Can good business be good business?A message from Divine Chocolate’s MD Sophi Tranchell
(Source: youtube.com)
1 year ago
Shaal is ambitious, always willing to say YES and to put the maximum effort in. He has a lot going for him, which we recognised early on during a Media course we ran at our parent charity, City Gateway. He has gone on to perform well on a 6 month apprenticeship at Gateway Media, to eventually be taken on in full time filming and editing role. The last chapter of Shaal’s life has been full of challenges and he is about to enter into his biggest yet. Following a chance visit by senior managers of Channel 4 and ITV at our Limehouse Youth Club, Shaal has now been chosen by Four Talent for a position as Junior Camera Assistant on feature film ‘Rafter Rafter’, directed by David Higgs, who was Director of photography from ‘RocknRolla’. So although Shaal will not be with us for the next 5 weeks, we are proud that he has come so far and will be flying the City Gateway and Gateway Media flag from inside the British Film Industry. Shaal, we salute you!
LinkedIn as a lead generation tool
Fresh back from a visit to the Marketing Week Live conference, I decided that I should comment on the use of LinkedIn as an increasingly important business tool with key benefits for small business.
Kevin Eyres, managing director of LinkedIn, gave a talk about LinkedIn’s use as a tool for expert groups in the medical field. I was lucky enough to grab a word with him afterward to discuss an idea I have for using LinkedIn as a way of supporting gap year students and people on sabbaticals, which he seemed interested in.
An area that Kevin didn’t cover in much detail was lead generation. Aside from LinkedIn being a good place for an online portfolio, career progression, recommendations and keeping in touch with other professionals and clients, I have found it to also be a effective way to create leads. Having had some success creating business through Twitter I gave it a go using the following method.
Step 1
Establish yourself - Complete your profile to 100%, it is not a CV so only put information that is necessary for those you want to engage with and get recommendations from colleagues and clients.
Step 2
Join a group in the area most appropriate to your business. If there isn’t a group for you then MAKE ONE! I created the Young Social Entrepreneur Group which today gained it’s 200th member.
Step 3
Get involved. You have heard it before and you will hear it again - don’t sell, just offer advice, guidence and help to those with questions. This is how you will generate leads. You can do it through the groups you join or lead, through your own status updates and through the questions and answers section of the site.
In my experience these steps can successfully generate high quality qualified leads and if you don’t manage the same success you will still have created an effective tool for your personal career progression.
I see a really important role for social enterprises, like City Gateway in Tower Hamlets, which takes young adults from local estates and trains them in the skills our economy will need in the future like web design. These social enterprises have the local knowledge, the human touch, and sensitive understanding of the complex and interconnected problems of educational failure and worklessness and I want to see more City Gateways come in, take this recession by the scruff of the neck and help get people into work.
David Cameron, Prime Minister.
David Cameron, Prime Minister.
Having read the leaders of the social enterprise movements reaction to the news of the election, I remain confident of the enterprise I manage (Gateway Media) continued growth in the coming years. As City Gateway’s longest established social enterprise I’m also pleased to have been referred to very positively by David Cameron last year, hopefully he hasn’t forgotten the impact that social enterprises can have if properly supported;
Pictures taken from the City Gateway evening at number 11 Downing Street. I was really proud to be a part of the night and how the Gateway Media team and City Gateway were represented (plus I got a pic outside number 10 next door!)
