At Forward Ladies, we pride ourselves on bringing you great business support training, professional development workshops, personal development courses and fantastic business networking opportunities and we think we have surpassed ourselves with our Positive Women's Days - a day of workshops to help you to develop your business, your career and yourself!
Book your place for this unique day of training and development and choose which workshop you take in each session.
8.45 Registration and Coffee/Tea
WORKSHOPS 9.15-10.45am
Isla Wilson: Ooomph Me! FULLY BOOKED
Love what you do, but hate having to sell it? Do you need more Ooomph for your organisation? Do you wish you knew more ways to sell, and knew more about how different approaches might work for you? We know that many business owners and social entrepreneurs have days when they feel like a fraud; when the gap between who they feel they are, and the face they need to present to the outside world feels like an un-crossable chasm. We work with businesses and social enterprises every day to bridge that gap: increasing confidence, improving how you articulate your mission, overcoming fears of sales and broadening your horizons in terms of how you can attract and keep customers. Most of all, we do this in a way that isn't icky!
Isla has worked as a consultant for some of the biggest names in business: Accenture, Virgin, Sainsburys, Volkswagen, Balfour Beatty, Enterprise, Nokia to name just a few. She has fantastic breadth of knowledge of the approaches taken by businesses in a really wide range of industries. Isla prides herself on making things happen. Isla founded RubyStar, as well as spin-off initiatives The Accidental Business School and Business Book Worms (an online bookclub for business books).
RubyStar Associates specialise in supporting growing businesses, social enterprises and charities to generate income, create great systems and processes and innovate.
We support organisations to: maintain their momentum, increase their sales, improve their processes and make more of the opportunities which surround them. As well as experience of supporting lots of small businesses, social enterprises and charities, our team of experienced consulters have also worked for some of the biggest companies in the UK. We have lovely manners and are very well house trained.
FULLY BOOKED
www.rubystarassociates.co.uk
Vicky Matthews: Where does the time go?
Time is a funny thing, we can run out of it, make it, share it, beat it, manage it and celebrate it. We can have some time, no time, little time or lots of time. However most of us don’t have enough of it, so the Pink Spaghetti team will be sharing with you tips for your home and for your business that will help save valuable minutes; efficient time saving tips to reduce the time it takes to do repetitive tasks, and things that if only you knew would save you time every day. If you look after the minutes, the hours will look after themselves.
Pink Spaghetti co-founders Caroline Gowing and Vicky Matthews are two busy Mumpreneurs who understand the pressures of having a family and working at the same time. They felt that there wasn’t enough cost effective support for busy people who had small businesses. Between them they have many years experience project managing and organising people and events both at work and at home and they both love a challenge!
www.pink-spaghetti.co.uk
Lisa Fenton: Put something strong in your half-full glass FULLY BOOKED
No, this isn’t a workshop about alcohol, but it’s all about rediscovering strength through reliving past success. It’s also about turning our every-day conversations and interactions with others (and with ourselves through the voices in our heads) into positive, solution-focussed dialogue. Providing an introduction to an approach called Appreciative Inquiry, we can begin to transform the way we converse with our customers, our teams, our families and ourselves. An internationally-used technique conceived by David Cooperider, based upon the principles of positivity, aspiration and building on strength, Appreciative Inquiry challenges traditional approaches that focus upon problems and weaknesses, and can help us to avoid energy-zapping negative dialogue.
Our workshop facilitator is Lisa Fenton, Director of totallyaboutpeople ltd. Lisa’s professional background commenced in generalist Human Resources, and later specialised in Organisational Development, assisting organisational transformation through recognising human behaviour and psychology as part of an overall system and culture at work. Lisa continues to provide HR services to all types and size of business, together with management and leadership development, and personal development, psychometric profiling, coaching and mentoring. This workshop is thought-provoking, energising and fun.
www.totallyaboutpeople.co.uk
FULLY BOOKED
10.45-11.05 BREAK
11.05-12.35 MORNING SESSION 2
Catherine Sandland: Phenomenal Woman: “That’s me, I walk into a room just as cool as you please” Maya Angelou FULLY BOOKED
Can’t get your voice heard? You can get your voice heard but no one ever seems to listen? Thinking that you have no voice at all? Find out how to stand up, speak up and stand out with confidence and without apology...this is practical presentation skills for women in business.
In these times where we are seemingly bombarded with information, knowledge and sheer noise and clutter, it can be difficult to get our message out there. And the thought of speaking in public about our business can be off putting at best and nerve wracking at worst. So come and explore how you can overcome the panic and achieve the perfect poise that will allow you to talk powerfully and confidently about your business, discover your voice and get it heard.
Catherine Sandland for White Hart Training Ltd has trained people in business in becoming supremely confident in speaking to groups for 17 years. In 2011 she established Phenomenal Woman with Karen Hands to specifically help women in business and women who own their own business. Her successful Panic to Poise events have helped lots of women in Cheshire and Lancashire to rediscover a personal confidence and a set of practical skills to take advantage of the opportunities speaking to groups presents. And her Phenomenal Woman Experience weekend training allows women to build on this even further.
www.whiteharttraining.co.uk
FULLY BOOKED
Anna Mason: Fit and Healthy and Ready For Business
If you’re fit, you’ll work more effectively and also have more confidence and verve in the workplace. Busy professional and business people easily neglect their health under the stresses and strains of work. Too much sitting at the desk or behind the wheel, snacking and a diet of sandwiches and coke can mean the scales creep up and we suffer slumps in energy during the day. In “Fit and Healthy and Ready For Business” Anna shows how to get fitter to do effective business and how to eat for energy and vitality, using all the skills you use at work to manage your health, weight and wellbeing.
Anna Mason is weight loss, health and fitness expert and founder of Distance Dieters. The ethos behind Distance Dieters is that if you know and understand how your body works, if you know and understand how different foods work, and if you know and understand how exercise works …. then you are going to be able to successfully manage your own health, weight and fitness – for life.
Emma Dalzell: Get “Down & Dirty” with your marketing FULLY BOOKED
Need to market your business, but not sure how? Afraid that your marketing just isn’t working as well as it should, but don’t know how to fix it? Or do you just market yourself without a plan of attack and end up wasting money?
We know that marketing a small business isn’t as easy as it looks. After all as a small business ourselves, we find it hard work, and it’s what we do all day, every day. We also understand that every penny counts. But, if you have the right marketing it can deliver more customers, keep the customers you’ve already got and make them spend just that little bit more.
So get “down & dirty” with this hands-on marketing workshop and you’ll leave with simple, actionable ideas and plans that will deliver for your business.
Learn how to:
- Identify and characterise your target audience
- Draw up a marketing plan
- Find out ways to communicate more effectively
- Bring along copies of your existing marketing and discover things that can make it work harder for you.
Emma Dalzell, founder of Bare Bones Marketing, has nearly 20 years of experience and knowledge gained from working in senior management in both small companies and large brands (such as Vodafone, Citibank, and E.ON). She uses a common sense approach combined with years of experience to make marketing more affordable and less daunting for smaller businesses.
www.barebonesmarketing.co.uk
FULLY BOOKED
12.35 -1.30 LUNCH (INCLUDED)
1.30-3.00PM
Mary Murtagh: Making the Headlines as a 'Wom-entrepreneur’
Is your business missing out on valuable media coverage because of fear of journalists and confusion over what they want?
Well, help is at hand.
Award winning journalist Mary Murtagh has spent 15 years as a reporter and video journalist on the UK's biggest regional papers.
She knows what makes the media tick and how to attract their attention.
With her specialist training she can teach you the skills needed to promote your business in print and social media and on radio and television.
This fun, fast-paced and practical mini-workshop is jam packed with tips of the trade and advice you can put into practice immediately.
Recent feedback from delegates includes: "Brilliant session - glad I didn't miss this!" and "Mary, thanks. You're demystified the media and made me realise they need my stories."
www.marymurtaghmedia.co.uk
Julia Braime: Blogging for Business
Do you "Blog for your Business?" You should.
Julia Braime is the owner and editor of one of the UK's top bridal blogs, and the only top blog for Northern Brides, Brides Up North. Just 12 months after its launch, Brides Up North currently receives a huge 25,000 hits per month. Brides Up North has over 4000 Twitter followers, 8000 subscribers and its Facebook page receives up to 2000 impressions per day.
Julia was recently featured as a Guest Editor and Blogger of the Week on the Wedding Magazine website and has had features published in Wedding Ideas Magazine, Bridal Buyer, North East Life, Pure Weddings Magazine, Hitched, Belle Bridal Magazine, The Daily Mirror, The Evening Chronicle, The Sunday Sun, The Times and Times Online.
In her "Blogging for Business" seminar, Julia shares her top tips for creating and maintaining a successful business blog in any business sector. In this interactive session, devoid of "geek speak" and specifically geared to generate results for your business, Julia will focus on:
- Blogging for Business: Why not having a blog is harming your business.
- Geek Chic: The technical side made easy.
- Writers Block: Getting started.
- The C's of Success: content, comments, contacts and consistency.
- Getting to the Top: Your blog and your Google search ranking.
- Sell Yourself: Showing what you can do.
- Social Marketplace: Using Twitter, Facebook and other Social Media to your advantage.
www.bridesupnorth.com
Tracy Sheldon: Using social media for business
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are fast replacing traditional forms of marketing and promotion. But which should you use? Is anyone interested in what we're watching on TV, and how is that going to help us in business? Tracy has a wealth of knowledge in business development, marketing and executive coaching. She will share her experience and knowledge to help you to use social media to help improve sales and reputation.
www.brugconsultancy.com
3.00pm Finish
If you have special dietary requirements please contact: sue.france@forwardladies.com - 72 hours notice is needed