Business is about making money.
But that shouldn't be the only reason, you've got to love what you're doing.
Business takes time, if you're not enjoying what you're doing then the Business is not going to be successful.
That's our most important principle: Make Money Doing What You Love.

Where do you get the cash to get going?
Maybe, that's not the question to ask..
There are so many more interesting, exciting and creative ways to start your business than borrowing money.
You don't want to start your Business in debt, you want to start in profit.​

Traditional Business Support will tell you to begin with a Business Plan.
We at The PopUp Business School think that is a massive waste of time.

Business Plans are traditionally used to get funding. But what if you start your Business with no money? Go out, make sales and find what your customers want before you even consider a Business Plan.

So you start a new business.  You make a decision to get going.

You work on the website, you work on the branding, you work on the product, you have funky new business cards printed, you beaver away tirelessly.

But there is one thing that all new businesses forget to do enough of...........

And it tends to be the bit that most of us are scared of............

And yet it is the single most important activity as a start up business.......

Have you guessed what it is yet?

I speak to small businesses every day and when I ask them what they are doing each day to sell their service or product the answer is almost universally a blank look.

Ask yourself the question what I am doing every single day to sell my product or services?

Here are some ideas to get you started, that you can do every day:

1. Phone 3 potential customers
2. Send 5 tweets to potential customers
3. Write and post one letter a day to a potential customer
4. call one existing customer a day and ask them what are they working on
5. Ask one friend a day if they know anyone you should be talking to
6. Go to one networking event a week where your customers might be going

The important thing is that you do something every single day that moves you in the direction of new business and customers. If you do this every single day then you will build up momentum and amazing things will start to happen!

Just don't get impatient, it won't always happen overnight. it might take time but persevere, keep going, keep taking action every single day and I promise you that the next sale will come.

I would love to know what is working for you at the moment.  What sales methods are working for you to get customers at the moment?  Leave a comment below.

Or for help with your sales and building your business come along to one of our up coming events.

At Pop Up Business School we show people how to grow a business with no money - however, for some businesses they will need a property. 
Maybe you started your business from home and it has grown and you now need a property - What do you do?
Check out our latest blog from Kirsty Harvey (www.ktdsurveying.co.uk)

You have had the idea, now you need premises to start the business. Signing a lease is a big 
commitment, so you need to be sure you have the best deal you can. Before you sign on the dotted 
line, just think about this:

1. The key to everything is NEGOTIATION – you can do this yourself but like anything if you have 
expert advice you will reap the benefits.

2. Make sure you know whether or not the lease has SECURITY OF TENURE. If it hasn’t, (and is 
CONTRACTED OUT) you need to factor this into the rent. Also be aware that at the end of the 
lease if the landlord wants you out, you have no right to stay. Your negotiating position at the 
end of a contracted out lease is much less than one that isn’t.

3. Ask for a RENT FREE PERIOD before signing a lease. This is common practice, and the longer the 
lease, usually the longer the rent free period granted.

4. NEGOTIATE THE RENT. Rent that you pay will be used as evidence against other businesses 
when they have a rent review or lease renewal, and vice versa. The more that tenants negotiate
the better it is for all businesses in keeping rents down. 

5. BUSINESS RATES: Make sure you factor in this cost. Look at the possibility of appealing the 
rateable value. Be careful though as rates can be revised upwards as well as downwards. Can 
you get any small business rates relief? 

6. SERVICE CHARGE: Before completing a lease, check if there is a service charge. What does 
it cover, and will you benefit from those services? If not don’t agree to that part of it. Is 
the building already in a poor condition? If so you should agree a cap on the service charge 
provision. This way you know your service charge will be a fixed maximum amount.

7. BUILDINGS INSURANCE: Is buildings insurance the landlord’s responsibility, and if so check how
that will be charged under the lease. If you are part of a bigger property, you don’t want to be 
paying extra because another tenant is a high risk user.

8. REPAIR COSTS: Have you factored in costs for repairing the building? You may be taking on 
responsibility for putting the property into good repair and this could include major works, such 
as repairing the roof. Agree a Schedule of Condition with the lease as this limits your liability. A 
small initial outlay could save you thousands of pounds at the end of the lease.

9. RENT REVIEW: If the lease is going to have a rent review, make sure the rent review clause is a
fair one. You don’t want to find assumptions in it that will artificially inflate your rent at the rent 
review.

It's the morning after the week before - what do you do now?

We had great fun working with you guys and helping you start your new businesses; here are our top 4 tips to help you keep inspired and motivated:

1. Focus on your big goal.
Keep in mind what your long term goal is. This will keep you motivated to keep going.

2. Be accountable to someone.
Find other people that are likely to keep you motivated, let them ask you questions about how your business is developing and what your goals are. This will help you keep focused and will encourage you to keep progressing every day.

3. Sell. Sell.Sell
There is nothing like your first sale! Get out there and sell something to someone. Make money, make it happen.

4. Do something every day
Take baby steps every day. Each small step is a step closer to your big goal

Remember you are not on your own! We are here to support you so get in touch with us and ask us questions, we had great fun working with you and we are looking forward to seeing you develop and progress.

Have fun and make it happen!

Big thank you to the Poplar HARCA Pop-up business school participants and Tony Pass of the Retail Operation for helping us to come up with this list!  Loving working with you.  For more tips on Retail then visit Tony's Blog at The Retail Operation

In March 2013 I travelled to Boston, Massachusetts to visit Harvard Business school and to have a few days break in Boston and travelling up the coastline to Maine, Portland and around.  We had a fabulous time.  Whilst we were there we heard about theBoston Pizza Tour. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                        Now Katie and I love Pizza, we love touring, exploring and learning about the local area so it seemed like the perfect thing for us to do!

Our tour guide was  we toured around the north end of the city or little Italy as it is know and tasted Pizza

He launched the tour in the second half of 2011 and it took off.  2012 he said was a very good year and he was flat out and in 2013 he is taking on four tour guides to work with him delivering the tours around Boston's north end.

He has used social media and local advertising with tourist agencies to grow his business and this year is experimenting with Groupon to sell more ticket to increase his online presence.

Idea #1 is start a tour of your local city and sell it to the locals and the tourists.  I have been thinking of doing one for Basingstoke for some time now!

I have a fabulous friend Nicky Kriel.  If you have read our blog you will have seen her and heard her tips on social media.  Back in December 2010 she decided to master Twitter and went on a journey learning everything she could over the next few months, reading blogs, books and putting everything into action.  She soon had over a thousand followers and was starting to teach other small businesses how to use Twitter for their business.

Over the years since she has worked for major multinational companies on their twitter strategy, she has sold her courses online via twitter and most recently she has launched her book.  I have been so impressed with how Nicky has built a business from nothing.

Idea #2 is to build a social media training business in your local area, become a LinkedIn or Facebook expert

Recently I have been buying a lot of services through www.peopleperhour.com

It is amazing what you can find on there.  I have bought logo design services, press release writing and even cartoon designing.  Yes I commissioned my own cartoon.

We all have our own skills, we all have something that we find easy that everyone else find difficult.  Thing about what you could sell and then have a go selling it on www.peopleperhour.com

Idea #3 is to work out what skills you have and what you love doing and sell it online!

Alan one of the co-founders of the Pop-Up Business School is getting married this summer and he has been organising caterers!  He found Chris Matthews and his company http://www.rollingstonepizza.co.uk/

Chris build a pizza oven out of clay and mounted it in a trailer.  He now drives around the country service wood smoked pizza for his customers and they are so delicious!

Do you like to cook?  What is your favourite type of food?

Chris was inspired to start after hearing a radio show talking about starting a food business and not hearing anything about Pizza which is a food he loves. He did some research and didn't find many mobile vendors and set up his business which is really taking off this year!

Think about what type of food you would sell and how you would do it!

Idea #4 if you love food, create a mobile kitchen and start selling it to people

We had someone come on our first ever Pop-Up Business School who had a wealth of experience in retail.  He had worked in retail for years.  He decided to set up a retail consultancy and train other people and had an incredible first 6 months working for some of the biggest names in UK retail

Our very own co-founder Alan Donegan set up his business called Enjoy Presenting and runs courses for Microsoft, Pepsi and Allianz now. 

• What skills do you have that other people find difficult?
• What do you love to do?
• What excites you?
• What would you enjoy learning about?

Today I noticed Model Zone in Basingstoke was having a sale, being the geek I am I called in and found out that they had gone into Administration and were selling everything off!

Is this another nail in the high street's coffin?  The high street is already littered with empty shops, however it always seems busy.  There are always people their.  So why are businesses failing and shops being left open if the people are still walking past the doors?

There are so many questions surrounding the future of the high street and whether or not it will survive.  I thought I would ask you want you think about the future of the high street and give you some thoughts about setting up a shop

With so much change on the high street and so many shops laying empty, now might just be the time for you to take the retail world by storm!  Come up with your idea and there are opportunities abound to get retail space for free.

After an interesting experience in Sainsbury's last night I wanted to share with you these top tips on how you can get your customer to take action today and buy your products. 

We would love to know what you think so add comments below and please share and re-tweet if you think it is valuable

The full text from the video:

1. Do promotions change the way you shop?
2. Have you ever walked into a supermarket and bought something you weren’t expecting to buy?
3. Have you been manipulated?

Well I thought I would share with you some things we can learn from some of Britain’s biggest institutions the supermarkets and how they do business.

Last night I went to Sainsbury’s for a coffee with a friend in the Starbucks.  I planned to buy nothing.   I had the coffee and as I was leaving there was a big display stand in front of me with the new James Bond Blu-ray and DVDs on sale.

They were on offer.  Spend £30 in store today and you can get the Blu-ray for £12 only.  That seemed pretty good.  I paced around the display stand wondering if I should do it.

You probably know that I am a James Bond fan and I loved the most recent Daniel Craig movie so I did it. This simple promotion of: if you spend £30 in store today you can get £6.99 off got me.

I spend the next 30 minutes buying stuff around the store that I am not sure I needed to by.  I picked up three packs of cereal (we will always use that) then some kitchen towel and toothpaste.  6 Packs of Toothpaste!

Then two large packs of nuts.  Some aftershave balm (got to look after my complexion and then finally this is the last straw I bought hand cream.  I thought I don’t want to have dry skin I will by hand cream.

I wasn’t going to buy anything and now I am wondering round the shop buying hand cream trying to tot up the figures in my head to see if I have spent £30 or not! I don’t want to go to the till and have nearly spent £30 so I over spend and when I get to the till and go through the self-checkout do you know what my total bill was?

£52!

I wasn’t going to buy anything.  Nothing at all.

My behaviour completely changed and all because an offer.

So what can we learn from Sainsbury’s?  For me it comes down to two things.

1.       Give people a reason to buy NOW.  Sainsbury’s brilliant said if I do this now then I can get something I want cheaper.  I was sucked in and I bought now.

2.       Up sell.  Sainsbury’s not only gave me a reason to buy NOW, they also asked me to purchase more for me to get what I wanted cheaper! And I like the lemming that I am followed instructions and spend £40 more!

So the questions you need to ask yourself if you want to increase your sales are:

1.       What reason is there for my customer to buy today?

2.       Why should they spend more money with me today?

To give you an example, say you ran a Yoga class weekly.  If you had a new person turn up for your course why should they sign up today to come back again next week and not only why should they sign up now, why should they sign up now for the twelve week package?

If you want to increase your sales you need to give your customers reasons to buy and reasons to buy NOW!

Love to hear about your experience of how offers have changed your buying patterns and your experiences of using them for your business.

Make some comments below and please share this if you think it is useful.