload.

So as a business, how do you cut through all that clutter and ensure that your marketing messages do get through?

Graphic design can be a really effective tool, providing visual impact.  Icons are an important part of the designer’s toolkit which can add an identity to your marketing messages and bring them together to reinforce their impact.

An icon is a small picture that represents a topic, information category or programme.

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Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our VAs can add value to many aspects of your business.  In this Expert Showcase series our team deliver some of this expertise to you, with ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide one of our digital marketing specialists Carrie talks about how you can get started with your first email marketing campaign to grow your business:

As a small business money for investing in marketing is always tight.  Every penny is scrutinised and potentially one straight out of your back pocket.  But the good news is that there are lots of free tools that can help you market your business effectively.  Mail Chimp is one example of a free tool which is simple and easy to use and can get your started with communicating with your customers by email.

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It is just 3 weeks to go until the Self Assessment deadline so if you haven’t already got your tax return sorted, now is the time.  Under current tax rules, if you run your own business and are registered self-employed you may need to submit a tax return online, along with other people who are required to file returns such as those whose annual income is over £100,000 per year, who have Capital Gains Tax to pay, who live abroad or who are trustees.  The deadline for filing online is Tuesday 31st January and there are fines to pay for every single day that you file late – however good your excuse is!

For some of you this might be an easy task.  Your accountants may already have everything in hand, you may have already set the money aside to pay the tax owed and you are simply waiting to press the ‘go’ button.  For others this might be the first time you have had to do it – or the annual panic. (more…)

This Saturday 3rd December is Small Business Saturday.  Small Business Saturday UK is a grassroots, non-commercial campaign, which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to ‘shop local’ to support small businesses in their communities.

As a small business you can visit the website www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com and download and print free marketing packs and logos to advertise that you are part of the nationwide campaign.  You can also get involved online by listing your business on their ‘Small Business Finder’ for free.

On social media you can get a free shout out for your plans for the day on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, using the hashtag #SmallBizSatUK.  Last year #SmallBizSatUK trended at number 1 all day on Small Business Saturday with over 100,000 tweets sent in support of the day, reaching more than 25 million people.  That could provide fantastic exposure for your business.

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We are really excited to introduce you to our new email newsletter. Each month we will be asking our readers to ask us a question that they have not got around to finding the answer to.

This month one of our contacts asked us….’How do you set up a webinar?’

So here goes…Carrie one of our Marketing Specialists explains how do you set up a webinar?

You’ve watched webinars yourself or seen them advertised across the web. Everyone is talking about them and you would like to give one a go.

It just seems like far too much trouble and you don’t know where to start. There’s the huge cost and research to be done into creating one and hosting one!!!

I promise you, it is affordable, easy and you will be able to do it, I’m here to help you!
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Last year, Twitter made a number of changes to Direct Messages to expand their functionality and increase their usage.  They made it easier than ever to have a private conversation on what is essentially a public network.  So Direct Messages could now form an important part of your social media marketing, if you are not using them already.

In case the changes slipped under your radar, here are some of the key alterations and some ideas for how you could now use Direct Messages:
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Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our virtual assistants can add value to many aspects of your business.  Every month we deliver some of this expertise to you, with a series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide one of our social media management experts Jenny talks about how awareness days can form an effective part of your social media strategy.

Did you know today is IT Professionals Day, celebrating the contribution IT professionals make to modern business?  If you run an IT business, today could be a great day to spread the word about how your company can benefit and support others.

Awareness days can be an excellent reason to talk about your business online and an important part of your social media strategy.
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