No such thing as a free lunch!

“No such thing as a free lunch, well that’s not necessarily true as was demonstrated the other day. In fact it was free training and a free lunch.”

I’d taken the opportunity to attend a day long seminar entitled “Getting to grips with Google”. It was yet another event in a long list that have been run by innovative business support programme, Digital Enterprise – under their Digital Knowledge Exchange umbrella. The programme is funded by the European Union (European Union Regional Development Fund), Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership and the nine local Councils, which make up the Leeds City Region.

Empower your Customers.

As a business we are very much about empowerment. We work closely with our clients to understand their businesses, their aims and build them solutions that increase their revenue and grow their presence in the market place. We also get them as involved as possible with their digital presence, after all it is a tool for their business and something that benefits their business as part of their marketing and sales strategy. To this end we would encourage any business owner/manager to look at some of the offering from Digital Enterprise as we do our own clients.

Empowerment is about getting your clients to buy in to what you do.

Missed opportunities.

In my opinion, not enough businesses are making use of initiatives such as this to make sure that they are getting the most from digital technologies.  First of all you need to check if you are a qualifying business, but in a nutshell you need to be an SME who meets the following criteria:

• Businesses based in the Leeds City Region
• Employing fewer than 250 employees
• With turnover below €50 million p/a (approximately £43 million)
• With a balance sheet total below €43 million (approximately £37 million), and
• Firms which have received less than €200k (£185,000) of State Aid in the last 3 years

It’s easy enough to do and takes only a minute or two. If you qualify, then you are open to benefiting from some of the following

• A Digital Growth Voucher – a hugely popular grant worth between £2-10,000 to help eligible businesses who operate in a business to business (B2B) environment to invest in digital technology to achieve business growth and digital transformation –see here for more details.. The next phase of this scheme will open in October 2018.
• A Connectivity Voucher – to help eligible businesses to upgrade their digital connection – worth between £500 to £1,000 – see here for more info.
• Free to attend workshops, masterclasses, digital conferences, mentoring support and digital audits via their Digital Knowledge Exchange service – see here for more info.

Anyway, back to that free lunch.

Anyway, back to the free lunch. More specifically the access to knowledge days through the Digital Knowledge Exchange, opens up a raft of seminars presented by experts in a number of fields. At this particular event we had the pleasure of listening to the Digital Knowledge Exchange legend that is Pascal Fintoni. Starting with a review of Google plans for the future followed by hand fulls of tips on Google products and online marketing this proved that these events are a no brainer when it comes to extending your knowledge of the online world.

If you are an in house marketing manager, owner or manager, these events are invaluable for you. Or if you are in online marketing or Website Design & Build, why not encourage your clients to go along. They will either come back more knowledgeable, more appreciative of the work you do or with a long list of things for them and you to do. Either way it is a win win situation.

A dedicated team.

Finally, the Digital Knowledge Exchange Team are a dream to work with. Your success is their success, so get yourself and your clients involved and don’t miss out on this Free Lunch. In fact have a look at their menu  of events that will whet your appetite. Milton Friedman

“Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”