The Pitch 2011 – Home Nations to battle each other in UK’s biggest small business competition

Businesszone.co.uk’sThe Pitch, the UK’s biggest and longest running business pitching competition, has opened the 2011 application process with a twist this year that’s sure to provoke furious competition across all the Home Nations.

For the first time, The Pitch is going to be holding its preliminary heats in each of the Home Nations, with the national champions going on to compete in a grand final for a £50,000 prize package, and the title of the UK’s Best New Business.

Read more: http://www.prlog.org/11324513-the-pitch-2011-home-nations-to-battle-each-other-in-uks-biggest-small-business-competition.html

Entrepreneurs can find out more about the competition and submit their entry by visiting www.ThePitch2011.com

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New local source of working capital for small businesses

Small and medium businesses in the North West have been thrown a lifeline that could help them survive the economic downturn. It comes from the Interface Financial Group (IFG) which serves business people who need working capital but find it difficult to obtain funding from traditional sources.

IFG, the largest alternative funding source for small businesses, has been brought to the area by local business executive David Hirst (pictured)(davidhirst@interfacefinancial.com) who has opened an office serving principally Central and South Manchester and Cheshire.

Read more: http://www.creditman.biz/uk/members/news-view.asp?newsviewID=13218&id=1&mylocation=News&chksrc=NNow4251

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How many bankrupt companies get a second chance?

As Europe tries to recover from the recession, one lesson should quickly be learned: current bankruptcy laws in many countries will hamper thousands of entrepreneurs trying to get back on their feet and restart their businesses.

The second principle of the European Commission’s Small Business Act is to “ensure that honest entrepreneurs who have faced bankruptcy quickly get a second chance”.

This week, the Commission published its review of the Small Business Act and recommended that national governments limit the time to discharge and settle bankruptcy debts to a maximum of three years by 2013.

Half of new businesses don’t survive more than five years, but only 15% of those end in bankruptcy.

Read more: http://www.euractiv.com/en/enterprise-jobs/bankrupt-companies-get-second-chance-news-502496

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Are you ready for April 6th?

Tax changes are being introduced on April 6, 2011. Here’s what you need to urgently address in the final month ahead.

• Identify which employees will be immediately affected by the reduction in the Annual Allowance (from £255,000 to £50,000 from 2011/12) and the Lifetime Allowance (from £1.8m to £1.5m from 2012/13).
• Identify options for changes to pension arrangements to address the impact of the tax changes. For Defined Contribution schemes, this could include restricting total contributions to the Annual Allowance and re-designing contribution rate structures. For Defined Benefit schemes, this could include a change to the definition of pensionable pay.

For a further 10 actions you should be taking, please visit: http://realbusiness.co.uk/advice_and_guides/tax_changes_one_month_to_go

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Top 5 entrepreneur social media mistakes

Fancy yourself as the next Mark Zuckerberg? Or even, erm, MySpace Tom?

Here are the top five mistakes entrepreneurs make when starting a social networking website…

1. Starting Open
Instead of starting with open doors you should look to exploit the ‘scarcity principle’; When people think something is less common and more exclusive they are more likely to want it. By starting your club open you make yourself less appealing than by being a closed member’s only club.

Another reason to start closed is because when you first start the first people to get involved are going to see a pretty empty looking site, by keeping it shut and a private club you cause two things to happen. Firstly visitors don’t see an empty site and leave (lost traffic) they actually sign up, and by the time they’ve realised it’s empty at least you’ve already got them in and can nurture them. Secondly you encourage loyalty by having a smaller closed group. Small closed groups always lead to invites, word of mouth and growth in the long-term. Everybody wants to join the secret club their friends are part of, even if they aren’t entirely sure what it even is.

Read the other 4 here: http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/news/top-5-entrepreneur-social-media-mistakes/

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Santander small business lending boosts profits

Santander saw an 11 per cent increase in UK profits in 2010, up from £1.5bn in 2009 to £1.7bn. Lending to small and med- ium-sized businesses rose by 26 per cent from £6.7bn to £8.5bn and retail deposits were up by 22 per cent from £5.6bn to £6.8bn.

Santander UK chief executive Ana Botín says: “We are working towards completing the acquisition of 318 RBS branches, a key step in fulfilling our ambition to be a full-service commercial bank. Our aim is to increase our lending to UK businesses and create new jobs as we open more business centres to serve them.”

Source: http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk

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Inflation: what can you do about it?

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warned that inflation could remain high for the next two to three years. What does that mean for entrepreneurs – and what can you do about it?

For small-business owners, profit margins have suffered from rising costs. For homeowners, bills are going up but income is not.

The days when British workers could expect pay rises averaging 1.5 to two percentage points above inflation ended with the recession of 2008-09. With prices rising twice as fast as pay, real wages are likely to be no higher in 2011 than in 2005. Pretty dismal.

Red full article: http://realbusiness.co.uk/kate_pritchard/inflation_what_can_you_do_about_it

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Profits down for British SMEs

UK businesses are seeing signs of distress increase across the board, with over half experiencing decreased profits, according to industry trade body R3.

R3′s second quarterly ‘Business Distress Index’, a barometer of financial distress, reveals increased signs of distress in December last year, with ‘decreased profits’ being the leading sign.

R3, the insolvency trade body, surveyed over 500 business owners, 54 per cent of whom recorded decreased profits, an increase of five per cent from September.

Read more: http://www.britishsme.co.uk/2011/02/16/profits-down-for-british-smes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BritishSME+%28Britishsme.co.uk+-+Financial+information+for+SMEs%29

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