There are 550,000 new businesses started each MONTH in the US! Granted, a lot of them will fail, but hold on – for each one of those businesses to get going, they need to write a business plan, incorporate, create a logo, create a website, open a line of credit, open up an office/retail space, equip that space, hire employees, pay them… the list of tasks is long and the dollar amount behind it is large. Take all those needs and multiply them through the number of startups and you see a multi-billion dollar effect. No wonder the government makes special effort to promote small business loan access, create tax breaks, allows for a favorable playing field to compete with the industry leaders.

The newest trend by the large corporations is trying to accommodate these small businesses by providing products customized for them and trying to understand their needs (which credit card company doesn’t offer a Small Business card?). Well the corporations may be trying to understand the small established business, but they are still overlooking the startups. There is the stereotypical reason to overlook these cash-strapped startups – that they don’t have money to spend. Well, the reality is they may be bootstrapping and cash may be very delicately calculated, but the entrepreneurs who are running those startups know that they have to spend money and know how to spend that money and they DO spend money.

Who gets it – other small businesses get it! So what needs to be understood about these entrepreneurs? The first thing that must be known is that just like any group of people can’t be defined by just one description. There are very savvy individuals who start companies, there are simpler-minded ones; there are ones with reserves, and ones without; there are patient, hardworking ones and impatient and lucky ones. That’s the first part, the second is that they are just like most well-informed consumers today, only they expect even more for even less. The lowest dollar, no matter how appealing, is not the answer if it does not provide a solution, so spending an appropriate amount of money is not out of the options.

Some of the entrepreneurs know that they need a website, but they don’t have $7,000 to spend on one; others know that they need a business plan to secure funding and ARE willing to spend $2,000 – understanding the need that they have and the way they intend to alleviate their pain is the way to sell your service. They may shop around a lot longer, and come off as wasting too much of the vendor’s time, since finding that deal is so crucial to keeping costs down; they may barter, they may balk entirely – but do know that if they engage you in a price quote and open a dialogue, they are not there to waste either your or their time for that matter – they are there to buy.

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A business plan is the first thing that investors will ask to see when you approach them for a loan of any sort for your business. By providing investors with a detailed business plan that shows all aspects of your business you are showing them that you are a serious business entrepreneur, which is vital if you are starting a new business. A business plan from a business that has been in business for a few years will have a detailed financial section, which will allow the investors to see just how much of a risk they will be taking by providing you with a loan. All businesses, whether new or old, need money and finances in order to maintain their business. And having a solid business plan can go a long way to securing the loan that you may need to keep your business running smoothly.

The business plan is important for many reasons because it will be the first thing that investors and personnel will ask for when approached to secure a loan or join in the business. Having a plan that is solid and details all aspects of the business such as financial progress, marketing and sales and a detailed business description will help to captivate your audience and secure what you are looking for. It is important that your business plan encompass all aspects of your business so that you do not have to do any re-writes for each party you may be showing it to. Having one plan that covers everything will allow you to show that plan to investors and potential managers both; you just need a clear table of contents to show where each section is located.

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Taken together, the financial services and business services sectors are amongst the most successful sectors in the UK economy in terms of employment creation, output, growth and profitability. Since 1980, the number of jobs in the sector has risen from 1.6 million to 2.8 million; the real output has doubled from 11 to 20 per cent of current-price GDP, and gross profits to almost ?90 billion (Barron, 2004). This expansion was due to several factors, including growing consumer wealth, deregulation and demographic changes, as well as the trend in advanced economies towards services. Financial services output, as measured by percentage of GDP, was predicted to overtake that of manufacturing some time in 1996 (Bell, 1999). The financial services sector is made up of three interlinked and interdependent subsectors: retail, corporate, and City of London. It includes banks, building societies, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, securities houses, unit and investment trusts and increasingly a large number of non-bank institutions engaged in financial activity.

The business services sector includes a wide range of professional firms such as solicitors, management consultants, accountants and computer specialists. Although both these sectors are usually considered separately, they are interlinked in two critical ways: they buy services from one another, for example, the banking sector is one of the largest client groups for accountants and software services; they are beginning to compete for business; the movement of financial institutions into professional services is a major trend. For example, the Halifax Building Society now owns one of the largest surveying companies in the UK; and Barclays Bank has set up a large software services consultancy through outsourcing parts of its IT department.

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