If you are an early-stage business, or an aspiring individual with a great business idea, Boost’s Flying Start service can help you to grow. Aimed at leaders who have a bright and growing vision for their new business, the service focusses on building business and financial acumen and the core skills needed to establish a new business and drive sustainable growth.
Boost Flying Start business adviser Alistair Clarke is an accredited, specialist social enterprise business adviser who has supported hundreds of social businesses during his career. Here, he talks about his role in supporting Lancashire businesses.
I love all aspects of marketing and how it works. I spend my life watching social media reels on how people in business have effectively used marketing. I particularly like how customers respond to different types of marketing.
For marketing to really work, the business has to know who it is targeting so when it puts a marketing plan together we talk about the 3Ms – market, media and message. Put simply, that’s who are we talking to, what are we saying and how are we getting the message across to potential customers.
As many businesses find marketing daunting, it was a natural extension of my work to become an advisor so I can help them.
The people mainly. Most people in business that I meet work hard and have a confidence in the product or service they are selling but stay grounded when things go well. I rarely encounter show-offs who don’t know what they are doing!
It varies but I usually fire off loads of emails first thing so clients can be thinking about things. I don’t book appointments before 10am to give clients the chance to get into business mode first!
Most businesses struggle with business growth because it’s largely unpredictable.
Business planning and capacity building are important but sometimes luck plays a part.
I’m a director of five companies in Lancashire and a few years ago one of my fellow directors was in the right place at the right time at a meeting in London and secured us a £1m two-year contract, so we had to scale up at speed.
1. Know your potential customers. What they like, what they don’t like and what other influences they get. You’re going to form relationships with customers based on them trusting you so really get to understand what motivates them;
2. Know your market place and who your competitors are. What are the market failures and how can you capitalise on them?
3. Find out where your potential customers get their information from. It’s no good looking great on Facebook because that’s the channel you personally like, if your customers are on Linkedin.
About the author
Alistair is an accredited, specialist social enterprise business adviser who has supported hundreds of social businesses during his career. He is equally at home advising private businesses to grow, build their team and diversify their products and services.
As a Boost adviser, Alistair sees himself as a business friend that aspiring entrepreneurs can talk to, and to help ease their worry and stress of starting a new business. Through his professional experience, Alistair can help business leaders to gain the confidence to get out there and make their business work.
If you’re looking to grow, scale or start your business, use Boost; Lancashire’s Business Growth Hub. We offer a range of funded business support services. Call our Business Support Helpdesk on 0800 488 0057 to find out more or complete our enquiry form.
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