Tag: Wakefield

Supporting local initiatives because ‘Wakefield Works’

Posted on July 19, 2012 by

As a Yorkshire PR agency and Wakefield based business, we were asked recently to attend a meeting with like-minded  companies in the area, who would support a local initiative to provide unemployed people in the district with advice and guidance, in the hope that they may secure temporary or permanent roles as a result.

The initiative, Wakefield Works, was the brain child of local entrepreneurs Andy Turner from First Choice Recruitment and Marcello Moccia from Room:97 hairdressers. The concept is relatively simple – each business who agrees to get involved will open their doors on Thursday 4 October and will commit to meeting with local unemployed people who choose to visit their business.

Giving around 15 – 20 minutes to each candidate, businesses are asked to provide advice and guidance to each person, while also answering any questions that they have. In addition the company will provide one person from those who visit the organisation with a week’s work placement.

What a great idea! So simple, yet potentially very effective.

Needless to say here at Open Communications we are getting behind this project 100% and hope to meet with some very interesting and inspiring people as a result. I think it’s important to highlight that the people who are looking for work in the region can be any age and any level of experience and that is what makes this approach all the more interesting.

If as a result of this activity just one person finds temporary or full time work then it has been a success – ideally more will follow and we will find that as a result of this activity the companies who choose to get involved will also help to reduce local unemployment levels.

So come on – here’s a shout out to all those businesses within the Wakefield district who aren’t involved in this great initiative yet. Get in touch with Andy Turner at andy@first-choice.co.uk and find out more about how you can help to make our area a better place. You never know, you could just find the new recruit of your dreams. Stranger things have happened!

 

 

Ready at the starting blocks – but not for sport

Posted on July 12, 2012 by

We were asked recently to deliver a presentation during an event in Castleford run by Wakefield Enterprise Partnership. The purpose of the event was to provide advice and guidance to people who were considering starting up a business. As a result we were asked, as a Wakefield based PR agency, to discuss communications and how you could go about setting the foundations before you reach the starting blocks and launch a company to the market.

We really enjoy events like this, not least because you get to meet so many new people with a real passion for the products or services that they have to offer. What was most striking from the event was the variety of businesses that people were hoping to start from web based companies right through to a consultant offering health and well-being in the workplace.

It was encouraging to see that the room was full of people with ambition and a genuine desire to do well. Some of them had been made redundant, whereas others just felt it was the right time to take the plunge.

Events like this always take me back to when we launched Open Communications in September 2008. It feels like a lifetime ago now but we had a clear plan and a definite determination to make it work. We were entering an unknown territory having never owned or run a business before and I think this is what people forget when they consider starting a company.

We were both professional PR consultants with experience and a portfolio of excellent results – what we didn’t have was any idea about a P11d, corporation tax, VAT bills or employer and employee PAYE payments. It’s a real minefield.

Thankfully we were surrounded by people who were only too willing to help and this support was gratefully received. For those out there considering starting a business I would think hard about putting the foundations into place first before offering a product or service to the market.

It sounds like common sense to plan before you launch but the simplest things are those that people overlook, such as getting your messaging right, knowing your market and communicating with your customers and not your competitors.

I hope that those who attended the presentation got the advice that they were looking for and that our talk was of genuine benefit to them. We certainly received some very positive responses.  I will be looking out for some of those people over the coming months and expecting to see them in the pages of their local papers as a result of launching the businesses that they were so passionate about.

One thing is for sure, I’m a great believer in people buying people and those who attended that session were doing so to make sure they had everything in place – if you put the effort in, you will get the reward. All that remains for us to say is good luck to them all.

Football fever kicks off

Posted on June 12, 2012 by

I am not a fan of the football. I don’t care that I don’t know the off–side rule (irrelevant of the number of times it’s been explained to me – once using a 50p coin!) and my life is no less meaningful because I absolutely do not – and never would want to be – a W.A.G, nor will I ever follow their latest fashion choices even if I was a size zero and had the budgets to do so.

What I do admit to having is a secret love of the camaraderie that comes with the Euros and the World Cup. I like that people get together and spend 90 minutes cheering and chatting, cursing and collectively deciding that when things don’t go to plan the team could be better managed by a pack of rabid wolves.

I also enjoy the way that brands and businesses get behind the teams that they support. Suddenly there is a realisation that everyone in the workplace isn’t necessarily supporting England (shock horror and gasps from each corner of the office) and so the fun begins. Some businesses allow their employees to take the time off to watch the game, while others put it on the TV and radio.

Shouts and calls, boos and hisses are suddenly heard from departments you didn’t even know existed and even though some people don’t want anything to do with whatever match is on, it’s difficult not to ask when the final whistle goes – just so you feel a part of it.

For the next few weeks brands will be announcing quirky ways that they have used some tenuous association to the sporting fun to push their latest red, white and blue products to the masses, and despite many of these seemingly being hair sprays, shower gels and razors it does get you in the spirit.

What did make me smile was to see in the Metro that following the supposed psychic powers of Paul the Octopus, there has been a definite increase in the number of animals which can apparently predict the outcomes of each match including a cow, a pig and a seal – I kid you not. There are even a few elephants and the now deceased Heidi the Opossum with the same claim to fame.

What we want to know is why aren’t the people of Wakefield all over this? We should be supporting the Euro’s and getting this great city on the map and what better way than jumping on the bandwagon?

We have our very own famous, talking sheep literally on the doorstep. Come on people, Curly could predict which teams will or won’t win.  We can’t believe a local brand isn’t all over this. We wait with anticipation – there has to be someone who will use this gift of a PR stunt and simply ask Curly  – ‘who do ewe think will win the Euros?’.

Not another Mr Motivator!

Posted on May 2, 2012 by

I recently attended the Wakefield Business Conference and was intrigued to see Brad Burton was a speaker. Unlike many others I have never met Brad and my opinions of him had been formed almost entirely by his twitter feeds and comments about his book – eloquently titled, Get off your arse.

I don’t consider myself to be prudish but I do find bad language on twitter really offensive. Some people disagree and that’s fine but I don’t think it’s necessary at all. Anyway, I decided to go along to this talk with Brad to see what he was all about.

As a self-professed motivational expert, Brad was talking about his journey and how he went from being in some relatively serious personal debt (£25,000) to launching one of the fastest growing networking groups in the country.  It’s fair to say I was sceptical.

I shouldn’t have been.

The talk was really inspiring and as someone who is known for getting straight to the point I was really pleased to see that Brad did the same. He was open, honest and said it how it is. It was a refreshing story with bits that made you laugh and others that made you want to cry – not easily achievable in 40 minutes.

What I liked most was Brad’s ability to use his personality to his own advantage and in spite of the swearing I found that I really liked him. You felt confident that what he was saying was fact and that he had nothing to hide.

Some of his comments really struck home with me, particularly that nothing prepares you for being self-employed; that people buy people and you should treat everyone the same, irrelevant of whether they are wearing a tailored suit or ripped jeans.

He also made a very useful comment – he said when in business “Don’t have a plan b, because when you do, you aren’t spending enough time focusing on plan a.” Simple comment but clever and very thought provoking. As a result of the session, I have bought the book ‘Get off your arse’ and look forward to reading more of Brad’s insightful views on business in the near future.

So, Brad, if you ever get around to reading this I owe you an apology. I think you’re a genuine, hard-working kind of guy. You left me with some thinking to do and some actions to put into practice, both personally and professionally.  I hate to admit it but your talk was motivational.

Congratulations on a job well done. People may have said that you were mad but as long as you are happy and mad then that’s all that counts in my book.