The Start-up Kit (£2500)

New businesses often need finance; banks and backers need to know where their money is going and what returns to expect. They need to show a professional report to their own bosses and file it somewhere safe in order to justify their own decisions.

We've written a number of these reports. We don't do miracles; some were for patently ridiculous ideas but there was no convincing our clients of this; unsurprisingly they didn't get the money.

Others were such brilliant ideas that the bank and backers could scarcely wait to write the cheques. We enjoy writing these much more. Rest assured that we will tell you if we think you're wasting your money but if we think you're on to a winner we will happily write you a professional plan. One of our most recent was a marketing plan for the Royal Geographical Society that helped them to clinch their Heritage Lottery Fund grant to open their archives to the public. (Needless to say that one of the daftest was a dotcom that provided nothing at all that the customer couldn't already buy a lot more easily off line.)