Recent content by Martin Kennington

  1. Martin Kennington

    Raising low-interest business finance

    If you take card payments, then a business cash advance could be suitable for you (repayments are made as a percentage of your card sales), perhaps as an alternative to your option of invoice factoring.
  2. Martin Kennington

    Advice on starting a car finance company

    I wouldn't approach any lenders until you have your FCA license. Once that's in place, follow Gordon's advice and contact specialist lenders. They'll want to know your volume (currently none) but you should be able to get some to accept your leads on spec, then you build a relationship as these...
  3. Martin Kennington

    Advice on starting a car finance company

    No worries! The biggest challenge (once you've established the business) is getting any share of voice amid the other lenders or brokers. To do that you need to be willing to spend (PPC, social ads, SEO, direct marketing etc) and expect that you won't hit a decent ratio of acquisition cost...
  4. Martin Kennington

    Advice on starting a car finance company

    Having been there (as a direct lender, not broker), the car finance world is a tough nut to crack because there are so many players - not only are you competing with direct lenders with deep pockets to find new clients, a lot of established brokers who are well-embedded with the lenders, you...
  5. Martin Kennington

    Restaurant partnership venture

    I think this is where some people (myself included) are having trouble seeing this as a viable plan. You want 'working class' people (eg nurses, teachers, as you say) to join you, and I dare say they might be up for working at minimum wage, taking a gamble at potentially earning some dividends...
  6. Martin Kennington

    Restaurant partnership venture

    It's an interesting idea - but I wonder whether someone who has £25k to invest (risk) in a restaurant is going to be the sort of person who's happy to put the hours in just for minimum wage - or even be content with a potential £50k pa salary once things get rolling.
  7. Martin Kennington

    Where SMEs get financing

    I wouldn't agree about the unsecured business lending space not being buoyant - my experience is quite the opposite; the market is doing very well indeed and I've seen a lot of new lenders enter this space. For some, secured lending is the best solution - for others, unsecured is the best...
  8. Martin Kennington

    Where SMEs get financing

    I've worked in finance for the past seven years and even in that relatively short space of time, there's been a significant shift away from the banks. As Mark notes, the market is full of lenders ready to support SMEs at a time when the banks have just about closed their books. Agree on...
  9. Martin Kennington

    Letters After A Name

    I agree that they're only relevant/required when used to denote professional accreditation/body membership. Strangely, the only times I tend to see BA (hons), MBA, Dip whatever etc is on LinkedIn profiles or email signatures of recruiters or biz dev guys who invariably make me question how on...
  10. Martin Kennington

    Estimating marketing costs for business plan

    Unless you tell those marketing businesses exactly what your business is selling, don't expect them to give you any idea on marketing costs or appropriate channels. If they do give you those costs without knowing what you're selling... run a mile!
  11. Martin Kennington

    Estimating marketing costs for business plan

    I hate to be doom and gloom as well but have to agree with the post above. If your target market is anyone actively ready to buy a car and any dealers actively selling cars (surely that's EVERY car dealer...!) then you're up against enormous competition. Autotrader, PH, Carwow etc have the...
  12. Martin Kennington

    Estimating marketing costs for business plan

    That does indeed help - although makes targeting very difficulty with such a wide audience (ie, just about every motorist in the UK). I worked in that industry for a number of years (specifically, high end car finance) running b2c and b2b marketing. It's a very competitive space (not in the...
  13. Martin Kennington

    What works and what doesn't?

    It's important not to confuse Google Search Ads with Google Display Ads. You're targeting very specific search terms, that you want to appear on the top of Google for, so paid search could work well for you and a relatively small test budget with very specific terms can yield results - but you...
  14. Martin Kennington

    Estimating marketing costs for business plan

    It's impossible to say without knowing the product or service you're selling, or your target audience. There are so many marketing channels and most businesses now take an omnichannel approach (eg, social, PPC, email - all with a unified marketing/brand message). Some businesses may rely on one...
  15. Martin Kennington

    Promo Filming

    To clarify - the shoots I've directed and produced have always been for the corporate companies I was employed by (ie, not working for an external production company), so I'm not in the "shoot and run, it's someone else's problem" category. I agree that best practice is to get release forms...
See more
Top Bottom
Community
Articles
Menu