Don’t miss out on Enterprising Women’s event programme this Autumn and Winter

We’ve been really busy at Enterprising Women organising a large variety of events for this Autumn and Winter – our programme’s jam-packed and we’re looking forward to meeting up with you all face-to-face. We’ve blogged about the importance of networking and this is your chance to come along and put our tips into practice. You might meet potential clients, suppliers, mentors and friends...our community means you’re not alone, but have a support network to help you progress with your business and to stay focused on what’s important. Our events will be covering topics including ‘Blogs, tweets and pokes – the benefits of social media’ to ‘Attracting customers’ and ‘Achieving a work-life balance’. We’re also running a programme on ‘Going for Growth’, which incorporates 10 key topics from our growth training programme to create an exciting and informative day.

Our event which took place earlier this week, was a great success. Angela Peacock, the Chair of The People Development Team and founder of www.thecompletetrainer.com, lead on a dynamic and interactive session on ‘Driving your strategy through discovering your culture.’ Participants were asked to assess where their business is now in terms of characteristics, leadership, management of employees and strategy, and then envisage where they want to be in 2 years and how they can get there. Angela categorised the different cultural characteristics found in businesses, grouping them in The Clan, The Adhocracy, The Market or The Hierarchy family - getting the balance right is really important.

Register online and come along to our events this Autumn and Winter. Check out our events calendar here.

PowerPoint presentations - good for business?

I'm sure we've all sat through a PowerPoint presentation which seems to be never ending, the dull tones of the presenter and the endless slides appearing and disappearing. Or a presentation where we're trying to take everything in, but there's just too much! So what's the answer to perfecting PowerPoint presentations and are they the best means of communication for you and your business?

If you are preparing a PowerPoint, here are a few useful tips:

1) A PowerPoint presentation should be an aid to presenting, not an excuse to read from the screen directly with your back to the audience. Eye contact with your audience is extremely important as is your body language.

2) Trying to read, listen and make notes all at the same time is a big ask. If you have hand-outs or are emailing everyone a copy of your PowerPoint presentation, say so at the beginning so that people aren’t frantically copying the slide before it disappears – and not listening to a word you’re actually saying!

3) Make sure your slide is not overfilled with text. Mix it up with images.

4) Make sure the text is big enough - there's nothing worse than your audience complaining that they can't read it.

5) Avoid rambling; plan your presentation carefully. Your presentation should clarify to your audience what you’re saying – it’s not to remind you of everything you want to say.

6) An information overload should be avoided at all costs – don’t assume that your audience will be able to take in huge amounts of information, even if it is all bullet- pointed. Make it a realistic length as learning through listening and speaking is very different to reading and writing.

7) Use creative images and not just lines and lines of words – the audience may loose interest completely through being uninspired!

8) Have as few slides as possible - too many slides will just distract everybody.

Remember, a great PowerPoint presentation relies on a good speaker so practice these skills as much as you can.

Check out the Enterprising Women website for more top tips for running your business. If you have any great tips, share them with us here.

Enterprising Women Awards 2009 open for entries

We’ve just announced that the Enterprising Women Annual Awards 2009 are now open for entries. It’s certainly been a really tough year for businesses, battling against the recession, and we know that there have been some huge achievements made by women across Britain this year.

Our Awards cover nine categories, from Inspirational Business Mum to Young Entrepreneur and, from which the Enterprising Woman of 2009 will be chosen. We’re looking forward to receiving nominations for the awards, the winners of which we’ll be announcing at our Awards Lunch on 24th November.

Last year’s EW nominees and winners said that the Enterprising Women awards brought them real business and personal rewards as well as great promotional opportunities from press coverage to speaker events. This acknowledgement and recognition together with the validation by the wider business community, made the whole experience rewarding at every level for them.

If you know somebody who you feel deserves an EW Award, or you would like to nominate yourself, visit The Enterprising Women Annual Awards 2009 to find out more. You can also register to attend the Awards Lunch and take part in our Christmas Fair.

Top Twitter tips for your business

Businesses, especially SMEs, are all at different stages of discovering social networking sites and how best to use this new technology within their businesses. With Dell reporting that offers from its Dell Outlet Twitter account had led to more than $1 million in revenue, it just shows us the potential of these sites. We’ve read countless articles on how and why to use Twitter and have come up a top tips list of our own:

Use Twitter to...

1. Find out if people have any issues with your product – and if they do, you can resolve any problems quickly and engage directly with them

2. Track your reputation – search to find out exactly what people are saying about you

3. Promote your business to followers – your sales may increase

4. Drive more traffic to your website and blog by using links in your Tweets

5. Network with people to increase your customer base

6. Search for potential customers who you think would like your product or service – although this may seem a bit like stalking!

7. Build your brand and profile through Twitter and ensure your business has its own personality and your customers feel comfortable contacting you directly.

8. Keep an eye on all your competitors too...

Have a look at our Enterprising Women Twitter account and become one of our followers to hear all the latest news in starting up and growing your business.

How important are qualifications to business success?

Even though kids are sailing through their exams, with 97.5% passing their 'A' levels this year, concerns have been voiced that this won’t resolve the skills gap problem. Most businesses feel that students are unprepared for work - that the gap between education and work is too large. As the students are fighting over university places, the Forum of Private Business dropped the bomb shell that most of its members would value school-leavers over graduates, with 77% of small business owners saying they don’t even need employees with university skills. Is there a misconception somewhere along the line – that you'll have more chance of getting a job if you have a degree? But we’ve already seen that unemployment among graduates is at an all time high. Student placements, internships and graduate schemes are one answer as this is beneficial to businesses and students, bridging the skills gap. Time and time again, experience and on-the-job training outweighs qualifications in the world of enterprise.

More women than men in high-status jobs

There are now officially more female doctors, lawyers and architects than male ones in the UK, according to research by the University of Cambridge. So why are we not shouting about this fact from the roof tops? It’s being called the ‘quiet revolution in the workplace’, but it seems to be a silent one. Is this not a huge achievement, a milestone, something really positive? Yes, and it ties in with women excelling academically, a higher proportion of us securing places at top universities and achieving higher grades than men.

However, perhaps the one thing stopping us from celebrating is the fact that women are still earning much less on average than men – about 22.6% less. Um, where’s the equality in that? And in some areas, the pay gap is actually widening.

If the ‘quiet revolution’ fails to grab anyone’s attention, nobody will raise the pay gap as a problem. The limited opportunities for women to progress to senior roles such as company director are also affecting the pay gap. But the more these issues are brought into the spotlight, (in the same way Harriet Harmen brought women in politics to the forefront), the more recognition women will receive, both in professional status and in their pay cheques.

So what about a very loud and noisy revolution in the workplace?

Harriet Harman gets women in politics back on the agenda!

Harriet Harman, Minister for Equality, may be a well-known feminist and has confessed to putting men’s noses out of joint, but she gets issues that matter back in the spotlight. And the absence of women in senior political positions does matter. What she said makes perfect sense:

“I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership. In a country where women regard themselves as equal, they are not prepared to see men just running the show themselves. I think a balanced team of men and women makes better decisions.”

But how many people, especially men, would have just ignored her views on this? But with the controversial, “Men cannot be left to run things on their own” comment, she’s managed to make this front page news.

Indeed, cries of sexism from men can be heard from every corner of the room, retorting grumpily, “what if we said that about women? We’d never get away with it”.

But the point is, she whipped the media into a frenzy and now the issue of women in politics is back on the agenda! Clever, eh?