There might be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is certainly a lot that a savvy business owner can get for nothing.

Business-class flights, office space, professional advice, advertising, stationery, employees – and even money itself – can all be obtained gratis, if you look hard enough. And freebies like these could make the difference between success and insolvency for cash-strapped companies.

When Jonathan Yates started his vitamin business Santeau, he was able to get both the product formula and an initial development supplier for free. He says that ignorance about whether or not to pay for something can be a blessing.

“When I started, I had no idea what to do,” he admits. “So I flew to Germany for a trade show and, in the first hour after arriving, I found a vitamin and mineral supplier who gave me a formula. I suppose it was a bit of pre-sales for the supplier, although I never needed to use his services again.”

Back in the UK, Yates sent his idea to the development arms of three large manufacturers. Among the people he contacted was the development head for soft drinks at Tate & Lyle, who agreed to make the first batch.

Again, Yates believes that Tate & Lyle did this for free in the hope that he would use its services again. However, he also thinks that suppliers can share a passion for a good idea.

“When you show people something exciting, it does set them alight a bit,” he says. “It is important to go to the right people, but it is also about the approach that you take with them.”

Begging and borrowing help is all very well when starting a business, but should you be doing this when your business is turning over millions of pounds?

Yates believes you should. “Once you realise that there are lots of opportunities to maximise your cash flow by getting things for free, it is difficult to get out of that mind set.” To Yates, getting free stuff is the epitomy of entrepreneurship.

Entering competitions is a popular way to get free publicity for a business, but it can also provide more tangible benefits.

Six Degrees, a PR agency, was among 100 small businesses that won 12 free business-class flights over 12 months from British Airways.

Jennifer Jansen, a director in the business, found out about the competition from an e-mail. “We apply for grants fairly regularly but this was much more attractive because it was not just money,” she says.

At the offices of Ipswich-based website developer A Recipe for Success, the shelves are already groaning under the weight of business prizes won.

Co-founder Jeff Hume estimates that his company, which employs nine people, has notched up over 50 gongs over the years. Awards are not just a matter of kudos or prize money, they are a means to free publicity, Hume argues.

“Really, computers are as dull as ditch water, so it helps to have a reason to get your name in the papers,” he says.

Universities are another source of free support for small businesses. University College London, for example, offers companies in the capital free consultancy and research & development (R&D) support from its pool of academic and postgraduate students.

This R&D costs the college money, but the tab is picked up by the London Development Agency.

Businesses can also tap UCL for free labour, through a service that matches its graduates with businesses for short periods of work experience. However, competition is fierce.

This year’s programme has not even been announced and the college has already received expressions of interest from companies, according to Tim Barnes, executive director of UCL Advances.

For those in the PR, entertainment, events, publishing, advertising, marketing, broadcast and digital media sectors, another source of free manpower is recruitment consultant Pathfinders.

In addition to its conventional consultancy service, Pathfinders matches graduates to companies for temporary posts. Using the service is free for both clients and candidates and Pathfinder claims to place about 1,200 temporary staff every year.

One of those who has benefited from Pathfinders is Clare Rodway of Kysen PR. The service has been useful both for beefing up the headcount during busy periods, as well as filling permanent roles, according to Rodway. “I have 12 members of staff, half of them through Pathfinders,” she says.

Bill Liao, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded social networking site Xing, claims to have got free web hosting, free time from a PR agency and free office space for his start-ups in the past.

When he set up WeForest.com, an organisation to promote re-forestation as a means of combatting global warming, he obtained free studio time and voiceovers from broadcaster Stephen Fry and television producer John Lloyd.

However, the flow of free services is a two-way process for Liao, who provides coaching and business ideas to others for free. The process of getting free stuff is usually more simple than most people believe, according to Liao. “You just have to ask.”

When that dark cloud looms overhead and the huge block-age in your path seems unmovable, don’t sit back and despair, find a way round it. “How?” I hear you cry. “How can I get past this issue that I have no experience of when my business is suffering and I have no cash to throw at the problem to solve it?”

Let’s see if TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? can give us the answer. This quiz involves you answering a number of questions correctly. You’re given four possible answers, but if you don’t know the right answer with absolute certainty, what can you do?

1. You can choose to make a strategic guess.
2. You may have an inkling that you know the answer and go 50/50, where two of the wrong answers are taken away, which is a better way of saying that you’re guessing.
3. You can decide to ask the audience, who probably don’t have a clue either.
4. You can phone a friend.

In all my business dealings where I don’t know the answer, I go for option 4. I phone a friend. By friend, I mean someone who might be able to help me with my specific problem at that moment. I have solved hundreds of issues just by picking up the phone and calling someone, even though I may never have met or spoken to them before, and asking them how they solved or would solve this issue.

Successful people like to help people who want to be successful. Call non-competing organizations and just ask them where they get their bottled drinks filled or who their packing specialist is, where they source this component and which company would they recommend that specializes in advertising in the industry. As long as you’re not a competitor, I am certain that there will be someone there to help, particularly the higher up into the business you call. If they can’t help you then they often refer you to people they know who can—and an introduction by referral is a lot stronger than a simple cold call.

Be professional, have your question ready and detailed, and don’t waste the person’s time—be succinct, be quick and 0ffer them some gratitude. I started by sending over bottles of wine, but I soon realized that this is not what people require for responding to a simple telephone call asking for their knowledge. What they do want is professional recognition of why you came to them in the first place, something that makes them respond: “Wow, this guy called me today and asked if I could help with his packaging problem because he loved the way we do ours. Flattery and gratitude are two watchwords in this instance. Not only have you solved the issue at hand, you have probably extended your network exponentially.

There are other ways to ask for help. Go to online forums there are thousands of these dedicated to specific niche industries, all packed with contributors looking to help you out in business. As a starting point, have a look at the UK website Enterprise Nation and the US website Entrepreneur.com, which have a multitude of forums aimed at every type, size and shape of business, packed full of people who have been through similar situations and who want to help you.

of course you could always go to the join in forum on this site and pose a question to be solved just click here and post your question.

Enterprise Nation advertises itself as a free resource to help you start and grow your business at home. If it’s free and people are there to help, then why not give it a go? If you are unable to find the answer you are looking for on business forums, have a go at finding solutions on self-help sites, which explain how to do almost anything you can thing of. Here are some self-help and how-to forums for you to browse through—many are US based and the terminology and legal advice may be different, but the principles are
the same:

• Free Management Library
• eHow
• WonderHowTo
• HowTo
• wikiHow
• How To Do Things
• Videojug
• Squidoo
• HubPages

Good luck and keep going, its never as bad or as good as it seems at the time.

Remember to look out for more handy Freesourcing ideas on the site and in the book – available here

Bushcraft your way into business

Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor
14.12.09

You must have seen those absurd “bushcraft” programmes in which the likes of Ray Mears or Bear Grylls are dropped – armed only with a camera crew – into the deepest wilderness to survive on berries, a whittled stick and their own urine.

The point being made is that you can live off the land without the 21st-century crutches of mobile phone, iPod, and, of course, money.

It does not seem immediately obvious that the same rugged principles of living for free can be applied to the world of business. After all, business is about money. Borrowing it, investing it, making it.

But according to successful entrepreneur Jonathan Yates, it is possible to bushcraft your way through the enterprise jungle with almost no money if you know where to look – and you don’t even have to drink your own wee.

In fact the only upfront investment needed is buying his £9.99 book, called Freesourcing: How to Start a Business with No Money.

With many of the banks showing as much willingness to lend as Ebenezer Scrooge, the seed capital needed to get a business off the ground is harder than ever to come by.

According to Yates, who founded his own vitamin and minerals supplements business, Santeau, in his back bedroom, all the resources you need to convert your brilliant Eureka moment into a global business empire rivalling Microsoft are out there and available for free.

As Yates points out, there are actually more people willing to help you for nothing than you might imagine.

“There’s an entire industry dedicated to helping you take your idea and do something with it. The Government pulls out all the stops to help people with ideas translate them into start-ups and then into profitable businesses.”

His philosophy is beautifully summed up by the mantra: “Freesourcers not only think outside the box, they wonder where they can get the box for free.”

The book serves as a road-map to all the free, or almost free, resources out there. For instance, did you know that there are free “alternative” computer operating systems developed by the so-called “Open Source” movement?

The Ubuntu brand, for example, is updated every six months and for most tasks works just as well as the latest version of Windows. There’s also common sense advice about how to get your first set of business cards printed for free (Vistaprint will do a batch for nothing in the hope of getting follow-up business.)

I was also taken with the “freemium” concept, again something I’d never heard of. In essence these are pared-down technologies or services offered gratis over the internet in the hope that as the business grows you will shell out for the upgraded, paid-for version.

So who might the ideal freesourcer be? I can imagine that the young Alan Sugar probably worked out his own successful strategies for survival when he started out selling car aerials from the back of a van as a teenager.

But you’ve only got to watch one episode of Dragon’s Den to see how naive and poorly informed many hapless would-be tycoons really are. For them, a guide to the genuine cost-saving freebies that are waiting to be accessed could make all the difference.

FREESOURCERS AND OTHER ANIMALS

Altrepreneur: Looking for a change of lifestyle, not just increased wealth.
Mompreneur: Parents who stay at home and use the spare time between looking after their children to start a business.
Wantrapeneur: Would like to start a business but has not yet got there.
Solopreneur: Works alone and
is motivated just by money and success.
Ultrapreneur: Starts a successful business, then reinvests the money into new ventures.
Freesourcer: Has started and grown a business with no money apart from what the company has generated.

Freesourcing by Jonathan Yates is published by Capstone, £9.99.

I was fortunate to meet Jonathan Yates, the author of Freesourcing and got him to sign a copy! Luckily I did that because his session at later the day was jam packed and I couldn’t get entry. (Jonathan, its proof of your upcoming following). Freesourcing challenges the norm by stating that you could start your business with what you already have in hand.

I would like to offer my own services; not for money but for a future share in the success of your business. Malcolm Gladwell believes it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, thats 5 years of hard work. It took me 5 years to set up and sell my business so with this in mind I am willing to offer you 1% of this expert time for 1% of your business. That equates to 100 hours of my unpaid expert help in growing your business opportunity.

If you have a great idea and can persuade me that you are the right person then I will help you get your business to the next level. 100% ownership of your business is great if its working well but why not look to grow the opportunity with some free expert help when you need it. I am offering no financial investment because I believe in the power of Freesourcing. I am offering something far more valuable, experience, contacts, creativity and market knowledge. Together we can make our business success a reality.

To move to the next level, please send a single page Executive summary of your business idea to include the following information:

1. Elevator pitch
2. Why you are the person to do it
3. Achievements so far with this idea
4. Target market
5. Possible market size
6. Research summary
7. Contact details

send to pitch@vumepitch.com

(If you need me to sign a non disclosure agreement [NDA] then please email and I shall send you a copy of my standard NDA agreement)

Once I have received and understood the proposition, researched the market for myself and believe that this is a good idea, I shall be in contact.

Good Luck and best wishes

TESTIMONIALS

“it won’t be long before he gets a loyal following.” Peter Jones, Founder of Phones International Group

“Jonathan is living proof that whatever you put your mind to, you can achieve” Deirdre Bounds, Entrepreneur & Author

“The next big thing” The Daily Express

“Jonathan is one of those rare individuals who has great business acumen as well as entrepreneurial insight. His passion to succeed is infectious.” Mike Clare, Founder of Dream Beds Plc

“The bottom line is: can he make a successful business… You know what? of course he can.” The Sunday Times

“jonathan yates has tremendous energy and drive.” Sahar hashemi, Co-Founder Coffee Republic

So, there I was, married, 1 small child and another on the way within a couple of months. The call I knew was coming, rang through on the company mobile. I had lost my job and there was no chance of redundancy pay as the company had folded and can we have our phone back please.

As a seasoned sales professional I knew I could walk into another IT sales role fairly easily. However, according to my wife, this was the chance to put into practice the idea I had been mulling over for a couple of months and anyway I had been selling corporate IT for a decade and never really enjoyed it from the outset perhaps a chance for a career change.

I decided that the idea had enough innovation and novelty X factor to be worth a punt so decided to give it a go.

Now here is lesson number ONE when starting on your own: It has to be you who decides the idea is a good one, It has to be you who has carried out the research and proved to yourself that the idea will work. You have to be the first person to de-risk the idea and accept that this is the path you are going to follow with focus and determination. Without self belief how can you possibly convey the emotion in the business to a third party?

Its all well and good getting excited and hot under the collar watching The Apprentice and Dragons Den and thinking thats easy, if they can do it then I can definitely do it. The reality is that everyone can have a go at starting their own venture, but a very determined few will actually make it through to a sustainable ongoing business.

So make the decision based on reasoned understanding of the opportunity. Once you have made the decision, stick to it.

Right, that’s hurdle one out of the way. You have decided to go ahead and start a business on your own well done, just a few minor things to do before you can pass go and actually start. Next you have to sit the wife, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband (or all five) down and explain to them the opportunity, why your going to make it a success and how they can help. If you don’t get the support of your closest allies then you cannot go on. Sorry, its just the rule. It should be easy because by this stage you will have created a simple elevator pitch to clearly and concisely convey the idea to people in about 15 seconds. So 2 mins and 27 seconds later after they close their mouths in amazement at your humanity altering idea, you should have your first nod of assent.

The slight issue with getting family and friends on your side is that they really want you to do well. “Oh look, we have an entrepreneur in the family, we are so proud, of course you can do it, its a great idea!” – Family and friends will always urge you to go for it because they believe in you and want you to do well. The relative closeness may cloud their judgment.

The turning point in my decision to start my venture was to get hold of a mentor. A seasoned professional with real business experience in a similar and non-competing industry who would point out all the flaws as well as boost morale rather than stroke ego. I found my mentor through a friend of the family. When I spent 3 hours with him talking through the idea, the pitfalls and the opportunities, I knew I was onto a winner.

You have to decide to go for it, get your family and friends on side but most importantly get yourself a mentor to coach through the good and the bad times to come. Without someone telling you where you could go wrong, you may not know until its too late.