Help to Grow Management Programme

So hi i'm jeff wilkinson and i'm managing director of wilkinson construction consultants we're licensed approved inspectors and offer an alternative to the local authority building control system i think like many small businesses we got to that point where we'd grown and we we'd hit a plateau and that was going to be quite an issue for us as to how we would continue to grow and their help to grow program has really helped us to identify what our future actually looks like and how we're going to get past those barriers the help to grow program itself has provided a number of benefits to us amongst those are the the sheer value for money that we're getting out of it we're getting world-class training we're getting mentoring we're getting support all of that for a very small financial outlay for us so as a small business it's absolutely great value for money for us to to be able to take part in the in the program itself in addition to that not only do we get a toolkit that we can use today in the training um we've got all of those resources for the future as well we've met some great people on the course we've we've had the the direct mentoring which is something we'd never envisaged that we would be in a position to have and all of those kind of things as support for us for a small business is an incredible thing to to actually have one of the biggest challenges that you have as a small business is is the sense of loneliness that the fact that you've got no one else out there to to support you so to have the the mentoring alongside the training course itself and to work alongside our peer group has been a fantastic experience just that ability to share and to let off and to understand that there are other people out there that going through the same things that you're going through that that realisation that you're not the only person that's facing these challenges and to listen back to to some of the suggestions that they've had i know for a fact that we're gonna stay in touch with some of the people that we've met on there over the course of the years to come and i'm sure there's a lot that we can continue to share as an experience from this day forward so across all of the modules and there's an enormous amount of content that's out there i think the the module that we found most useful to us was the uh the marketing one we identified that there were things that we needed to do to change to to really build on our brand and then the awareness out there and particularly coming from a construction background everything is very samey out there so the things that we learned from the course were about how to differentiate our brand and how to really step up and create the proper brand awareness around that and what the value of our brand actually was and i think that realization is really going to kick into how we're going to market ourselves over the forth coming months and years and i think that in particular is probably going to be the single largest change that we're going to have made as a result of this course obviously we're in the construction sector and i think one of the things that people forget about the construction sector is that it's made up of the best part of a million small businesses so whilst you know the major projects the shard and things like that are constructed by a big contractor in truth they're actually constructed by a whole series of small businesses such as ourselves and i think that what we really need to do as we we start to come back out of um covid and lock down and start to to get this country back upand running again is to ensure that it's those small businesses that that we're supporting so if we can get those uh to come on to the course i think that's where we're gonna get some real benefit going forward so if there are any small construction businesses out there that are thinking of coming on the course i would highly recommend that they take part the course itself is is an immense course i mean we've had some really really top quality training for from the university of portsmouth and i think that that in itself would have been fantastic value but on top of that we we've had all of the additional support etcetera in there what you need to realize is that you do need to make a commitment to this there are in-person training elements to it there's the peer groups themselves that you need to be making sure that you attend but i think that the key takeaway for anyone from this is that like most things in life the more that you're prepared to put into it the more that you're going to be able to get out of it and it's not just what you you get out of the the course of the sort of the 12 modules um on top of that you've you've got something you can take away for life i know for a fact that i'm going to be going back to the to the things that we've learned on this course over the course of the next year two years three years and really going back over those to make sure that we're getting the maximum value out of it so if you put in the effort you're going to get so much out of it and if there's any small business that's out there that's contemplating getting onto this course i'd say get onto it now you don't get world-class training like this opportunities every day take them while you can.