Getting somewhere

Things are starting to come together quite nicely.

I’ve managed to get quite a few of our promotional work costs down, by finding other suppliers, changing venues, and just haggling a bit wherever we can. So things are still very very tight, but I think we can progress with our ideas now. A couple more days of thinking about these things has only made me more convinced that we should go ahead. We have identified some activities that we think will really add value to the business, and so we are going to have to do them.

Hmmm, there’s a lot of ‘thinks’ in there isn’t there? If only we had some track record, or could scientifically evaluate whether these activities are going to be financially viable or not…..but our marketing guys (Gavin at Champion to be precise) made a very poignant comment to me – although not helpful at all! David Ogilvy said – “Half of all marketing doesn’t work. The problem is, no-one knows which half”. Great.

Also, we’ve been told we are definitely one of the 3 finalists in the MEN Venture Award – now how fantastic is that?!!! That means we get coverage in the Manchester Evening News as a case study, so we may get some benefit from word of mouth, and we also get a mentor for a year. We have been told we can choose our own mentor, and I didn’t need telling twice!!

So Ross & I had a chat about some people, mulled it over, and finally today decided who we think will be most beneficial for us, in an area we feel is our skill gap. We both know him, and know we’ll get on with him, and really respect his knowledge, so he’s ideal for a mentor. Matching personalities is so important with these types of things, I’ve heard loads of nightmare stories about mentors/non-execs/business angels etc who had a clash of personality, or just didn’t all work together to achieve the agreed objectives for the business.

I rang him today, and explained what we were doing, our USPs, what we’d already achieved (in a nutshell) and how we’d been ‘gifted’ the use of a mentor by MEN & Venturepoint (I’m not really sure who’s paying for it). He was delighted, flattered and sounded genuinely interested in our business. After ringing Venturepoint, it was virtually all agreed, so we’re meeting him next week to go through some more specific things in our business, and to give him more background information.

Now I know we’ve got a great team around us, so there’s no stopping us now!

Kirsty