Training programme hits triple figures and launches online to support SMEs post lockdown
Uploaded by Suzanne Smith in NEL News & Insights on September 2, 2020
A highly successful training partnership that has already supported 100 local business owners is getting ready to launch a new programme of fully funded training to help businesses emerge stronger from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
NEL Fund Managers and MINT Business Club (then Digital Sparkles) first started working together in late 2018 when a chance meeting led to the two teams establishing that they were separately designing programmes to address the same need. The ideas came together and the Let’s Talk About Money programme was created.
Let’s Talk About Money is a 12 hour fully funded programme which leads business owners though all aspects of their finances, from how to price and pay themselves, to how to construct a cash flow forecast. It is designed to give small business owners the confidence, skills and tools they need to easily manage their finances.
Following a successful launch in February 2019, the event series continued to run in its ‘physical’ form at locations throughout the North East including the Linskill Centre in North Tyneside, Eslington Villas in Gateshead and Newcastle University Business School. However, in March 2020 a fully booked session due to take place in Morpeth had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 related lockdown measures.
Nicola Little, Founder of MINT Business Club says “we were so disappointed at the prospect of not being able to continue delivering Let’s Talk About Money when lockdown hit, we swiftly adapted our training to online only. It was brilliant to be able to offer small business owners some certainty in the form of training at that time. Many thanks for our sponsors Valued and NEL for their encouragement and continued support.”
Carolyn McGregor, Business Development Executive at NEL Fund Managers adds “working with the MINT team on the Let’s Talk About Money event series is always a pleasure. We’ve worked with some brilliant businesses and the feedback is always excellent.
“The NEL team want to help as many North East businesses as possible to achieve sustainable success and this type of training is doing just that. We were delighted when we did the sums and discovered that the programme had supported 100 business owners, we now want to encourage many more businesses to come forward and benefit from the fully funded training.”
NEL Fund Managers is responsible for investing two of the five funds which make up the £120m North East Fund Supported By The European Regional Development Fund – the £18m North East Growth Capital Fund and the £9m North East Small Loan Fund. The Let’s Talk About Money Programme is fully funded by the European Regional Development Fund. For more information on NEL please visit www.nel.co.uk.
MINT Business Club is the membership club for solo and micro business owners who want to keep learning, keep growing and be part of a community of people who just ‘get it’. For more information on MINT please visit www.mintbusinessclub.co.uk.
The next Let’s Talk About Money programme scheduled to start on Wednesday 9th September has reached capacity in record time. We are therefore already accepting registrations for the next programme which starts at 10am on Wednesday 7th October 2020. For more information or to register your interest in the programme please contact sam.clark@nel.co.uk.