My mentoring session with David Grey produced lots of good thoughts on how to improve and grow Daver Steels. A particular focus was on where we might make improvements to our internal structure and on time management of the day to day operations; David agreed that I could come back to him to review the changes we had made, We have come through the worst of the pandemic without any state aid and are now thinking of getting a first class graduate from Sheffield Hallam to do some of my work so I can concentrate on getting more business, It is a very unsettling time and we need to be proactive and make decisions sooner rather than later. My session with David was challenging and stimulating.

My on-line mentoring session with Entrepreneur in Residence Rich Field was interesting and helpful. Rich came up with several good strategies that would allow me to pass on my knowledge to a new recruit thereby continuing to help clients with ISO 9001 support. At the end I felt energised and focused on what options existed to allow me to exit the business whilst protecting my customer base from too much upheaval. We formed a good relationship which I’m sure will continue over the coming months.

Edward Naylor has completely transformed his business into the success it is today. Amongst his many achievements is making successful acquisitions and this was the main subject of our mentoring session. Edward went through the issues he considers during the process;company gearing, the quality of the management team, the market share of its products and the opportunity to grow the business. We have already made a couple of acquisitions so this will be a great help with making more. Edward and I will definitely stay in touch.

My mentoring session with Tony Bramall  was most worthwhile; he gave me some great ideas about how to expand my business which I am putting into use now, What’s more he provided a good contact for us from his business network who we are in touch with now, we have also done work for his company-and we have purchased a car from him. Win win.

I had a great mentoring session with David Smalley. Being from a similar technology background, he immediately understood where I was coming from. I had requested a session with David following a really fascinating Masterclass that he had presented on remote working. We spent an hour talking through his experiences creating a remote-first organisation and I came away with plenty of tips on how we might start the same journey. A really useful session and another example of the value of Connect membership.

Our mentoring session with Simon Biltcliffe was very helpful and has made us focus our minds on the way forward for Made by Bridge. We design and build top-end websites built using Craft CMS and the main issue for us is getting the right size and type of client for this work. Simon made it clear that improving the content of our social media posts and blog posts etc. so that they are interesting to bigger clients (with a need for Craft CMS experts) was crucial which we are in the process of doing. Also how to manage our smaller clients while we climb up the ladder needs careful thought.

It was a really useful session with somebody who has been through many similar issues at Webmart-and is still doing so.

I had a 1 to 1 mentoring session with Edward Naylor on 30th Jan 2020. The session was all about the different stages of growing a business. Edward kindly shared what happened when he took on his business, and how he worked strategically in different ways to decide what he wanted the business to look like in the future. I enjoyed the ways Edward has identified, which areas of business growth and development he does with a team of key people, and which parts he does by himself. Demonstrating that it’s right to do certain things independently, and sit with your vision and ideas – to build clarity in the direction you want to achieve.

Edward recognises and practices the importance of having a strong chain of command, that everyone uses and works to, in order to maintain smooth operations and output in the work place.

It was a very helpful session, Edward Naylor is a very inspirational businessman and his insight and advice, struck new chords with me, to enable new possibilities. Thank you Connect Yorkshire.

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.