Introduction
The local authorities recognise that these are challenging times for small businesses with many still in recovery phase after the pandemic now to be hit by huge energy price rises, fuel costs, recruitment and retention issues, supply chain and general cost of living issues.
The Business Resilience series aims to help businesses develop the skills they need to cope with uncertainty, survive in challenging economic circumstances, and take advantage of new opportunities.
The pilot programme will deliver three webinars, on the topics most requested by the local Somerset business community, HR (hiring staff), financial resilience and marketing. Each session will be followed by the opportunity for 10 attendees to gain one-to-one support with a top specialist advisor on the topic discussed.
What is on Offer
Spring Webinars
Two-hour business resilience webinars will focus on the following themes:
Financial Resilience
Wednesday 1 March 2023 – 9.30am to 11.30am
Presenters: Jon Rata FCA and Diana Florea ACCA MSc BSc from JP Rata Limited
Tools to find the weak spots in your business, skills to protect your bottom line and ideas to make you more attractive to funders.
Book here
Finding, recruiting and retaining top talent
Wednesday 15 March 2023 – 9am to -11.30am
Presenters: Karen Watkins Assoc. CiPD, MIoD and Rowena Smyth Assoc. CiPD from Rowan Management Consultants Limited
Discover practical advice and tools to ensure your business attracts and engages the right people to help grow your business. The session is aimed mainly at SME owners and HR professionals struggling to recruit or retain staff.
Book here
How to use marketing in an economic downturn
Thursday 30 March 2023 – 10am to 1pm
Presenters: Steph Baker from Steph Baker Marketing and Kirsten Rae from Somerset Design Studio
How to define your offering, finding the right audience, why branding is important and how to use it to your advantage, assessing marketing strategies and how to formulate all this into a plan.
Book here
1-2-1s
These will be offered to 10 businesses per session and consist of one-to-one session with a specialist advisor. To include two hours of focussed support on the subject matter of your choice – but should be related to the topics discussed in the webinar – and the development of an action plan to help you thrive whatever the economic environment.
Dates
Dates and booking information are coming soon.
This programme is funded by the Business Rates Retention Programme and run by the five councils.