Business and enterprise workshops 2022/23

If you’re an education or community leader looking to help your students, graduates or neighbours develop their enterprise skills and find routes into self-employment, my workshops and follow-up mentoring can help.

Read more about my enteprise education experience

I am very happy to discuss tailoring the sessions below for your participants, but I find having this ‘menu’ of options is often a helpful starting point. Everything can be adapted and run virtually, where required.

⇒ Freelance Boot Camp

I’ve designed this workshop to support people who are interested in freelancing and self-employment. It’s perfect for those who are ready to get started, or those who are just considering their options for the future.

The Boot Camp isn’t a business lecture. All the speakers are current freelancers who are keen to share real life experiences. Throughout the day, participants get a chance to meet each other, collaborate and ask plenty of questions.

Find out more about the Boot Camp and what we cover

Two speakers (Recommended: 4-5 hours including Q&A)

⇒ Managing your Money

When I ask new business owners what they are feeling least confident about, they very often say their finances, so I’ve designed this workshop specifically to cover some of the basics, including:

• Survival budgets (what you need to live on)
• Setting your prices
• Registering as self-employed and when to submit a tax return
• How to write an invoice and log your income
• Recording your expenses (and apps that can make life easier)
• Preparing a cash flow forecast to identify peaks and troughs in your income

This can be run as a follow-up to the Freelance Boot Camp (I recommend 1-2 months later) or as a stand-alone workshop.

We’re clear with participants that we are not accountants, we are fellow small business owners sharing best practice. We introduce them to the gov.uk website as a source of additional information, and highlight when they should consider approaching a bookkeeper or accountant.

Two speakers (Recommended: 2-3 hours including Q&A)

⇒ Intro to Self-employment and Starting a Business

In this session, I introduce some basic ideas and examples to help people approach starting their own businesses, including:

• Solving a problem/meeting a need
• The ‘effectual’ approach to starting a business vs the managerial approach
• Just start! Test and refine, test and refine
• Pitching your ideas

One speaker (2 hours including Q&A)

⇒ An Introduction to the Business Model Canvas

In this session, I introduce the Business Model Canvas as a simple tool for mapping out a new idea or for creatively approaching an existing one. We complete some well known examples together and then the participants create a first draft for their existing business ideas.

One speaker (2 hours including Q&A)

⇒ My Startup Journey: Top 10 Lessons

In this session, which can be run as a workshop or adapted as a talk for a larger audience, I share my top 10 lessons from my time in self-employment, including:

• Managing your own performance and celebrating successes
• Being smart with your time
• The importance of good coaches, mentors and advisers
• Experimenting with your own future

One speaker (1-2 hours including Q&A)

⇒ Design Thinking Challenge

In this interactive workshop, I introduce the Design Thinking process and show how it can help with identifying practical solutions to real problems in big and small businesses. Participants then work rapidly in teams to put the theory into practice and improve well known products and services.

One speaker (4-5 hours)

⇒ Follow-up mentoring

I am regularly asked to mentor participants who have attended my workshops. I am happy to consider one-off sessions for people who are simply exploring their options for the future, or a series of meetings for those who are actively getting started.

⇒ ‘Freelancer-in-residence’

This package combines Freelance Boot Camps, Money workshops and monthly on-site mentoring. It can be tailored to your needs and marketed as part of your enterprise offer.

⇒ Consultancy

If you are designing or refreshing your enterprise programme, I can help you to think about objectives, structure, content, budgets and outcomes. With my communications hat on, I can also help you consider how to engage and manage your participants.

Want something different?

Sessions and timings for all workshops can be adapted, and I can identify additional guest speakers if there are particular topics that participants would like to cover – anything from building confidence to social media for small businesses. Wherever possible, the speakers will be fellow small business owners.

A note on administration

You’re all busy people, so it’s my aim to reduce the administrative burden on you as much as possible: You organise the venue, marketing and catering for workshops, and I’ll do everything on the day. If you’re not able to attend, I’m happy to distribute sign in sheets/feedback forms and talk to the participants about other sources of support available to them.