Our BGH Alumni is on hand to maintain strong relationships with our clients following the completion of their fully funded one-to-one specialist support from our GM Business Growth Hub advisors. BGH Alumni is committed to offering ongoing aftercare, supported by our expert Partners while strengthening and connecting our GM Business Growth Hub community. As part of the BGH Alumni, we will continue to support them through their Hub journey as their business grows and develops and nurture our community.

As part of the BGH Alumni network, our community have access to free webinars, workshops, themed roundtables, speaker opportunities, e-newsletters and other activities and benefits, many delivered in collaboration with our Partners

Deb Sullivan, Alumni Network Executive, shares her summary of our BGH Alumni sessions over the past couple of months:

We kicked off January with ‘90 Days to More Leads: Proven Strategies to Business Growth’. Kub Limited’s Peter Dickinson guided our group through a whistlestop tour, covering how to compete in the digital world, build on your own knowledge, solve digital marketing problems, and create a community to support your marketing (all in 2 hours!)

Next up, Lightbulb Moments’ Jennifer Dootson ran the session ‘How Strategic Planning Makes You a More Effective Leader.’ Jennifer helped our guests to address two core questions – what is strategic planning to you? Why do it? We then dived straight into the process and worked through the importance of the 6 Steps to Strategic Planning:

• Current Strategy and Environment
• Your Objectives
• Priorities, Metrics, Budget
• Share the Plan
• Revise and Restructure when needed
• Communicate often  

By the end of the workshop, the group understood that by clearly defining and aligning your organisation’s mission, vision, and goals, (i.e. your Business Strategy) you will build a strong organisational culture that will, indeed, make you a more effective leader.

Our third workshop was led by Digital Flamingo’s Brianna Harvey who covered ‘Social Media Marketing Strategy.’ In this session, Brianna discussed everything you would need to consider, to create your own strategy, beginning with the Million Dollar Question, what is Social Media Marketing Strategy and why is it so important? We covered several key areas:

• Define Your Brand
• What are your Social Media Marketing Goals?
• Who’s the Target Audience?
• Get to Know the Competition
• Choose Your Platforms
• Content
• PLUS some brilliant industry tricks and tips (*top secret!) 

By the time we had finished, we understood the importance of this particular strategy – that it defines the who, why, what, where, when & how of your social media marketing efforts; it helps to support your business goals with more effective campaigns; it gives you a better idea of what and when you should be posting; it keeps your social media consistent and saves on time, effort and sometimes money.

We were delighted to receive positive feedback from these BGH Alumni sessions and our participants left with lots of bespoke advice for their businesses from our expert Partners, as well as clear action points, plus the tools and knowledge to create their own blueprints for success in the topics covered. 

"The network has provided me with so many free opportunities to understand the basics of running a business. I’ve met so many like-minded individuals at the events too. 

I was stuck beforehand and needed help and support with the basics of business. YouTube wasn’t enough for me, I needed to talk to real people with real experiences and also step out of my comfort zone and start talking about my business more in public. 

I like the range of events available to attend and the fact that they are free is even better because as a start-up business. it’s hard to find the funds to attend so many events. I like how regular emails are sent to update us on events too." Alumni member

Our BGH Alumni offer is supported by GM Business Growth Hub colleagues, Deb Sullivan and Jacob Morrey who aim to connect, develop and support our community and they are excited to continue bringing further opportunities to engage with Greater Manchester businesses following their Hub support.

To find out more about starting your GM Business Growth Hub journey, enquire today!