News

I'm pleased to announce the first of a new series of FlyingStartups training workshops.

Beat the Crunch is a day-long session in which I, and professional trainers, will examine how to get yourself and your business in the right state to survive and even thrive in these difficult times.

We'll draw on advice from entrepreneurs who have been in tough situations before, the ideas in my books, and the shared experiences of the delegates.

The workshop is in central London on Saturday 22nd November 2008 with a special offer for those who book before the end of October. Book your place now! I'll look forward to meeting you.

Find out more details here.

On Tuesday 6th March 2007 between 1.30pm and 4pm, Lord Bilimoria will be speaking live to the London Business Forum about how he started Cobra Beer.

The LBF and Lord Bilimoria are keen to support aspiring entrepreneurs and have kindly provided me with some free tickets to give out via Flying Startups, the web community I run for start-up entrepreneurs.

I have 25 tickets to give away (each worth £125!) on a strictly first come, first served basis. A maximum of two tickets will be issued to each person.

To receive details of how to claim these tickets please email Anna on: anna [at] steveparks [dot] co [dot] uk. Please be sure to tell her your name, and a little about your business. If you're a registered member of flyingstartups, please also mention your username.

As a Flyingstartups member you can claim a 50% discount on the audio CD 'How to be an Entrepreneur' featuring Steve Parks presenting his ideas live on stage.

To claim your half price CD, visit redshop.biz at:
http://www.redshop.biz/product.php?productid=445

Press Dispensary (featured in the new Podcast) are offering Flying Startups members a £25 discount on a PR training course.

The course will now cost you £100. To find out more, and book your place, Click Here. Mention Flying Startups when you book to receive the discount.

Flying Startups now has its very own podcast! You can listen on the site or download it to your MP3 player. Click to get the Podcast

I have just relaunched my personal website, http://www.steveparks.co.uk, and I'm now writing a blog!
Soon I'll arrange to have the blog published on here too, so it's easier to access. In it I'll write about entrepreneurial businesses, issues affecting entrepreneurs and other interesting stuff.
And I've very nearly finished my 3rd book - How to Fund Your Business - so I'll be more active on flying startups after that. I've been reading all your pilots logs though, and have greatly enjoyed hearing about your progress. It spurs me on a lot with writing my new book.

I've been involved in the development of an all-in-one business start-up kit -
[?ext:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=flyingstartup-21&path=ASIN/0273707329 'Startup Business in a Box'].

It contains my books'Start Your Business Week by Week' and 'The Small Business Handbook', plus 'The Definitive Business Plan' by Richard Stutely, another bestseller, and one you may have seen me recommend before.

As well as these three books, it also contains an audio CD to give you some sales training from the experts, as sales is one of the key skills of starting a business.

Plus, there's a CD-rom with useful forms, templates and software - and a book of vouchers worth over £500 with discounts on domain names, company registration etc.

[?ext:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=flyingstartup-21&path=ASIN/0273707329 you can get 'Startup Business in a Box' from amazon by clicking here]. They're currently doing a special offer on it, so it's very cheap!

Hurray! The Small Business Handbook is published at last! What's great (or bad depending on your view) for my ego is that pre-orders are already going so well the publisher had to order the first reprint before the first print was even delivered to their distribution centre!

The book is designed to be a desk reference that you can dip into when you need advice on a particular area of your business, but it's also written in a way that you can read all the way through if you like.

[?ext:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=flyingstartup-21&path=ASIN/0273695312 you can get 'The Small Business Handbook' from amazon by clicking here].

I've been reading through the pilot's logs and so many flyingstartups members are getting close to launching their businesses to the wider world!

[?person:blog/111 Mac] is preparing to open a shop.
[?person:node/651 Shutz] is taking over a former cafe.
[?person:blog/24 Cassandra] is amassing what seems like the world's biggest collection of seamstresses to make her snazzy travel bags for the world!
and [?person:blog/354 joanne] is motoring ahead with her plan to revolutionise the baby food market, with manufacturers interested in licensing her idea for production!

My bet is on Joanne to be our first millionaire (I hope that doesn't add to your pressure too much Joanne!) - or is anyone else going to race her there?

I've been so focussed on writing The Small Business Handbook that I missed the latest milestone in this sites development!

Our 600th member joined the other week! We're adding about 100 registered members a month now, with many more just browsing around as guests. On average it seems to be that about 10% of the people who buy the book register on the site.

Anyway, please give a very warm flyingstartups welcome to our 600th member, Sarah Cusick!

Hi fellow pilots,

Sorry for the prolonged absence from the site - I've ended up writing two books! The next one will be published at the start of December (The Small Business Handbook), the one after that will publish in February.

I've still got a few thousand words to do, but the deadline is a week on Monday.

I'm enjoying keeping up with your progress by reading the pilot's logs - but am having to refrain from the temptation of replying until I've met my deadline. I'll be back in full force in just over a week though.

Cheers
Steve

Hi everyone,

Please excuse me being a bit quiet on this site at the moment - I'm in the final weeks of writing my next book - The Small Business Handbook.

It's been a bit delayed because I've had a couple of operations in the first half of this year - but I'm now pretty much back to full health so the publisher has chained me to my computer and set me the deadline of mid July! So in the daytime I run my businesses, and I write solidly in the evenings and at weekends.

So rest assured that I'm reading the pilot's logs as much as ever (they're addictive aren't they?!), but will be doing less posting of comments until later in the month.

Hope you're all doing well with your businesses, and finding my first book useful. It's all the great feedback I've had from you guys that is spurring me on to finish this next book, so thanks very much.

cheers
steve

It was great to meet those of you who came along to the Start-Up show in Birmingham last week. And hundreds of copies of the book were sold over the two days there, so welcome to all those of you who were introduced to 'Start Your Business Week by Week' at the event, and have now joined the website!

Now that I've got a weekend at home at last I've been spending some more time reading pilots logs and answering questions in the forums. Here are some interesting posts (click on the name to read them):

• [?person:blog/394 Gracetrain] is in the first few weeks of her business, but has already been working on getting her first customer - great work!
• [?person:blog/217 Laurajay] has got her own offices - and lots of customers - for her marketing consultancy.
• [?person:blog/236 Mark Gittos] has been active in the forums, but has now started a pilots log too. He's part of a group of small businesses that have decided to work together. Great idea.
• [?person:blog/442 tcjaccounting] is excited, but nervous - and already has some customers.
• [?person:blog/206 irena] came along to the Start-Up show in Birmingham and doesn't think the photo of me in the back of the book looks anything like me!! (I don't know whether she thinks i look better or worse in reality!!). She also took away the message from the day of 'Focus!', and is still searching for a mentor.
• [?person:blog/424 Emily] Openly admits to skipping Week 2 (the focus noticeboard)!!! :) She's already seen the benefit of cutting back on TV though.
• [?person:node/475 Cassandra] has a report of her visit to the Start-Up show to add to her great pilots log - well woth a read for other budding entrepreneurs. She's very open (That's Americans for you! ;) Much better at it than us reserved Brits. ) and you can pick up a lot of ideas and advice from her progress.

If you haven't started a pilot's log yet - start now! It's a great way of picking up advice and contacts from other people, and you'll have something to look back on in the future to remember the early years of your business.

To start a pilot's log.

1. Register for free to become a member of flying startups. [?link:user/register Click Here to register now]
2. [?link:node/add/blog Click Here to create a new entry in your pilots log]

And if you haven't written in your pilots log, add a new entry now, we're all dying to hear how you're getting on.