Group Business... Business Plan Templates

Here are examples of business plan templates we have found to help us guide us through the plan we will need to create for our business. Click on business plan to see a larger version.

Alternatively:

Group Business... Tutorial

Notes from our tutorial with Jane:

General

- Go back on our own action plan and see what we have done
- Look at media wow
- Is there already a web design company called RE: ? You need to look into this.
- Eventually need to work out group business overhead costs (go back on the cost of living worksheet)
- How are you going to network and promote yourself? Which events will you go to?
- You will need to make business cards for your business, and handouts to give with the presentation
- How else can you make money?
- There is a huge amount of competition as there are a lot of rebranding companies, so we need our own USP. There are so many in Leeds it may be worth thinking about somewhere else.
- Can we collaborate with people on other courses or do their re-branding for them? This would be a huge new market.
- Location gives you identity. Look in to places like Marshall court, Round Foundry and Heart in Headingley.
- Consider Linkedin for promoting yourself

The Presentation

- Make a group action plan with dates and initials of who is going to do what
- Need regular progress meetings (we are already doing this, and communicating on Facebook about our business daily)
- The business plan you are making is for your first year of work - need to read through business plans and possibly go into a bank to talk about it

Content of Presentation

- Name and branding of company
- What are your skills and services?
- Who is your target audience?
- How will you promote yourself?
- Who is your competition?
- Final considerations?
- Location
- Handout

- Make it visual
- Use the correct terminology

Action Plan

- We are each going to research two cities, covering a broad spectrum of the north west. For each place we will look into transport links and what is in the area.

Lisa- Huddersfield / Leeds
Charlie- London / Manchester
Marty- Newcastle / Sheffield
Me - Warrington / Liverpool

- We are going to look at who our competition is (SWOT analysis)
- We are going to think about who we could collaborate with
- Consider what our networking opportunities are
- Research flexible working places and prices
- We should think about what our personal assets are and what we can bring to the company to help us save money

We will have another tutorial next tuesday where we can discuss our progress.

Enterprise Lecture 7... Don't Get Ripped Off

Lecture 7 Notes

- You are the only person who has the right to re-produce your work

- Property of your intellect, you need to protect your rights to make a living from your work

- Should be putting copyright symbol on to your work

- Copyright belongs to the original artist

- Can obtain reproduction rights, need to negotiate the terms of reproduction, come to an agreement on the fee

- If you are engaged in private study as part of a programme of study you are allowed to 'steal', as Leeds College of Art pays a licence to allow us to photocopy books, large sum of money

- What is intellectual property? (IP) It refers to creations of your mind whether you are a writer / artist / photographer / film maker etc... It is offered for view (or sale)

- 4 basic types of intellectual property: patents, trade marks, registered designs, copyright

- Patents apply to new inventions, things that work in a new way such as mechanical/electronic things. Things have patent numbers.

 :: First patent - typewriter 1714 - qwerty keyboard - Henry Mill - let others use his keyboard design for a small fee

 :: Another example - ring pull - other companies wanted licence to use it - made a lot of money from being able to record that this was his idea

:: Patent leather - permanent shine on leather / wipe clean leather - retained name

- Trademarks. TM means it is a trademark under investigation, where the company has to send off their logo with colour schemes etc, when it has been proved there are no other companies with that logo in the industry, it becomes a registered trade mark, which is an R in a circle.

- Logos are a single image which you can see on a product to understand what kind of promise lies behind it. Makes it easier to identity products with the kind of qualities you are looking for. There are problems all around the world with people creating fake goods and ripping off the logos, misrepresenting what the brands are about.

- More than the shape of the logo may be registered, such as particular colours, shapes and text, as with the heinz logo. With guinness, the trademark includes the shape of the glass and the arrangement of the logo. Specialist beer now often comes with its own glass, with their logo trade marked on to it. Stands as its own advertisement

- bp & shell - two more examples of companies that have specific colours trademarked to them, no one else can use them, as they represent the company and people recognise it

- Registered designs are all about something that appears to be new (but not a new invention). A re-arrangement of decorative features.

- Intellectual property office website you get thousands of ideas that people think are worth protecting. It is £60 to register a product. Have to register each letter of a font individually.

- Copyright covers all of the things you might create, you don't have to apply for it and you don't register it. The only way to look after your copyright is to sign and date your work and save this. Only the post office and banks are guaranteed to stamp only todays date.

- Examples of copyright:

:: Information on inside cover of books - every book has an individual ISBN number, copyright symbol and authors name

:: The copyright of amazon website design 1996-2011

:: Record label says how records may not be copied without owners permission

- Copyright infringement example: photographer took photo of barack obama, cropped it, and then an artist created a pastel drawing from it. It is an infringement of copyright as it appears to be a copy of the photograph, the second infringement is that he has used barack obamas personal campaign logo. As a result, the artist has been in court since this. Moral rights infringement.

- Palin's nickname was 'barracuda', so her campaigners decided it was a good idea to play this song by heart at all of her conventions. Heart were offended that people may think they are associated with the politics of Palin, even though her people had paid a licence fee to play this song. 

- Johnny cupcakes designs continually being ripped off by clothing companies such as urban outfitters. Ongoing joke battle with 'benny frying pan' t-shirts ripping off Johnny cupcakes.

- A sculptor, photographer and united states postal service - photographer licensed a photograph of a sculpture to the united states postal service for a memorial stamp. The photographer failed to ask the permission of the sculptor. Ordinarily, as a sculpture, if it is a permanent feature you are allowed to photograph it, but you cannot photograph temporary sculptures. The photographer should have licensed the image to the sculptor as it was for commercial gain, and this is against the law.

- Steinberg vs. Columbia pictures - iconic picture from the new yorker was copied for film 'Moscow on the Hudson'. 

- Fair use legislation. There are some things which are original designs, that the artist retains the copyright for, but you have permission to use. Such as with rubber stamps, you can use the stamp if it is for your own use, but you can't use the stamps if you are using them for commercial gain. As then you are potentially stealing the income from the artist.

- If you are wanting to sample music, you should contact the original creator of the piece

- To secure your copyright, you should:

1. put the copyright symbol and the year and your name on the piece

2. publish the piece somewhere, such as on your blog

3. keep track of everything you have copyrighted, with date, title, and location of where it is published, give it some kind of ID number

4. be controlled about where you put stuff

If you don't keep a log book, it would be difficult to take legal action if someone has copied

- Patents last for twenty years. After 20 years it goes in to the public domain, and so other companies take it and reproduce it, and sell it under their own brand, therefore not having to do the research, they are just making the profit

- Trademarks and logos can last for ever but have to be renewed every ten years

- Design rights can last up to 25 years (if it continues to be successful) but need to be renewed every 5 years

- General copyright lasts for 70 years after your death. You can leave the material to someone else to reap the rewards.

- George Lucas was fluent in copyright laws so asked for merchandise rights for star wars instead of part of his salary

- An example of what can happen when you leave your copyright to somebody else after your death:

Andy Warhol left his copyright to his foundation, any of his images can be licensed and the money goes towards education. 

- JM Barry who wrote peter pan left his copyright to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, so all of the money from the cartoon, pantomime performances, merchandise etc goes to the hospital. They did a deal with a new author to write a sequel to peter pan (Hook), so that the income comes in from this to the hospital too. The government overturned the copyright, so that if you leave your copyright to a charity, it is theres forever. 

- Deviantart are happy to licence your work for no fee, helps you to keep track of who's using it. 

- Cartoon stock website - you can upload your images for licensing 

- AOI - Work as a collection agency - Association of illustrators

- IPO website  Ipo.gov.uk - Own-it intellectual property advice

Enterprise Research... Johnny Cupcakes

In our enterprise lectures we have been introduced to Johnny Cupcakes. I have seen his shop in London before but didn't know what it was about, but now I want to find out more. I've looked at his websites and some clips on youtube. I think his story is an inspirational success story and he offers good advice in his interviews.

I like his products and the attention to detail that has been put in to things like the packaging and his shops. The way he has managed to create such a following, without having any business studies or relevant qualifications, but just by creating exclusive t-shirts means that this business would be a good one to analyse, especially for inspiration for creating my own business.

Lots of videos on youtube:

Read more about the Johnny story:

www.johnnycupcakes.com/blog/

Some products:

Group Business... Press Ad

Task

We have been set the task of creating a press ad for our company, featuring: our name, slogan and services. The press ad is to fit in creative review, so we need to consider the formats of this magazine, and make sure that our ad fits, as well as finding out what the cost would be.

Here is the pricing guide:

Photographs:
Here are a few photographs of existing press ads that exist in an issue of creative review.

We have decided that we will create a few rough ideas each of what we think our press ad should look like and the content that should be included, and then we will get together to discuss the elements that we like, and then bring them all together to create our ad.

My Ideas:

I started by thinking of some key words to describe who we are as a company to help guide my designs, so that I create something relevant to our business.

Fresh // new // contemporary // sophisticated // professional // stylish // neutral (appealing to both genders) //

I think a simple but effective, clean style will work best for this company, rather than my usual illustrative style. My illustration skills would still be able to be put use for this company, as some new businesses needing branding may want this kind of look for their identity.

Branding and identity is something I have researched for my design context blog in the print unit, so I will look back over this to help inspire me to create my own identity ideas for our company. I've also put the words from our slogan in to a google image search to see what comes up, and a lot of the designs for businesses containing these words are to do with dieting or exercise, so we need to be careful to make it clear we are graphic designers and not trying to get people to lose weight!

My logo ideas

These are some quick ideas based on who we are as a company.

Out of all the logos, these are my favourites. I'm a bit wary of it looking too much look recycling, but the inspiration behind it is actually the refresh button on safari. I'm glad that the designs aren't looking like they are for a gym or diet plan though, as a lot of the logos I researched did.

Here is a really simple press ad idea in illustrator. I don't want to go far in to designing without seeing what the rest of my group have come up with, in case I'm heading in the wrong direction.

I've been looking through the fonts I have saved to try and find one that represents the kind of style we are going for. Here are the few that I have chosen, but its up to us all as a group to decide on which fonts and colours we will use.

Group Ideas

What everyone else has come up with:

Charlie designed loads of logo ideas, and also thought about the positioning of the elements on the press ad.

Lisa designed some press ad ideas. We like the three pointed colon on the ad, looking like a design decision rather than a standard logo. We are thinking that three words for re: may work better than having four.

We then discussed what we had come up with. Some of mine and Charlie's logo ideas were quite similar, so we thought about how we could bring these ideas together, with the refresh symbol. To continue to progress, rather than all continuing to create our own ideas, we decided to capitalise on our skills. So, Charlie is going to continue to develop the logo on illustrator. We decided that Marty would bring together all the ideas to create the press ad for tomorrows tutorial. Me and Lisa will look at where our business should be based, this will be regarding the competition. 

Charlie's Logo Designs:

Marty's Mock Ups:

Group Business... 2nd Meeting

Over the holidays we have been communicating via Facebook about our ideas, but today we have had another meeting which has been really useful to help us decide on an idea. Four heads are definitely better than one and we have bounced ideas off each other to come up with a strong concept.

We were given one hour to decide on a company name, to identify our key skills and a specific industry we are interested in, to come up with a slogan, and to write a list of 10 key things we are going to offer as a company. We started with a bit of a brain storm, discussing our interests, and found it much easier to think of ideas together based on these, rather than thinking on our own.

Idea Generation

Our interests

Charlie - bespoke print, ethical, music industry, communication
Marty - layouts, branding and identity
Lisa - branding and identity
Me - illustration, web design

We talked about our different interests and industries that we could work for, and straight away branding and identity seemed like a shared interest that our different talents would all be useful for. From this, the whole idea of bringing something to life, changing it, improving it for the better came, and this gave us somewhere to start to think of a name.

Name suggestions: metamorphosis; refresh, brand refresh, morph, evolution, flux, reflux, flux design, vivify, revive, metaflux, vivi, re:

(A lot of the names we liked were already taken by other graphic design companies or creative collectives, and some of the names we looked at we realised had double meanings that weren't appropriate - such as diarrhoea!)

Decided Idea

Group - Charlie, Claudia, Lisa & Marty

Company name - Re:

Idea - We aim to bring life to new companies with a complete identity package, and to help refresh existing companies without an identity or in need of a new one

Slogan - Re:work, Re:fresh, Re:vive, Re:brand

Industry - Business to business

10 Key Services -

1. Branding & identity
2. Web design
3. Editorial design
4. Creative consultation
5. Company to client contact time
6. Print specialism
7. Illustrative design
8. Whole package service
9. Photography
10. Mix of skills

Design Ideas

Work with how the Re: is displayed, my idea was to create motion graphics on after effects which could be shown on our website, such as with having the Re: logo, and then having a different word from the slogan such as 'fresh' turning in to another word and so on.

We need to experiment with fonts to choose one that suits our style, and decide will the letters be capital and things like this.

Strategy & Presentation

The issues we are addressing in our enterprise studies will give us the knowledge to set this business up as if it is a real business. So we need to consider the things that we have learnt, such as, thinking whether we would be a vat registered business, how we can cut costs, etc..

We need to decide who has an understanding of what. Between us we have a diverse range of skills, so  we should use this to our benefit, to assign roles effectively. We also need to think about the business side, to give people roles that suit their strengths, such as with Lisa, as she has a background in accountancy.

We need to back up our presentation with informed research, even in our presentation. 

We have been set a new task, to create a press ad. (See blog post)

Enterprise Lecture 6 - Don't Just Get A Job

Lecture 6 Notes

- Why? Competitive job market & its never been easier to set up your own business

- Creative industries now made up of small businesses/freelancers

- Business means to become a freelance designer; be a practising artist; or start a collective with other creatives.

- Johnny Cupcakes example (interview with bongo boy youtube):

be passionate about your subject; its a great time to start a business; collaborate - don't underestimate yourself, try the big names disney etc; 4p's - product is teeshirts, his price is regular and edition, he promoted it with a USA tour and has a fantasy baker as his place; he creates longevity by having limited edition stock and a brand name people recognise; talked about copyright issues as some designs have been ripped off; took a risk, didn't have qualifications, learnt from mistakes; talked about taking his business overseas as there is a demand for his product

- Jeff Bezos started amazon - took a risk

- The most experience business people would say you may your own luck by being driven and focused, people will trust you and send opportunities your way

- growingbusiness.co.uk - Do what you love; start your business while you are still a student or still employed; don't do it alone, get all the advice you can; write a business plan; do the research; get professional help; get legal and tax issues right first time

-  startyourbusiness - choose a winning name; register your business name; find small business financing

- bytestart & betterbusiness - why are you starting a business?; think about the skills you need not just the skills that you have got; collaborate with other freelancers; look at the competition; understand your customers and competitors combined (marketplace); might have to find staff; employ people who are cleverer than you; find out what are the biggest causes of business failure

- A business plan is a statement of what you are trying to achieve and how:

1. mission and values - driving force behind business, what problems are you going to solve, how are you going to make a difference

2. what resources and equipment you need and how much it will cost you to run business - overheads

3. marketing - how you are going to promote business with advertising, public relations, exhibitions (marketing communication mix)

4. money - how much marketing will cost; budgets; how much you will earn

- Questions you will be asked when building a business:

What are you going to do?

What is the value proposition?

What resources do you need?

How much will it cost to get it started?

How will you pay it back?

Who are your target customers?

- Need a business plan to focus your thinking, make a detailed business plan, understand what you are trying to do; set some clear objectives, plot when you will do things; can look back over it a year later to see how well you are doing, measure it against this; need a plan to get investors; attract collaborators

- freelanceuk.com

- Find a business plan in a bank, the arts council (community based), business balls.com, business link.gov.uk

- Where are you going to find funding? Things have changed in the last three years. Banks aren't lending money to small businesses anymore. People need more flexible ways of finding money: by helping others to get grants and then they can pay you to do the work; crowd funding where you invite people to invest in you; we did this is a crowd funding website;

- How do you get organised? Need a balance of people to cover different team roles. Usually each one person will be fulfilling at least two of these roles.

Action People

1. Shaper - tells people to get on with it

2. Implementer - someone who gets on with job

3. Completer - motivates people to get on

Social People

1. Co-ordinator

2. Team-worker - has good communication skills

3. Resource Investigator - research and deals with people outside organisation

Thinking

1. Monitor - cautious, makes you think about things

2. Plant - ideas person

3. Specialist - highly technical skills

- Power culture - small business with one boss who you answer to, who wants to be in charge of everything, may be family business

- Role culture - large organisation such hospital, large department store, or as LCA, there is the principal, but also deans and heads to form senior management, there are different departments which are self contained with their own leaders

- Task culture - temporary structure, a group of freelance people who come together to organise a project, no hierarchy

- Person culture - key people in a business and people who support them, such as a dental practice, they need people to help them to keep the place running; same as a design practice

- What skills do you need? Will you work alone? Will you be more productive if you work as a team?

- Income streams: private commissions; free lance design work; workshops and part time teaching; royalties from book sales and professional seminars

- Legal status determines how much tax you pay, choose what to do with your profits and that will determine your legal status

:: Sole trader

:: Partnership

:: Limited Company

:: Limited Liability Partnership

:: Public Limited Company

:: Social Enterprise

- If you choose the wrong legal status people might not trust you. Being a sole trader seems very informal, might stop you from borrowing money. Might be more reassured if you are a limited company as they can see what is going on.

- Look at business link, companies house (register of limited companies), social enterprise coalition, co-operative

- Personal taxation rates 2012 - can earn £7,475 before you pay tax

If you earn, you will pay:

£0 - £35,000 - 20%

£35,001 - £150,000 40%

Over £150,000 50%

- Also have to pay national insurance contributions

self-employed £2.50 a week, if you have profits you will be 9%, if it is over £42,475 you pay just 2%

- Also have to pay employment benefit to government - 3.7%

- As a sole trader, need to keep records of what you are spending your money on, responsible for debts

- In a partnership, you share the profit, responsible for debts

- If you have a limited company, it has shares which reflect how much of the company people own. Need to have AGM meetings, need to register with companies house, you need at least two employees (you can own 99% and someone own 1%), need to pay NIC, corporation tax and VAT (extra 20% on all goods and services), you need to pay corporation tax which is 21% of your profits. Work your different ventures out as different businesses.

- VAT: zero rated things can be changed, where it would take an act of parliament to put vat on things that are exempt, some things are 5% rather than 20%

- The only advantage of registering for VAT is that you are able to claim it back on everything you buy, so if you don't buy a lot then its not worth it