Free Seminars

 Opportunities for New Business

How the Business Link service can help businesses make the most out of the opportunities now available through 'Competefor' the new web based service that gives businesses unique access to London 2012 Business opportunities.

• 'Competefor' offers SME’s access to hundreds of lower tier opportunities from the 2012 supply chain.
• Opportunities are far ranging for all size businesses from web site development, courier services to office supplies.  
• Of the companies that have already won over £2bn worth of work to supply the Olympic Delivery Authority – 70% are small/medium size businesses.

Find out how to access these and other public sector opportunities, through the briefing by Juliette Shears, Business Link   

Developing mental toughness

Antonio understands the needs of small businesses and the challenges they face. He knows that things are still tough out there and will continue to be so for more than the just the foreseeable future. Antonio will talk through how to develop the mental toughness that will see you and your business through. Areas that will be covered include:

* A vision for your business - 'more than just a target'

* Leadership - 'is it enough to sayyou're the boss'

* Inspiring employees - 'how do I help them develop and give their best?'

* Sales - 'it's all about the numbers'

Making sense of your IT      

How can a business make the most from their IT investment?  Endless upgrades are available from the manufacturers, but what value do they bring to your business?  Microsoft will be releasing their latest version of Windows on the 22nd October – but how will that affect you, and should you be considering switching to Windows 7, or staying with Windows XP/Vista?

Steve Coburn, of local IT Support company, project five, will share some useful insights into the world of IT and how you can maximise the benefit to your business.

How to integrate your online and offline marketing for maximum impact.

In the current climate, it’s more important than ever to ensure all your marketing efforts work in harmony with each other to create maximum benefit for your business.

More often than not, small businesses will focus their marketing efforts purely on just the website or a series of disjointed actions. This is highly unlikely to generate a longer term benefit and help the business grow successfully.

5 things you’ll take away from this session:

• Practical ways to get more impact from a limited marketing budget
• How to ensure your online and offline marketing is ‘integrated’ and works in harmony with each other
• Examples of what other small business have done to achieve this
• Plenty of straight talking, practical advice - no jargon and at least 3 things you can look to apply straight away!

Boost your business with social media

Social media has now become a powerful tool for engaging with consumers. As one of the fastest growing segments of the internet, with sites like Twitter and Facebook boasting millions of user per day, social media offers many new and exciting business opportunities.

There are lots of ways you can incorporate social media into your overall business strategy, and this half hour session is designed to:

- Give you an overview of the different social media platforms

- Show you the business benefits of harnessing social media

- Outline how using social media can positively impact your communications strategy.

This session is aimed at giving a brief overview of how businesses can and are using the internet and its social networking opportunities to boost business and extend their consumer reach.

Confidence boosting tips to make your message memorable

Confidence is currency. Wherever we go, where-ever we speak; meetings; networking events; conferences; everyday phone calls or chance meetings. Confidence can make our message meaningful, powerful and memorable. It is the ingredient that can transform even the driest material into something worth sitting up and listening to. Confidence is not something just for the chosen few, it’s accessible to us all with some very simple know how. Be reminded of a few confidence boosting tips and techniques in this light-hearted interactive 30 minutes with one of London and the South East’s most engaging speakers.

You don’t have to be pushy to succeed in sales

Michael is a ‘heavy hitter’ sales professional with 25 years experience. He is a big advocate of solution sales techniques and in this 30 minute session he will explain how using these techniques you don’t have to be pushy to succeed in sales.

The session will cover:

• The importance of preparation
• Selling yourself – relationships are based on value
• Marketing yourself
• Knowing your client, their problems and their needs
• The basics of prospecting
• That 15 second pitch
• Using your credibility
• Solving their problems
• Negotiating skills
• Closing techniques

How to get more business from your website with SEO, PPC& design

• Overview of a great website – strong in design, SEO and conversion.
• Breaking down what good web design is
• Usability and call to actions
• SEO – how to drive people to your website yourself with free or low cost methods
• How to track your website and improve its performance

This seminar will basically cover the 3 fundamentals to having a winning website: generating traffic, captivating the traffic and converting it into sales/leads.