Hot on the heels of LikeMinds came Exeter’s Twestival… How did you participate? What did you get out of it? What did you contribute?

It’s the second one run in Exeter after a successful inaugural event in 2009.  Boy was there a buzz in the room with 300 of so “social web people” there.  Every third participant seemed to be live streaming it from their iphone back to their blog and if you weren’t tweeting at the same time then you may as well have had a sticker on your forehead saying “old school tie”.

So how do business owners use social media?  Can they use it as a business tool rather than as a toy.  Are they just kidding themselves that it is time well spent or does it really add value to their business.  I had my own views, but I was curious to see what the experts had to say now that social media tools have matured and evolved.

The majority of speakers and panellists convinced me that SM does have a place in B2B marketing and is not just B2C or for frittering away your time.  Follow the #likeminds tweets for a sense of the mood.  For me the message was clear: ask yourself regularly what the ROI is on your investment in SM tools and time.

The speaker and participant list was impressive with the following topics up for discussion:

Keynote: ‘Making Connections – an outsiders view of Social Media’ with Jonathan Akwue

Panel: ‘How are we changing the way we communicate?’ moderated by Daren Forsyth, with Glenn Le Santo, Heléna Holt and John Harvey.

Like Minded Endeavour: Leap Anywhere, with Malcolm Scovil.

Keynote: ‘Time for a Strategy: Beware Social Media Tokenism’ with John Bell

Panel: ‘What are the key components for Social Strategies?’ moderated by AJ Pape, with Maz Nadjm, Charlie Osmond and Gemma Went

Like Minded Endeavour: Hospiscare with Amy Kilburn.

Keynote: ‘Emergent media for Person-to-Person Communication’ with Joanne Jacobs

Panel: ‘What are the tactics, tools and methods for engagement today?’ moderated by Lloyd Davis, with Ilicco Elia, Madlen Nicolaus and Andrew Davies.

Like Minded Endeavour: Twestival, with Aren Grimshaw.

Keynote: ‘Integrating People-to-People’ with Olivier Blanchard

Panel: ‘How can organisations take the first steps towards integrating People-to-People?’ moderated by Andrew Gerrard, with Steve Bridger, Benjamin Ellis and Gabrielle Laine-Peters.

Keynote: ‘Social Media and B2B: How to Build Outstanding Advocacy’ with Yann Gourvennec

Panel: ‘How can dying business models innovate through people-to-people?’ moderated by Vikki Chowney, with Kevin Anderson, Edward Barrow, and James Whatley.

Like Minded Endeavour: The Have A Heart Appeal, with Matt Young

Keynote: ‘Building People-to-People Communities and Networks’ with Chris Brogan

Panel: ‘Where are the forward thinking organisations going next?’ moderated by Trey Pennington, with Molly Flatt, Kate Day and Kristian Carter.

Final Words

With founders Andrew Ellis and Scott Gould.

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As a small to medium-sized enterprise, you may have viable business plans that need funding and for which a loan would be appropriate. However, you may be struggling to access the finance or working capital required because of the additional risks arising from the economic downturn. The newly announced Enterprise Finance Guarantee is intended to overcome this by providing lenders with a government guarantee, mitigating their risk exposure to just 25 per cent of the loan value. The Guarantee is part of the government’s Solutions for Business portfolio and is (supposedly*) available to businesses throughout the UK through approved lenders. *Supposedly, I say, because we have only just started to see evidence of it at the coal face with bank managers.

Participating lenders administer the eligibility criteria and make all commercial decisions regarding borrowing. The decision whether or not to use the Enterprise Finance Guarantee with any loan rests with the lender and follows their commercial assessment of the proposition. You can find out more about the Enterprise Finance Guarantee on the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) website.

The main features and criteria of the scheme are:

• a guarantee to the lender covering 75 per cent of the loan amount, for which the borrower pays a 2 per cent premium on the outstanding balance of the loan, payable to BERR (the first year premium will be 1.5 per cent)
• the ability to guarantee loans from £1,000 to £1 million and with terms of up to ten years
• availability to qualifying UK businesses with an annual turnover of up to £25 million
• availability to businesses in most sectors and for most business purposes, although there are some restrictions

The government has also introduced a package of support and further financial measures as part of its Solutions for Business portfolio. This has been designed to provide help for businesses through the economic downturn. You can find out more in a guide published by Business Link about the support offered by the government’s Real Help initiative.

Subjects covered in the Business Link guide are:

• Introduction
• Loans
• Where to look for a loan
• Obtaining a loan and offering security
• Overdrafts
• Loans from friends and family
• Providing a guarantee for your loan
• Enterprise Finance Guarantee
• Here’s how securing the right loan helped my business develop

Truelegal has a great client base of enthusiastic entrepreneurs, individuals ready and willing to react to the market place.  Part of that strategic adaptation may involve structural changes to the business, or a decision to buy a distressed competitor.

With our commercial background we have managed to assist many business owners recently to mskr not just their own business more robust, but to msximise the many opportunities out there for those willing to step up.

If you need a business solicitor able to meet the current challenges please contact us for a no obligation meeting – at a location to suit you. We believe we can make the business case that we can add value to your business rather than being a legal fee-drain on your bottom line.

And proving that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, here are some examples from the press to prove it:

The Manu’preneur… (from The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, October 2008)
Proving that age is no boundary when it comes to entrepreneurship, Maurice Mosley, the 78-year-old chairman of Trojan Plastics, was named Special Manufacturing Entrepreneur of the Year in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 awards ceremony held in Manchester.
Mr Mosley launched his own business manufacturing baths in 1970. Trojan Plastics, based at Milnsbridge, was formed in 1975, producing 200 acrylic baths a week. The business expanded as a result of continual investment in premises, plant and equipment to become a leading manufacturer and supplier of acrylic bathroom products, including baths, bath panels and shower trays.

The Property’preneur… (from The Birmingham Post, September 2008)
A pair of entrepreneurs have launched a website that helps homebuyers avoid the shaky property market, by swapping houses with each other directly.
Property-swap-shop.com was founded by Birmingham entrepreneur Joe Kreft and his business partner, Andy Preacher. It matches up its database of homebuyers who want to buy or sell houses in the UK or abroad. The site allows homebuyers to strike a deal without the hassle of hefty estate agent fees.
Although the concept is popular in the US, it is still relatively new to the UK property market. Advantages of property swapping instead of going through the traditional methods include avoiding having to deal with a tricky housing chain that can break down if one party pulls out.

The Retail’Preneur… (from The Observer, July 2007)
Sceptics predicted classroom chaos when 10,000 of the nation’s teenagers were handed £10 and invited to use it to make as much money as they could in a month. But pupils from 120 schools across Britain took the challenge so seriously, and raised so much money they put the contestants in Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice to shame.
The highest profit on £10 was £410; a 4,100 per cent increase in a month. The average profit was £99.33, a 993 per cent increase, and the biggest team profit was £1,000.
Fazila Dadabhoy, 15, from Walthamstow School for Girls in east London, who earned the £410, persuaded local businesses to donate machines and ingredients she needed to make doughnuts and then reinvested the profits she made from selling them.
‘I never thought of myself as an entrepreneurial-type of person before, but this has really opened out my horizons,’ she said. ‘I don’t usually take risks, but because it was such a small sum of money to lose, in such a short amount of time, I gave it a go.’

The Web’preneur… (from The Observer, February 2007)
Unlike the first UK internet boom led by Martha Lane Fox’s online travel firm Lastminute.com, large-scale financial backing is not essential to get started as an internet entrepreneur: the spread of broadband access and the diminishing price of hardware make it possible to set up and run a virtual company from your bedroom.

And like many of the best ideas, 25-year-old student, Thomas Whitfield’s, began with a simple question. ‘How many people are kissing at this moment?’ Talking over a drink in a hotel lobby, he and a friend dreamed up DesignTheTime, a website with the limitless ambition of charting ‘the history of mankind’ moment by moment.

Its backers, Bright Station Ventures, were ‘blown away’ by the concept and stumped up £50m to develop the idea – a historical ‘timeline’ split into minutes, each of which can be bought by users to post memorable moments in their lives, for example by uploading video footage of a child’s birthday or favourite pop concert.

Microsoft said: ‘We believe DesignTheTime has the potential to be the next YouTube or Skype.’

The Techno’preneur
There’s no denying it, when it comes to technology, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is perhaps the most famous entrepreneur of this era. He had the vision to predict the evolving importance of the personal computer. This allowed him to top Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a 2006 estimated net worth of $50 billion. Hats off to him.

The Food’preneur…(from Real Business, March 2008)
It was the early sixties when entrepreneur Tony Deep packed up his bags and boarded the plane to Britain. He was just 18, he’d never stepped outside his home country and he had a measly £3 in his pocket.

He did a stint as a cement mixer then “shunted trains” for British Rail before signing up for a secretarial course at a local college. “My teacher thought I was only interested in the programme because there were 25 women in the class,” he says. “She was shocked when I took the test: I typed 100 words a minute.” It was there that he met Barbara – now his wife – who helped him find a job as a door-to-door salesman, selling eggs to Asian housewives.

He started to make a tidy little profit. Chatting to his customers each day, typically about the curries they were preparing for their evening meal, Deep started to realise the potential of the food trade and set up his own wholesale business.

Today, The East End Foods brand can be found in 80 per cent of the UK’s independent Asian corner shops – that’s a whopping 1,800 stores.

The Hotel’preneur…(from Start Your Business, 2008)
Suave and enigmatic entrepreneur, Robert B Cook took on the Malmaison group in 1996 and made it his own. Their UK hotels satisfy almost every pleasure palatable and with the Hotel du Vin group now under his belt they are set to become a global brand. Their signature style of utilising historical buildings and fusing it with warped neon-nightclub interiors is unlike anything else.

Asked how to encourage enterprise and increase the number of hoteliers in the UK, Robert says, ‘You need to start off by getting the first one absolutely right; like we did in Edinburgh, then roll it out progressively with the support of a good brand. There’s a lot of solvent funds and vulture funding schemes out there, so it’s not the time to be talking about bad footed investment as the world is in a bit of turmoil at the moment. There are a lot of venture capitalists that like what we are doing and like one-off hotels that are beginning to grow. It really is all about your first one and not just focusing solely on design. Too often hotels hide behind the veneer of design and can’t even get service right! You have to overplay service at the right price to get the right investment in return- it’s a beneficial circle.’

The Eco’preneur… (from The Sun, June 2008)
A study for the Shell Springboard funding programme predicted that the market for green products is set to boom, reaching a record £4 Billion by 2010.

Small businesses are expected to reap the biggest rewards because they can get green inventions on the shelves more quickly than bloated corporations. And as local councils come under more pressure to go green, the report predicts they could be one of the major customers for green products.

One small business cashing in on its council’s green rush is Innovation Station run by Peter Morrison in Birmingham. The “eco-preneur” breathed life into dead leaves — and is now negotiating a ten-year deal with his city council to turn the dead leaves into fuel for stoves.

Peter has created the Leaf Log, a climate-friendly fuel which turns dead leaves into a wood and coal substitute. The 16,000 tonnes of leaves the council gets rid of every year could create 14million Leaf Logs, and as each log retails at £2-£3, the partnership could make him millions.

And you?
These are just a few of the markets where entrepreneurs can make it big; if you have a good idea and the right personal qualities, the opportunities are limitless.

If you have a great idea and think you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, or you’ve already started your new business and need some expert advice to progress, contact us now to find out how we can help.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Whilst there are always exceptions to rules, successful entrepreneurs do tend to share certain personal characteristics. Whilst some are fairly obvious, others are often under-appreciated. Here’s Truelegal’s list of the six top requirements for a successful entrepreneur:

• Ability to identify good business ideas
  Without this, you’ve got no hope!
• Persistence and independence
  Entrepreneurs are extremely dedicated and focussed.  You will have to make sacrifices in other aspects of your life if you want to achieve your goals.
• Self-belief and passion
  With many hurdles to negotiate, successful entrepreneurs maintain confidence and never give up faith in their ideas.
• Willingness to take risks
  By definition, new business ventures are risky. Exploring and implementing new ideas carries with it uncertainty and challenge. You will need to be comfortable in taking calculated risks.
• Commercial focus
  Strong financial acumen is critical to entrepreneurial success. You will need clear strategies if you are to achieve profitability and generate sustainable cash flows. You’ll also need to understand how best to take advantage of available funding options and critical resources. And if it all goes pear-shaped, a carefully considered exit strategy is crucial.
• Manager of people
  In the early days you might effectively be operating as a one-man-band but, with success, a whole raft of other skills (such as team building, coaching and delegation, direction setting and negotiation) will be required if your company is to develop. As an entrepreneur, you will have to take the initiative and be willing to make quick decisions.