Following the great response to their seminars on "Successful Sales and Target Marketing", "Managing your Money" and "Funding and Finance", Creative and Community Launchpad are proud to expand their offer and run a series of seminars, all contributing to a Level 2 qualification in Exploring Enterprise.

The programme is 11 FREE exciting, dynamic and informative short training seminars which are designed to give you the knowledge, tools and techniques to get your business off the ground, or in the case of existing businesses … check that you are in fact doing everything you can to develop your business further.

Go straight to "Schedule of Seminars"
Go straight to "Register your Interest" in attending the courses (online form)
Go straight to download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

The training seminars have been designed to compliment each other and ideally you should attend all 11 to get the maximum benefit from the programme, and to achieve the ILM Level 2 Qualification. The qualification will be achieved by attending all the seminars, and successfully completing exercises and workbooks that form part of the seminars - these workbooks give you practical tools and techniques to improve your business and giving you the structure to manage all the different aspects of running a successful business.

The seminars are:

• delivered by professional presenters, and experts in their chosen field, with guest speakers where appropriate
• supported by notes, handouts, workbooks and exercises, all in a Business Development Folder
• repeated many times throughout 2006 and 2007, starting in September 2006 in Nottingham and October 2006 in Derby.
• run in the morning (09:30 - 12:30), afternoon (13:30 - 16:30) and early evening (17:30 - 20:30)
• run in Nottingham and Derby, so you can travel between the two if you need to
• … and there is always time for networking and discussions with other attendees, Business Advisors and Trainers after the seminars, or separately if required.

All of this to ensure maximum flexibility, maximum skills development and maximum impact on your new or existing business.

Schedule of Seminars

Below you will find a description of each seminar, and the schedule of dates, times and venues that you can attend. You must register with Creative Launchpad for each seminar you wish to attend.

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar A: Exploring Enterprise

Finding it difficult to work out what to do next with your business? Well, attend this introduction to Exploring Enterprise and you will learn about what you need to do to develop your business, identify some keys areas of support required and plan what seminars you need to attend. You will also get a chance to get to know other course participants and expand your contact base.

This exciting and engaging session will leave you invigorated, enthusiastic and motivated to take control of your future in your own business. You will get assistance to create your own Business and Personal Development Plan with experts at hand to help you focus and plan for a better business.

We will also take time to prepare you for how to get the most out of the course, and get the required assessment and feedback so that you can continually build on your knowledge from this point forward.

Length of seminar = 2 hours

Resources: Business Development Folder, Seminar Schedule, Learning Styles, Action Planning, Course Registration and Assessment

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar B: Business Building Blocks

Sometimes the most challenging questions are the simplest to answer with the right explanation and support. With this seminar we present frameworks to help you identify your goals, values and future plans, using your strengths and creating opportunities for you to set up in business. We will then move onto identifying exactly the right type of business that you need to register, so that you can build a successful business on solid foundations.

You will get assistance to create your own PEST and SWOT analysis, concentrating on focusing on the future and look at what type of business model and status most suits your needs. We will also look at pitfalls around naming your business and making sure that you can describe exactly what product/service you intend to sell in your business.

Length of seminar = 3 hours

Resources = SWOT, PEST, Business Types, Business Names, Mission Statement, Aims and Objectives, Planning your Pitch

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar C: Show me the money, and I'll manage it … promise!

You'd better!!

With increasing pressure on small businesses to comply with financial management and reporting to Inland Revenue and Companies House, this seminar will take you through the basics of managing your money. The result will be that when you do start invoicing clients, or receiving grants/bursaries/funding to set up, you can be confident that you will be able to manage your money properly.

You will get assistance in identifying quick and easy, practical methods of managing your money, both in terms of forecasting future income and expenditure, and controlling and monitoring actual income and expenditure. You will also learn how to separate your personal money from your business money.

We will also spend time in the seminar identifying different types of funding available to you, and what funding is most relevant to your business.

Length of seminar = 3 hours

Resources = The Idea, The Management, The Money, Managing Money, Budgets, Cashflow, Profit & Loss, Book Keeping Systems

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar D: Managing your Resources Creatively

Your business will need resources to operate, whether it is physical resources (premises, stock, materials, equipment, energy, communications etc.), human resources (freelancers, staff, suppliers, clients etc), or the most important resource of all - time; time to do everything that you should as an entrepreneur and business owner.

This session will help you how to manage the following resources more effectively:

• Managing Your Time; time management, action planning and prioritising
• Managing Promotional Resources; including sales materials that need creating and updating
• Managing Stock/Materials; your raw materials, consumables
• Managing Equipment; your tools of the trade
• Managing Business Premises; your office location
• Managing Workplace Standards; health and safety and access issues
• Managing Staff; your relationships with staff
• Managing Freelancers; more in Lesson G : Legals
• Managing Customers; more in Lesson E : Customers
• Managing the Environment; minimising the impact of your business activities on the environment

As you can see, it's a balancing act, making sure that the right things are in the right place at the right time to make your business work.

This session in particular will help you

• manage your sales resources; leading you through what resources you need in place to market and advertise your business, whether that is building a portfolio of your previous work or a fully integrated e-commerce solution and
• help you identify what equipment you will need to start your business, the impact that has on starting up and the plan to acquire the necessary resources.

Length of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Managing your Resources, Sales Resources, Choosing a Location

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar E: Making the most of who you meet!

Do you suffer from meeting lots of people at networking sessions, but never seem to get any work from them? Are you pitching for working but never closing any deals? Do you find that opportunities are simply forgotten about?

This seminar will help you to identify and generate your own business leads, build a Contact Management System and manage your contacts so they lead to greater sales. It will also help you to improve your networking skills and widen your circle of contacts.

This seminar is also designed to give you knowledge about the best ways to identify your market and sell to them.

The seminar will cover the following areas:

• Defining your product/ service
• Identifying target customers
• Planning to meet customer requirements
• Concepts of selling and promotion
• Customer Relationship Management systems
• The sales process and Seven steps of the sale
• After-sales follow-up
• Cost and Price Determination

Length of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Planning your Pitch, Who is my Customer, Establishing Customer Requirements, Marketing Methods, Sales Process, Sales Resources, Price Determination

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar F: Getting your message across…

In business you will have to continually communicate with other people.

Whether it be internal communications to your freelance, part time or full time staff, or to your suppliers or customers, each time you communicate you have to decide what is the best method to get messages across clearly and concisely?

Remember successful communication is in the eyes, and ears of the receiver - no matter how good you think you are, if the receiver does not understand, the communication has failed.

You will be supported to identify internal communication systems (email, intranet, telephone systems, task lists, action plans etc.) and external communication methods for marketing and advertising (direct mail, internet, word of mouth, events and seminars etc.), plus what communications you will have to keep a record of.

Length of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Communication in the Workplace, Planning your Pitch, Communication Methods, Marketing Methods, Recording Keeping

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar G: Keep it Legal!

This seminar will look at the legal requirements that exist when you set up in business, whether it is the legal requirement to register your Business, sort out tax and National Insurance contributions, protecting your Intellectual Property, Data Protection or sub-contracting to freelance workers.

We will particularly look at three aspects of law that affect the creative and cultural industries:

• Intellectual Property; copyright, trademarks, registered designs and patents
• Data Protection; the use and storage of data
• Contracts, terms and conditions; when recruiting freelance workers to work with you on projects.

This seminar will also look at the contribution your business brings to society, the culture of a city, your local community and the welfare of you as a business owner through your Corporate Social Responsibility activities.

Length of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Corporate Social Responsibility, Keeping It Legal, Intellectual Property, Data Protection, Guide to Contracts

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar H: Project Management and Problem Solving

In this session we will be looking at the key tools and techniques used in Project Management and Problem Solving.

As your career develops you will identify problems that need solving, invariably constructing a project plan to solve them. You will work on projects that have distinct start and end dates, a specific pot of money to spend and some key task that must be done. To help you in your career or business, in this session you will look at project conception, managing deliverables, creating timelines, developing work breakdown structure, milestone planning, dependencies, resource planning, budget management, reporting writing, project closure and evaluation.

We will be looking at stakeholder management as well; a key part of making sure a project is considered a success.

Length of seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Project Management Workbook

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar I: Looking after number 1!

Understanding and appreciating the impact of your own personal delivery style can often be overlooked. Whether this is applied to your internal or external contacts, building effective working relationships in the workplace based on trust and confidentiality is vitally important in creating a successful business.

This seminar will provide the toolkit to enable candidates to evaluate their own skills requirements in relation to their proposed enterprise or employment. The session will look in particular at confidence, rating your skills, learning styles, entrepreneurial skills and multiple intelligence types.

It will outline the role of independent learning in studying and continuous professional development as well as looking at your personal development to make sure that you can identify when you have a developmental need. This will then be used to construct a SMART plan to address those needs.

Length of seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Skills Assessment, Individual Learner Action Plan, Individual Learner Profile, Managing Relationships, Managing Diversity

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar J: A small step for you…a giant step for your business

This seminar will combine all your learning experiences from all the seminars and bring them together into one plan for your next step in setting up in business.

In particular, the seminar will give you the opportunity to consider everything you have learnt, make an informed decision about your own career and role within enterprise (e.g. self-employment, franchise, contractual status and voluntary work) and to make you aware of the implications. Finally, you will draw up a business development plan for the future.

Legnth of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Business Development Needs Analysis, Business Types

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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Seminar K: Looking to the Future

This informal seminar will look at putting the theory into practice and will concentrate on any 1-2-1 issues that may still be present. You will also complete a Business Needs Analysis to help them with the next steps and submit their assessment papers.

Finally, there will be an opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and have a celebratory drink and slice of pizza with the Creative Launchpad team!

Length of Seminar = 3 hours

Resources = Assessment Task 1, Assessment Task 2

Remember, you only have to attend each Seminar once, so you have plenty of occasions to choose from.

Download and complete your Personal Training Schedule (word document) and return to c.gill@creativelaunchpad.co.uk.

To register call our Training Hotline on 0115 950 3730, or email b.winter@creativelaunchpad.co.uk, or complete the form online here.

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