Getting The Right People

You might think that setting up a sandwich-coffee bar is a small venture in the great scheme of things. Maybe so. However, to turn the dream into reality any new business, large or small, needs the expertise and support of a team of people with a variety of skills. What’s more, it’s important to have most of them in place before you make an irrevocable commitment to a particular unit – their roles are too important for them to be engaged at a later date when there is insufficient time to make properly considered choices.

One of the hard facts of small business life is that quite a lot of professional and other advisers tend to prefer dealing with bigger clients and customers. They make more money out of them. It’s as simple as that. It follows that you should do all in your power to ensure that those people to whom you entrust your valuable business specialise in working for operations of your size.

Here’s a list of the key players:

• Solicitors
• Accountants
• Architects
• Surveyors
• Bank Managers
• Insurance Brokers
• Environmental Health Officers
• Refrigeration Advisor
• Shopfitters, decorators, plumbers and electricians.

Some of them will become important components in your ongoing business even if you only need to consult them occasionally. It is very much in your interests to have good working relationships with all of them.

Instructing A Solicitor

Do you already have a solicitor? Is it the one who bought your house for you a few years ago? It could well be that he or she doesn’t know a great deal about the ins and outs of setting up small businesses. This really matters because it is a specialist area. Make contact, explain your plans and ask quite openly if the solicitor has much experience of handling the affairs of small businesspeople. Of course solicitors will not be keen to turn away business so you might find yourself having to make a judgement about his or her suitability. This won’t be the last time you have to make important decisions about matters you don’t necessarily know a lot about.

Remember that personal recommendations from other people with small businesses can be invaluable. You could also contact the Law Society (see your local telephone directory for details) which keeps a register of solicitors with expertise in particular fields.

Once you have made a decision, have a meeting and discuss your ideas in detail. Your solicitor should be able to give you initial thoughts and advice in areas such as:

• purchasing or leasing properties
• acquiring going concerns
• the legal structure of the business
• finance
• employment law
• preparation or updating of wills to take account of your new asset
• (and, if you’re lucky) insights into good and bad locations based on years of being involved with the commercial life of your particular area.

In addition, an experienced solicitor should be able to recommend other advisors in the areas of accountancy, architecture and insurance. If you’re going to be running a business for the first time you may not have any contacts in these fields.

When you have a particular property in mind your solicitor will play a pivotal role in tying up the deal. You will probably be on the phone every day. The more he or she understands your vision the less explaining you will have to do when you are going through the critical phase of trying to secure a deal.