Dodo Loves Marketing

Once you’ve done your market research and worked out if you can make a profit from the business, the next step is to take advice. This will not only confirm whether your calculations are realistic, but can take a lot of the pain out of setting up. The good news is that there’s lots of advice available - and much of it is free. What’s more, experts on small businesses reckon that over 60 per cent of small business failures could be avoided if only people took advice in three areas - money, management and marketing.

1 TECs/LECs A good place to start is your local Training and Enterprise Council (TEC), or Local Enterprise Council (LEC) . These can also put you in touch with other helpful agencies; such as your local Enterprise Agency and Business Link. You can find them through your telephone book, Yellow Pages or local library. The Department of Trade and Industry also has a hotline. ..more

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There are thousands of grants and low interest loans available for small businesses. The problem is finding out what they are and whether your business qualifies. Some fields are more liberally provided with grants than others. For instance, the Crafts Council has a setting-up scheme which allows selected craftspeople to receive a grant of £2,500 for maintenance and up to £5,000 for equipment (they pay half of equipment costs), provided they apply within two years of setting up. While this would not cover your start-up costs entirely, it could certainly be a very useful addition. Other areas where grants may be forthcoming include : ..more

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Network marketing is a completely legitimate business. It has nothing to do with ‘pyramid selling‘ or chain-letter-type scams which have made newspaper headlines. Indeed, the worst excesses of pyramid operations have been largely stopped through legislation and consumer education.

For example, in the United Kingdom, legislation was passed in 1973 which detailed:

• what could be said in advertisements
• which promises could be made
• which information could be included in documents issued by promoters
• what the rights of distributors were
• undesirable practices such as charging for training.
• that network marketing companies were also required to buy back certain stock from their distributors on termination of any contract.

These regulations have been extremely effective in ridding the system of abuse. ..more

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