Starting Franchise while on DMP

wend2410

Hope someone can help.
For some years now my hubby and I have been on a DMP and therefore have a poor credit rating, although i recently did a Credit score check with Equifax and my credit rating with them is now FAIR!! Don't know what Experian says about me yet but I'll check that out soon.
Anyway as neither me nor my husband could see a way out of this any time soon, I returned to university to study for a BA (Hons) degree in Music Performance, which I'm glad to say I graduated last year with a 2:1 and in addition to this I've recently completed training to become a licensed educator for an Internationally renowned children's music education organisation. I'm now awaiting my licence to begin teaching. It will be my own business but I do not need large finance to start me up - it acts like a franchise in that I must use the company logos, name etc in all my advertising etc and they provide my licence, website, advice, further training etc but I do not have to buy the franchise as such. My sister paid for my initial training and all i have to do is pay for licence, public liability insurance, advertising (some of that free from organisation), website maintenance, venue hire and of course instruments. Unfortunately as I am on a DMP I have no savings or spare income to cover these things. I am working part-time in an office and my hubby works full-time so we can support ourselves while I'm starting up but I just need a small loan/grant of say £400-£500 to cover the purchase of instruments and initial advertising. Is there any point in me applying for a business loan of some kind to help me get started - would I be breaking any DMP rules if I applied? Or does anyone know of an organisation who would consider giving me a grant to set this business up? There is a gap in the market in my area for children's music classes so I know it can and will be successful.
Any advice will be really appreciated.
Thanks:)

Savvy_Sue

Welcome. And sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the deathly silence is an indication that there are very few loans out there these days, especially for new and untried businesses.

As for whether this would be breaking DMP rules I'm afraid I don't know, but it would be worth checking with the DMP company you're using.

If you're under 25, then it's possible the Prince's Trust can help, but I suspect as you and DH are both employed that they can't. It's worth looking at the Businesslink website, you MIGHT find some links there. You would do best to open a separate bank account for this, and you could ask if anyone will let you have a business bank account with a small overdraft. It might be cheaper to get a 0% credit card if you can - you need to do your sums very very carefully, because you don't want to be getting into more debt.

Final (and probably best!) suggestion would be to hold off for 6 months, save like mad and finance the start that way. Can you increase your hours or get a 2nd job? Old Style will help you eat for less (if nothing else!) and Up Your Income might have some ideas on that front.

martindow

I was just wondering whether with your experience and qualifications you could raise some money by doing some music teaching privately. You could hopefully fit this around your job.