.. oh and attended a really good event hosted by Yell.com at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange on Wed 26th Oct (can’t believe a week has passed already!).
Lara Morgan was a great first speaker at the event. In addition to being an entrepreneur and author of a her new book More balls than most: Juggle your way to success with proven company shortcuts, which I’m now half-way through, she was funny and honest about mistakes as well as successes. Some of the points I took away from this were:
- Find a major brand customer and do all you can to hold onto them
- Monetarise all of your tasks so that you can prioritise with real understanding of impact
- Never lose touch with your companies’ finances
- Be determined and don’t take no for an answer
- Learn to listen to your customers
- Ask questions to learn and improve – stop being British…
Later in the session Michelle Mone spoke about her company’s journey and I got my photo taken with her (unfortunately I’m not the tall, blonde good looking one!). She talked very openly about her life and business – good and bad events, with the following messages:
- Think big
- Don’t give up and believe in your product (no-one has as much passion for it as you do)
- You can successfully publicise your company without an ads agency
- Think of your next product before you launch your first one
- When you look after yourself your business will improve as well (her business must be great as she looks fabulous)
- You’re never too old or young to setup a business; you just need the idea
These two entrepreneurs really impressed me and left me with lots of advice and insights to consider: now to try and integrate and apply…