“It has been interesting being invited to regional meetings across the Network and great to catch up with some familiar faces and meet new ones.  At a recent meeting held in the South West, I met with new Associates, Torbay Development Agency based in Torquay. Some members in the South West already work with them, so it will be exciting to see the relationship moving forward.

The format of the meetings from region to region differs somewhat but the issues and concerns are all very similar! We are all struggling with the realities of delivering the Government’s policies.  Delivering NEA features highly, as does mentoring – does it work and how do you make it successful?

Enterprise in education is more increasingly making its way on to the agenda and some see this as a perfect opportunity to get involved with their local further education establishments to develop an offering to the 16 – 17 years old that have aspirations of starting their own business.  I know Dawn has recently met with DfE to get more information on this and you can find out more in her Spotlight on Enterprise Education feature.
 
As always, raising finance for our clients is paramount. You will have no doubt seen Lord Young’s proposal to remove the start-up loans age cap to include the over 30’s.  If this is approved then Start Up Loans really will be a client’s first port of call.  We need to continue lobbying government to ensure when this market is opened up that loan proposals are backed up by solid business logic, hopefully provided by our members.   Over a third of the initial batch of loans has gone through our members and I’m hoping that the default rates on these loans are considerably lower than the norm.

Finally, if I have not yet made it to your regional meeting, then I will get to you soon! Until then, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me through the Network office or via chairman@nationalenterprisenetwork.org“

So what have we been up to this month?

• BIS; as usual the majority of our Government contact has been with this department and we continue to have discussions and to develop relationships with a wide range of initiatives and policy contacts.
  Mentoring; we are involved in a couple of working groups looking at how sustainable models for mentoring programmes can be developed; as well as what data and evaluation could be captured in order to appropriately support the value of mentoring to clients and to stakeholders.
  Enterprise in Education Steering Groups; two groups exist, one looking focussing on schools and the other on further/higher education.  The groups meet regularly to review projects currently operating in these fields as well as to discuss and review policy changes and identify opportunities.
  Business Support Roadshows; some members have been involved in these sessions which BIS are running as a precursor to the development of a new business support strategy planned for launch in the autumn.  The core proposition looks to be around local growth hubs and members are therefore encouraged to ensure they are connected as thinking develops.  We are speaking separately to those involved in the development of the strategy and will provide further information in due course.
• Enterprise Research Centre; this was launched recently and is a joint initiative between BIS; the BBA, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Technology Strategy Board.  The ERC’s research activity is divided into six themes and reflects the fact that despite considerable research attention over the last 30 years the evidence base for SME policy and strategy formulation remains incomplete.
• DfE; we have started a dialogue in regards to the possible opportunities for members in the education sector, please see the separate Spotlight on Enterprise in Education feature for more detail.
• HMRC; our members continue to support in the development of the new Tax for My Business tool and this support is being highly valued – those members who have not yet offered their support still have a chance as HMRC continue to seek opportunities to talk both to advisers and to clients about the development of the tool
• RBS; we have participated in a routine meeting to explore developments in their enterprise initiatives and policy developments, which continue at this stage to concentrate particularly on their Inspiring Enterprise grant programme – new rounds for both young people and women are due to be announced in June and we’d hope to see members involved this time as they have in previous rounds!

I was pleased to be at Downing Street for the launch of Lord Young’s Growing Your Business report and we will be issuing a response which broadly supports the recognition of the contribution small businesses make to the economy and the recommendations made by Lord Young.  But in regard to the removal of the age cap for start-up loans particularly, we’ll be pointing out that this should be done with some form of evaluation of the existing provision to ensure only those who are operating it effectively and ethically are allowed to continue involvement.  We’ll also be pointing out that there should be greater recognition of the need to support pre-start support as part of the business planning process, not just mentoring after the loan award.

We have again attended a number of your regional meetings this month – these are always a great opportunity to get up to date with how things are for you on the coal face – and we welcome any and every opportunity to come along so please do make sure you let us have details of all your meetings as you plan them.

I’ve also had the opportunity to meet Business Support and Development from North Yorkshire and again this was a chance to provide an update on what we’re up to, but just as importantly to find out what initiatives and developments are happening with them.  We are always delighted to visit our members, it’s a really valuable way to keep abreast of the challenges and opportunities you face and so please do invite us to come along and see you!

Dawn Whiteley
National Enterprise Network Chief Executive

A Sharing of Your Best Practice Areas:
• Your industry is undoubtedly a sector driven by service.  Assessments have demonstrated to us that there is a sheer determination within your sector to put the customer at the heart of everything you do which is why we are proud to have awarded so many of you with the Customer First Standard.

• Assessments against the Customer First Standard have highlighted many things, but what has shone through all assessments is the passion everyone has for what they do. You consistently demonstrate innovation and flexibility in approaching internal and external improvements, involve your people in making major changes and smaller improvements and most importantly, recognise the efforts everyone places on delivering great service.

• Leadership has never been stronger. Your sector is focussed on developing staff to be skilled and knowledgeable about your industry. Through effective teamwork, communications and networking staff are kept up to date with changes. Staff are fully supported and developed through personal coaching, customer feedback and appraisals to name a few and as a result employee engagement levels are exceptional.

• There is a strong sense of continuous improvement within your sector. There are robust strategic drivers to develop this within organisations, including the development of values and visions and systems are being re-defined to ensure they meet overall company objectives. Reporting functions are being streamlined to ensure learning is a key part of strategic evaluation and development.

• Complaints are a key part of developing services. They are openly communicated and organisations are internally promoting their “no blame culture” to ensure staff understand that learning from mistakes is a key part of business improvement. A fantastic example of this was seen during assessment with one Enterprise Agency adding complaints and compliments to the agenda at board level, linking annual staff bonuses to levels of customer satisfaction.

• Key focus has been put on marketing efforts, ensuring that the company fully understands who its customer groups are, what their needs are and how services can be developed to meet those needs. As a result market segmentation processes have been adopted to develop websites; referrals are re-evaluated to ensure they meet all customer groups’ needs. Segmentation is linked to funding situations for programmes and databases are able to respond to customer group marketing initiatives should they arise.

• Internal and external feedback is taken at every opportunity to ensure levels of service meet or exceed customer expectations.

• Clear and structured business plans are in place covering more than just financial and operational targets. Measurable targets are now being put in place to cover customer satisfaction, product developments and achievements of Standards such as Customer First!

Supporting your Continuous Improvement:
Through our assessment service we have supported a number of Enterprise Agencies to put actions in place for their continuous improvement. Areas we have supported have typically covered:

• Defining, developing and communication Core Values to ensure they are consistently embedded in the organisation, through external communications and internal behaviours (we will bring you more on this in our next article, where Practitioner Les Hewitson gives you insight to developing a “Values Driven Culture”)

• Putting structures in place to expand on customer feedback measures. We have supported awareness of why feedback is an integral part of service developments, how segmenting feedback to different customer groups can make a real difference and how to develop awareness of customer loyalty drivers

• We have supported the development of complaints handling approaches to ensure all customer complaints are swiftly resolved and services improved to meet customer expectations

• Supporting the development of recruitment and induction processes to ensure strong relationships are built, roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and like-minded people are recruited

• Developing staff appraisal systems and feedback is consistently given to improve staff performance and customer relationships

• Developing external communications to meet strategic objectives, we have helped to re-define and strengthen marketing messages, strengthening websites and initiatives to tailor customers to key marketing messages.

Contact us today!
If you are a National Enterprise Network member or thinking of joining, Customer First has a unique offer for you. We discount our assessment services by 10%; this is a dedicated offer to existing and new members of the network.

If you want to find out how we can support your business development please give the team a call on 0845 226 0719.

We offer more than just an accreditation service! We can deliver:
• A Diagnostic against the Customer First Standard, giving you a bespoke action plan for developing new services and improving existing ones. This approach allows you to park your existing compliant areas and work on the development areas essential to meeting the Customer First Standard
• Accreditation against the Putting the Customer First® Standard
• In-house training to support your business development
• Bespoke workshops for you and your team, enabling you all to come together to focus on your service delivery approaches

Offering entrepreneurs the chance to work for a period between one to six months alongside the owner of a SME in a participating country, the entrepreneur gains relevant management experience as well as building up a network of contacts essential to get a business up and running.  The participating business benefits from fresh ideas, complementary skills and can learn about new markets and possible business opportunities.

Launched in 2009 and with partners in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, the programme has so far received over 2500 applications and currently there are just under 200 entrepreneurs working alongside a business in another country.

Chief Executive of the BIC Paul McEldon said: “I am delighted that the BIC can now offer this programme to the North East, it really is a win win for both interested parties. We will help guide applicants through the process and remain a point of contact during the exchange.

“The programme is ultimately about breaking barriers and crossing borders and it contributes to adopting an entrepreneurial mindset and behaviour, something the BIC has maintained over the years.”

National Enterprise Network would like to congratulate The North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) on its involvement in this new initiative and looks forward to hearing more about up and coming entrepreneurs in the region that benefit from the programme,

Sue Hayes, Managing Director at Barclays Business gives you and your clients the opportunity to meet Farida Gibbs, the multi award-winning CEO of Gibbs S3, Europe’s fastest growing technology staffing and resource project solutions company, who this week is answering questions posted by members on Barclays Connector.

Farida began her career more than 15 years ago and has extensive experience in the banking, telecommunications, energy and retail industries. In 2005 she founded Gibbs S3, a company that has now become an international provider of IT Staffing, Business Change and Project Solutions with operations in the US and Europe.

Farida will be live on Barclays Connector from Monday 29^th April until Friday 3rd May, answering questions from users, and sharing how she’s built her success. To connect with Farida and ask her questions on succeeding in business, simply join Barclays Connector, one of the UK’s fastest growing business communities. All you have to do is register at www.barclays.co.uk/connector and it’s free, even if you’re not a Barclays customer.

Farida’s inspiring career and rise to the top has led her to direct the UK’s efforts and become one of the fastest growing staffing providers posting over £150 million in sales revenues for 2011, of which the UK arm saw an incredible 456% growth in 2010 and a further 70% growth in 2011.

Her success has led her to winning the RBS Asian Woman Entrepreneur Award in 2012, the Global Enterprising Woman of the Year Award in 2012 and the Fast Growth Business Awards in 2011. Farida was also finalist for the Precious Awards in 2011, listed in the Recruitment International’s Top 250 Report and named in the Business XL Top 50 Rising Stars.

With this wide ranging experience and numerous industry accolades, there is plenty you can ask Farida to help your business succeed. Plus, once you’re a member of Barclays connector, you can give or receive support in a number of other ways, such as:

•        Add thousands of potential new customers and suppliers to your contacts

•        Search for new projects and bid for work

•        Advertise projects you and your clients require assistance with

•        Raise your company’s profile and those of your clients in the free Company Directory

•        Expand your knowledge and that of your clients in the Learning Centre.

To take advantage of this unique opportunity and all the other benefits Barclays Connector has to offer, register today at www.barclays.co.uk/connector.

Chris Brown, from Sunderland, finishes his business administration apprenticeship next month and has already been offered a permanent place at the BIC as an Administration Officer.  He chose to obtain an apprenticeship after school as he felt it was a great way to achieve on the job experience as well as gaining a qualification. 

The BIC’s Chief Executive and Chairman of National Enterprise Network, Paul McEldon, commented: “Chris is a wonderful example of illustrating that if you put in the hard work you will reap the benefits. Chris is proving to be a valuable member of the team and I look forward in continuing to watch him grow and develop.”

North East Business & Innovation Centre (BIC) is a very active NEN Member, dedicated to building successful businesses in Sunderland. The agency recognises how important it is to constantly grow and bring in new skills to not only assure the organisation remains innovative, but also to also continually support a large number of pre start and start up businesses across the local area.

Gavin Carey, 22 years old, has launched GMC Property Maintenance and moved into his first business premises after qualifying for TEDCO’s Young Entrepreneurs deal.  The offer, which is available to 18-30 year olds in the region who are looking to set up their own business, offers substantial discounts on workspace accommodation costs for a six month period to allow businesses to get up and running at a realistic and manageable rate.

Gavin Carey said, “The help and support that I have received from TEDCO to enable me to get a workspace for my business at a discounted rate allows me to present a professional image from the outset and focus my attention on securing new customers without having to worry about the scale of my overheads when working on new income streams.”

The TEDCO Business Centre in Jarrow is one of three office workspaces centres managed by the enterprise agency in the region.  All three provide flexible accommodation to suit a wide range of new and established businesses with no long term commitment and flexible agreements to maintain business growth in a professional and supportive environment. 

Amy Doonan, TEDCO Business Centre Manager said, “We are always focused on helping to support entrepreneurship and our Young Entrepreneurs deal is a great way for any aspiring business owner aged 18 to 30 years old to secure workspace accommodation at a discounted rate for a six month period.  Setting up on your own can be daunting but we have structured our offer to give new start-ups a real helping hand to allow them to concentrate their efforts on building and running their business.”

TEDCO’s Young Entrepreneurs Deal is another example of the dedicated support National Enterprise Network members offer to pre start and start up businesses, to enable their ventures to start off on the right footing and encourage future growth.

Here’s part two of those objections and more importantly the benefits to small business in taking a leap of faith and getting in there.

It’ll get out of control
As a business you have total control over your own channels & platforms. You can choose how you respond & have the option to respond & participate which actually add to your control rather than taking it away.

Many businesses are seeing huge benefits in the ability to respond to customer requests and are also seeing their customer share and recommend their services to their friends, family & contacts.

Am I not just acting as a sales person online?
Well you can see it this way, but you could also see it that you are an individual who happens to work at a particular place and this is your online business card.

If you were out socializing and someone asked you what you did for a living would you say you didn’t want to talk about it? You might not want to tell them from thread to needle all about your daily tasks but chances are you’d explain what the business does & where you fit in.

If you get your social media set up in the right way it will inform people what you do & then you can get on with the communicating. After all people buy people – social media is all about relationships!

We don’t have a marketing department or marketing manager to run our social media
So let me ask you, is it just the marketing team that communicate with your prospects, customers, suppliers & partners? No, then why would it be down to the marketing team to communicate through social media.

Social media is simply a communication tool. A way for us to build relationships with people. Just as traditionally we have attended networking events, picked up the phone, written an email or a letter etc. Social media is another form of engagement.

Decide within the business what messages you want to get across, who will help to formulate these messages & who will ‘talk’ about them. Divide up & allocate the tasks. Yes, sales & marketing are part of the mix but it’s not all about sales & marketing.

We have a marketing plan & we’re doing fine, we think!

But could you so better? Do you have a blog in your website? Used correctly a blog can help you drive traffic to your website & increase sales.

Social media is all about having the right links in the right places to help people find you & buy from you when the time is right for them. It’s about just being in the background all the time so that when a customer is ready to buy you’re who they think of. Are you missing valuable prospective customer because you’re not engaging with them where they want
to ‘talk’, online.

Social media is likely to be much more cost effective than other marketing channels such as advertising, promotion flyers, telesales etc. But we’re not advocating you give these up completely. It’s about bringing social media into the mix.

Online engagement will also show the outside world that you’re a forward thinking & technologically smart business.

Here’s a reminder of what to do when starting out:

• Build yourself a PLAN of ACTION
• Work out which people / departments will collaborate. Who will feed into the messages & who will communicate. It’s not all about sales & marketing.
• Engage with prospects, customers, suppliers, partners
• Know your target audience
• Prioritise your online channel/s
• Take small bite-size steps
• Take advantage of some quick wins from Social Progress
  www.socialprogress.co.uk/off-line-social-profile-linking-going-off-piste/
• Keep focused
• Don’t expect overnight success – “small but steady wins the race”
• Go for quality & valuable engagement over quantity
• Give freely
• Deal with negative comments
• Communicate & build relationships
• Measure results
• Review – What’s working, what’s not?
• Have FUN!

The benefits are endless. So, how are you using social media for your business?

Guest blog written by Janet Bebb, Social Progress

Social Progress Ltd specialises in social media set up, training, coaching and consulting with a particular passion for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  Janet is their chief trainer who’s had an interesting and varied career including many years in financial services, business support, change management, employer engagement, workforce development and has extensive knowledge of childcare and social care.  Janet brings all that experience to bear when working with small businesses to develop and implement their own social media plans and does so with a friendly, easy style of delivery that gets results!
 
To find out more about Janet and Social Progress Ltd visit their website here.

So what have we been up to this month…..?

• BIS; as a follow up to the budget, we attended an SME intermediary’s network meeting; together with a range of other stakeholders and membership representatives.  The meeting was an opportunity to learn more about the various initiatives coming out of the budget – in particular the national insurance allowance and the latest developments with the business bank.  We have also met with representatives looking after enterprise education within BIS, where we are now actively engaged in an enterprise education steering group, and this will be followed up next month by a meeting with colleagues within DfE.
• HMRC; we continue to have regular discussions with HMRC in regards to the development of their new online tool to support people with their business taxes – Tax For My Business.  We are particularly grateful for those of our members who have offered to support this activity by allowing HMRC to meet their advisers and their clients to demonstrate the new tool – there are still opportunities for involvement and so if you haven’t already please let us know if you’d like to get involved.
• LEPs; we were in attendance at the recent annual LEP Network Conference and as Barclays were one of the sponsors we took the opportunity to share their exhibition space to promote the Ready for Business programme as well as NEN member activities generally.  The key points from the conference are as follows:-
  o Funding from the Government for the LEP Network is to be reduced, to a point where they would like to see it being self financing from next spring.
  o Government reiterated their commitment to Lord Heseltine’s No Stone Unturned report and in particular the establishment of some sort of single pot.  There were no indications of exactly how much would be available – but likely to be a combination of cash together with freedoms and flexibilities – as per city deals.  The initiative is being referred to as Growth Deals.
  o Growth Deals will have an element of competition and it will be for each LEP to construct a proposal that shows what they can achieve and how; and what gearing they could deliver as part of the deal.
  o Lord Heseltine was particularly bullish about the challenge being placed upon LEPs, saying to Chairs that this was perhaps a far bigger and potentially very different job to the one they thought they might have signed up for – and going as far as to say that those who weren’t up for it should walk away now!

As well as attending some of your regional meetings this month – always a great opportunity to get up to date with how things are for you on the coal face – I’ve had the opportunity to visit North Staffordshire Chamber and again this was a chance to provide an update on what we’re up to, but just as importantly to find out what initiatives and developments are happening with them.  We are always delighted to visit our members, it’s a really valuable way to keep abreast of the challenges and opportunities you face and so please do invite us to come along and see you!

Dawn Whiteley, Chief Executive

Part one of this blog (below) concentrates on some of the objections, tips & advantages, part two will be issued shortly and covers more about objections and the benefits to small business.
 
“There’s so much talk these days about social media it seems to be everywhere. But the big question is will it help my business?

So is it just a fad? Does it add value or is it all just noise?

Well for some it just seems too much of a mountain to climb and so is left well alone. For others they’ve taken the leap of faith & decided to try it out.

So let’s look at some of the objections, tips & advantages….

It’s just a fad!
Social media has quite a history & what we now class as social media, really started to grow in 2002 with the introduction of Friendster, which was built around degrees of separation and is what most social networks are based around today.

So 11 years later social media is still here and growing stronger by the day. We have the three most popular platforms when it comes to business usage – Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. But we’re rapidly seeing a whole host of others which have their own uses – Pinterest, FourSquare, Google+ to name a few.

We’re also seeing it made easier & easier to access, navigate and interact. It’s visual, entertaining & immediate. It helps people form relationships & keep in touch. It crosses boundaries socially, economically & geographically.

Isn’t it too time consuming?
Build yourself a plan of action. Be strategic in your approach. Set up quick effective ways to access & manage social media. Use some of the many social media tools such as HootSuite, Buffer etc to help schedule activity but be careful not to rely heavily on these.

Remember social media is about two way communication not broadcasting. Understand that social media platforms are today’s ‘tools of the trade’ and are an efficient and effective way to stay in touch with prospects, customers, suppliers & partners.

Just as we have traditionally used the phone, email, letters, flyers, and face to face networking to communicate with the outside world, social media is just another channel to get your name out there.

What if people are negative about us? We don’t want to open up those flood gates.
If you’re thinking this way then these two things to address here. Firstly, if you feel you would get negative comments shouldn’t you be doing something to address this & putting things right for customers?

Secondly, those comments are probably already happening. You’re just not there to talk about them & have a chance to openly put things right.

But turn it on its head – social media has given people a voice to express how they feel about the brands they engage with. This can also help a business, if you’re giving excellent customer service it will give you a platform for your customers & advocates to shout about it from the rooftops too. You can’t beat third party recommendations. Much more powerful than you selling yourself.

Ok I get it, but let’s give it to the office junior to do!
According to Pingdom’s Report*, more than half of social media users are between the ages of 25 & 44 years of age, so it’s not just for kids!

When we talk about social media most people think of Facebook but there are many more social media platforms out there. It’s more about understanding which ones are going to be right for your business & how your business can use that platform effectively.

If you’re B2B it’s likely that you’ll get most benefit through LinkedIn & Twitter. If you’re B2C then it could be Facebook & Twitter.

But wait a minute, there’s Trip Adviser, FourSquare, Pinterest, Google+ etc etc. Do some research & ask the experts which ones would be right for your business.  And yes Trip Adviser is a social network as it enables people to communicate easily via the internet to share information & resources.

Here’s some things to think about when starting out:

• Build yourself a PLAN of ACTION
• Work out which people / departments will collaborate. Who will feed into the messages & who will communicate. It’s not all about sales & marketing
• Engage with prospects, customers, suppliers, partners
• Know your target audience
• Prioritise your online channel/s
• Take small bite-size steps
• Take advantage of some quick wins from Social Progress: www.socialprogress.co.uk/off-line-social-profile-linking-going-off-piste/
• Keep focused
• Don’t expect overnight success – “small but steady wins the race”
• Go for quality & valuable engagement over quantity
• Give freely
• Deal with negative comments
• Communicate & build relationships
• Measure results
• Review – What’s working, what’s not?
• Have FUN!

So what benefits have you seen from using social media? Has it raised your profile, got you better acquainted with your prospects, customers, suppliers & partners? We’d love to hear your stories on how it’s helping your business……”

Guest blog written by Janet Bebb, Social Progress

Social Progress Ltd specialises in social media set up, training, coaching and consulting with a particular passion for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  Janet is their chief trainer who’s had an interesting and varied career including many years in financial services, business support, change management, employer engagement, workforce development and has extensive knowledge of childcare and social care.  Janet brings all that experience to bear when working with small businesses to develop and implement their own social media plans and does so with a friendly, easy style of delivery that gets results!
 
To find out more about Janet and Social Progress Ltd visit their website here.

* Pingdom’s Report: http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/