Last weekend we exhibited at the Listed Property Show at Olympia in London and received a great response from both home owners and other exhibitors. They all loved our website and its ease of use and wide range of products and services available. We had many new businesses join us over the weekend too which is great news for home owners as the range and diversity of businesses on our site is continuing to grow.
We hope this trend will continue when we exhibit at the National Home Building & Renovating Show from 18th – 21st March at the NEC in Birmingham. We have free tickets to give away, which can be obtained from the events page of our website.
This time last year we entered the ‘If We Can, You Can’ Challenge 2009, run by the Entrepreneurs Forum. The competition is aimed at encouraging new or existing entrepreneurs to get in to the limelight and also benefit from the huge range of assistance that the organisation can give. We were voted Ambassador for Entrepreneurship in the competition and I’ve recently been asked how it has affected our business over the year. While I know not everybody reading this will live in the North East and be able to enter, I do hope that it may encourage some of you to enter local competitions as the benefits they can bring to your business are huge. Please read about our experiences below:
This last year and being involved in the ‘If We Can You Can Challenge’ has had an extremely positive affect on Restoration & Beyond. The publicity gained through the Hartlepool Mail has been invaluable and really helped our business to become known and even find a new supplier. When we entered, we had no idea just how much being linked to the Entrepreneurs Forum would help us to grow and become established.
When we were first short-listed we were invited to be questioned by a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style panel consisting of local successful entrepreneurs, last year’s finalists and representatives from ONE (One North East) and NECC (North East Chamber of Commerce). At first it seemed a little daunting, but we soon got in to our flow and not only enjoyed the experience, but took a lot away from it too. It gave us the opportunity to have our business idea scrutinised by very experienced people in business and also to confirm to us that the concept and plan did stand up to scrutiny and was definitely worth pursuing. The unexpected outcome was that one of the judges, eventually became our mentor and investor as he was so convinced by us and our business.
Setting up in business is like a roller coaster ride, but having the ‘If We Can You Can’ team and Entrepreneurs Forum behind us offering support, mentoring, introductions and much more, has really helped us to reach the summits. All of the other finalists have become friends too and we all support each other. The Entrepreneurs Forum Annual Conference last year was a fantastic and inspirational experience.
I would like to say to anybody who is either thinking of starting a business, or who is already up and running, to seriously consider entering this year. Why struggle alone when you can have all of the support and experience of seasoned entrepreneurs at your fingertips. Our business emerged from the recession and redundancy. We hope we can show others that it is possible to turn your life and fortunes around by staying positive and turning problems into opportunities. After all, If we can, you certainly can!
