Support North Devon Employment and Skills Board's campaign to create 101 Apprenticeships by attending its Apprenticeship event on Tuesday, 8 February 2011 at The Barnstaple Hotel from 9am to 12pm.
The event is supported by the National Apprenticeship Service, North Devon+ and the North Devon Journal.
Meet employers, apprentices, support organisations and network with exhibitors and attendees.
To register call 01237 426426
After a second public meeting in the town last week on the subject of establishing the Ilfracombe Business Forum to provide a single voice for all businesses in the town, the next step is to involve as many of the town's businesses as possible.
At present, where councils and other agencies take decisions affecting the town, there is often no representation from the business sector. A forum would provide a channel for business to voice its requirements and concerns. With cutbacks reducing support from the private sector in coming years, businesses are also likely to become the drivers of most future development and the forum can be a vehicle for this.
The move to establish a forum is being driven by Transform with help from volunteers to collect details of as many businesses as possible so that every business can be included. The aim is to establish the forum as an independent entity to run itself.
If you are an Ilfracombe business and want to participate, or just be kept informed, please contact Robert Zarywacz with your email address at rob...@z2z.com or contact Transform directly.
A public meeting is being held for all businesses in Ilfracombe with a view to establishing the Ilfracombe Business Forum to represent all businesses in the town,
The meeting will be hosted by Ilfracombe town councillor Ron Ley, who will outline the town council’s strategy and its importance to businesses, and introduce two guest speakers:
> Steve Halsall of research company CACI will present results of recent visitor perception studies in Ilfracombe
> Laura Holt from North Devon + will present the new North Devon web site to be launched on October 4 and outline PR and marketing initiatives attracting visitors to the area.
At the end of the meeting volunteers will be sought to progress the forum.
Time: 4pm to 5.30pm
Date: Tuesday 28 September 2010
Venure: Crescent Hotel, Ilfracombe.
For more information call Sally Nelson at North Devon + on 01237 426416.
Devon County Council is inviting businesses to public meetings attended by the leader of the council to discuss how the council should spend its budget to reduce costs and save money.
Meetings in North Devon, starting at 6.30pm, will be at:
October 14: the Amory Centre, South Molton
November 16: Bideford Town Hall
Businesses who can't make these meetings can submit comments through the council's toughchoices.co.uk website.
As the public sector raises a huge amount of money through taxes generated by the private sector, this is an opportunity for businesses to voice their opinions and, possibly, influence decisions.
Whether or not opinions are actually taken into account by the council, local authority cutbacks are certain to be felt by all in the years ahead, so now is the time to engage with Devon County Council.
11 members and guests took the opportunity to discuss the budget and other topical issues at June's monthly NDBA lunch at the Chichester Arms, Bishop's Tawton on Friday 25 June.
James Hellyer painted a bleak economic scene, which set the tone for discussing how to move forwards. There seemed to be a considerable body of opinion that there is a lot of scope for public sector cuts which wouldn't be noticed. However, there was also concern at the effect on jobs of cuts and a drop in retail activity.
Suggestions for issues that the NDBA could pursue were broadband provision in the area and the future shape of business support after the abolition of the South West Regional Development Agency.
Barbara Fryer impressed everyone with her outstanding photograph of a white puffin which is available for sale as a limited edition print.
Kevin Woodward arrived late, but in time for the meal, after acting as llama midwife and delivering a male cria. The party raised their glasses to wish it well.
Social media is the latest buzz word, but many businesses are using it as an effective communications and marketing tool.
This interactive North Devon Business Alliance taster session demonstrates how to get started on twitter and facebook to:
The session will be run by Kevin Woodward (@llamakevin) and Robert Zarywacz (@robertz), two of the most experienced online networkers and social media users in North Devon.
To get the best value, you will be invited to register twitter and facebook accounts in advance. You are welcome to bring your wireless laptop along to participate live in online discussion (although not essential).
Participant numbers will be limited to 12. Cost is £5 for NDBA members, £10 for non-members.
Please call 0333 044 2038 or email info@ndba.org.uk
Download Introduction to Social Media flyer.
The session will be hosted by Graham Lofthouse (@glofthouse) at Devonshire Asset Management, 16 Silver Street, Barnstaple, EX32 8HR.
Visit ndba.org.uk
Follow northdevon on twitter and NDevonbusiness on facebook
Most businesses see competition everywhere – on every street corner there appears to be a competitor and, of course, we don’t want to give our trade secrets away, so we never talk to them, so we never know whether they really are a competitor or not.
Why exclude competitors?
With most business networking groups there is a restriction on the number of businesses that are in the same trade category, and normally that number is restricted to one. This is another way to ensure that the culture of competition is maintained: we don’t want to network with businesses from the same trade as they are unlikely to want to buy from us. But, hang on a minute, isn’t networking all about building relationships and getting to know people? Is it really all about wanting to get people to buy from us?
Relationships count for more
We all know that people buy from people. It’s not always the product alone that makes people buy that product, it is often the person selling it who makes the difference to the buyer. And if you can build up a good relationship that buyer will come back to you time after time.
So, once we have built up that relationship with buyers or potential buyers, why are we afraid of the competition coming in and talking to the same potential buyers? If you look at it from a business point of view, any business should go out and get more than one quote, so you will never be able to ensure that the potential client will use you.
Regardless of the situation, the potential client may well go to other networking groups, they may not like the fact that you support a particular football team, they may actually not like you, so you may not get the business anyway. So be brave, let the competition in. It could actually help you.
Working with the competition
Take a very simple example: you network with someone from the same trade as you. They are a competitor, but you start talking and discover that they buy their supplies from someone different to you, and those goods are better quality than your suppliers, but he gets them cheaper.
Wow, a lightbulb moment!
You can change suppliers and save yourself, and/or your clients, money.
Or what if you are working on a client project and don’t have the required expertise and have to subcontract out part of the job to someone else? If you don’t talk to your competitor, you won’t find suppliers with the skills you need that you don’t have yourself. After further discussion, you find he’s got a small job that he can’t do, but you can – oh, happy days, you’re doing business with each other. But hang on a minute – he’s a competitor!
Don’t fear the competition
So, don’t be afraid to talk to the competition. He or she is never going to be exactly the same as you, and so there may well be areas of collaboration that can benefit you both, but you’ll never know, unless you talk to them.
Getting North Devon businesses working together
This is a big issue in North Devon, because it’s not only business people themselves who see competition on every corner, it’s also the towns. Bideford sees Ilfracombe as competition, Torrington sees South Molton as competition, everyone else sees Barnstaple as competition. But actually we are all in North Devon and we should be celebrating that we are in North Devon. If Ilfracombe can encourage people to come to North Devon and they pop over to Holsworthy for a day out, isn’t that good for everyone? We need to talk together, we need to encourage one another, we need to help one another, because as with the above traders we might surprise ourselves and find that we can actually do business with one another. And that can only improve North Devon.
Kevin Woodward
t: 01237 451848
e: kevin@kvassociates.co.uk
w: kvassociates.co.uk
twitter: @llamakevin
North Devon’s geography is at once a blessing and a challenge. It must rank as one of the most beautiful places in the world – no exaggeration – in which to live and work, but remote towns separated by long distances cause difficulties.
Everyone knows this and the members of the North Devon Business Alliance were not the first to discuss this at our end-of-month Friday lunches. It’s also the reason why no all-embracing North Devon business organisation existed previously.
The logistics of getting people from Bideford to Lynton and from South Molton to Ilfracombe together in one place mean that few events attract representation from across the area.
Building a cohesive community
Yet North Devon needs a cohesive business community to work together, to share aims, to debate and resolve problems and to build a bigger, stronger and resilient economy that is the greater sum of its individual parts.
That’s why we decided to take action to build this community.
Using social media
Several NDBA members have been networking online for seven or more years and now use ‘social media’ extensively to find new contacts, promote their businesses and attract new enquiries.
You may think that twitter and facebook are merely for gossip or sharing holiday photos, but their owners have introduced features to make them valuable business users. In fact, facebook deliberately targeted business users to start making money. LinkedIn, originally an online CV repository, has also developed into a networking and discussion service.
NDBA is active on all these services and now aims to draw together the hundreds of existing users and encourage all North Devon businesses to use these tools to get to know each other better and to promote their businesses and the area locally, nationwide and internationally.
We need face-to-face meetings
Online networking cannot replace face-to-face meetings and NDBA sees the two complementing each other.
We will continue our monthly lunches at the Chichester Arms, Bishop’s Tawton and will be hosting other events across North Devon.
Current plans include an informal ‘TweetUp’ in Barnstaple on 10 June, introductory social media sessions to help everyone start networking online and even a conference event.
Championing North Devon
Of course, as a community, we want to provide what members want.
We aim to represent the interests of all businesses in the area and, through supporting existing businesses and encouraging start-ups, to develop the full potential of the local economy.
We’re in business in North Devon, championing business in North Devon.
We welcome every size of business, from every sector, from across the area.
If this inspires you, please join us today. Call us on 0333 044 2038 or message us on twitter at @northdevon.
We look forward to welcoming you.
