Project Description
Start Your Own Business
Short Course
If you want to start your own business, this course will give you the knowledge and skills to increase your chances of success.
This course will allow you to understand:
- How to Increase your chances of success and minimize risk.
- How to Set up your Business including products, markets and administration
- How to Market your Business, identifying competition, pricing and branding strategies
- How to Manage People and administrative issues
- How to Manage Finances including funding, cash-flow and working capital
- How to do a Business Plan to assess, pitch and guide your business
You will be invited to create a Business Plan and pitch it to one of our experts. This will be an excellent opportunity to put your knowledge into practice, and benefit from the feedback and guidance provided by our experienced tutors.
Course duration
You can enroll onto this course at any time. There are +/- 100 hours of learning material included. You can complete the course in your own time.
Assessment
This course is assessed by a series of self assessment exercises. A practical Business Plan is recommended to pitch to one of our experienced tutors for feedback, and to gain maximum benefit eg. for funding or personal development purposes.
Course Units
This course is made up of 5 units, which cover a range of subject areas, please see below for more information:
Unit 1 Thinking of starting a business
- Business start-up opportunities and challenges
- Why start a business
- Personal skills
- Realities of starting a business
- Success v failure
- Your business idea
- Information sources
- Am I suited to running a business
- People and roles
- Start-up expenses
- Financial issues
- Sources of money
- Legal issues
- Logistic issues
- IT issues
- Practical issues
Unit 2 Finance for business start up
- Looking after your money
- Financial responsibilities
- Common causes of financial failure
- Budgeting
- Financial control
- Revenue
- Expenses
- Employing staff
- Pricing
- Cash flow
- Credit
- Accounting
- Profit and loss account
- Balance sheet
- Performance ratios and improvement
Unit 3 Marketing for business start up
- What is Marketing
- Definitions of marketing
- Marketing in practice
- Understanding customer needs and wants
- Marketing strategy
- The 7Ps of marketing
- Turning prospects into customers
- Types of marketing message
- Writing marketing material
- Websites and e-marketing
- Newsletter marketing
- The marketing plan
- Classic marketing mistakes
Unit 4 Business planning for business start up
- Purpose of a business plan
- Challenges of business planning
- Basic aspects of business planning
- Business plan format
- Executive summary
- The business
- SWOT analysis
- Products and services
- Marketing
- Financials
- Viability and bankability
- Potential and scale-ability
- Business planning top tips
Unit 5 Communicating for success in business.
- Defining communication
- The communication cycle
- Noise
- Barriers to communication
- Spoken word – general considerations
- Written word – general considerations
- Networking
- First impressions
- Non-verbal behaviour
- Active listening
- Email etiquette
- Writing marketing copy for your business
How long?
Course duration
Students can enrol onto this course at anytime. There are +/- 100 hours of learning material included. Students can complete the course in their own time, eg. at 2 hours per day the course would take +/- 2 months. Students will have access to the study material for five years.
Assessment
This course is assessed by a series of self assessment exercises. A practical Business Plan Assignment is recommended to pitch to one of our experienced tutors for feedback, and to gain maximum benefit, eg. for Funding, CPD or personal development purposes.
Course Units
This course is made up of 5 units, which cover a range of subject areas, please see below for more information:
Unit 1 Thinking of starting a business
- The problems and potential of small-business start-up
- Sources of information
- Why start a business
- Personal skills
- The realities of starting a business
- Success v failure
- Your business idea
- Am I suited to running a business
- People and roles
- Business start-up expenses
- Sources of money
- Finding premises
- Financial issues
- Legal issues
- Practical issues
Unit 2 Finance for business start up
- Looking after your money
- Budgeting for personal survival
- Financial responsibilities
- Common causes of financial failure
- Financial control
- Expenses
- Employing staff
- Pricing
- Cash flow
- Profit and loss account
- Balance sheet
- Performance ratios
- Credit terms
Unit 3 Marketing for business start up
- What marketing is
- Definitions of marketing
- Marketing in practice
- Understanding customer needs and wants
- Using marketing strategy
- The 7Ps of marketing
- Turning prospects into customers
- Types of marketing message
- Writing marketing material
- Websites
- Newsletter marketing
- The marketing plan
- Classic marketing mistakes
Unit 4 Business planning for business start up
- Purpose of a business plan
- Demands and limitations of business planning
- Basic aspects of business planning
- Business plan format
- The executive summary
- The business
- SWOT analysis
- Products and services
- Marketing
- Financials
- Business planning top tips
Unit 5 Communicating for success in business.
- Networking
- Defining communication
- The communication cycle
- Noise
- Barriers to communication
- Spoken word – general considerations
- Written word – general considerations
- First impressions
- Non-verbal behaviour
- Active listening
- Written communication
- Email etiquette
- Writing marketing copy for your business
