So What's All The Fuss About?

Last year we worked with some great Buckinghamshire companies to boost their marketing and advertising and for a savvy few, with the help of a growth grant administered by Bucks Business First a third of the project cost was reimbursed…

That was essentially £5,000 of premium services for free in a few instances.

Who was successful with the grant?

Here are a few smart clients who sorted out their grants and grew their businesses because of it.

Zygology Systems – A new advertising strategy through Linkedin and Google.
Adcal – A new beautiful and optimised website to bring the brand up to date.
Propertyserve – A new website for diversification of their business.
Taylormade Gates – New branding & website for the enhancement of a specific solution.
AM Transformers – An upgrade in website from simple WordPress brochure style to an ‘add to order’ woocommerce framework.

What do you need to spend?

So if you are contemplating an investment to improve your business, then now is a great time to strike.

Project Cost	Upfront Cost	Grant	Actual Spend
	Upfront supplier payment required	The total cash reimbursed to you	Upfront cost minus the grant
Minimum	£3,000*	£1000	£2,000*
Most likely to be approved quickly and easily	£10,000*	£3,333.33	£6,666.66*
Maximum BBF advise discussing before spending time on the application	£15,000*	£5,000	£10,000*

*Excluding VAT

Don’t waste any more time

Importantly, in the interest of saving people’s time, your business must meet the following criteria in order to qualify for the grant;

Check further eligibility criteria

1. Not previously had a growth grant nor received over 200,000 de minimis aid in the last 3 years

2. Not a franchise nor a business in the following sectors;

Banking and insurances
Coal, steel, shipbuilding, or synthetic fibre production
Agriculture and aquaculture
Generalised (school-age) education (including independent schools) and funded training providers
Social welfare facilities e.g. hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, child-minding facilities, sports facilities, parks, public libraries.
The public sector (defined as any organisation that either directly or indirectly receives over 50% of their main funding from EU, central or local government)

Qualify for the Grant?

Now that is out of the way, let’s talk about what you can spend your money on!

Just for clarity

VAT payments.
Paying off debts or refinancing.
Purchase of land or buildings or financial investments.
Repairs to equipment or buildings.
Preventative and remedial maintenance of assets or equipment.
Training including in the use of assets and equipment.
The purchase of assets or equipment which are being capitalised.
Salaries, travel, or subsistence.
Any statutory or legislative obligations, duties, or requirements.
Hire purchases and/or asset finance arrangements.
Premises costs, such as refurbishment, and building work.
Purchase of consumables associated with PPE and social distancing measures.
Expenditure on continuous or periodic activity, routine tax consultancy, regular legal services or advertising, or costs that are required to comply with national or EU standards, or costs related to this or other grant funding applications are not eligible.
Non-business expenditure.
Routine expenditure relating to new employees (e.g. office furniture, ICT, and training).
Purchasing new or replacing existing mobile laptops/computers/devices/phones.
“Like-for-like” replacement of obsolete equipment with little or no added value.
Any items or activity/project that has already been committed to or purchased.

Yes, all of the above services and solutions will be considered in your application for a growth grant.

What would we advise?

Well for us, it starts with consultancy.

In just a few hours of assessing your website and existing advertising and marketing strategy we’ll be able to identify ways in which to enhance it. We do it with just under 100 Bucks, Berks, Oxon and London based businesses every month so you can trust our judgement.

The only thing is, there is another stipulation in the terms of this grant and that is that you must not have entered into the service agreement prior to applying for your grant.

We’re willing to offer you up to £500 worth of consultancy entirely free of charge and obligation

Our 5 fave Bucks coffee shops/meeting places…

Coopers, Marlow
Costa Coffee, Bourne End
Thirst 4 Coffee, Holtspur
Green Delight, Wooburn Green
The Square, Holmer Green

All you need to do is book a coffee/meeting with us – our place, yours or even a coffee shop (our treat).

Prior to this, if you can give us a bit of direction, we will do some pre-meet preparation…

You want a new website
You want to gain more leads with your existing website
You want to grow the profitability of the business but you don’t know how
You think you need a rebrand
Or something else…

Then we’ll meet, have a chat about your ideas and hopefully give you some handy advice then and there.

It may then be valuable to observe, more intricately, what you have in-place already and dissect the stats so we can make more qualified, data-driven proposals.

If this is the case, we can talk you through delegating access to Google Analytics and/or your Google or social media advertising accounts.

Ultimately you’ll come away with some advice and some ballpark figures, then it’s up to you to commit.

Ready? Better hurry before they’re all gone!

The application process

Send the application on one email, containing all documents.
- There is no need to sign the application form (once checked it will be returned for electronic signature)
- Email the application and saved files to bbf.uk.com
An application requires:
- BG08 Growth grant application form in a saved PDF format – fully completed in all sections including financial table.
- PDF(s) of the quote(s) for the proposed work/project
- A full set of the organisations last signed and verified annual accounts.
- If the time period of the annual accounts ends before 29th February 2020, the organisation will also need to send a profit and loss report and a balance sheet from the end of their last financial year to 29th February 2020.
- o If a sole trader or partnership is applying, then the last self-assessment tax return should be supplied instead of annual accounts.
- In the subject line of the application email to growth@bbf.uk.com please add the full name of the company/organisation applying.
Once it has been reviewed and if all aspects of the application are correct and eligible and there is funding available, the Growth Team will request an electronic signature of the application (BG08) and the (BG10) Growth grant Guidance Notes and Terms & Conditions. This will be sent to via an emailed document from HelloSign.
Once the signed application form has been received it will be submitted to the Growth grant panel for consideration and the applicant will be notified of the outcome by email. Grant panel decisions are final and there is no appeals procedure or ability to amend or alter the application to get it approved.Please note, a grant cannot be applied for retrospectively. Also, an application must be approved with a grant offer letter received and signed before any part of the project can be committed to or paid for, otherwise the grant will not be paid.
The applicant will be informed by email about whether the grant application has been approved. This will be followed by a grant offer letter, which will need to be signed and return by electronic signature.
Once the grant offer letter has been signed the work can be arranged to start and must be completed within three calendar months of the date on the grant offer letter.
Once the work is completed, and the suppliers have been paid in full, the applicant can claim back the grant money by providing evidence of payments made by supplying a receipted invoice and a copy of the organisations full bank statement proving payment has been made and by completing a BG12 Growth grant claim form and emailing to growth@bbf.uk.com
Once checked and approved the grant money will be transferred into the organisations bank account within 30 days.