Although you don't need to do a business plan unless you are borrowing money from the banks, it is a good idea. The template employed by high-street banks - which is known as MORFA (market, objectives, resources, finance and ability) - can help generate ideas on how to structure your business, says Nick Brewster, business banker with Barclays Bank in Swindon.
Market:
Identify your customers and judge whether there is sufficient demand for your business. Location is therefore very important. Swindon is on the booming M4 corridor and is home to many large, successful companies, including Motorola, Intel and Lucent Technologies.
Oxford also has a number of large firms situated locally, such as Vodafone and Alcatel. What's more, it has a fairly central location nationally and is close enough to London to service firms situated in the capital, but without having to pay London rents and thereby lose competitiveness.
You need to be clear about what you want to achieve - is the business going to be set up for enjoyment, to earn a steady income or to get rich? But keep an open mind about unforeseen opportunities.
What is available to you and what do you need to obtain? With relatively little required in the way of equipment (see below), this could come down to how much experience you have of the industry. But even the most experienced organiser needs some help sometimes, so make sure that friends and family are behind you.
Having sufficient capital of your own to invest in the business will help give it a solid foundation, as there will not be any loan repayments to worry about in the early days when revenue may be low. Alternatively, are there any grants available to help fund the initial start-up costs? If you do need to obtain a loan from a bank, can you realistically pay it back?
Having some experience of event management is inevitably going to help you understand what your customers want and how to deliver it. Confidence and enthusiasm are the most crucial commodities, reckons Brewster. "You can't go into this industry if you are unable to talk to people and get on with them," he says.