Start Your Own Business Course

The Start Your Own Business Course is ideal if you have ever dreamt of starting your own company. The course provides all of the key knowledge and skills required to establish your own business, giving you the confidence to turn your dream into a reality. On Successful Completion of this course, learners will gain an Open Awards Badge of Excellence Certificate. We will take you step-by-step through all of the important details of starting, structuring, operating, and then growing your business, including the important market research you will need to carry out before you get started.

We will explore how to write a comprehensive business plan (including an example you can use as a template for your own business plan), investigate all of the funding options available to you, look into the various sales and marketing techniques you will need, show you the best ways to recruit employees and how to keep them happy, examine the important accounting books you will need to keep, including examples of each, and how to effectively manage your finances to ensure your business thrives.

You will have access to the online course materials via our sophisticated e-learning portal for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 12 months and you will have the constant support of your designated course tutor to answer any questions or to help you with your exercises and assignments.

Each lesson is designed to build on what you learned in the previous lesson, and the course is designed around the “learn-by-example” methodology, with a wide range of real-life examples provided to demonstrate new concepts as you learn them. You also get the chance to practice your skills with a variety of exercises and assignments.

On successful completion of this course students will receive an Open Awards Badge of Excellence Certificate of Achievement.

The course is delivered online through the DLC Course Portal via a standard web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. The lesson notes are delivered through slides giving you the required information to work through each lesson and there are student files you will download to work on so you are putting into practice what you are learning. You will also be supported by a personal tutor who is available to provide feedback on your work at any time throughout the period of study.

You can start this course at any time, and you would be registered for a one-year period. You also have access to a personal tutor who can be contacted by email. Your tutor is available to assist with any queries and to mark your assignments for the Awarding Body.

As the course is self-study, you can complete it as quickly as you like. Support extensions are available if students do not complete the course within the one-year period.

There are no particular entry requirements for this course.

Students can enrol providing they are comfortable studying at a Level 2 standard.

You will be assessed on TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) which will consist of different tasks in creating documents, e.g. Creating a Business Planning Questionnaire.

The main criteria to pass as assignment is to prove to the tutor that you have fully understood the question and have answered it sufficiently.

If the assignment is not of the required level or needs an amendment it will be detailed in your tutor feedback so you can make any required changes. The course tutor will be happy to give guidance as to how you might improve you answers. Your work can be sent back to your course tutor by email or by post.

On successful completion of the course, students will receive feedback on their work and will be awarded the Open Awards Badge of Excellence Certification.

The completion of this course alone does not lead to an Ofqual regulated qualification but may be used as evidence of knowledge and skills towards regulated qualifications in the future.

The Badge of Excellence is Open Awards’ quality assurance mark that recognises excellent training, development and learning provision and meaningful outcomes. It has been designed for programmes that would not be enhanced by the delivery of regulated qualifications or quality endorsed units.

Open Awards are an Awarding Body Organisation approved by Ofqual. Set up in 1981, Open Awards (Previously the North West Region of the National Open College Network - OCNNW) have been in business for over 30 years and are a not for profit organisation and a registered charity.