Millionaire entrepreneur Simon Dolan offers ten top tips to help you start your own business.

01 - DON’T WASTE MONEY

Never, ever spend a penny more than you need to. And you don’t need a PA, a receptionist, a junior, nice furniture, an office, a company car or a photocopier — get the picture? Don’t spend money on advertising. All you need to do is create a web page with good content. Consider what people are looking for and attract them with good SEO.

02 – LEARN TO SELL

Realise that you have to sell. Yes, you will have to pick up the phone and ask for business, so if you can’t do this, don’t start a company. Develop an ability in sales — everything in business, and indeed life, comes from sales. In meetings, you have to sell yourself, and furthermore, the other person has to sell their business to you.

03 - DUPLICATE YOURSELF

Think about how you can delegate responsibility and duplicate yourself. If you are only selling your time and no one else’s there is a real and quick limit to how much you can earn (you need to sleep sometime). So duplicate. If all of a sudden there were two of you, you could earn twice as much. If there were 200 of you, you could earn 200 times as much, and so on. Short of rapid advancement in genetic engineering, the only way to duplicate yourself is to hire staff. Start engineering your business so that it can be replicated and run by individuals who follow the system.

04 - DON’T SAVE THE WORLD…YET

Realise that the only purpose your business has is to make money. Save the world once you’ve made some. In the meantime, leave ‘social enterprises’ to charities and governments.

05 – CONSIDER YOUR FINANCES

Be innovative in the methods used to access funds for your business. If the banks are being unhelpful, look at alternatives such as angel investors or family and friends. Never spend any more money than you actually have to. Get a good accountant. Think about whether you have to raise capital in the first place. If you do, don’t ask for too much.

06 – LOOK FOR A NICHE

Avoid the big wide gate and overly saturated markets and concentrate on the niche, then look at your competitors in your niche market to get an idea of where you’re going to find customers. A successful business is the one that does things better than its competitors. So analyse the marketplace and improve on it.

07 – CARE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS

Your business plan should be five words long: “Get and keep more customers!” Without customers you haven’t got a business, and by customers, I mean people who spend money. Look after your client list. Create a good database of customers and prospects. Your database is a precious resource, so ensure you look after it through regular email and telephone contact with clients, former clients and prospective clients. Let them know you’re thinking of them.

08 – BE REALISTIC

Give yourself time to build up your business and don’t expect to get rich overnight. Knowing it’s likely to take a long time keeps you at a realistic level. The vast majority of people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, and massively underestimate what they can achieve in a decade. Just make sure you celebrate the small victories along the way to keep yourself motivated.

09 – READ BOOKS

Everything you ever wanted to know is contained in a book somewhere, so read everything you can about people who have started businesses from nothing — preferably biographies and autobiographies. You’ll find everything you need to know is within those pages. Use what you learn to improve your business acumen daily.

10 – BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

Self-belief is an entrepreneur’s most precious commodity. If you don’t believe in yourself, then you can’t expect customers to.

Simon Dolan is the founder of SJD Accountancy and the author of How to Make Millions Without a Degree.