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The most important step you need to take when setting up your own business is to write a business plan.  This will help you to focus your ideas and put in place some realistic plans for the future, and is also a very useful tool if you need to explain your business to investors or financial backers.

Most lenders will not even consider you for a business loan unless you can present a clear, realistic business plan to them, and so it is vital that you write up a plan before you start putting another motions in place.

As well as a business plan you will need to think about business premises, and you may want to set up an office from home to start with to reduce costs.

Try to separate your home office from the rest of the house to create a more focused working atmosphere, so set up a separate computer, phone line and filing system to ensure that everything is kept organised and professional.

If you are setting up a new business it is important you understand the various business structures available, so that you can work out the most beneficial set up for the type of products/services you want to provide:
• Sole Proprietorship – this is a quick and easy way to set up a business and there will be no specific costs related to starting up your business.
• General Partnership – this is another easy process to set up, but you will need to be very careful about setting up the agreements with your business partner relating to the method for sharing profits and losses, how much capital each partner is putting up front and how the partnership will be dissolved if it needs to be at a later date.
• Limited Partnership – this is similar to a general partnership, but the limited (inactive) partner will be protected against legal liability in terms of any costs or debts if the business collapses or goes bankrupt. In this sense the business exists as a separate legal entity, kept apart from those individuals who create and have invested in it.

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Discounts and special offers can be powerful marketing tools to encourage new customer to buy products or services from your business, and they can also be used to improve customer loyalty. However it is important that you balance discounts with profits, as there is no point working to a continuous loss.

So for example instead of offering discounts on all of your products, you could choose those which are not selling so well for special promotions, as this will not only help to boost sales and move stock you have had hanging around, but it will also leave your more successful products at the full price, continuing to bring you in a good profit.

You could also think about only offering discounts when clients sign contracts with you, as this is a good incentive for them to commit themselves to your business for the long term, and can help to guarantee you work well into the future.

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Before you even think about naming your business and setting up your financing, you need to think realistically about what business you want to run, and whether you can actually make any profits in this field. This will involve some careful research into the market, and you will be looking at areas such as:
• Demand – is there a need for your product or service, and can this need be sustained into the future? For example people will always need trades such as plumbers, cleaners, mechanics etc. so these can be viable businesses with a high demand all year round and into the future.
• Competition – you will also need to look at how many other similar businesses there are in the area, and whether you can compete with them in terms of pricing and supply. In general larger businesses will be able to offer more competitive prices to customers and will also have more staff and resources to enable them to cover a wider area.