Things To Avoid - and Things to Do - At Start-Up

• According to Creditsafe , a lot of companies avoid trading with start-ups that are a less than a year old - which it felt was bad news for people who were fed up of waiting to get a job and had decided to go into business for themselves.

It is bad news - but there are several things that start-ups can do to make themselves instantly more 'acceptable' to established companies whether they are less than a year old or not:

• A website is regarded as a powerful indicator of permanancy and reliability. 12 per cent of established UK businesses will not trade with a company that doesn't have one.


• Land-line telephones are even more important. Over half of established UK businesses will not trade with companies that are only contactable by way of a mobile telephone.


• And 51% of UK businesses won't deal with people who use P.O. addresses.

In the first place you don't need a P.O. box address. A lot of people fall for the idea that a P.O. Box address is more 'business-like'. And maybe it used to be - but it isn't now. So many people are working from home now - like me actually!- that renting a P.O. box is just money thrown away. There's nothing wrong or 'unbusiness-like' about using your home address as your business address.

It doesn't matter if your land-line telephone is in your own name rather than your business name. My land-line telephone is in my name - and that doesn't seem to bother any of my clients. If you are out and about a lot, and there's no-one at home to anwer the telephone - use 'Call Forwarding', so that all calls are forwarded to your mobile telephone.

A website can cost money - but not as much as you might think. Fasthosts offers web hosting for as little as £1.99 a month. That will buy you reasonable space, an easy website builder, and virus and spam protected e-mail. You can also buy and register a .co.uk domain in the same place for £2.95.

And if you don't believe that you can build the website you want with their tools, go to Allwebco Design Corporation where you'll find some cheap - and quite sophisticated stuff - that's easy to buy and very easy to use, and comes with lots of very useful advice.

Pundits can be a little bit nervous and very, very negative. Nervous I can understand - but I don't believe that 'negative' is very useful to anyone.

If you're just starting up, you're bound to be nervous - but you can meet the criteria for acceptance with established UK Companies if you follow a few simple guidelines.

• Use your home address as your business address.


• Use your home telephone number as your business number, and get 'call forwarding'.


• Get a website.


• Get a free blog at Google Blogspot and talk about yourself and what you do.


• Use Facebook , or Naymz , or LinkedIn to advertise yourself and what you do.

And stay positive!

Geoff - http://www.metlissbarfield.com/