BDS Network

In September 2009, having attended several events for local small businesses at Business Development Services (BDS), Paul Caffery of Results Consortium Ltd started to notice that those particular events were attended by a core of business owners who showed an interest in learning new ideas and in particular ideas that will help them to improve their businesses.

Having experienced the effect of business managers getting together to discuss how they have improved their own businesses and the motivation that they gave to each other to go back and implement at least one good idea, Paul asked some of those he had met at the BDS events how they might feel about contributing and benefiting from a network set up by them for the purposes of learning from each other to make improvements to their own business. The general response was positive, so he suggested the network idea to BDS which was supported in principle conditional upon him setting up the first meeting.

Purpose of the Network

The purpose of the network is:

·        to meet at a frequency, time and location determined useful by the members

·        for the business people to work on issues that will improve their businesses

·        NOT to sell products and services to each other.

The agenda for the issues that are discussed and supported are the ones that are of interest to the members. It was proposed that we all put forward the business issues we wish to address and using a voting system to prioritise the order that the issues will be dealt with on the agenda. The agenda may be reviewed frequently and reordered to suit the network members.

Paul resisted the urge to suggest too many rules and values that the network may work under, however one principle that sums up how he thought it could work was “Pay It Forward”. In other words, we can all measure the benefit of implementing an improvement idea given to us in quality, cost or time saved terms, but there is a benefit that is hard to measure when we contribute to another person. However, that benefit is the one we should all be seeking to achieve in the network – or at least that was the idea.

What happened next?

Since October 2009 the BDS Network has asked for and covered the following topics:

Fellowship and to listen and learn from others; improve skills (planning, problem solving, communication, etc); marketing; advertising and sales advice (how to close a deal); self-promotion; keep up to date (google, facebook, twitter, etc) money management (point of sale finance) and funding opportunities; accounting and legal advice (T & Cs); self-help; winning awards; performance coaching (Mark Rhodes, Angela Dellar); signpost to training (H & S, First Aid, PC skills); improve local knowledge; participate in events (trade fair); make links with other business organisations (Business Council, Chambers, FSB, BNI); strengthen partnerships (District Council, Newspapers); and sometimes just someone to talk to…..

Since then, several values have been evidenced through the Network:

·        Self-help

·        Self-responsibility

·        Solidarity

·        Honesty

·        Openness

·        Social responsibility

·        Caring for others

The Network continues to meet monthly.