Before I met Jacqui, I knew a little about her background as I had heard her speak at a couple of networking events I have attended. I was a little nervous at meeting her; she soon put me at ease – she is very down to earth. We share similar values in looking after employees, helping people to grow and develop.

As this was our first meeting, we talked about:

My career journey and what led to me setting up HR Solutions Yorkshire Limited in 2016
My personal and professional goals
What’s important to me as a HR professional and business owner
How I can help my clients – what are their challenges?
Business development – current activity and what I could do differently

It was useful to say some of these things out loud to someone who doesn’t know me, as it made me question what is important to me, what could I be doing differently – one of the challenges of running a business is having a sounding board to test ideas with. Jacqui suggested some different ways of working and promoting my services to my target market, and we agreed to meet again once we had both time to consider our discussions.

Simon Biltcliffe was brilliant. We spoke at length about my business, how he scaled up Webmart and how I could do the same at Albert Road Consulting, about employing and motivating people and most important of all the culture in a business encouraging people to do really well. Simon was generous with his time and it was invaluable advice.

My mentoring session with Entrpreneur in Residence Jacqui Hall in February 2020 was really good. We talked at length about the Yorkshire business scene and what motivated young people to go into business. I got some great tips from Jacqui about the course the Two Ridings Community Foundation should take. Overall it was a very helpful session.

I met with Michael Bridge for my one to one mentoring session and it was such a pleasure to have feedback from a highly experienced entrepreneur. Michael sat and listened /asked questions as to where Sable Creative is today and where I would like to take the business in future and the challenges I may face.

Being a graphic designer and overseeing the entire project from creative concepts through to print, which is a requirement for the majority of companies wanting to promote themselves through their marketing, it’s difficult to pin point who my ideal client would be and the best way to get my personal message across for how I best work alongside and add value to my clients.

We had a follow up session to finalise my value proposition and I now have a strong one which I will be using going forward: “I focus on delivering a personal, high quality brand and print design service, enabling my clients to Maximise their Brand Potential”.

With the help and guidance from Michael, I have a clearer picture on how I can engage with prospects and share the journey Sable Creative continues to make through energising and revitalising not only itself, but other businesses to be the best they can.

Exciting times ahead, thanks to Connect Yorkshire and the ‘Entrepreneur in Residence‘ programme.

I met with my EIR having read their background on the Connect Yorkshire website and noticing that we had some good synergies between our business journeys. I found the session to be incredibly useful! We had a good discussion and John Chalmers guided me and gave his thoughts on some of my challenges taking into account his experience of business. His perspective gave me great re-assurance and he shared information and useful insights into strategies and techniques which had helped him over the years. I took much enthusiasm from the meeting and would recommend to anyone in business to tap into this kind of knowledge as it is incredibly valuable.

Julian Harrison challenged us on our 5 year plan and gave us some really good ideas and suggestions on how we can build and create a more robust plan. He really understood the medical sector and was very quick to suggest new ideas and ways of working. We will certainly be inviting Julian back in to help us in the future.

Prior to the session with Gerald Jennings we were somewhat daunted & unsure how the session would be structured. We needn’t have, the session was very relaxed and we discussed various aspects of the business over a coffee. Gerald gave his opinion on an area in which we were unsure of how to progress, which was most helpful. He also had some very useful contacts who he is going to do an introduction to. We intend to meet again in a few months as he’s keen to see how we progress. To any member of Connect Yorkshire who is yet to have an EIR session, I would encourage them to do this as soon as possible.

I met with Carl Cavers for a couple of hours. He completely got the challenges I face with my business and also recognised the opportunities that I should be focusing on. He made some solid recommendations and ways to improve things that I will definitely follow up on.

What a great meeting!

I really appreciated the opportunity to pick Jeremy Schulmans brain, and to validate some of my assumptions. As the sole business owner with a relatively new team around me, the opportunity to talk with someone who has been there and done it is invaluable.

Those sessions are a big part of the Connect Yorkshire membership for me.