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Business founders/entrepreneurs

Need business advice, don't know who to ask!

3 replies

noveltybobble · 22/11/2021 19:41

Hello there,
I'm new here but I have heard really good things about the community and I thought perhaps there would be people like me here!
I started a bit of a business selling soap online when my son was about 6 months. I am really enjoying it but I am completely useless at figures, and I have read a few advice guides saying I should have a business plan, and one of the other mums I know said I should at least understand my costs and sales. I don't really know where to start, I've heard about data analysis but Excel is not my thing, and I can't afford a consultant. My uncle is going to give me some advice on my accounts or tax, but again meh/bleaugh. I think I just need a bit of confidence knowing what to look at.

Anyone got any tips?
Thanks
Ruth

OP posts:
LarryTheLurker · 22/11/2021 19:44

You could try one of these organisations.

Peach2021 · 22/11/2021 20:11

Start with the basics - how much do your materials cost for a days work and the cost of any processes that use power so for example what would the electric cost for a day? Do you pay anything to advertise? All of that together will give you your daily expenditure. Or you can work it out per bar of soap if that’s easier.

Then work out how much soap you can make in a day, how much you’ll sell, and what you charge for it, and that’s your income.

How do they sit one against the other? Are you able to sell enough soap to cover your expenditure, or do you need to make/sell more soap in a day to cover it? Or does the soap need to be more expensive, and does the quality justify that?

As a start-up you often work for nothing for a while to get the business going, but within a few months, say at six months, you need to factor in what you’d like to take as wages; start at minimum wage (it’s on gov.uk) and factor that into the expenditure as well.

That’s a basic business plan - what does my product cost me to make, what can I sell it for and how much of it do I need to sell to pay myself a reasonable wage?

Do that for a while and once it’s all humming along nicely, think about how you might expand- more soap, different soap, where to sell it and what that would cost. Or you might be happy with just humming along and that’s fine too, a business plan can be about staying the same once the figures work.

Best of luck, I work for myself and I love it!

noveltybobble · 22/11/2021 20:23

Wow! Thank you so much!!!!

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