Starting A Business: The Planning Stage – Ten Top Tips

Thorough preparation is key to getting off to a good start. The more time you spend refining your products or services and finding out about your target customers the better your chances of success will be.

Very often people’s business ideas will evolve as their research and financial planning bear fruit, and founders should embrace this evolution as a sign their preparations are paying off.

Furthermore, preparation and research should expose business ideas that are not robust enough, sparing would-be entrepreneurs a potentially costly mistake. In other cases, as what is involved in running a business becomes apparent, some people may decide the day job is not so bad after all.

1. Am I an entrepreneur?

Before you burn any bridges it is worth asking yourself some difficult questions and facing up to some challenging realities. Running a business is a lot harder than being an employee. Sacrifices of family life, leisure pursuits and holidays are all likely to have to be made, and the stress of having to bring in enough money to pay your staff, yourself and all your running costs can be never-ending.

Unless you are doing something straightforward and low risk such as being a landlord or buying and selling online to top up your earnings, you will have to dig deep to find the grit, resilience and determination needed to succeed, and be willing to accept that the business may fail.

So do a realistic appraisal of yourself. Are you resilient or do you give up easily, how risk tolerant are you, how good are you at networking and relationship-building, how driven are you, how quickly can you adapt to new challenges. Your insights will guide you to deciding whether or not to take the leap into the unknown to try to make your business idea a reality.

But that said, self-employed people tend to be more fulfilled than employees, they have a shot at making a lot of money and they have much more control over their working lives – that’s the glory of being your own boss. And for older workers there can be little choice after a redundancy, as well as less downside if their children are grown up and their mortgages paid off.

2. First steps

So you have decided to take the plunge. What next? Well, the earliest decision many entrepreneurs will be making is whether or not they are starting the business as a full-time concern. Some businesses, for example, running a restaurant, will not leave you a choice but others can start small as a ‘side hustle’, allowing you to keep your day job and limit your financial risk while you refine your products or services and expand your client list.

3. What are your objectives?

This can be divided into personal and business.

The first part is typically things like not having a boss, having more control of working hours, the chance of greater financial rewards, the excitement and satisfaction of succeeding, and being able to do things how you want to do them.

Business objectives will be your targets for revenue, sales growth and customer acquisition, product launches, staffing levels and differentiation. Defining these objectives is key to putting together your business plan, of which more later.

4. Finding your market

At an early stage in business formation you should be researching who your customers will be. Reviews of competitors’ products on auction or retail sites or discussion sites such as Reddit and Quora, and other social media such as LinkedIn, are all useful here. And look at your rivals’ customers to find out what kind of people they are, whether younger, older, more or less affluent, professional or informal and so on.

Try to find market research about your sector online and attend any relevant trade events, and consider joining trade bodies.

Research – customers

The key questions are who are they, how can you find more of them and how will they know about you.

Your strategy will depend what sort of business you are planning. A high street business will tend to serve a particular community whereas an online-only business is open to all. If the latter look at rivals’ customer reviews to see what people liked or disliked. Start by asking family and friends what they would want from the product or service you are planning to offer.

Consider sending out online questionnaires to potential customers or interviewing them in person. Running a focus group can also give you valuable insights.

Ideally by the end of research process you should have a clear mental picture of who your typical customer is.

Research – market

The questions to think about here are, is the industry you want to join growing or shrinking, is it clustered in a part of the country, how many people use it, is it at risk of obsolescence or automation? Is it evolving, does it have particular challenges or growth opportunities? Are there any reports you can track down? Investment magazines and financial analysts’ reports will have information about given sectors, and every industry will have its acknowledged experts.

Research – competitors

Companies House will give you data about your rivals if limited companies. If they are on a downward trend it suggests you are too late to the market and there may not be room for another entrant.

Visit their premises, if feasible talk to senior figures about how their business is faring, and try their products or services. And look at their websites for ideas about what yours could look like.

5. Business plan

Your business plan [Jamie, please add link here to article] sets out what your company is and what its objectives are, and devising it is invaluable for clarifying your ideas and objectives. It is also essential if you are seeking investment, whether from banks or individuals.

It should include research on customers, the market and your competitors, and highlight your skills and experience, demonstrating what is unique about your business idea.

A section on finances is essential. This should include your funding, running costs and revenue and sales targets.

Include as much research as you can: investors will want to see this.

6. Operational plan

This part considers the basics of how your company will function. You will need to make decisions about:
• Location
• Products and supplies sourcing
• Logistics and distribution
• How to retain customers

7. Financial plan

This will include your projected income, balance sheet and cash flow forecasts as well as short and long-term financial forecasts.

8. Consider franchising

What if you want to run a business but don’t want to take all the responsibility for it or don’t have a strong idea of what it should be? Franchisees benefit from training and support from the franchiser; however, the downside is that you have to share the fruits of success and may be on a fixed salary.

Resources such as Franchise UK  list thousands of possibilities. These range far more widely than the traditional retail and hospitality businesses; however, you may well have to put up a deposit. It would be sensible to do thorough due diligence on the franchiser; don’t just take its word for everything. Talk to existing franchisees, find out their turnover and financial data, and get the contract thoroughly checked over by a lawyer with experience in the area.

9. Learn about social media

If you are mainly an offline sort of person, now is the time to change. As a snapshot, in May 2023, online 18 to 24-year-olds spent four hours, 36 minutes a day online, according to Ofcom data, and 91% of online adults visited YouTube that month. For almost all businesses, a lively, regularly updated online presence is essential.

10. Work/life balance

Setting up a new business, especially if you are doing it by yourself, can be overwhelming so make sure you set aside time for yourself and what’s important to you outside work. Maybe have one day a week where you don’t work at all or fix a time of day when you will stop working. Try to retain some of the structure of being an employee.

For our essential guide to taking a business idea to the point of launch please see Setting up a business? – ten top tips

For bespoke advice, whether on a business idea or a venture that is up and running, please contact Finsbury Robinson. We are a full-service tax, accountancy and business advisory firm, and our friendly and highly experienced team is available on 020 8858 4303 or via email at info@finsburyrobinson.co.uk

Angus Walker 01.10.2025