The All Business Class airline Silverjet went into administration this week after it faced major financial problems that forced the company to suspend all its flights. Passengers already booked on flights were left stranded and left just under 10,000 customers needing to make alternative plans at rather short notice!!!

One of the major contributors to Silverjet troubles stems from the soaring cost of fuel – and only this week we have also seen the lorry drivers protest to the Government over rising prices at the pumps. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a number of haulage firms going bust too if oil prices and consequently pump prices continuing to rise, as they have done over the last 12-24 months!

Also, in the airline industry two of Silverjets competitors Maxjet and Eos have both gone out of business too and there are many other carriers struggling and even British Airways put up its fuel surcharge today!

“For sale Silverjet said it was “with deep regret” that it has appointed administrators.” The company have been unable to secure the necessary funding to continue its operations so had to call in the administrator Begbies Traynor. There were interested parties in the potential sale of Silverjet and the administrators seem confident of a sale. Shares in the carrier were suspended earlier this month when it failed to obtain a critical $5m (£2.5m) loan.

The business operated with three Boeing 767 aircraft and flew out of London Luton Airport to New York and Dubai – the average cost of a return fare was around £1,000 and Silverjet started its service in January of 2007.

As times are tough both for householders and businesses alike this is when it is important to make sure your business is operating to the optimum. Also, you may be having cash flow difficulties and be looking to raise some cash from the bank.

Now, I thought that it would be difficult to get a loan, however, I recently saw my bank manager (who is from Barclays as it happens) for one of my businesses and he said that they are encouraging lending to businesses. His comment was that Barclays had been a bit tight with their lending over recent years so they are looking to expand their lending book.

So if you are doing some cash flows and things are not looking so good and you have been listening to the news out there – things might not be as bad as they seem on the face of it. So speak with your bank manager and if he says no try Barclays or one of the other banks.

However, there is possibly a better way – if you take a look at “profit increase software” you might not actually need a loan afterall. This software, which uses Microsoft Excel to work will help you to identify ways to increase your profits and to make you focus on where your business can get increased income.

The most important thing to remember, and especially right now, is that your exisitng customers are your greatest asset, without which you would not have a business. Try thinking about what other products of services you could sell to your existing customers, instead of simply looking to attract new ones all of the time.

Look after what you have and not just look for new!

Have you got a business story to tell? I know that when I read success stories they help me to move forward. I recently read an article about Duncan Bannatyne and how he made his millions from selling ice cream to a multi-million pound fitness, property and hotel empire and these stories always give me inspiration!

So we want to hear from you – your successes and your failures – the details of what you did right in business and where you went wrong. All the gory details please!

If you join this forum you will receive a 10% discount on all the products on the bowraven.com website.

Once you have joined – go to your site admin Dashboard and there will be a link – click on this 10% discount link and all the products added to your basket will be discounted by 10%!

Products include:

Millioniare book
Arbitrage betting system
Cash flow forecasting made easy
Buying a business funding system
Profit increase software
No money down book

We look forward to your joining us and to reading your posts and comments!

If you are selling your business you need to initially provide the following information:

Price – This might be stating the obvious, but I have seen many a business for sale where the owner has indicated “price on application”. This is a mistake in my opinion, as you could be wasting both your time and the potential purchaser’s time. Price of the business is possibly a starting point for most investors after the type of business that it is. Most people have a “budget” if you like of what they are looking to invest and if this is omitted you might be closing the door on potential buyers – I for example, tend to give these businesses a miss.

Type of business – I would imagine that the majority of investors will be looking for a specific type of business to invest in, so the business type is a must disclosure.

Profit and turnover – The profitability of your business is a good indicator of how the business is doing and helps the buyer to establish how long it will take him to get a return on his investment. Also, one of the most popular ways to value a business is on a profit multiple so when you disclose the price and the profit a buyer can do a calculation on the valuation multiple.

For example, your profits might be say £100,000 per annum and your purchase price £300,000 – therefore, the multiple is three.

Disclosing the turnover of your business will provide the buyer with an idea of the size of your business too. For example a business producing a profit of £100,000 with a turnover of £200,000 is completely different to one producing the same level of profit, but with a turnover of say £2,000,000.

Business description – Your business description gives you the opportunity to sell your business to a potential buyer. Tell the buyers why you are selling and tell them a bit more about what the business does. How many employees it has and what your involvement is within the company.

Remember, the less reliant on the owner the business is, the more valuable it is to a potential buyer. For example, an electritian that works for himself and serves a number of clients personally – his business is not worth as much in profit multiples as one that has a number of electritians as employees with managers and premises etc.

Looking for an Investor - Investors looking for businesses to invest in! If you have a business that is in need of some investment and not necessarily from a bank you could place a post here on this blog. Are you looking for a Dragon to invest in your existing business or is it a new business you are about to set up?

Do you have some cash to invest and you are looking for a higher rate of return that what the banks offer? You could post your details here and state how much you are looking to invest; the type of business you are looking to invest in; the area of the country you are willing to go to; etc.

Are you looking to buy a business?

Post the details of the type of business you are looking for here; How much you have to invest and the area of the country you can go to. Be as specific as you can so that business owners can contact you and of course put your contact details – email is best on here. However, if you wish to remain anonymous copy this link “Contact via inbusiness.org.uk please” – into your post and then you may use us as your go between for the initial contact point. If you’re unsure on what type of business you want or even the country you wish to invest in, try researching online or check out financing tips on websites like lovemoney.

Business development involves a number of techniques designed to create and grow a business, however, there are many small businesses that are so bogged down in fire fighting and caught up in running their business that business development is the last this on their minds.

Increase profits and the 6 ways to grow a business software is a good way to start this process off. Using this software can help to identify ways you can increase your profits and without necessarily having to increase your prices!

I know that most business owners are very price sensitive, as can customers be too, it is important to identify other business development opportunities that are in your business.

One thing that most business owners forget is that their most important asset is their customer base. Many companies spend thousands of pounds or dollars on attracting new business and forget that they already have exisitng customers that could be sold to with other product lines or services.

I was amazed the other day, I use Tiscali for my broadband at home and noticed that they were offering some good deals to attract new customers. I telephoned to see if I could go on to one of these deals (and I was not necessarily asking for the introductory cheap first six months) but the price that these deals revert to after that. I could not beleive what I heard when the phone operator told me that these prices are for new customers only!! I asked her, surely you should be looking after your existing customers so they stay with you, but this was completely lost on her!

I did in the end get a good deal by threatening to leave if I did not get a good deal, which to my way of thinking is not good for business, if customers have to act in this way to get the same deal as new customers.

In short the message that I am putting across is for business owners to really value their exisitng customers and not only to provide a good services, but also to look for new services or products to sell to them. From a marketing perspective it is much much easier to sell to an exisitng customer, than it is to sell to a new one. The reason for this is simple, so long as a customer is happy with your present customer service, they already trust your business.

Business development is an on-going process and looking at the 6 ways to grow your business is just a small part of this process.

I had register my company for TPS – the telephone preference service not realising that I also need to register for FPS – the fax preference service. We kept receiving those unwanted faxes that use paper, but especially expensive inkjet cartridges!!

It was only after speaking with one of the companies that had sent us a fax and they suggested registering and when I said we were already registered, they apologised and suggested we contact the FPS to see what had gone wrong. It was at this point when I went to their website that we were not registered with both – there are probably so many businesses still out there that might not realise these can be stopped quite easily!

The FPS/TPS website has the folowing info:

Welcome to FPS Online

Under Government legislation introduced on 1 May 1999 it is unlawful to send an individual an unsolicited sales and marketing fax without prior permission. Businesses have the opportunity to register fax numbers on which they do not wish to receive direct marketing faxes.

You can do this by registering with the Fax Preference Service. Although this Service is primarily aimed at businesses, as individuals have protection under the legislation, individuals may also register their fax numbers if they wish.

Before you apply however, you should be aware that registration may preclude you or your business from receiving information of value – thereby cutting you off from worthwhile business opportunities.

Welcome to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls to your home or mobile telephone numbers. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.

Organisations with which you have an ongoing relationship, for example those who regard you as a customer, (or in the case of charities – a donor) may well gather your consent during the early stages of your relationship with them and will therefore be entitled to call you even if your number is registered on TPS, unless you have previously told them specifically that you object to them calling you for marketing purposes.

The TPS can accept the registration of mobile telephone numbers, however it is important to note that this will prevent the receipt of marketing voice calls but not SMS (text) messages. If you wish to stop receiving SMS marketing messages, please send an ‘opt-out’ request to the company involved.

As TPS registration only prevents marketing calls, organisations will still be able to call you for the purposes of genuine market research.

Before you register with TPS…

It is worth reflecting on the fact that registering may well prevent you from receiving relevant and worthwhile information. For instance charities find telemarketing to be an economical way to raise awareness and much needed support.

To register with both of these services click here

Are you looking for an investment in your business – perhaps you are looking for a business angel or your very own Dragon like in Dragons Den.

If you are, then why not post your details on here together with a method of contact – probably best to leave your email address. Then wait for the internet to do the rest.

Before I begin to explain how to go about writing a business plan I think it is important to understand why a business needs one in the first place. The analogy I like to use to help explain writing business plans is how you go about planning a trip. Even if the trip you are planning is to somewhere in the country in which you live and on the assumption thaqt you have not been there before you would probably need to use a map. Also, assume that you do not have a satnav.

Without a map it would be very difficult for you to get to your destination, however, I am not saying that it would be impossible, because you could ask your way there. However, without a map it would take you a very long time to get to where you want to go and your journey would be extremely inificient!

Therefore, if you look at a business plan as your company map which is there to direct your business to where you want it to go. The plan should be a step by step guide to help you along the way.

I always like to break my plans down into 12 months hence (short-term goals), three years hence (medium-term goals) and six years hence (long-term goals). By looking forward to your longer term goals this will help you to work out your medium-term goals and therefore what you need to do over the next 12 months in order to acheive your medium-term and long-term plans.

For example if your present turnover is say £250,000 per annum, which represents the income from 500 customers spending on average £500 each per year. Lets assume that by year six you want to have a turnover of say £750,000. This means that you need to increase one of a number of things, two of which are your average spend and/or your number of customers.

On the assumption that your average spend remains the same your customers would need to increase by 1000 over the next six years. Which means that over the next 12 months your customer base needs to increase by 167, which would equate to an extra turnover of £83,500 in the first year of your plan.

You then need to write a plan of how you increase the number of customers by this amount – for exaple where to increase advertising spend; introduce a customer referal system; inprove your website search engine optimization (SEO) etc. If you want to look at other ways to grow your business, take a look at the Increase Profit Software – this will give you the 6 ways to grow your business.

This increased turnover and number of clients will impact on a number of other areas of your business. For example, it may well be that your premises are big enough for the present level of business and even the increase over the next 12 months. However, it might be that by increasing your business three fold in six years will mean that you not only out grow your exisiting premises, but also that you will need additional employs to run your larger business.

All of these aspects need to be incorporated into your business plan and scheduled, as to when they will happen so that you can adequately plan for things.

Once you have prepared your business plan you will then need to prepare a cash flow forecast to demonstrate how the revised cash flows of your business will pan out over the coming 12 months and following years. The added importance of preparing cash flow forecasts is to review whether or not your revised future plans require and bank funding.