You’ve met with a potential client. They’ve expressed interest in what you have to offer. They’ve asked for a proposal so it can be given due consideration. You head back to the home office and think ‘what now?’ Here’s what. Follow these 6 steps to successful proposal-writing and turn those proposals into profit!
Our thanks to the talented pupils of St Peter’s Roman Catholic Comprehensive School & Macmillan Academy who provided some first class musical entertainment at our ambassador’s networking event at MIMA (The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art). The students from St Peters wowed the crowd with a medley of contemporary jazz favourites while the students from Macmillan Academy showed off their skills on the keyboard.
Jack Bartley
Last night as I yet again sat on the floor of the Britain’s most crowded train, (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2498438/Britains-most-crowded-trains-named.html) the 6.15pm from Kings Cross to Cambridge wedged between 12 sweaty men in suits (no where near as fun as it sounds) it struck me that, while some peoples’ nightmare this was a perfect opportunity to network.
Since I began working at Make Your Mark a month ago there has been considerable talk of speed-networking and the importance of connecting with the people around you. Surely there must be other people on the train who would be interested in the Make Your Mark Campaign? Surely I could stimulate a few Enterprise Week events maybe even some schools for the Make Your Mark Challenge?
Ruth Drapper, who home schools her children, and is clearly an enterprise champion, tells us more about working from home and how to inspire your kids to make their mark! I hope other parents take note…This article also appears on Enterprise Nation
Never too young to start a home business!
I don’t know about you, but running a business from home is amazing. Let’s pass that on to our children and start training them in business skills and success principles that they will need to be able to do the same one day.
1. Admit you’ve got a business idea! - 5 seconds
Everybody has business ideas - everybody. Whether you’ve been to a shop and couldn’t find what you were looking for, or dreamt one day of opening your own male beauty salon (I met someone with this dream recently - honestly), just admit it! Use this 5 seconds to express your idea.
2. Start talking about your business idea - 10 seconds
Now that you’ve expressed your business idea t yourself, you need to start telling other people about it!! Once you’ve told all your friends and family (you might need to get them into a single room to actually do this in 10 seconds), then you can…
The UnLtd Awards are open to all you budding social entrepreneurs out there.
Receive between £500 and £20,000 to really give your project the boost it needs.
There are 2 levels of awards
Level 1 Awards
So whatever stage your business or business idea is at, check out the UnLtd website to see how they could help you!
It’s been called ‘the socially acceptable way to stalk people’ but Twitter is so much more than that. So much, in fact, that it could become a powerful tool for your home business. Here’s how I’ve used it in my business and 5 reasons why I’ve come to love this little application.
The students change the lives of others and in the process develop the valuable skills they will need to be successful in business, together with a sense of responsibility towards their community, with an emphasis on sustainability.
Just a reminder that Evans Easyspace are offering their Evans Business Centres FREE of charge to anyone wanting to run a speednetworking event during Enterprise Week 2008. They have over 50 centres across the UK, 6 of which are in the North East (Darlington, Durham, Middlesbrough, Newton Aycliffe, Newton Aycliffe Incubation Centre, North Shields)
See: http://www.enterpriseweek.org.uk/get_involved_in/global_activities for more info on speed networking
The O2 X Awards is a nationwide search for the best innovative and entrepreneurial small businesses in the UK.
They are looking for small businesses (under 50 employees) in the following arenas
If you would like to enter or know of anyone who might qualify, please find an entry form:
http://www.o2blueroom.co.uk/Business/XAwards/UserData.aspx
Good Luck!
Who generates economic impact? Luke Johnson writing for the Financial Times (“All of the effort with none of the impact”, 6th August 2008) set out a proposition that the entrepreneurs that really matter are the tiny proportion who ultimately generate the bulk of economic benefits for the economy. Evidence indeed suggests that these high growth companies or these so called “gazelles”, often defined by their revenue growth, account for only about 3% to 4% of new ventures.
In the doom and gloom of the credit crunch the world can seem like a pretty unfair place. (Boo) But all is not lost! (Yay!). Because, like the sweaty gold medals clasped in the hand of Michael Phelps, opportunity abounds. Have a look…
Opportunity number 1: A chance to be the next Irvine Welsh
Think you’ve got what it takes to be the next Hunter S Thompson, William S Boroughs or even Oscar Wilde? Well, Penguin Books are looking for literary young types to become editors of their online community site, Spinebreakers.
I caught up with a fair bit of enterprise telly over the weekend - Secret Millionaire which I always enjoy but sometimes think it doesn’t do enough to show how entrepreneurial ideas can change social problems, it’s more about pots of money being handed over which don’t get me wrong I think is admirable and I always get a tear in my eye during that part! Anyway this week’s was even better as the entrepreneur James Benamor not only handed over cheques to three very deserving groups but also gave much more. With one group of youngsters at the Manchester Settlement he motivated them by saying that whoever got one or more GCSEs would get the chance to come and work for his company for a month. You could see how it changed their attitudes to know that someone believed in them and would give them a chance if they worked hard in return. Should be inspiration to anyone else who is in a position to look at different ways of getting people out of the cycle of bad behaviour, crime etc.
According to Enterprise Nation, the home business website, you can be at least £30,000 in pocket by starting a business from home because of an increase in the value of your home and savings on fuel costs and motoring expenses.
It’s good to know that having an office in the house adds an average £28,000 to the value of your home, and avoiding the daily commute leads to travel savings of more than £2,000 each year. So in all the doom and gloom of rising costs anyone thinking about setting up a business should seriously consider working from home.
I decided to email James Clarke the winner of the igloo roadshow to see what progress he had made with his winning ski lock design and I was delighted when this response came back…
hi kate,
how are you doing these days??
I’m actually sat in an internet cafe in Laos (south east asia) having a well earned chillax!!
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