Think Enterprise October 2017

Think Enterprise Publication | October Edition

READ INSIDE

INTRODUCING NEW IOEE

ENTERPRISE ACADEMY SURETRAX

SPOTLIGHT ON...

IOEE FELLOW

ALYSIA SILBERG TRANSFORMING CULTURE

AYLESBURY VALE DISTRICT COUNCIL CONFERENCE SUCCESS

Vol. 13

MAGAZINE October Edition Vol. 13

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SARAH TROUTEN, IOEE CHIEF EXECUTIVE Happy Halloween and welcome to the October issue of Think Enterprise, full of not so scary treats and surprises!

This month I was really pleased to attend the FAB Conference, there are so many changes going on in the world of qualifications and it was great to hear about the progress of the Apprenticeship Trailblazers and the role Awarding and Professional Bodies have to play in this. I was absolutely delighted to be invited to be a member of the Advisory Group for the review of the QAA guidance on enterprise education for HE. This really is something I’m passionate about and really pleased to be able to input to. Students (future employees and/or business owners) having an enterprising mindset and capability is key to businesses within the UK having the ability to adapt, survive and grow. The work that we are doing with Aylesbury Vale District Council clearly demonstrates this need for enterprising capabilities, and we were delighted to speak at an event discussing the commercialisation agenda within over 30 local authorities from across the UK. I am very much looking forward to working with AVDC to launch a piece of research looking at the landscape of local authorities.

We warmly welcome a new IOEE Enterprise Academy this month, SureTrax. We have worked with the team at SureTrax for some time now and I’m really proud to be offering recognition for their award winning self marketing programme.

This month we shine the spotlight on Alysia Silberg, an IOEE Fellow whose incredible enterprising journey makes for a really interesting read and also Gups Jagpal, Director of Research, Enterprise and Innovation at our Centre of Excellence, London South Bank University.

We also have our regular well loved blog contribution from Enterprisingly Me, and we hope you enjoy this month’s Think Enterprise.

Sarah x

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Content 08 From a blank canvas to finding true value: How SureTrax’s Tony found success in starting over.

10 IOEE and TONI&GUY The Perfect Partnership

11 Commercialisation Conference Success for District Council

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A (very reluctant) Spotlight On Sharon Goodyer, founder of Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet.

16 Blue Patch Business Awards 2017

18 Spotlight On...

Alysia Silberg

20 Enterprisingly Me x

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22 Spotlight On...

Gurpreet Jagpal

24

Going Solo: Bringing brave words and wild imagination to life with House of Solo’s lifestyle magazine

26 Engineering its way to success how mentoring helped shape M5tec

28 IOEE Guest Blog by Paul Freeman

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introducing THE IOEE

MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP FEE Thinking of joining the IOEE or upgrading your membership level?

We are pleased to announce that you can now pay monthly for your IOEE membership or you can pay annually and get two months free!

Click here to find out more about IOEE Membership and the new payment options available.

Think Enterprise | 7

From a blank canvas to finding true value: How Suretrax’s Tony found success in starting over.

The SureTrax self-marketing and personal enterprise programme has been developed to give people the tools and confidence to take ownership of their own professional destinies and to take the action to make it happen. SureTrax, which has recently been accredited as an IOEE Academy, was born from an extraordinary personal journey, when its founder and CEO Tony Osborne needed to make a fresh start after retiring from his high-flying corporate career. This month we chatted to Tony about adding value, going digital, and starting over from scratch.

Seven years ago, Tony found himself in a group counselling session where they were all asked to partake in a creative exercise; an exercise that would ‘accidentally’ give Tony what he now calls his ‘lightbulb moment’. The group was given a whole host of art supplies and 30 minutes to both reflect upon their present lives and visualise their futures, and they then had to create a piece of art that was representative of this, before presenting it to the rest of the group.

The personal journey that had led Tony to this counselling group had been an exceptionally difficult one - divorce, leaving his lucrative job, the loss of a family business, financial ruin and a near nervous breakdown. He felt that he had lost everything. Tony says: “I had a really high-pressured job, based in Houston in Texas, and I was responsible for business acquisition in an extremely large company. I was very successful, but it got to the point where I was

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spending most of my time running around the world and that was my life. It affected my relationships and my marriage, and eventually everything fell apart. I went to a very dark place, my marriage had collapsed, and I found myself living in a caravan with very little money, not knowing what was going to happen. One real positive was that my two young sons gave me the spirit and motivation not to completely give up all hope.

“So, there I was in this counselling group doing this exercise, and everybody made these creative pieces of art, and I’d just doodled a sort of border around the edge of the page. And that’s when I realised what I’d done, highlighting this blank piece of paper. My life was literally a blank canvas.”

Tony began starting over by doing voluntary work for organisations “Well, I was retired, and I didn’t like gardening, so I thought I’ll have to find something else to do!” - and came across the employability sector, which he spent around 18 months working in before setting up on his own. However, it was this experience that gave Tony the inspiration for SureTrax. He says: “The companies I had worked with had very good intentions, helping vulnerable people to get back on their feet and into employment youngsters with issues, the long-term unemployed, ex-offenders, that sort of thing - but what I witnessed was that all of these people were getting everything done for them, and weren’t actually

learning how to do anything for themselves. For example, they were just getting their CVs written for them and interviews arranged for them and not having a clue how to do it on their own in the future, so what use is that to them? It was incredibly frustrating, and one Friday afternoon I packed up and decided to move on. I just knew that it needed to be different, and I wanted to try and do something about it.”

Fuelled by his business and sales background and first-hand experience and research of the employability sector, Tony created SureTrax; designed for people who are looking for a job, a career change, a promotion, to start a new business, grow and existing one, or progress into further or higher education. He developed the business with SFEDI and worked alongside its Head of Quality, Nic Preston, to create the enterprise programme that is delivered in colleges and training bodies across the UK. As Tony explains, SureTrax is for everyone, because everyone is a businessperson: “It’s frustrating when people tag us with typical employability programmes, because we feel that it’s more than that. Think of that saying - give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. That’s why we say that SureTrax is ‘a process for life’, because our learners get lifetime access to our learning resources and it has been designed to use whenever you need them, to match life’s progression and changing circumstances.

SureTrax gives people the tools for self-reliance, so they have the skills and knowledge to create the careers they want, and not just fit in with somebody else’s plans.”

Having delivered its programme to school leavers, sixth formers and university graduates looking to take their first career steps, to the long-term unemployed and prison inmates making the transition back into work, SureTrax has grown and evolved significantly over the years since it first began.

Four months ago, SureTrax took a big leap into the digital world, making online, blended and distance learning available to its customers and students. Tony is incredibly proud of the company’s achievement in getting its online programme adopted by colleges and training providers, as well as Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). Tony says: “Our customers have been delivering our courses manually whilst we’ve been developing it on the technology side, and we’ve now been approved as an HMPPS whitelisted website. There are over 80,000 prisoners in the UK and, of course, there are rigorous protections in place so that prisoners are only able to see what the authorities allow them to see. And we are one of those websites, so going for a digital delivery means that we’re able to reach many more vulnerable offenders in rehabilitation.

“However, although I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved so far, I’d also like to see our transition into the online marketplace help to work more as a preventative measure in the education sector as well as a cure for unemployed people, and this is something that we are passionate about doing moving forward.”

It is clear that Tony’s passion for getting people to take hold of their own destinies, like he did, is a strong driving force behind SureTrax,

and he is inspired and motivated by helping people to find that confidence and take action. Tony says: “I was in a shop recently and said something to the young lad at the counter, who replied, ‘are you a businessman?’, and I said, ‘yes - and so are you!’

“Whether you work for yourself or someone else, we are all working, we are all in business. You’re marketing and selling, whether it’s a product or yourself, and recognising that and learning how to do that is the essence of what our programme is about - adding value, whether its value to a business as a whole, or to yourself as an individual. You need to get out there and talk, network, try new things and step out of your comfort zone. The key is to start thinking like an employer, not a job seeker, and to access the whole employment market, including both the proactive hidden and the reactive visible job markets. If you’re writing a CV or making a pitch, that is essentially a specific proposal to a potential employer, so you’re selling yourself. You need to differentiate yourself from your competition; and you achieve this is by understanding and researching your product’s value (even if your product is You), carrying out extensive market research, and meeting your customer’s needs.

“If you set up a business, you have a vision and a mission, a strategy and a plan, but you can also do that for your personal and professional goals too. Whether you’re looking for a job, a career change, a promotion, to start or grow a business or to progress into further or higher education, you will always have customers, and all of these business principles and mindsets are essential to achieving your objectives. Promoting that entrepreneurial mindset and enterprising culture and being proactive is what SureTrax is all about.

“So, my professional advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is: 1) Recognise value, 2) Sell that value, and 3) Deliver that value. And my personal advice? Well, I could use a load of fancy entrepreneurial terminology here, but it would probably be, ‘Get over it and get on with it!’ Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but you just have to take action if you want to make things happen!”

SureTrax recently became accredited as an IOEE Academy, and Tony tells us why this is so important to him: “We are so proud of this achievement. We now have that credibility and stamp of approval, and it means that we can provide that level of quality assurance to the people delivering our course, and to the people undertaking it. There are so many connections and opportunities for our business that come with this, but it also gives our customers and students more too. If you’re an employer looking at CVs and you see that an applicant is an IOEE Study Member and has gained a Certificate of Achievement for completing the SureTrax programme, then they’re going to stand out and go to the top of the pile. Being an IOEE Academy adds a lot of value to us, but also to our learners and customers too. This could make all the difference.”

Find out more about IOEE’s new Enterprise Academy by visiting: https://suretrax.co.uk/

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TOGETHER, IOEE AND TONI&GUY have developed a visionary programme, bringing together the very best of enterprise education expertise and the UK’s leading creative brand. Designed specifically to appeal to those studying fashion, hairdressing, beauty and design courses, this programme hones entrepreneurial capacity and encourages an enterprising outlook.

For more information about either delivering or undertaking Creating Enterprise, click here to go to toniandguy.ioee.uk

AND A PERFECT PARTNERSHIP 10 | Think Enterprise

Commercialisation Conference Success for District Council

This month, Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) welcomed a host of delegates and speakers from across the UK to its Transforming Culture Conference. The aim of the conference was to tackle the complexities of culture change head-on.

The conference followed AVDC’s own, successful programme of change which has now been running for two years. The council has maintained a firm vision of becoming an efficient, commercial organisation and has built a strong, income-driven foundation to support their frontline services. The conference successfully enabled AVDC to share its experiences with other councils and facilitate best-practice discussions amongst peers and industry experts.

The Chair of SFEDI Group, Ruth Lowbridge MBE, and Lisa Soderman, Business Development Manager at the Dolphin Centre in Darlington, conducted a workshop sharing their experiences of launching the first IOEE Enterprise Academy within the local government sector through the creation and delivery of the Dolphin Centre’s ‘One Outstanding Team’ Programme.

One Outstanding Team not only embodies the values and vision of The Dolphin Centre‘s approach to staff development, it is creating opportunities for intrapreneurship to shine, and for employees’ to be recognised through IOEE accredited qualifications.

Ruth Lowbridge MBE, explained: “One Outstanding Team is about helping individuals to learn that they could become more enterprising, and that their skills and efforts are valued. Through the IOEE, we’ve created a way to validate that with IOEE membership and working towards qualifications.

The Dolphin Centre employees are now registered and working towards a qualification, but even in the build-up we have seen real engagement and ownership, and everybody at The Dolphin Centre has truly embraced this.”

Lisa Soderman, added: “It was a privilege to be invited to share the Dolphin Centre and

IOEE’s experience of launching the first enterprising academy in local authority with a group of public sector professionals with a hunger to secure the future of public service.

“For so long we have talked about embracing change and it’s fantastic to hear the public sector, for which I am passionate about, proactively changing our language to driving change for the better and for a bright future.

“Our ambition at the conference was to demonstrate how this exact strategy has been translated into implementation at the Dolphin Centre realising actual results that are evident in our business performance and I hope that we did this successfully.”

Jez Vibert, Communications and Marketing Manager, AVDC, was inspired by Ruth and Lisa’s workshop. He said: “We’re all facing the same pressures in local government so it was great to meet other authorities and share experiences. Ruth Lowbridge and Lisa Soderman’s discussion workshop on the IOEE Academy was certainly an hour well spent and I’ll be looking at weaving aspects of their learning into our own transformation work here at AVDC.” Andrew Grant, Chief Executive of AVDC commented: “Transforming the culture of an organisation is no easy task, but it’s a challenge which many local authorities face. We put together this conference to share our experiences and provide access to the select group of speakers, from both the public and private sectors, who imparted their expertise throughout the day. I’m delighted the conference was a success and would like to thank everyone who attended and took part.”

To find out more about the conference and AVDC’s cultural transformation, please contact SEED@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk For more info on the One Outstanding Team programme, please visit http://ioee.uk/2017/06/01/intrapreneurship-power-positivitychanged-company-culture/ Think Enterprise | 11

A (very reluctant) Spotlight On Sharon Goodyer, founder of Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet.

Sharon Goodyer is an entrepreneurial inspiration and an Affiliate Member of the IOEE. After having to leave her job as a Head Teacher in 2000 due to Parkinson’s disease, Sharon turned her hand to another skill, baking cakes, and took her new business from a small market stall in Kent to a company with a £5million turnover, producing thousands of cakes a day.

Unfortunately, the recession and the subsequent cupcake boom put The Cake Bake Company out of business, but when we first met her a year ago this hadn’t dampened her entrepreneurial spirit, and she was in the throes of a new business called Bar15 producing a no added sugar cereal bar with 15 natural ingredients.

Fast-forward to 2017 and Sharon has a brand-new venture, Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet; a company she has founded to make wholesome and affordable food available to everyone through embracing a sometimes-lost sense of community spirit and backing

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the Government’s intention that ‘everyone should be able to make healthier choices, regardless of their circumstances’ (NHS Choices 2016).

This month, in the first of a series of three articles, we sent one of our IOEE writers and self-confessed foodie, Louise, to interview Sharon and find out how she aspires to influence the way we make and buy our food, and how we all have the power to help change the shape of the food industry.

Far away from her kitchen in Thanet, Sharon was visiting a neighbouring suburb to me in Manchester when I went to meet her at her daughter’s home. It was a typically dark and drizzly Mancunian morning and I dipped into a couple of delis en-route to pick up some sort of breakfast offering, but couldn’t find anything I deemed worthy, and eventually had to settle for some supermarket

croissants (why hadn’t I made something?) - which put me to shame when you’re taking them to someone who ran a baking company that produced over 10,000 cakes a day and once made an entire car out of cake (you must remember that Skoda advert).

However, Sharon warmly welcomed me and the hastily purchased supermarket croissants into the house, and immediately setting about filling them with ham and cheese and putting them into the oven, before instructing me that she wanted this IOEE article about her… to actually not be about her: “First things, first, Louise. Do not write about me, okay?” she said.

“I’ve got absolutely no interest in you writing an article about me.”

“Okay…” I said, “…but you do know that I’m here to write a ‘spotlight’ article on you, don’t you?”

“No, no, no, I’m not interesting. People don’t need to know about me, and there’s no point telling them.”

“Well, I’ve read a lot of articles about you, and I beg to differ. I think you’re very interesting and people do want to know about you!”

“Look, I’m just a bolshy ex-Head Teacher, I’m not interesting, but what I’m doing is interesting, and I want people to know about that.

So, that’s what you have to write about.”

Firmly put in my place with Sharon’s no-nonsense style (had I not already known, I could have guessed she’d been a Head Teacher), I set about asking about her new business venture, Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet (and definitely not about her). Sharon told me: “I was first inspired from listening to a conversation on a bus, where a mum was telling her children what they were going to have for tea. It was a meal of hot dogs, alphabet potatoes and potato cakes.

When I got off the bus I went and bought those ingredients and I made that meal, and it came in at under 50p a head. And this mum, she’s doing an amazing job of feeding her family on a budget, making something hot and hearty, but there’s no real nutritional value there, and I just thought that it should be easy, or easier, for people to be able to have wholesome and healthy meals, that are accessible and affordable. So, that’s what I set about doing with Our Kitchen. I’m not saying that I’m going to be delivering entirely virtuous meals, we’re being realistic - we’re making food that is slightly better than that, and we’re taking a step in the right direction. But, to do this, we need to work together locally, and that is the only way, the only way, which is why Our Kitchen’s strapline is Thanet Feeds Itself Better. It’s time that we all take the responsibility on ourselves and bring food back to the community where it belongs.”

It’s in the early stages of business, but Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet truly does that, running almost entirely on the support of its community, and its success and growth completely relies on whether people get behind it and volunteer, support it and give their time to it too. It largely operates by looking at the resources available for food production in the local area, such as restaurant and takeaway’s kitchens, which are closed and often unused for hours every day, and using them to produce low-cost wholesome meals that can then be delivered and distributed out into the community.

The first business that Sharon got on board was a local tandoori restaurant. She approached them with the proposition of giving them a regular order every week, which they could prepare whenever they wanted, and she would pay for a reasonable price for it, her only requirement being that they made it slightly healthier than usual, using a bit less salt and fat than they ordinarily would (they chose to go for a vegetable curry and a chickpea curry, served with pilau rice). Sharon and a team of volunteers then collect it and then drive into the community, ring a bell in the streets and parents come out with their children and pay £1.40 a portion for it, knowing exactly where it came from and who made it.

To me, it sounds positively idyllic; charming and old-fashioned, with the sort of simplicity and community values that often feel a world away and long-forgotten in the bustling towns and cities of busy modern life, something that is exclusively reserved for quaint villages and countryside living. It’s the sort of thing you sometimes yearn for as a city-dweller, the romance of a bygone era where you know the butcher and the baker and the grocer, and you have a chat with the person behind the counter at the Post Office, but that’s where it usually ends with me - a whimsical daydream… but could it be a reality without upping sticks to somewhere small and rural? I wondered how it was actually going to run as a business, and probed Sharon about how it sounded perfect, but how was she going to make any money from it? And she explained it very clearly - she isn’t: “You see, you’re thinking about this all wrong. You’re instantly thinking about profit. And that’s the mindset of our food industry.

But why should profit be a part of our food industry? Once we know what healthy food is, and we’ve got to a place where we do, how do we have the right to deny it to any citizen? We all agree that there are certain basic things that in a civilised society the people should be entitled to; education, housing, healthcare. And healthy, wholesome and affordable food should be one of those things, it should be a basic human right, not a luxury or a privilege.

“And we can make it that - we can! But it needs to be done locally and we need to work together. Local is absolutely fundamental, because you instantly eliminate transport costs. Why is my ready meal spaghetti bolognaise currently on a palette on a lorry on the M62, waiting to be shipped off into another loading bay before getting driven to another supermarket? That’s not how it should be.

And yes, people are busy, but in every part of society there are: 1) people who like cooking, and 2) people who have free time to give.

Look at me, I prove that. Food is currently an industry, but it’s time for us to take back control and make it a community.”

Having been on the inside of the industry, Sharon knows exactly what she’s talking about. She tells me about The Cake Bake Company and the enormous scale and the pressures of creating gigantic orders (we’re talking quantity here, not the size of the Skoda car) and delivering all over the country. There are, she says, rarely contracts in the food industry, instead she would get a phone call from the Poundshop or Morrisons on a Monday morning, for anything between 4,000 and 8,000 cakes at a time from each client.

You’re then given a time slot to get your lorry through their gates, which would usually mean it has to travel overnight, and if your Continued on the next page...

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driver was stuck in a traffic jam you’d be instantly be on the phone to desperately trying to convince/beg the client to leave the gates open for longer. It sounds like a highly stressful, competitive and brutal business to be in.

“You’ve got to remember, it’s an industry,” Sharon says. “Food is an industry. You stop thinking of ‘food’ - you have products and stock and units. And if you’re getting orders for here, there and everywhere, what do you think is easier for your factory - to run two separate recipes for a cherry and almond cake, or run the same recipe for everyone and change the packaging? Exactly. That’s how it is. But I must emphasise that the food industry isn’t malicious, people and companies are trying so, so hard to get by and make a living and you have to play the game. The margins are small, legislation is large, and it’s really, really hard to make money.

“You’ve got all these pressures from the government to make healthier products and all this demand from customers for these lovely rich dishes, and competition from other producers and manufacturers to make these gorgeous glossy products. But if you look closely at a typical ready meal that’s been made ‘healthier’ it’s laden with a corn starch bulking agent. Look for water early on in the list of ingredients, and then modified maize starch and/or cornflour further down the list. This is ‘wonderstuff’ for the food industry, because it makes the meal silky and shiny, it’s easier and cheaper to manufacture, it helps food to move through the tubes of factories, and it bulks out the dish, which reduces the overall percentage of fat, sugar and salt, which pleases the Government’s initiatives. However, it ticks those boxes because essentially the meal now has less actual food in it and more pumped-up nothing.

It stops becoming food, in my opinion. What I’m saying with Our Kitchen and our ethos is that you can have that sort of real food, the quick and easy and affordable dishes that are healthier too - if you do it locally.”

To prove her point, I have the arduous task of sampling the evidence, as Sharon produces a plate of her homemade flapjack made with less fat and sugar, naturally, and added carrot and apple.

It is undeniably delicious - sweet, sticky, buttery and comforting, and there’s definitely no sense that you are sacrificing a more ‘indulgent’ number for something a bit more healthy.

She then whips out a packet of supermarket sausage rolls to compare to her own creations, and it would be impossible to deny that they look different in every single way. However, this comes as no surprise to me, and being an obsessive foodie (yes, sometimes food snob) that’s my expectation - that the homemade versions and the small business bakes will always triumph over the supermarket’s own sausage rolls, where the pastry has somehow managed to look simultaneously both dry and soggy, the meat appears miscellaneous and slightly grey in colour, and they crumble apart in the most depressing fashion. I told Sharon that I saw her point, but that I wasn’t surprised.

“Don’t you see that’s the problem?” she asked. “We have no

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common language for talking about food anymore. A sausage roll isn’t a sausage roll - these two sausage rolls are entirely different, two totally different things named and marketed as the same thing.

I can’t say ‘sausage roll’ anymore and you’ll know what it means, as it could mean anything. And it makes your job so much harder, Louise, because if you’re writing about food, you’ll have to describe the difference, because the food industry is so mad that we’ve even lost our way to talk about it.

“People think about food in terms of what is easily available to them, what is accessible, what is ‘the norm’, and not what could be or what should be. The market of food, the whole territory is gone, we as consumers don’t have the language to talk about it anymore.

To be honest, the whole affair leaves me completely speechless and not many things do! I know that I’m one person, and I’m not even a ‘proper’ business person. I’m just a mouthy Head Teacher who got Parkinson’s and who was so angry she set up a market stall, and I know there’s a limit to how much people are going to listen to me, which is why this isn’t about me. It’s just not! This is about what people can do for themselves.

“And it doesn’t matter how much money you have, people think that’s a key factor, and they’ll be reading this thinking ‘well yes, but it’s easy if you have money’. But even if you’re wealthy it’s still hard work to find wholesome healthy food. And sometimes what you get when you’re wealthier is more tender cuts of meat, but also food with more butter and cream, so expensive doesn’t equate to healthy, otherwise all rich people would be thin, wouldn’t they? I was on the other side of that when The Cake Bake Company was at its height. I was earning a good amount, I had three houses and fancy cars and lots of holidays, and then I lost everything, all of my money, my business, my house, everything. I couch-surfed for a year or so, and I had to start all over again. And I can honestly say that whether I had lots of money or had absolutely none, neither made it easier to eat well. It’s time for us all to take responsibility for this, to pull together in our communities and take back some control - and that’s when things will start to really, really change.”

I left Sharon’s with a fire in my belly (as well as croissants and flapjack). She was a force to be reckon with, and her passion and ambition was completely infectious. Sharon is looking at food in a way that is completely revolutionary, and this is not an undertaking for the faint-hearted - but if anyone is cut out for this job, I believe Sharon Goodyer is the woman, and I’d like to see anyone try and stop her (though this article definitely isn’t about her). However, she can’t do this alone, and next month we’ll be catching up with Sharon as she spreads the word even further, speaking at the prestigious Vegetable Summit at The Chamber at London City Hall, and finding out about how we can get involved. For now - watch out, Thanet!

To find out more about Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet, please visit the official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OurKitchenThanet/

INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT HOW MENTORING COULD HELP YOUR BUSINESS? Mentoring has a strong track record of helping businesses meet their objectives. The Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) helps match businesses with mentors from the banking industry, who are able to give an hour of their time per month, across the following regions:

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The volunteer bank mentors offer a wide variety of business experience and expertise with small and micro businesses, social enterprises and creative businesses.

Are you interested in meeting a mentor?

For more information contact Paul Harper paul.harper@ioee.uk or 07715 905638. *To be eligible to receive support you business must be established and begun trading.

Our dedicated volunteer mentors are passionate about helping their mentees.

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The key skill I have taken from this experience is true active listening. I have applied those skills at home and at work and I am finding the results are having a lasting impact.

The reason I continue to mentor today is the positive feeling I get when I help others achieve their dreams and ambitions. It’s a great way to give something back to the local community through sharing my knowledge and experience.”

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Blue Patch Business Awards 2017 Celebrating all things local, global, sustainable and ethical.

The annual Blue Patch Awards, now in it’s second year, invited SME’s and fledgling businesses from across the British Isles to come forward and nominate themselves for one or more of the business award categories.

The 2017 Awards were presented at London Design Fair on 21 September in Old Truman Brewery, during London Design Week. The award Finalists and Winners were invited to attend the event, along with the 400 Blue Patch members, to celebrate, meet each other in person and enjoy the London Design Fair!

Jane Langley, founder of Blue Patch, a social enterprise and ethical British business community commented: “We received applications from many exciting entrepreneurs and businesses from across the British Isles. The standard was exceptionally high and selecting the shortlist was challenging. Our 19 judges were faced with tough decisions!

This year we also had outstanding submissions from entrepreneurs working with global communities. Given the divisions in the world positive global partnerships have the power to repair rifts and support vulnerable communities. We launched our Global Impact Award to showcase these enterprising ‘bridge building’ businesses.”

The Awards were started in 2016 with the purpose of being easy to enter for time pressured start ups and small business owners. It’s not about winning money but

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winning fans, the awards are light touch and encourage people to ‘spruce up their presentations’ and have a go.

“It’s important to us that it’s a friendly competition designed to encourage participation and support within the business community and to bring entrepreneurs together.”

IOEE’s Chief Executive, Sarah Trouten, was invited to judge the awards, along with Abigail Forsythe (CEO & co-founder of Keepcup), Sian Conway (Ethical Hour), Lloyd Atkin (MD at Bio-D) Jo Taylor (Trustee of Clear Conscience), Doug Simpson (Principle Policy and Program Officer at the GLA). Jessica Brodwick from (LWARB), James Salmon (Big Issue Invest) Joe Murphy (CE 100 business network, Ellen MacArthur Foundation) Gill Saunders (V&A), Designers, makers and entrepreneurs: Angus Ross (Angus Ross Furniture) and Katie Walker (Katie Walker Furniture), Elena Todary (The Collaborative Store owner) Ros Badger (Badger’s Velvet), Kate Owen (woodcarver), Victoria Whitbread and Jackie Piper (Designed in Colour), Bruce Aitken (clock maker), Natalia Komis (Remote Mission) and Preeti Bonthron (Blue Patch).

Blue Patch are already looking forward to their 2018 event, launching their Blue Patch Patrons to gather support as the awards are expected to make yet another big jump in scale and ambition!

Please visit http://www.bluepatch.org/ to find out more about Blue Patch and their awards event!

Risdon & Risdon – from the left – Carla, Alex and James, winners of the New Business Award.

Event photographs taken by InTheRightLight - Blue Patch members.

The seven Award Categories and Winners were: New Business Award

Winner Risdon & Risdon

New Heritage Award Winner Laura’s Loom

Social Impact Award Winner Juta Shoes

Sustainable Innovation Award Winner Reach Homes

Global Impact Award

Winner Pebble Magazine

Female Business Leader Award

Winner Camilla Marcus-Dew from The Soap Co

The People’s Prize

Winner Anna Jacobs Design

Think Enterprise | 17

Spotlight On...

Alysia Silberg

South-African born Alysia Silberg is one of the IOEE’s newest Fellows, and her passion, energy and entrepreneurial spirit is boundless. Describing herself as ‘an entrepreneur out of desperation, rather than inspiration’, Alysia has always been ambitious about making a strong positive impact in the working world since she was a child, and her determination has resulted in an extremely successful and diverse portfolio of roles, experiences and awards, including giving a TED Talk, being a UN Ambassador, and becoming a socially-aware Venture Capitalist. This month we chatted to Alysia about her motivation, the importance of honesty, and why she believes that the UK is one of the most exciting places to be an entrepreneur.

Alysia’s career has taken her all over the world, working predominantly in South Africa, Canada and the USA, but the UK’s support system for the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship has led her to plant her roots firmly in London. Alysia explains how the opportunities in entrepreneurship here in the UK rival no other: “I am incredibly appreciative to the UK for its inclusionary approach to entrepreneurship. The Government is very pro-entrepreneur

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and people really champion it here. I’m so grateful to be able to be here and be empowering people to build businesses. The UK is also very socially-focused, the banks make an effort to be very fair with financial support, and if you need to look for something, such as support or information, then you can find it here without too much difficulty. I definitely feel like a Londoner. The UK is my home.”

Alysia initially established herself as an entrepreneur in the technology industry and had a hugely successful career, but it was her personal experience of the highs and lows and ‘the rollercoaster of being an entrepreneur’ that led her to discover her calling as an ‘entrepreneur’s champion’. She explained that her own experience of self-doubt led her to go to extraordinary lengths to feel that she was ‘worthy’ and ‘clever enough’, such as reading 500 books on business in just one year, but how this personal experience now motivates her to inspire other people to believe in themselves.

Alysia says: “You know, people aren’t lacking skills or talent - it’s self-belief. It’s one of those things that really inspires me about American culture, that sets them apart from other regions and cultures. Americans

are conditioned to be confident, and they don’t realise how lucky they are and how much that helps. That’s not to say that they all are confident, but, even if they’re not, they project this confidence anyway. Not us! In other parts of the world, we tell each other that we’re smart, and we’re like, ‘really, you think I’m smart?’!”

“I was hugely lacking in self-confidence, which is why I went on this mad adventure of trying to shove every book known to man inside my head. By the end of the year, I’d consumed 500 books, and it was crazy! I broke my sleep, I was listening to audiobooks constantly, just trying to get every bit of information in my head and thinking that then something good would come out. And it was a very lonely journey, I was reading in silence because of these insecurities that were saying, ‘you’re stupid, you’ll never know enough’. I was learning, but I wasn’t sharing, and when I finally came clean on a show and opened up about my issues of self-worth, I actually became a true member of the entrepreneurial community. Because we can all feel like that, which is why this UK spirit of inclusion and bodies like the IOEE are so beneficial; they’re places where we can all recognise and appreciate each other and pat each other on the back and say, ‘I believe in you!’”

Honesty is Alysia’s ethos, and she believes that we need to debunk the stereotypical connotations of being an entrepreneur and be open about the reality and challenges of what it entails, but she also wants to delve deeper into the industry and expose and discuss issues that may be hiding beneath the surface and being kept out of the media. She hosts an online ‘Fireside Chat’ twice a week that reaches an audience ranging from individual entrepreneurs to global leaders in business and government, with four or five experts on each show to discuss a subject or topic that is critical to entrepreneurs. Alyisa says: “I am proud to say that we keep it brutally honest, and that’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t take funding for it - so that I could have control and keep it that way. For example, we recently had a brave banker from the Caribbean on the show, discussing homophobia and racism in Caribbean banking - it’s a place that people often just see as a tax haven, but there’s a whole banking industry taking place there that is overlooked. We have also talked about such things as the serious issue of corruption in emerging markets in the Commonwealth - we have then started a dialogue, and start to see amazing things coming out of the community; people talking and having an honest conversation.”

“I also want to be humble and real and honest about how hard it is being an entrepreneur. There’s a perception of this ‘zero to hero’ character driving around in a McLaren, and people don’t see the brutality of what it’s actually like to be an entrepreneur; the pressure, the pain, the heartache, the suffering! And people need to talk about this, which is why I mentioned in my TED Talk how I just broke down and sobbed in one meeting - in fact, I had a fullscale meltdown two days ago, so get that into this article! Honestly, I was just thinking, ’what am I doing, I’m exhausted, there’s got to be an easier way!’ - but it just is hard, so we all need to be honest and say that.”

In 2015 Alysia was invited to do a TED Talk about her journey as

a South African female entrepreneur working in the technology industry, and her openness, along with her evident appetite to make positive change, resulted in her being invited to accept a role as a United Nations Global Champion for Women’s Empowerment in Entrepreneurship, which she explains meant taking all of her own advice on board: “When I first got offered this role, it didn’t feel easy. I’m naturally very shy, but I thought, ‘okay, you can’t be a hypocrite, you have to honour all these amazing brave women and practice what you preach’. I take the responsibility very seriously, and it’s a great privilege to be in this position.”

From entrepreneur to entrepreneur champion, Alysia has now also moved into the world of venture capitalism, working as a partner at Street Global Venture Capital, where she channels her positivity and ‘people power’ into making responsible investments in worldchanging commercial businesses, choosing to focus on the ‘unsung heroes’ that are dedicated to changing lives for the better. Alysia says: “Being a Venture Capitalist is not as glamorous as everyone thinks.

It is one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life, so you have to do it for the love of it - and I do. The learning, community and the opportunities to make a difference are tremendous, but there’s a lot of deferred reward, and the economics are lean because we’re putting everything into our work.

“Who our firm chooses to invest in are the people and companies that are creating the greatest opportunity for change globally.

For example, investing in businesses who are making it easier or possible to produce anti-cancer gene therapies at scale, or who are identifying and offering fair loans to small businesses, who manage hospitals and patient records, who catch preventable diseases early, or who are working to increase the global stocks of antivenom and other antitoxins.

“I travel a lot, and you see these problems in emerging markets, such as people losing their sight because they don’t have access to the right solutions - huge issues that come from the developed world, that we in the UK don’t have to consider. So, these are the people we’re investing in - these one or two-person extraordinary teams who are working to solve massive challenges and issues, because you can find a small and focused solution, and then with the right support you can make a huge impact in solving the issue.”

Three months ago, Alysia became a Fellow of the IOEE, and she is excited to bring her now almost-trademark ambition and inspiration for the powers of positivity to all aspects of her fellowship. Alysia says: “I’ve known about you guys for quite some time, so I’m hugely honoured and really excited to be here. If there’s any value I can add to this awesome entrepreneurship community, I’d be proud to contribute whatever I can. I can’t say enough positive stuff about the UK and institutes like the IOEE, and I can’t wait to see what happens here in the next 10 years in terms of this entrepreneurial space. It’s an incredibly exciting time.”

Think Enterprise | 19

‘Enterprisingly Me’ is a monthly feature where you can follow my entrepreneurial adventures. Names have been changed to protect the innocent but everything you read really happened.

I hope my story inspires you to take your first steps, or if you already have, then it lets you know you’re not on your own. Starting and running a successful business isn’t about being perfect. It’s about loving what you’re doing, learning from your mistakes and keeping the faith!

Business is brisk and I’m feeling really good about things.

I’m working 7 days a week which doesn’t leave much time for a social life, but I seem to get all of the pleasure I need from my business. Who would have thought it?

I’m getting lots of opportunities to talk to people interested in working with us but really struggling to fit everything in as the business grows. I sometimes feel its like going out and selling a bike and then coming back and making it… thinking I need to be either saying no or maybe looking to bring someone in to help me with either the business development or the training delivery.

I’ve got the chance of employing an apprentice to help out in the office but this does mean moving to a bigger place as there’s just not enough room what with all of the desks I bought taking up the space!

Big changes at home. My son is about to leave home to go to University which means that I’m not only losing a son but also losing my live in child minder given my daughter is still too young to leave alone. It’s a real balancing act and I need to think through how I’m going to manage everything at home when I really need to invest all my time in my new business. I probably didn’t properly consider the responsibility I was taking on when

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I decided to start employing people. Its really easy to get carried away with things when you’re getting such a buzz from doing well. I really must make a plan – preferably before I finish off the bottle of Prosecco that will only go to waste if I don’t finish it!

Anyway, good news! The man from Del Monte says YES (maybe some of you will be able to remember the advert??) and so we’re all systems go. I’ll have to employ someone to help me. Its really exciting to secure such a large piece of work but scary at the same time. I’m busy putting an advert together for a new member of staff but in the meantime thought I might involve Marie in some of the training delivery. I’m sure she’ll enjoy the challenge…

I’ve started to look at new offices. My hotel owner customer and now friend has offered space in the hotel which I’m considering.

Reasons for saying yes: • Free space with no overhead • Access to meeting rooms and refreshments • Access to training facilities (obviously we would pay for this but at a reduced price) • Its very posh!

Reasons for saying no: • We may lose our brand identity • Its further to travel to from where I live • I’ll feel obliged to pay them back through providing them with free support. This will certainly cut into the little time I have now • I want people to see I can stand on my own two feet!

You’ve probably guessed what I’ve decided to do… Yes I’ve viewed some offices nearer to home and will be signing on the dotted line in a weeks time ready to take up occupancy next month. Is it too soon? Am I making a mistake by jumping in with both feet? Who knows until I try it. I’m not sure where this drive is coming from but I do know that’s it intoxicating and has taken over my every waking moment and also some of my dream time.

(I do have other dreams but nothing I feel is appropriate to share with you… well not at the moment anyway, maybe later when we know each other better).

Oooohhh how exciting, more things to buy. I’ll need more office furniture and we’ll have a training room so we can start offering courses delivered in our own premises.

I’m speculating to accumulate which means investing some of our hard earned money in tables and chairs for our new training suite. (OK its just a room but suite sounds much better don’t you think?) Marie and our new apprentice, Claire, are helping me to get everything ready and I’ve booked a holiday. It’s the first time I’ve been able to afford to go abroad with my daughter so as you can guess the business is starting to do well.

Things haven’t gone entirely to plan with the move and unfortunately we won’t get the keys for the new office until we go away on holiday. I’m leaving everything to Marie and Claire so fingers crossed everything is OK as

I won’t even be in the country. I’ll be partaking of all things you partake of on holiday including good weather, good food, good wine and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

After a very hectic week packing up the office along with launching our new management training programme, interviewing the new prospective member of the team and working with my women returners, we are all packed and ready to go on holiday.

Just as we are about to leave for the airport I get a call from Marie to say that the keys they have given her don’t work and what should she do. We have the removal men ready at the old office to put our office furniture in the van and the telephone company waiting for access to install the new telephone system. I’m tempted to postpone our holiday and then I look at my daughters face… what is more important? As I struggle with my need to know that everything is sorted out before we go and the tug on my heart strings I ring the new landlord giving him Marie’s number and he agrees to meet her at the new premises to sort out the problem.

With my heart in my mouth we set off for the airport and I can report that all is well. Reasons to be cheerful: Part 1

Part 2 Part 3

Marie and Claire are safely installed in the new office The telephones are installed and working We are sunning ourselves in Menorca and its almost wine time – well anytime is wine time when you’re on holiday right?

Me x

Think Enterprise | 21

Spotlight On...

Gurpreet Jagpal

Gurpreet Jagpal is the Director of Research, Enterprise and Innovation at London South Bank University (LSBU) and the CEO of South Bank University Enterprises Ltd. Gurpreet is also an Academic Member of the IOEE, and LSBU’s learning approach was awarded a Highly Commended status at 2016’s IOEE Celebrate Enterprise Awards. This month we chatted to Gurpreet to find out about his what inspires him, bridging the gap between studying and the working world, and the advice he’d give to aspiring entrepreneurs.

and innovation strategy, and he is responsible for aligning teaching, research and enterprise activities with sector drivers to provide a gateway for external organisations to access the university’s research and enterprise expertise. In a short space of time, you can see the results of Gurpreet’s ambition, dedication and influence, and at the end of 2016 LSBU celebrated an outstanding achievement; transforming its culture, curricular education and local community to become Entrepreneurial University of the Year at the prestigious Times Higher Education Awards. Gurpreet says:

Gurpreet joined LSBU in 2014. His role centres around leading the development and implementation of LSBU’s research, enterprise

“Creativity and innovation are what inspire and motivate me. We see students coming through our doors with these exciting new

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ideas for products and services, and we have to find the best way to help them to run with their idea and take it all the way to market.

And to do that, we have to look at the way that we are working with and engaging with students - to ensure that they develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary for securing their dream job.”

Gurpreet and LSBU are passionate about a ‘real world’ approach with their courses, so that their students aren’t simply gaining knowledge and studying theory, but are learning through actual hands-on experience. Gurpreet says: “It’s about bridging the gap between university and the real world.

We have a cross-campus approach that delivers entrepreneurial support to students and graduates, and through this we are creating an ecosystem with the local business community, exploring innovative ways that we can connect academic expertise with the real business world.

“However, this is very much a two-way thing. It’s not a case of the university claiming to be experts in absolutely everything. We, as a university, are always learning too, and we learn an awful lot from our interaction with businesses that informs our teaching and research. As a result, we can help local businesses to grow, develop, generate wealth and create new jobs. It’s very much a two-way relationship.”

LSBU is home to the award-winning Clarence Centre for Enterprise and Innovation, which brings this approach and ethos to life. It fosters an environment of sustained growth that is closely engaged with the local business community. Gurpreet says: “Within the Clarence centre we have a hot-desking environment for our students who have the gem of an idea and want to run with it and see where it can go, and there are also five Entrepreneurs in Residence who offer one-to-one mentoring support, by sharing their own first-hand experiences and areas of expertise. In addition, we have office space to rent for established businesses, and graduates also have the opportunity to get a permanent desk here too, where they have access to further support in those early stages of setting up a business.”

challenges faced in the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship are similar across the board: “Regardless of what students aspire to do or the industry they want to go into, there are common skills that all entrepreneurs need. You need the confidence to press ahead with your idea. You need to be able to network, and to get in front of customers and suppliers and forge effective relationships. You might also use different language depending on the industry. For example, in an arts of creative industry career, you might not call it being an ‘entrepreneur’ - you might call it ‘freelancing’, or having a ‘portfolio career’ - but the skills necessary to succeed are still broadly the same.

“We also run a number of business support programmes, where we provide advice and training to ambitious SMEs seeking to further develop and grow, covering areas like business planning forecasting, efficiency management, digital marketing and leadership. It’s about developing this combination of professional skills with the confidence to drive forward.”

Through LSBU’s unique, energetic and applied approach, the university has earnt numerous awards, and Gurpreet says that this practical ethos is what sets them apart - and that university is the perfect time to embrace this ethos: “If I was going to give advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, it would be to just go and do it. Especially when you’re still at university this is the best time you could try and launch a new and exciting business venture. There isn’t a safer time than when you have the full support of an institution behind you.

“I would also say - don’t be disheartened if a venture fails.

Sometimes, this is part of the process, and you need to fail in order to learn from it. Being able to pick yourself and not make the same mistakes again and again is sometimes the greatest lesson you can learn in order to make your business a success.”

For more information about LSBU, visit https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/

With LSBU’s students working towards such a wide range of different jobs, careers and industries, Gurpreet explains how the skills and

Think Enterprise | 23

Going Solo: Bringing brave words and wild imagination to life with House of Solo’s lifestyle magazine Abeiku Arthur is a budding entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of House of Solo; a slick and glossy lifestyle magazine that he created to give a platform to emerging artists in creative industries.

In March of this year, the IOEE matched Arthur with a mentor, Anastasia Georgiou, a Manager with Lloyds Banking Group. This month we caught up with them to talk about the importance of listening, digital versus print magazines, and helping Britain

behind art and fashion, and allowing its pages to flood with ‘bold colours, brave words and wild imagination’. In essence, House of Solo is alive with Arthur’s positive artistic vision, but being a firsttime entrepreneur meant that he felt he needed support with the business side of the company to help it reach its first potential.

Arthur says:

prosper.

“I looked for a mentor because I knew that I needed guidance with my projects and my goals. And it’s a difficult journey setting up a business, so it’s good to kind of get someone there with you and ‘on your side’, to be on that journey with you. I got matched up with Anastasia and we started off with a phone interview, and then met up in a café a couple of weeks later and I showed her the magazine - and we clicked! She went through the prototype and was really excited, and I felt like she trusted me and believed in what I was doing. Basically, we really liked each other - she’s exactly the person I’d been looking for and is the mentor I would have chosen for myself.”

Arthur’s Story Having launched House of Solo only last year, Arthur is in the early stages of his entrepreneurial career, yet it is clear that the ambition, drive and determination that has brought him this far will serve him and his magazine as he grows the business going forward.

Arthur originally trained as a graphic designer. His skills and talent in this field are evident in his upmarket and stylish publication, and he worked in this industry before he landed a job at a modelling agency. His role was outside of where he wanted to focus his career, but working there gave him the inspiration and confidence to carve out his own career path and launch his own magazine. Arthur says: “I was scouting for models and securing contracts at the agency, and one day we were contacted by GQ magazine, who wanted to use one of our artists. Once it was published and I saw it online, it made me think about how most of the models on our books need that platform to raise their profile, but it’s so rare to get the opportunity. And that became my inspiration for House of Solo magazine: To promote upcoming artists who are in the early stages of their careers and need a place to showcase themselves and their work - so they could build up a portfolio that would eventually help them get those big gigs for GQ or Vogue and suchlike. That’s how it began, really, as a portfolio. But then I launched the first issue in 2016 and everything took off from there.”

Arthur describes House of Solo magazine as having a ‘unique perspective on culture, fashion and lifestyle’. Its content is crafted to start conversations and empower readers to see the beauty in the bigger picture, through giving a voice to the creative process

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Arthur says that one of the most significant conversations that he and Anastasia have had has been discussing the merits of both digital and print publications, where they both had different ideas about what would help to propel House of Solo forward: “Anastasia suggested I look at the benefits of ‘going digital’, but I was set on sticking to print. Digital wasn’t where my heart lay, print is my passion, and Anastasia respected that and guided me through various other aspects of the business. However, she was right! I’m now going to do both - digital is cheaper, more cost-effective, and the way a lot of people are looking for their content these days.”

Arthur says that it is this - having someone who encourages you to look at ideas from different perspectives - is the biggest the biggest benefit of having a mentor: “It’s having someone to talk through all these ideas with, who listens to you and believes in you, just knowing that someone is out there for you when you’re working on your own. It’s hard work, but people already want to support the magazine, and I’m always

looking for writers and artists to contribute. House of Solo is starting to really grow and is being distributed in shops across the UK and in other countries, and when we’re digital too, we’ll be able to reach an even bigger audience.”

Anastasia’s Story Anastasia spent 20 years working abroad in offshore finance and the private banking industry, before returning to the UK four years ago. She now works in the Control Office of Lloyds Banking Group in the Assurance Monitoring Team, where her team offers specialist advice and contact to ensure that LBG is compliant with UK and global regulations. In 2014, one of Anastasia’s colleague gave a presentation in a team meeting, and it was through this that she initially became inspired to mentor. Anastasia says: “I wanted the challenge and to develop and enhance skills that would be beneficial to me in day-to-day work life, such as really listening and looking at problems from different angles. We need to be able to do these things well when we’re watching a presentation or focusing in a meeting, but so often we’re distracted by how busy our day is and what we’ve got to do next etc. I wanted to professionally develop whilst also helping someone else, and it also gets you out of the office and into another element of working life too. In addition to that, you’re really expanding your professional portfolio and gaining mentoring qualifications at the same, which is fantastic.”

After meeting up with Arthur, he explained that he wanted to take House of Solo down a ‘paper’ magazine route, producing something glossy that would sit on a coffee table, but Anastasia suggested considering the digital market too:

“Working in an advisory capacity in my day job means that my instinct is to challenge him with questions. Why not online?

Wouldn’t it be cheaper and safer? But that’s not always the role of a mentor. He wanted to create a physical magazine and although I can help him to look at things from a different perspective, it’s my job to guide him and support him and give him unbiased feedback. In fact, it surprised me just how much a mentee can gain from a mentor, even without delivering anything specific, just by being a sounding board and being there for them. That can be invaluable in itself.”

However, as time has gone on, Arthur has relooked at including a digital offering with House of Solo, and Anastasia feels that this will not only reach a wider audience, but will also help him to secure investors in these early stages of his business: “Without digital in his business plan, it was difficult for Arthur to pitch his magazine to investors and secure any financial support.

Now Arthur has both the print format and the plans for an online magazine, and with that online forecast and some great print content and inspiring artists in there already, he should hopefully be able to draw in strong investors.”

Anastasia now mentors several people at the time and would encourage other business people to do the same. She says: “If anyone is thinking about becoming a mentor, I’d absolutely encourage them to go and explore it. It’s richly rewarding and you’re making a real difference - not only to the mentee’s company and your own career, but in the bigger picture too - you’re helping small businesses flourish and the economy to grow. By becoming a mentor, you’re actually helping to make Britain prosper, and that’s an incredible thing to be able to do.”

Think Enterprise | 25

Engineering its way to success - how mentoring helped shape M5tec

Carl Jones is an engineer and one of the founders and Directors of M5tec; a leading provider of engineering technical services to high assurance industries, such as marine mining, subsea and offshore, nuclear, oil and gas.

In 2016, Carl was paired up with a mentor, Gary Newton, a Bank Manager for Lloyds Banking Group, through the IOEE’s Meet a Mentor programme. One year later we caught up with Carl and Gary to discuss how M5tec has evolved through combining practical skills and expert knowledge with selling yourself confidently in a competitive market.

Carl’s Story Carl, pictured left, founded M5tec in 2014 with his business partner Craig Chalder, but it wasn’t until 18 months later that they fully threw themselves into launching the business. Carl says: “There were only two of us involved at the very beginning, and for that first year and a half we pursued it as more of a hobby, an interest, a passion. We were working in full-time jobs and were doing this in our spare time, so it was a case of slowly forming the company and laying the foundations before we decided the time was right.”

“After taking everything into consideration we decided that ‘if we don’t do it now, we never will’ - so we packed in our jobs and went for it. It wasn’t easy, putting everything into this and not making any money at first, and we spent a few months going ‘what have we done?!’

“Fortunately, everything picked up and then it just snowballed from there - perhaps there was a bit of luck thrown in there too, but I

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like to think that it was pretty much down to our hard work and determination. Taking that risk was finally starting to pay off.”

Through the IOEE’s mentoring programme, M5tec was matched with Gary Newton, and they have spent the last year meeting up every few weeks, working together to look at ways to help M5tec in those early stages of setting up a business. Carl says: “It’s been so useful having a mentor, having someone to run ideas past and get another point of view. Gary was also fantastic with helping us with the financial side of things. Being a new company meant that cashflow was really tight, but he gave us several different ways we could approach the finances and guided us through everything, such as accurately calculating overheads and margins, and making sure that we were charging the right prices for the market.”

“

After taking everything into consideration we decided that ‘if we don’t do it now, we never will’ - so we packed in our jobs and went for it.”

Another element of running a business that was challenging for Carl was the prospect of having to ‘sell’ yourself, but he says that Gary encouraged him and Craig to really push out the message that they were a professional and successful business: “Gary really helped us to learn how to portray ourselves, which isn’t something we were naturally very comfortable with, and this was everything from networking to getting across the right message on our website. Basically, he’s taught us how to not only be engineers, but how to be salesmen as well. In the early days, we were unsure about having anything about ourselves on the website, in case it gave a negative impression - that people could see that there were only two people in the company. Gary got us to go away and write a

couple of little biographies, which we then put online - and it’s had completely the opposite effect; people respect the fact that this in an engineering company that’s actually run by engineers.”

away, and being more focused would take longer for them to see any financial results - I know that at this time there were a lot of sleepless nights.

Only one year later, M5tec has 11 full-time employees and an apprentice - such a significant growth in staff that they have had to move their office premises:

“What we did together was to weight up the pros and cons of each literally listing things in columns; guiding them to make sure they’ve thought of every possible outcome so that they were able to make a confident decision.”

“It’s been a hard slog, but totally worth it. Looking forward to the year ahead, we’re just going to let everything settle for a while, properly take stock of this whirlwind, and reassess in the New Year.

That said, we’ve got an exciting event coming up in November - the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Supply Chain Event - where we’ll be exhibiting at EventCity in Manchester. We’ve been to loads of these events as guests, but this is the first time that we’ll actually be presenting our company, so that’s a massive achievement and a huge step for M5tec.”

“

Being a mentor has given me a feeling of added value. I’m far from taking any credit for M5tec, but it’s great to see that a little piece of my experience or guidance has made a difference to them on their road to success.”

Gary’s Story Gary has worked in his role as a Regional Manager for Retail Business Banking with Lloyds for eight years now, and registered to become a Mentor in 2015, going through the induction training with Paul Harper, the IOEE’s Mentoring Manager. He was paired up with his first mentee, M5tec’s Carl Jones, in 2016, but was initially dubious about what different industries they both worked in. Gary says: “Paul gave me a brochure about M5tec that said something like, ‘engineering design resource and consultancy within the nuclear and marine energy sector’, and I thought, ‘what the heck do I know about that?! I’m right out of my depth here!’

“But actually, what it really brought home to me, was that to be a good mentor doesn’t mean knowing all of the ins and outs of your mentee’s industry. It’s not my job to say, ‘you should do this’ - they know their industry better than I do. It’s my job to challenge their thinking, ask questions, talk through ideas and options, and offer a different perspective. It’s about getting your head into a mentoring capacity, rather than a business advising capacity.”

This mentoring mindset came into play when Carl and Craig were in the early stages of deciding which direction they should be driving M5tec in, and Gary helped them to look at the benefits and drawbacks of different options: “They were in a dilemma - do they go into an area where they can really specialise, or do they become more generic engineering consultants? Really focus on one area of expertise, or become a jack of all trades? The general consultancy would bring money in straight

Being confident in their decisions and themselves as businessmen is another area that Gary helped Carl and Craig to progress in, looking at areas such as networking, marketing and pitching. Gary says: “The guys were very hesitant about networking and ‘selling themselves’, so I got them to go away and write it all down first, so they were clear on what they wanted to say. And when they came back, it was brilliant! They rattled it off for me and it was absolutely spot on - and now they can network and open conversations with confidence, with a little pitch that just rolls off the tongue. And this is fantastic to see - you can bring seemingly little things to the table as a mentor, that you then realise later on are actually golden nuggets for them.”

It is this satisfaction that has driven Gary throughout his mentoring experience; an experience that he says has been both personally and professionally fulfilling: “I’m at a point in my life where my career is really settled. I’m happy in my job, I really like all the people I work with, I know what I’m good at - so it’s been nice to do something that’s new and challenging and stimulating. Being a mentor has given me a feeling of added value.

I’m far from taking any credit for M5tec, but it’s great to see that a little piece of my experience or guidance has made a difference to them on their road to success.”

“These guys had all these amazing ideas, but didn’t know how to take it forward; so much expertise, energy and enthusiasm, but lacking a bit of direction. They weren’t sure how to run a business effectively, and they openly admitted that. Fast-forward a year and they have outgrown their premises, have a new place with over 11 staff, and are building a great reputation in the industry for the quality of what they do. The fact that we’ve talked through problems and they’ve put our ideas into practice and it’s worked - it’s made the whole experience really personally rewarding.”

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IOEE Guest Blog by

Paul Freeman This month I want to follow my last article by telling you a bit more about how my own journey has continued to develop, and start to explain some of my methods in a bit more detail.

It’s a journey which has literally enabled me to escape the traditional 9 to 5, and become a Digital Entrepreneur, by using digital strategies, and mindset, to work smarter.

First, just to quickly recap for those of you who may not have read my previous article, or the original IOEE spotlight feature earlier in the year, my own background stems from around 25 years working in the commercial technology sales sector.

delays, closures, accidents, and all the other chaos, and it continues to remind me of the value of having finally taken back control, and the ability to live life on my terms, and just how far I have come in my own journey.

It’s being able to see and feel that transformation, which motivates me to give something back, to mentor and help others explore opportunities, so that they too can take back control.

I mentioned in my last article that one of the key benefits of becoming a digital entrepreneur was the ability to create freedom, choice, and control, and although my core business is centred around “digital”, and therefore a lot of the automation methods I use help to create that freedom, I appreciate that many of you reading this will be operating (or planning to setup) a more traditional business format, but, that doesn’t mean to say you can’t apply some of the digital methods, and mindset that I employ, to work smart and ultimately create more freedom and results.

During those years I often had to endure daily commute nightmares, something that I’m sure some of you can relate to; spending what felt like half my life stuck in traffic on the motorway.

I have visited and spoken at many business network meetings and entrepreneurship style workshops, and each time someone stands up to introduce themselves and explain why they want to become an entrepreneur, the answers they give are usually the same every time.

Sadly, everyday people are still arriving stressed at offices all around the country, having just endured motorway madness, or been crammed into a hot, overcrowded, tube train for an hour, already starting their daily work routine in the wrong frame of mind.

They all want to fit work around family, not the other way around, in other words, to have control, choice and freedom.

So, in this article I want to focus on the importance of mindset, and to some extent, the mental health benefits of becoming an entrepreneur, but also to highlight the difference that having a focussed mindset has made to my own journey.

In fact, nowadays whilst doing the school run in the mornings, I still often hear traffic reports on the car radio, with the usual mentions of

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But, whilst “becoming your own boss” has its obvious appeal, never forget the focus of your original reasons, especially if it is “to get freedom and to spend more time with family”.

The last thing you want, is to hear yourself constantly saying “there isn’t enough hours in a day”, so although you become your own boss, if you end up seeing even less of your family because you are stuck to your desk all day (and night), then all you have really achieved is a

change of scenery, and rather than driving to your boss’s office, you are now just stuck in your own office instead.

beach. I get back, have a quick shower, grab a coffee, and check my emails and sales results.

The point I am making is that we all have access to the same 24 hours a day, but some people use that time better than others, and so I use mindset and focus, combined with specific digital strategies, to improve time management and create added freedom, and together they form the core elements which I depend on.

Depending on my schedule for the day, I am then either doing a couple of 1-2-1 mentoring sessions online, or I am doing some attraction style marketing, whilst planning new products and digital content.

I am now fortunate enough to live only a few seconds from the beach (not that it sunshine’s much to appreciate it!), but it wasn’t always like that, and compared to my previous lifestyle, becoming an entrepreneur has given me back control of my life and health.

Let me explain.

Not so many years ago I was having to endure a 2-hour daily commute to the office, leaving home at around 6am in the dark, working at the office for 8 hours, followed by yet another 2-hour commute back home again.

I didn’t do it because I wanted to, but because I had to; I needed a job, and circumstances at the time dictated that lifestyle, I didn’t have control or freedom.

Under normal circumstances, that very same journey in the middle of the day would have in fact only taken around 60 minutes or less, but of course given the volume of traffic during rush hour, the only way to guarantee getting to the office on time was to leave home at 6am.

The bottom line is that it was a nightmare just to get to work.

Sub-consciously I wasn’t mentally focussed on my job, so in addition to wishing the day away, I was also pre-occupied with the dread of the return journey home later that afternoon. I was leaving early in the morning, and getting back home late enough to miss my children’s bedtime stories. I wasn’t living a life; I was just existing to pay the bills.

Incidentally, at the time of writing this article, a news report was published which quoted the UK infrastructure chief, Lord Adonis, as suggesting that the UK faces a tainted future of gridlock on the roads, going on to say that “congestion is the single biggest problem facing Britain at the moment”.

So, compare all that to my entrepreneur lifestyle…

After a short 5 or 10-minute school run, I get back home, switch the coffee filter machine on, and then go for a 30 or 40 min walk on the

I totally appreciate that not all of you will live anywhere near a beach, let alone just a few seconds walk away, but the point is, I am using what I have available to me to focus my mindset, so likewise maybe you could go to the gym, or perhaps walk the dog for example, but the important thing is to use that “you” time to pre-plan for the day ahead without stress or distraction, it sounds obvious, but it does make a difference, as long as you stick to it routinely though.

Starting off the day stress free and focussed, produces far better results, and in less time, and the point is, it’s a stark contrast to spending that valuable time sat in traffic or being jammed like sardines into a tube train instead!

To conclude this article, I want to mention something that has formed a crucial part of my daily mindset, and I do have to admit that it took me a while to fully realise the impact of this at first, but once it clicked and started to make sense, and I applied it, the difference was remarkable.

I realised that there was no point in dwelling on the past, but at the same time there was also no point worrying about the future, because in either case all I was doing was robbing myself of valuable time thinking about the “now”.

The past has happened, so why waste time thinking about it, likewise, there is no point worrying about the future because it hasn’t happened, and in fact, it might not happen the way you think it will anyway, so whilst of course we all need to plan ahead in business, I found that by just concentrating on my immediate actions, I was already sub-consciously improving the future by default, and it became counterproductive, positive thoughts and actions right now are already creating a better future, and I have been able to turn negatives into positives.

As mentioned, in addition to mindset, I also employ several key digital strategies, which help create more freedom, and I will start to highlight some of these in my next article, and how they can also be applied to any “non-digital” traditional business models too.

To find out more about PMH Digital, please visit https://pmhdigital.co.uk/

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