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                <h1>business.connected</h1>
                <p>We’re partnering with Vodafone Business to equip 150,000 small businesses with the digital skills they need to take their operations to the next level.</p>
                <p>The free training programme – delivered exclusively online, and consisting of workshops, webinars and e-learning modules – will empower businesses to kickstart digital change, adopt new technology, and stay safe online.</p>
<p>Joining the initiative is Samsung Electronics UK. Small businesses will now be able to access a range of free Samsung-inspired digital training courses, covering everything from business productivity to protecting digital security.</p>
	
				<p>All participants will be offered a free consultation with a <a href="https://www.vodafone.co.uk/business/sme-business/small-business-advice/personal-advice?cid=en-ent/vhub-ap/dbritain/aws/4.21/ntst" target="_blank">Vodafone Business V-Hub adviser</a>, who can advise on everything from digital marketing strategies to online security. You can speak to a V-Hub adviser Monday-Friday from 8am-6pm. </p>
				
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                <h4 class="text-secondary">Interactive workshops</h4>
                <p style="font-size: 0.9em; width: 80%; margin: auto;">Join one of our interactive digital workshops, led by an expert and learn how to become a digital changemaker. </p>
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                <h4 class="text-secondary">E-learning modules</h4>
                <p style="font-size: 0.9em; width: 80%; margin: auto;">Get specialist, solution-based training on how you get the most out of collaboration, online trading, security tools and more. </p>
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                <h4 class="text-secondary">Fortnightly webinars</h4>
                <p style="font-size: 0.9em; width: 80%; margin: auto;">Sign up for a webinar, where our experts will be unpacking key digital topics and providing you with the latest insights &amp; thought leadership. </p>
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                <h2>Access e-learning</h2>
                <p>Bespoke training on digital solutions</p>
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                    <div class="col-sm-6 col-md-4"><div class="en--card"><a href="/learn-something/use-microsoft-teams-for-your-business/" class="card-main-container"><div class="card-badge">e-learning</div><div class="card-image" style="background-image: url(&quot;https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/db23c2efa1e135b5546b90d02750274c1e0c0331.webp&quot;);"></div><div class="card-avatar"><img class="card-avatar-img" src="https://enterprisenation.blob.core.windows.net/enterprisenation/d9deb11c5afae911a813000d3a7ed688/en-author-logo.jpg"><div class="card-avatar-text"><span class="card-avatar-name"><span>Enterprise Nation</span></span><span class="card-avatar-title"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Official</span></span></div></div><div class="card-body"><span class="card-body-date">Thu 27th May 2021</span><h3 class="card-body-title" style="height: 84px;"><div style="height: 100%; font-size: 30px;"><div style="display: block;"><span>Use Microsoft Teams for your business</span></div></div></h3><div class="card-body-main" style="height: 54px;"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; display: block;">Discover how to send chats and send images and files, make audio or ...[more]</div></div><div class="hide"><div class="clear"></div></div></div></a></div></div>
                    <div class="col-sm-6 col-md-4"><div class="en--card"><a href="/learn-something/create-your-online-store/" class="card-main-container"><div class="card-badge">e-learning</div><div class="card-image" style="background-image: url(&quot;https://embed-fastly.wistia.com/deliveries/809fa98c428e2483331e0ed2c6cef1d3a40f31ed.webp&quot;);"></div><div class="card-avatar"><img class="card-avatar-img" src="https://enterprisenation.blob.core.windows.net/enterprisenation/d9deb11c5afae911a813000d3a7ed688/en-author-logo.jpg"><div class="card-avatar-text"><span class="card-avatar-name"><span>Enterprise Nation</span></span><span class="card-avatar-title"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Official</span></span></div></div><div class="card-body"><span class="card-body-date">Thu 27th May 2021</span><h3 class="card-body-title" style="height: 84px;"><div style="height: 100%; font-size: 30px;"><div style="display: block;"><span>Create your online store</span></div></div></h3><div class="card-body-main" style="height: 54px;"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; display: block;">Learn how to find the best e-commerce platform for your products, the ...[more]</div></div><div class="hide"><div class="clear"></div></div></div></a></div></div>
                    <div class="col-sm-6 col-md-4"><div class="en--card"><a href="/learn-something/using-seo-to-bring-customers-to-your-website/" class="card-main-container"><div class="card-badge">e-learning</div><div class="card-image" style="background-image: url(&quot;https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/081d27a23cc97d155abe5f2bcfbf8ec7b34e074f.webp&quot;);"></div><div class="card-avatar"><img class="card-avatar-img" src="https://enterprisenation.blob.core.windows.net/enterprisenation/d9deb11c5afae911a813000d3a7ed688/en-author-logo.jpg"><div class="card-avatar-text"><span class="card-avatar-name"><span>Enterprise Nation</span></span><span class="card-avatar-title"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Official</span></span></div></div><div class="card-body"><span class="card-body-date">Thu 27th May 2021</span><h3 class="card-body-title" style="height: 84px;"><div style="height: 100%; font-size: 26px;"><div style="display: block;"><span>Using SEO to bring customers to your website</span></div></div></h3><div class="card-body-main" style="height: 54px;"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; display: block;">By understanding what's being searched for, creating tailored content, an...[more]</div></div><div class="hide"><div class="clear"></div></div></div></a></div></div>
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Business Connected

<p>After successfully completing over 12 years of consulting with companies on a 1:1 basis on their business and financial performance I am now entering the training world to engage my passion for teaching, training, guiding and mentoring entrepreneurs, founders and business owners to thrive financially. I am here to offer you the opportunity to benefit from my expertise in Pricing and Cash Flow Management. I am proud to be known as <strong>The Price Mentor</strong> and I would be proud to teach you The Price Code Methodology</p>

Business Owner and Founder

Brian Cooney

Owner/director

Paddy Mc Dermott

<p>Specialist in Web Design, Digital Marketing, Social Media, SEO, Analytics and Big Data.</p>
<p>Owner and founder of Feedalpha.com and Yourweb.ie</p>

Gary Evans

<p>Susana is a senior business management and marketing professional with over 25 years hands-on experience in developing and implementing growth strategies in pharma, technology, distribution and packaging industries.&nbsp;</p>
<p></p>
<p>She has held strategic positions in brand management, product development, international marketing and business development at Global Corporations for EMEA markets.<br><br>Susana and her family moved from The UK to Ireland in December 2020 and setup her own business, <a href=&apos;https://www.bbcs.ie?&apos; target=&apos;_self&apos;>Beacon Business Commercial Services,</a> during the second year of the pandemic (April 2021).<br><br>Susana is passionate about providing individuals with tools to help them to be the best version of themselves and this is her drive during her corporate career as well as in her own business.<br><br>Her mission is support business owners to achieve their growth goals, by consistently driving profitable growth and future proof their business.<br><br>Susana also supports SMB as Interim Marketing Director, provides Pro-Bono support to struggling businesses as well as volunteers at Network Ireland Cork, Cork Nature Network and MentorHer.<br><br>Susana is a result orientated leader who pursues excellence in everything she does and energises and inspires others through the standards she sets.&nbsp;</p>
<p></p>
<p>She is an adventurer, risk taker and loves collaborating with other likeminded professionals. When not working, Susana loves running, reading and travelling.&nbsp;</p>
<p></p>
<p>She is originally from Chile, has lived in Europe for the last 22 years, in Spain, The Netherland and The UK.</p>

Director

Take control of your cash flow

Learn how to get access to cash so you can pay suppliers and yourself while you’re waiting for clients to pay outstanding invoices.

<p>Phil went from a kitchen table start up, with no investment, all the way to multi-million pound sale to a PLC 18 years later. He’s travelled the full SME business journey.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Phil now works with ambitious SME-owners as a <strong>Business Sounding Board</strong> (think somewhere between Business Coach, Business Mentor, and ‘personal NED’). In simple terms, he’s <em>‘a pair of ears and an extra pair eyes’ </em>for SME Owners helping them to be better at what they do. The key time most Business Owners look for out side help is when they reach a ‘next stage/step up’ point in their business journey. That’s where Phil comes in. It doesn’t need to be ‘lonely at the top’.</p>
<p></p>
<p>As a Business Sounding Board, he gives SME Owners the time &amp; space to regularly discuss their challenges and opportunities, with no sense of judgement or bias, and in complete confidence. This allows them to explore their options in full, culminating with a list of issues to address/clarify, a clear target in mind, a roadmap to success, and a renewed enthusiasm and confidence for the challenges ahead.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Phil is also a volunteer with a number of organisations including The Prince's Trust and Young Enterprise, and is an active Angel Investor. He also mentors start-up businesses.</p>

Business Sounding Board

How to prepare to sell your business... before it&apos;s for sale

Learn from the mistakes I made when I sold my business.

10 top tips that will prepare you for a sale, but will also add to your sale price.

Enterprise Nation has helped thousands of people start and grow their businesses. Led by founder, Emma Jones CBE, Enterprise Nation connects you to the resources and expertise to help you succeed.

Digital drop-in for small business owners - Ballinasloe

Join Enterprise Nation for an in-person digital support event in Ballinasloe to receive advice on  finance, branding and more  from experts!

A new COVID-19 Loan Scheme has been launched to further help businesses to recover from the pandemic. The scheme is delivered by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI),

The COVID-19 Loan Scheme (‘CLS’) is a state-backed loan scheme, offering SMEs, including farmers, fishers, food businesses and small mid-caps, loans of between €25,000 and up to €1,500,000, with terms of one to six years and unsecured up to €500,000.

The new scheme is in response to the required closure of the COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme (CCGS) at the end of June 2022, which is a consequence of the cessation of the European Commission’s COVID-19 State-Aid Framework at this time.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie Mc Conalogue TD, and the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe TD announced the loan scheme today.

The Scheme is delivered by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), through participating lenders and information on the application process can be found on the SBCI website at 

This scheme is available to eligible SME and small Mid-Cap businesses, including primary producers (businesses engaged in farming and fishing), established in Ireland. A business must also have experienced an adverse impact of a minimum 15% in turnover or profit due to the impact of COVID-19.

Interest rates on loans provided under the Scheme will be lower than is otherwise typically available on similar lending in the market and will vary according to the lender.

Lenders participating in the scheme are separated into two cohorts.

For the first, interest rates will be variable, but are capped at an initial maximum rate of 3.7% for loans less than €250,000 and 2.75% for loans of €250,000 and above.

For loans from the remaining lenders, a minimum discount of 1% relative to their standard rates will be required to for loans under the CLS.

Enterprise Nation are working with SBCI, BPFI & Sage to support 30,000 small businesses across Ireland with the information on funding options.

For more information on Access to Finance click 

New COVID-19 Loan Scheme delivered by SBCI

New COVID-19 Loan Scheme for Irish businesses.

Cathal Sheridan is founder and CEO of Huku Balance, a Donegal based company who make balance boards for both adults and children.

Sustainability has always been at the core of the business despite the cost of materials soaring and the supply chain drying up. Cathal tells us how Huku Balance has maintained its values despite these challenges.

Your business has grown quite a bit over the past two years. How is it going now?

We’ve increased our sales, not just in Ireland and the UK but we are starting to ship right across the world – the United States, Singapore, Japan, Australia - so it's been fantastic with growth.

We've also been continuously revising the way we make our products, from an environmental, but also from a cost point of view because the price of everything has been going up so much these last few years.

We had to revisit the way we make things and just try and get a bit clever with how we do things to cut costs, so we didn't have to increase prices - that was a big part of the last couple of years.

Give some examples of how you have managed to keep the costs down while maintaining the sustainable integrity of the business?

Take our balance board rollers for example. I mean, I could have very easily gotten those shipped over from China and made for a fraction of the cost, but there is enough virgin plastic out there, we don't want to add to it. We can make it a more beautiful product, that’s environmentally sustainable, ourselves.

We had to look at how we made those and using different methods because the cost of the material is almost three times as much as it was.

Huku balance board and roller

We’ve managed to keep the wood as the main material, and for the grip it's upcycled cork and natural rubber - that's something, again, that we managed to keep a hold of. I mean, there are cheaper alternatives, but they don't recycle well, and they'll sit in landfill for a very long time, so they weren't really options for us.

We put up our prices by a couple of euros each just to cover the cost of materials. We absorbed two price hikes before we increased our prices and we’ve absorbed the last three price hikes since.

That was just down to changing the way we made the product. We invested in different machinery, and we just designed new procedures, and it cut the costs of production down.

I’m hoping we've hit kind of the peak for having to absorb prices, because I'm hoping we're going to start to see the prices returned to normal over the next year.

What was having such an effect on the increased cost of your materials?

In January this year, we saw the price decrease a little bit - supply chains were kind of just getting back to normal post pandemic. The factories that produce the wood were getting back to normal production runs. We did see a decrease in price in January and early February.

Huku balance board in the making

Our main material is from the Baltic region of Europe. We’ve always gotten it from Latvia and Estonia. Russia is part of the Baltic region, and Finland is a big producer as well although the Finnish material was always very expensive.

When Russia invaded Ukraine people stopped purchasing Russian products and everyone wanted wood from Latvia and Estonia and the prices went up again.

In late January, when the price had come down, I’d ordered enough material to get us through most of this year, so we've been able to avoid the more recent price hikes.

Those factories are now starting to get to a point where they can meet the demand. Look, we don’t know how long the war is going to last but we do know the factories are beginning to meet the demand, and we are hopeful the prices will start to stabilise.

Working on a Huku balance board

What other sustainable practices have you in your business?

Our boxes are made from recycled cardboard, and we get deliveries all the time and we keep that cardboard ourselves to use as a packaging filler. We use recycled packaging paper as well and even our masking tape is recycled paper. Everything we send out packaging wise, is biodegradable.

It's the least harmful way of doing it. We'd love to get the boxes sent back but I just don't think it's feasible at the moment.

At the moment, we're working with Tree Nation planting in various places around the world. One place we're focusing on is Sri Lanka and planting the three types of trees that help prevent coastal erosion.

Our long-term plan is we'll be buying land ourselves locally and planting native Irish trees alongside the ones worldwide - I think at the moment, it's more a case of asking where's the priority in the world? where do they really, really, need them? Eventually it'll be a nice bonus to be able to do it locally as well. This year we’ve planted almost 700 trees.

What are the future plans for Huku Balance?

We want to continue to grow our product range and continue to grow our sales worldwide. This year we’re focusing more on the UK, and Western Europe, towards the end of the year we want to increase our awareness of our brand in the United States.

That's going to help us get to a point where we can hire more people. More local jobs is a big bonus for me personally, it keeps people in their local community rather than having to head off to a city and work.

We want to continue to focus on creating products that are not bad for the environment. We have some prototype designs and it's a very simple solution to use a piece of plastic and get them launched, but it's just not what we're about. There are challenges there, but we want to continue to abide by the rules we’ve set ourselves.

Freelance Journalist

Finding the balance between sustainability and rising costs – Cathal Sheridan

Donegal's Cathal Sheridan talks us through how he handles the rising costs in his balance board business.

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