How you can start a business to help your community

Are you thinking of starting a business to help out a local community? Well, it is a great goal to have, and you could end up helping out thousands of people who need your service.

However, it is important to realise the process of launching one isn’t necessarily quick, as it involves several stages – especially if you want the company to be NDIS registered.

For those wondering what the best way is to go about doing so is, we’ve put together this handy guide to what is involved.

We hope it provides you with some clarity on the steps you need to take.

Sort out the Legal Stuff

If you want to launch a business, the first thing they will need to do is to decide upon the legal structure on which they will operate. A specialist lawyer can advise you, but your options include being a company, sole trader or partnership.

After deciding which one is right for you, the next step is to register your business with ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission). They will then issue you with an Australian Business Number (ABN), which is your unique identification when dealing with any government department or agency.

Write a Business Plan

After completing your legal obligations, you should start to write a business plan.

This extensive document will be your manifesto of how you will make the company a success and usually includes information like your goals and objectives and who your customers would be.

Additionally, it should also outline what services you want to offer, for example, occupational therapy for children and adults, how you will deliver them and your overall pricing strategy.

Business plans generally focus on a period of up to five years and could also include how you will attract customers and plan to grow your company.

If you have never written a business plan before or would like to bounce ideas off someone who has, it is worth hiring a business coach like Brainiact to tap into their expertise.

Begin the process of NDIS Registration

If you want your business to be NDIS registered, you will need to put in an application with the NDIS Commission once your business plan has been written.

You will find the application form on their website. Just remember to answer all the questions they ask you in as much detail as possible to make the process quicker and more seamless.

Conduct a Self-Assessment

After filling out the form you will be asked to do a self-assessment of your business to determine to what degree it meets the NDIS practice standards for safety and quality.

This isn’t something you should stress about. Rather you should see it as an opportunity to identify any areas of your operation that might need to be brought up to scratch.

Have a Certification Audit completed

Once you have submitted your self-assessment, you will also need to have a certification audit completed by an NDIS approved quality auditor.

You will be able to find a list of such auditors on the NDIS website. However, you will have to pay for this out of your own pocket.

Wait for the NDIS Commission to decide

The auditor will provide the NDIS Commission with their findings after the certification audit has been completed. They will then make a decision on the suitability of your company to be awarded the status of an NDIS provider.

This decision process could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months, depending on how complex the audit and your overall application is. They will need to do an extensive assessment of their own to ascertain whether you business satisfies all of the regulations and requirements.

Should the NDIS approve your application you will be officially awarded NDIS registered provider status. However, if your application is turned down, you could decide to launch an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Launch your NDIS Registered Business

Once your business has been launched you can start to trade as an NDIS registered Service provider.

If you haven’t done so already you should look for a head office location and set it up with the right equipment and technology to enable you to operate efficiently.

You should also take steps to hire the best possible staff you can find and train them so they will be able to administer your services in accordance to the way you want them to be delivered to your customer base.

Find Customers

The lifeblood of any business, especially one that aims to help the community, is to find customers.

So, once your NDIS registered business has been approved and properly launched, you should focus your attention on doing this.

You can adopt a mix of promotional strategies to get the word out including advertising, PR, social media and direct marketing. Remember to be informative, transparent and engaging in the campaigns you run, as that will help your business gain more attention.

It is also worth using NDIS client management software to attract customers and maximise their lifetime value to your company to help keep it sustainable.