Newbury College recently hosted West Berkshire Partnership's, Growing our Own' workshops for Small and Medium Employers (SMEs).
With Newbury College offering their facilities and admin support and funding from the Local Strategic Partnership these workshops were offered free of charge to all local small and medium businesses. Over three different dates there were three workshops put on for the businesses to attend in order to help them not just survive but thrive in the current economic climate. The first workshop Attracting and Retaining Customers' was held by Trainer Geof Thornton who talked about getting to grips with why people buy and keep buying, learning how to profile your customers and ideas on getting your business to stand out. The second workshop Marketing without Money' presented by Steve Mills from Steve Mills Marketing demonstrating how to make the most out of marketing, capitalising on word-of-mouth and gave a How To Guide' on free marketing options. Alex Petty from Alex Petty.biz' was the trainer of the third workshop Growing Your Own Business' which covered the crucial steps for business growth, systemizing and choosing the right team and how to ensure continuous growth for businesses. All attendees were greeted with a tea and coffee reception and were issued with accompanying workbooks to support each training session.
Matthew Lowe from Shoestrings Website who attended the workshops said, The workshops were highly informative and motivating. In particular the talk by Steve Mills provided some great insight into using social media to promote my business . Since the talk I have changed the way I use LinkedIn and have received work as a direct result of those changes! The direct nature of the workshops have made me face doing some things I've been putting off like creating a business plan, a mission statement, and even tasks as simple as deciding precisely what it is I want to get from the business and being self employed. After each of the courses I found the large gathering of representatives for local businesses made for excellent networking opportunities, which has provided me with a number of business leads that I hope to pursue over the coming weeks.
The workshops were supported by the Local Strategic Partnership and the College was able to provide the venue at no cost. About 80 people attended and outcomes from the workshops should make a real difference to those companies and to the economy of West Berkshire.
Anne Murdoch, Principal of Newbury College said, I am delighted that the College has been able to host the workshops which are free for local companies to find out how they can improve their business in the current economic climate. The workshop facilitators are all well known in their fields and provided excellent presentations on how small companies can grow their business, even in the most difficult circumstances.
Newbury College offers a wide range of Business to Business Training as well as providing Apprenticeship programmes for all organisations, small or large. For further information about how we can help you please call us on 01635 845000, email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our website www.newbury-college.ac.uk