Connect with Stuart Forrester of The Forrester Corporation (thefc) for small business support on Enterprise Nation

Connect with Stuart Forrester to grow your entrepreneurial network of start-ups and small business owners on Enterprise Nation.

Stuart Forrester, The Forrester Corporation (thefc) | Enterprise Nation

&lt;h2&gt;Expertise&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#39;re a talented team of professionals who look to understand your goals and how what we do will help you reach them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Our talent is made up of copywriters, designers, developers, strategists and producers who have experience across marketing channels and different types of business.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Together, we will find the creative solution to engage, retain and grow your market.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Take a look at our &lt;a href="https://www.thefc.co.uk/blogs/"&gt;website blogs&lt;/a&gt; where we have lots of tips and tricks for free to help you market your business.&lt;/p&gt;

People

Stuart Forrester

Get Connected

I've been involved with business development and marketing since the early 90's working for international companies, including Mannesmann and Bosch.

Having completed an MBA in July 2006, I set up The Forrester Corporation (thefc) with my wife, a trained graphic designer and software Marketing Director. Our aim to deliver professional marketing, consultancy and design without the overheads of corporate agencies.

With my corporate career and thefc, I've travelled and experienced many countries and cultures. From working with full-service agencies to deliver an event to getting stuck in with stuffing envelopes for a client for mailing, you'll find I'm a practical person who will look to make you shine and succeed.

The best way to find out more about my company and me is to look at our website and our blog - <a href='https://www.thefc.co.uk/blogs/' target='_self'>thefc|VIEW</a>. Many of the articles are written by me and feature our clients.

I would be delighted to meet you for coffee to get to know you and your business and for you to get to know us.

Director

&lt;p&gt;My career spans almost 35 years and started in retail and commercial banking. Of course, my apprenticeship strarted before this working in hospitality and catering.&amp;nbsp; Apart from the usual paper-rounds my first job, at 13 was working on a Saturday for the local fish "n" chip shop! I progressed to working in the local golf club, a 4 star hotel and local pubs as waiting and bar staff whilst studying.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The call of a full-time beckoned and I joined the TSB in my local town. I moved on from there to work for the pioneering and multi-award-winning First Direct in Leeds. My 3 years&amp;nbsp;at First Direct&amp;nbsp;taught me many things but most importantly about good leadership and the impact that has on culture and engagement.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 1995 I moved to take up my first management position for a medium-sized foodservice business in Huddersfield. Starting small with an internal sales team of 4 the aim was to transform the culture from one of order taking to sales &amp;amp; customer service focused.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I achieved this, improving the contribution from sales office activity to revenue whilst reducing error rates by 90%.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 2002, the company merged with a similar-sized business in Lancashire. A new role was created for me to handle compliance. The aim was to standardise H&amp;amp;S and Food Safety processes, improve awareness through training in these mandatory areas of business and to continue supporting internal sales offices with training and integration.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I took some professional CIPD&amp;nbsp;qualifications at this time to strengthen my knowledge of people development and training, achieving a Distinction grade.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 2004 my compliance management role became a Directorship and I continued to hold this position until 2007, implementing ISO9000:2000 during that time. Also, extending the training scope of the role to all sales roles, external and internal.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 2007, I took the role of Commercial Director. The aim was to steer the company through the recession and ensure we grew profitably. Quite a challenge considering around 65% of our revenue was supplying the "at-risk" sectors pubs, hotels and restaurants. Discretionary spending and spend on eating out were about to come under scrutiny. We needed a plan! We grew profitably for the 6 years I held the post. This was achieved by changing culture, changing the team capabilities in line with a new growth strategy and a lot of hard work!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 2013 I left that business having finished the financial year adding £1.2mn for growth and increasing gross profits.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since then I have supported around 100 businesses with strategy, planning, leadership and team development as well as sales and marketing plans.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Often, I work with the support of Lancashire or Cumbria growth hub and their funding for the client. I am an approved coach and business advisor with both growth hubs.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My sole purpose is to ensure business owners focus on their own definition of success, not what the books or industry experts" tell them they should be achieving.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I found that getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats (as Jim Collins&amp;nbsp;would advise us) was the right approach for me.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

Managing Director

Paul Aisthorpe on the importance of good mentoring

Discover how transformative the right mentor can be.

Lucy is a jargon free, social media trainer and consultant. Lucy is a #SheMeansBusiness accredited trainer and founder of SocialDayUK the UK’s biggest social media marketing festival. Lucy is also a Director at Avviso Media, a digital marketing agency that specialises in content and social media marketing for B2B and events brands. Lucy’s passion is to up-skill women and so set up DigitalWomen with Natwest, a community created to empower 1 Million plus women through digital skills which holds regular events and highlights the great work women are doing in digital and entrepreneurship.

Social media marketing for small Business

A group to learn and share social media advice and tactics

&lt;p&gt;I left the City in 2016 when it became clear that life with small children and a full-time executive career wasn’t for me. &amp;nbsp;I wanted to create something that really helped people, like me, who were forging a way forward, balancing work with family life.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When my children went to school I realised there were many highly talented individuals unable to return to work due to the limitations of childcare. &amp;nbsp;I also started to meet a number of exciting small&amp;nbsp;businesses in need of support but were struggling to find an appropriate level of flexibility, quality and knowledge for their growing businesses.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This developed into a passion for building a solution for both sides. &amp;nbsp;A truly supportive working environment where people can thrive outside a classic 9-5 office structure whist providing reliable, high calibre support to businesses and individuals looking to achieve more productivity and peace of mind.&amp;nbsp;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;SpareMyTime was born!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Founder

Bespoke virtual social media support for you and your business

&lt;h1&gt;Virtual social media &amp;amp; digital marketing&lt;/h1&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Social media making you less&amp;hellip; social? Our marketing and social media virtual assistants can help with content creation and management, so you can spend less time on your phone!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We offer content creation, design and advice to get your Instagram feed looking great and your business emails reaching more clients.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;Social Media Support&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As your dedicat

&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lorraine Kirbitson – Training Consultant&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Having initially qualified as an Accountant, I worked within a small construction contractor for over 20 years. This enabled me to see all aspects of the business. For the last 5 years, I have been Training Officer of PCWY; using my experience to help other businesses maintain compliance and develop their teams.&lt;/p&gt;

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