I met with Michael Bridge for a one to one mentoring session. Michael came thoroughly prepared and I immediately felt at ease talking to him openly about my business. He challenged me giving me an outsiders view of my company. The result of the session was that I felt passionate about implementing some new strategy into my business, both immediately and long term. It felt like I knew him and the conversation flowed, was relevant and practical. Michael researched my business and came with a plan, asked me what I wanted from the situation and offered me valuable insight in how to achieve my goals and aspirations for the future.

I had a mentoring session from Edward Naylor, one of Connect Yorkshires Entrepreneurs in Residence and found it useful and thought provoking. As a small business owner it can feel lonely at times and you don’t always have a sounding board or someone to run your thoughts by, and the session helped me cement some of my growth ideas for the business as well as reassuring my decisions to date. Edward took time to understand my business and asked probing questions to challenge my thought process and aspirations. I found it really beneficial to take some time away from the business and bounce ideas off of someone who has been incredibly successful in their field.

Peter Roberts was excellent, a thoroughly great person with a wealth of knowledge and I really enjoyed the time I had with him and found it very valuable. I hope that he found it enjoyable too. I have been in touch with him since.

Being able to have access to some incredibly experienced and successful minds in the North of England is invaluable. I have found completely new perspectives and uncovered new opportunities by being able to speak with selected EIR’s. I have found their ability to question your norm and push your thinking vital to the growth of the business.

It is a rare opportunity that you get to have this one to one time and I strongly advise members to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

I was lucky enough to meet with Richard Field for a mentoring session.  Not only did he provide genuinely helpful and practical advise on how to execute the right Business Development strategy and approach, he also kindly connected me into a thriving business in Sheffield.  We’ve been wanting to connect generally into the Sheffield business community for some time.

A highly knowledgeable and high performing operator, he was extremely generous with his time and insights.  I’m grateful to him for providing such a valuable investment in both our business and my personal development, due to his affiliation with Connect Yorkshire.

I had a great mentoring session with Deirdre Bounds – she quickly grasped my business and I particularly valued her straight talking, no nonsense approach. Her generosity in sharing ideas and stories as well as wisdom from her own experiences left me with a lot to think about and I have already started to implement some of the actions.

I just wanted to say a huge thankyou to Connect Yorkshire and specifically Michael Bridge for his recent insight into customer value.

Michael spent some time with the senior management team at Acumen Waste Services where we explored in depth what value looks like to different customers and how we can ensure that as a leader in waste management we can provide value to our customers and form solid long term relationships and collect credit for excellent service and delivering value.

We are now looking at how we can develop our thoughts further and the next step is to involve our sales team and account managers.

I have to say that the entrepreneurs we have connected with have always been inspirational, thought provoking and challenging, which is great.

Many Thanks for your support.

I found my meeting with Jonathan to be highly inspirational. Jonathan gave me some good tips of how to clear a bit of headspace to focus on the business instead of being caught up in administration. I left the meeting with a renewed sense of achievement and filled with enthusiasm, as well as a clear focus and new goal. I’d like to thank him very much for his invaluable time.

As a recruiter of high volume workers, predominately into the industrial and logistics sector for over 30 years, we have spent the past 3 years developing our own bespoke software solution to attract, register and manage workers in a much more efficient manner. Having proof of concept for the past 3 years for our own internal use has spurred us on to where we want to take this software to market as its primary USP is something we believe has great potential.

How to take it to market ! I was delighted that Connect Yorkshire put me in touch with Neil Ewin.

Neil instantly understood what we are trying to achieve and the challenges we would face. He was so helpful with his advice, not only on how to start the process of taking a new product to market but also suggesting new opportunities and tweaks we should make to our software to enhance its functionality. Neil was an ideal person to meet with his IT software background and I can’t thank him enough for sharing nearly three hours of his valuable time.

Leeds Civic Trust has been in the process of developing a five year vision, a strategic statement to guide our activities in the coming years.  Through Connect Yorkshire we sought the input of Gerald Jennings as a mentor.  Gerald provided great clarity of thought as a member of a working group we assembled but also through one-to-one input.  His invaluable input has undoubtedly led to a vison that is crisp, to the point but comprehensive, and will provide us with a sound basis for our detailed business planning activity.

Chris Henry is an incredible businessman. Clearly, very successful, yet he was so humble and kind and offered me some great practical advice and support. I have made a great contact in Chris and I’m excited to implement his knowledge into my business and I feel very grateful to him and Connect Yorkshire for the opportunity.