As the latest series of the popular TV show The Apprentice hits our screens this week, it raises the question about the impact these programmes have on today's entreprepreneurs. Do they give the impression that starting a business is easy, do they trivialise what is a very serious subject and are the people we see on the likes of Dragons' Den and The Apprentice a true representation of today's entrepreneurs?

Clearly some of the people we see on these shows haven't got the first clue about business, despite what they might think, plus there's the inevitable fame wannabes just looking for some TV exposure and hoping for the phonecall that will lead them into the entertainment industry rather than business. But then, if they are successful as, say, TV presenters, you could say they are simply marketing themselves into a successful business.

A recent article on BBC news forecasts UK bank lending is set to shrink by 2.2% this year - the first time since 2009 according to the Ernst & young Item Club economic forecasting group. While banks are usually the first port of call (perhaps after friends and family!) for funding, there are other options.

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Well, you're not alone as recent research by Business Link has found that although a quarter of employees would like to start a business a third are too scared to do so. However, what's interesting is that if those budding entrepreneurs did take the leap into business ownership and made a profit of just £1000 the UK economy would receive a massive £3.25bn boost.

With the varied support available to businesses including the £78.9m to be spent during 2011-12 on a number of programmes and initiatives designed to support UK businesses it would be interesting to understand what is holding so many people back. From our discussions with visitors to the recent Business Startup Show many people were concerned about finance, feeling overwhelmed by the tasks involved in setting up a business, not understanding what jobs they needed to undertake, not to mention the risk involved in possibly leaving employment to start the business.

All these concerns are valid and completely understandable. The good news is that they can, for the most part, be addressed.

Naming your business. We've all been there. It's one of those guaranteed moments in starting a business. What are we going to call the business? From experience I know that what seems like a straightforward task can actually end up being one of the biggest headaches you'll face in setting up a business. You're trying to convey what your business does in a name that sounds appealing, but that fits all the many criteria you will have been told to follow - make it easy to remember, easy to spell and so on.

Then, of course, there's the website. There's a good chance the domain name is gone already, so do you keep going until you have a name that also has a web domain available or do you slightly change the domain name. For example, if it's a magazine do you add 'mag' to the domain name or 'UK'.