Here are a number of sites and organisations that can provide start up support:
Government support
If you are considering starting a business then there is plenty of support and information on the Government website:
Banks
The banks are a useful source of information with the following available for the High Street Banks:
The Black Country Chamber of Commerce provide a discounted membership scheme for start ups from £32 a month.
Other support
You can find sector or trade specific business plan examples here. You can find over 500 examples, along with other useful start up information.
The King’s Trust is also a good source and has useful information on typical business plan templates:
The British Business Bank site also has useful templates for managing the start-up phase of a business including the managing cashflow element which is key to any business start-up:
There is also Enterprise Nation which has useful information:
Events
To help raise awareness of your business, build useful business contacts, and potential customers and suppliers it is probably beneficial to factor in time to attend networking events. Whilst some of these are chargeable many are free, and a good source for finding details on these is Eventbrite.
This allows you to identify all types of events by theme, location and date - and most of the business support workshops the City of Wolverhampton Council run are advertised there.
The Federation of Small Businesses run networking and business support events, providing a range of information on their website, and, whilst it is a membership organisation, there is some information and events available to non-members.
