Downtown

Who is ‘Everyone’?

Everyone

I am sure I am not the only business owner who gets feedback from colleagues and clients alike that starts with the immortal word ‘everyone’!

‘Everyone’ said that event was great; ‘everyone’ thinks we are wrong about that particular issue; ‘everyone’ is complaining that we haven’t delivered a date with Beyonce for them; ‘everyone’ thinks David Moyes is doing a great job at Manchester United.

It takes little probing to realise that ‘everyone’ is the last person they spoke to, or the author of the last tweet they read. But in an age where we increasingly get our news from Twitter and other social media networks, and conversation and considered opinion is becoming a lost art, ‘everyone’ is having a much bigger influence on everyone’s thinking than ‘everyone’ should.

A snap on line poll of a hardly watched debate between the UKIP lummox Nigel Farrage and the increasingly irrelevant Nick Clegg had many people declaring this week that ‘everyone’ thinks the UK should pull out of Europe. At an event I took part in on Thursday morning about the International Festival for Business I was told that ‘everyone’ thinks it is an event that will be a damp squib. In my office last week one of my team told me that ‘everyone’ thinks that Downtown should stop hosting sexy networking evenings.

It is all nonsense of course. The overuse of ‘everyone’ has infiltrated everyone’s vocabulary and we need to challenge and push back when someone’s evidence is ‘everyone’.

I hope everyone who is reading this agrees with me, and vows to abandon using the phrase ‘everyone’ in the future.

A blog dedicated to a number of Downtown staff – you know who you are

Flagship Finance Initiative Needs a Shake Up

RGF

In 2010 Michael Heseltine came to a Downtown event and waxed lyrical about the newly launched Regional Growth Fund.

This new financial pot would be available to businesses that were looking to grow and employ more staff. Essentially it would be aimed at the SMEs who are the crucial drivers of the UK economy, and the fund would be business friendly in terms of its processes and delivery, and as free from bureaucracy as it could possibly be.

Four years later and Hezza will be as disappointed as anyone at the latest report on the progress, or rather lack of it, of the RGF.

The National Audit Office has revealed that more than three quarters of the fund remains unspent, with only £492m of the allocated £2.6bn actually reaching business. The average cost of creating or safeguarding a job now stands at £37,400. And of the £917m paid out from the fund at the end of December last year, £425m is being held by intermediaries.

Bad though these statistics are, Downtown members’ experience on the ground is what is really concerning about RGF. Far from being ‘red tape free’ as the former Deputy Prime Minister intended, those companies who have applied to the fund have found it one of the most challenging and bureaucratic routes to finance.

Of those who didn’t give up part way through the cumbersome process, the few companies that were eventually successful have had to wait an age for their money, and have never received the business support and mentoring that was supposed to be part of the package.

Small and medium enterprises also question why companies such as AstraZeneca, Jaguar Land Rover and Lloyds Banking Group are being supported through a fund that was promoted and marketed as support for them.

What should have been a really positive and innovative addition to business support is turning into a bit of a damp squib. I hope Michael Heseltine and his government colleagues review how this important initiative can be shaken up and put back on track. The economy may be improving, but growing businesses still need all the help they can get.

Sell, Sell, Sell…

Sell Sell Sell

Selling more stuff is something that all businesses need to do, want to do, but seldom explore how to do.

We take on Business Development Managers, Marketers and occasionally direct Sales staff, and hope that somehow, some way these poor souls will be able to go out into the big wide world and generate income by selling our product.

We are unlikely to have any training in place for them, sales collateral will most likely be limited and within the company itself it will be seen very much as their responsibility to ‘make the sale’.

At our packed out ‘sell more stuff’ breakfast seminar in Liverpool yesterday, we set out to start to tackle some of these huge challenges. How do we embed selling into the culture of your whole business? How can we make the life of sales staff easier? How can we provide existing and potential future sales staff with the type of training and development programmes that most professions take for granted?

Salesman extraordinaire Andy Bounds, as always, had the 120 delegates buzzing with his tips and anecdotes on how he advises some of the biggest and best known brands on the planet to accept that sales starts at the top and filters down through to the rest of the business. Your company’s culture needs to embrace selling as an essential and positive part of your work rather than an unfortunate aspect of it.

The head honcho from Winning Pitch John Leach has help at hand for those desperate to improve the skills of their existing sales team, or indeed recruit better sales staff in the future. Winning Pitch is establishing a Sales Academy in Liverpool. Quality advice, support and training will be available to sales professionals, whether they are called BDM’s, Marketers or Relationship Managers.

This type of initiative is long overdue, and Downtown is delighted to be involved in promoting it. The good news is we can help you get help in paying for this staff training too. So, get in touch with Downtown now, and sort out places for your sales team so that they can sell more of your stuff in the New Year.

Work Hard, but Play Hard too

Work Hard Play Hard Too

Over the past couple of months Downtown has hosted hugely successful business awards events in Manchester, Lancashire and Liverpool.

Every gala dinner has been a sell out. The response to the on line polls that we run were busier than ever. The winners and nominees were absolute quality.

In terms of the day to day stuff that Downtown does as an organisation, awards dinners may be seen as the fluffier end of the business – but they are no less important for that.

Throughout the year we work hard to provide B2B introductions that enable businesses to grow through sales and improving their connections across the business community. This work has led to literally hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business being done across our network.

In addition, we provide the private sector with a genuinely independent voice on issues that matter to them, whether it is the way our city regions are governed, through to what type of business support initiatives ought to be offered.

On the strategic agenda we have discussed and debated governance structures, the UK’s future within the EU, transport and digital infrastructure, business finance, regeneration and HS2.

For business development purposes, our members have had the opportunity to hear from leading entrepreneurs and business gurus such as Deborah Leary, Andrew Rosenfeld, Michael Finnigan, Emma Jones, Ajaz Ahmed and Andy Bounds.

We have facilitated direct engagement with the public sector with key decision makers regularly addressing Downtown forums, with contributions from the city leaders and chief executives from Liverpool, Lancashire, Manchester and Leeds; plus regular meeting with government ministers and shadow ministers.

Indeed, through the course of the year, we have hosted over 120 events – and less than a dozen of them have been awards events, or indeed ‘sexy networking’.

But awards, sexy networking, playing hard and celebrating success are all as equally important as those more obviously serious elements of what we are about.

Because if you can’t let your hair down and have a good time; if you can’t say a big ‘well done’ to the business leaders and entrepreneurs who have kept going and excelled through the toughest recession we have known; and if we just did the lobbying, straight business deals and politics, Downtown would not include that vital ingredient that marks us out from the crowd – FUN.

Footnote: A great comment from leading entrepreneur Andrew Rosenfeld, who spoke at our Liverpool conference yesterday. In the UK we are too quick to write off those who fail in business. In the States, they see failure as part of the entrepreneurial journey. He’s not the first one to point this negative British attitude out, but he is the first one who has made the statement having sold a company for £600million!

Having a word with the bank

John Young

The excellent Bank of England agent for the North West, John Young, appeared in the second leg of his ‘Downtown tour’ at a private dinner in Manchester this week, having spent a few hours in the company of our Lancashire members last week.

His job on these occasions is to give a brief overview of where the Bank believes the economy to be, but more importantly to take the temperature of the regions business community.

So what are Downtown members telling John Young at the moment?

Confidence is improving, but there is still reluctance for companies to grow and invest in their business as much as they could because that confidence is fragile.

Banks are still not felt to be genuinely ‘open for business’ with over the top guarantees and assurances being demanded for relatively modest applications for lending.

The construction and property market is showing real signs of improvement, in both the housing and commercial sectors.

Red tape, bureaucracy and the tax system are still huge barriers to growth and if anything are getting worse rather than better.

Austerity has been painful, particularly in this part of the world, but it has been a necessary evil.

These were among the highlights from the conversations we have hosted so far, and the key messages that John will be taking back to his London colleagues and the Monetary Policy Committee. A mixed bag of positives and negatives, but nonetheless useful for that.

The Bank’s Governor now is a rather different character than predecessor Mervyn King. Mark Carney, a brash, confident Canadian – and an Evertonian – has already demonstrated a more astute use of media, and seems to be more politically savvy than King. His announcement on interest rates is one of the reasons that confidence is on the up, whilst his manner suggests a robustness that will enable the Bank to retain its independence from government.

John’s final tour date will happen in Liverpool soon. Perhaps he can bring his new boss with him, and we’ll take him to Goodison Park afterwards!