November 13th, 2015
Running from November 16-22, Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s biggest event designed to celebrate the role of entrepreneurs. Leading office space company Basepoint is a Top GEW Partner, organising numerous events to mark the occasion, and working towards achieving a badge of honour for next year. Basepoint is working hard to promote the whole idea of entrepreneurship and inspire new small business start-ups.
Over the special week, each of Basepoint’s 31 business centres will be holding a networking hub event. On top of this, 5 centres, at Canterbury, Luton, Crawley, Havant and Swindon, are hosting special two-day events including workshops and seminars and additional networking sessions.
What Does the Week Involve?
Every year, a wide range of activities are arranged in the UK and around the globe for Global Entrepreneurship Week. More than 140 countries are now involved, with tens of thousands of different events. Last year this included 2,500-plus events in the UK alone – and over 340,000 participants.
The types of activities being organised this year range from major competitions, awards ceremonies entrepreneur forums and workshops to web seminars and even special small business bus tours. In the UK, the week is being hosted by Youth Business International, a global network which works with young entrepreneurs, together with Startup Direct, UnLtd and Virgin Startup. It also has designated “Top Partners” including Basepoint, who are holding a range of events to inspire and help prospective and current small business owners.
‘Make It Happen’
Over the past nine years, Global Entrepreneurship Week has given many would-be entrepreneurs the push to get their business started, and many new ventures have taken shape as a result. Inspired by this continuing success story, this year’s GEW campaign is taking the theme ‘Make It Happen’ – which means encouraging people to be proactive and seize opportunities.
If you are a prospective entrepreneur, this could mean getting more information or advice, or discovering where you can go for funding to help get your ideas off the drawing board and into reality. If your business is already up and running, Make It Happen could mean taking action to grow it, branching out in a new direction or finding a new market.
Several areas which are key to business success are being promoted under the ‘Make It Happen’ umbrella. These include
Networking: To grow and succeed, every small business needs to build relationships with others, ranging from suppliers and contractors to customers and clients. It’s also important to get to know other businesses operating in the same local area and further afield, whether they are operating in your own sector or a related one.
Networking is essential to make you part of the business community and enables you to pool experience and knowledge, growing through mutual support. Basepoint are experts in networking, and we are using this expertise during GEW to hold a number of special B2B networking hubs over the week, with guest speakers and the chance to meet and talk to other business people over buffet meals.
Training: People joining a company which is already established will normally receive training when they start, whether this is formal or informal. However, when you start up your own business it’s up to you to arrange any training you need, in areas ranging from administration and leadership to finance and budgeting.
Finding where to go to learn the skills you require can initially seem daunting, but there are various seminars, courses and training schemes available which are aimed at small business people. Local business organisations can help to point you in the right direction for the training you need. Many GEW events are putting the focus on training, including workshops both on starting up a business in general and more specific issues, such as finance or web marketing.
Mentorship: It’s increasingly recognised that having expert mentorship is vital to new entrepreneurs. As people who are established in business themselves, mentors have a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw on. They can help you to work out a strategy for coping with any challenges facing your business, as well as advising you over business plans and helping to build contacts.
Some sources of finance provide mentorship as a condition of any loan or grant, and there are also portals to help businesses find mentors. Helping to connect entrepreneurs to prospective mentors is among the many aims of GEW, and many of its workshops and sessions will include advice on this aspect of growing a business.
At Basepoint, we provide expertise in all of these areas all the year round. As an office space company which believes in working with small businesses and creating a community, we offer our licensees a range of networking opportunities. All our centres also organise training seminars on a wide range of themes. Licensees are also able to take advantage of free mentorship through the Mibase Business Support Service.
We are working in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Week to help inspire more entrepreneurs to Make It Happen, whether that means starting up a new business or growing and diversifying an existing enterprise.
Office Space Company – Follow the link for more information on Basepoint’s 31 business centres.
