Some freely available resources to help people thinking of starting a business, or starting over

Small Business Administration - resources for starting a business

In over twenty years of being in business I’ve had a lot of good business advice. My only regret is that I wish I’d followed more of the good advice, sooner.

I’ve also had plenty of bad or unduly self-serving advice and my regret there is in having followed some of that until I had enough experience to see through it.

Sound familiar? My guess is that if you are in business and are not super omniscient and always amazingly successful you have had both of those experiences too.

So is there something to be done, when embarking on a business, or when re-starting our existing businesses, to cut through the fog of theories and advice that are not going to serve us and get to some good, practical advice which will enable us to get on with the business of business, with confidence as well as optimism?

Yes there is. And, believe it or not, it is provided by government!

The heading to this post says “free” resources. That’s not completely accurate, because these resources have been put together at taxpayers’ expense. But they are freely available on the web for anyone who wants to use them.

As a taxpayer, you can say, “At last, something useful from the government!”

If you are one of those people who believe nothing good can come out of government – what do they say, one of the great lies is “I’m from the government, I’m here to help you”? – then I ask that you put aside your skepticism for a moment and check out the resources listed below.

Because what has happened in several countries is that governments have paid some people to put together “starting a business” checklists and resource lists, with lots of links, to save people having to do all that themselves.

In this post I’m just including links to sites provided by federal/national governments – USA, Canada, UK, Australia. I know from previous research there are other such sites provided at State/ Provincial level. And maybe even at local government level although I have not looked into that yet.

The US Government’s Small Business Administration provides a Small Business Planner.

From the UK Government there is Practical Advice for Business: Starting up .

The Canadian Government’s Canada Business site has Starting a Business.

And the Australian Government’s business.gov.au site has Thinking of Starting a Business .

One note of caution. I have found sometimes with such sites that you can be clicking on a link to resources that are really third party ones and which do promote products and services commercially. If that is the case with a particular government-provided resource, it should be clear from the site: it’s a while since I have researched such sites so I don’t know the current situation. Just be aware.

If you know of other such national/federal or state/provincial government provided free resources for business, do please share them. There may even be regional or local government sites that you know of and have found helpful.

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Canada Day logo As July 1 is a national holiday, I imagine most Canadians won’t want today to be too concerned about business matters.

But for those who are thinking about starting a business from home, or who have already made the move, a good place to start for some advice and ideas on home-based business is provided by the Canadian Government site Canadian Business.

I have to say I found the advice a bit lagging behind what is possible in a Web 2.0 world and I would suggest that some of the advice needs to be brought up to date. For example,

Have business cards, stationery, brochures, etc., printed by professionals. A polished, professional look is particularly important for home-operated businesses.

Well, yes, but say your business is wholely or largely online, you are going to be stuck with a design and printing bill for stationery you might use never or hardly at all. I’m all in favour of good design and a professional presence, but you need to know you are going to use the materials you arrange to have designed and printed.

Planning however is essential. The government site advises:

Do a complete business plan, including financial planning, before beginning.

Great advice. But just remember, if you have an offer of some business straight away – as can happen when someone who respects your capability knows you are now going to be in business – I think it would be a dumb idea to say “Sorry, I can’t do that because I haven’t done my complete business plan, including financial planning…”. My suggestion is to not take the government advice too literally: do the project, collect the dosh, then settle down and do some serious planning, with financial projections, SWOT analysis and all the rest.

Anyway, the point of this post was really to send Canada Day greetings to all the Canadian readers of this blog – and over the years that has been a significant proportion of the readers and subscribers.

We appreciate you!

PS: if you want to, you can see a picture of me in “happy Canada Day” garb today of my new t-shirt and cap from Vancouver