Can you help coordinate a 4 week course with DSP for women in business in Lancaster? Oh & by the way you’re attending too!
This was the question posed to me a couple of months ago by my manager after being contacted by DSP about a regional training here in Lancaster. Having been set the task I quickly put together a list of businesses I thought may well benefit from this training to pass to Xav Anderson who was our trainer & more importantly those that had female staff as our funding was for a women only course.
Fast forward 4 weeks & I have to say it has been a pleasure working with both Xav & the team of ladies on the course, all of whom were from our independent retailers in the city. We are a very fortunate here in our wonderful heritage city that we have 60% independent traders so it truly is a unique shopping experience & those businesses that attended all represented this sector in our BID zone as well as a few businesses from outside the area.
I have been an avid Facebook user for many years & a more recent convert to Instagram. However despite having set up a Twitter account several years ago it had always eluded me! After 4 weeks with Xav I have realised I have been sadly under using the whole social media thing from a business point of view & could get so much more from it which would really help in my job. One of the roles of my job is engagement with the businesses & getting round all of our 367 levy payers in 20 hours a week is an impossible task, but having found out if I work cleverly I can get this social media malarkey to do a big chunk of this for me was truly amazing!
Thanks to Xav from ClockWork City I now feel far more confident & able to use all the forums & have even got my head round Twitter, using it over the last couple of weeks to tweet about our Breakfast Meeting, Ambassador Awards as well as some other free training we are offering shops shortly which has meant that this course is now nearly full.
After tweeting about our Ambassador awards several of my fellow attendees put the word out to the customers that they needed votes as there were only a few days of voting left and the influx of nominations we received meant they had some of the highest votes across our award categories which just goes to sow the power of social media.
I feel as well as increasing my knowledge on how to make the most of our social media accounts it has strengthened my working relationships. I vaguely knew most of the ladies who attended & had worked with some of them on our previous events, but now we have a much better working relationship having been in an informal setting together, they have a better understanding of what exactly I do & likewise I feel I understand their businesses more thoroughly and the way we can work together in the future.
Lancaster BID are looking to put together more training in the future for businesses in the city so if there is something you feel you and your staff need or would benefit from please let us know. Email Victoria on [email protected]
