MAY ROUND-UP

A change of venue this month saw us at Red Bar near Carnaby Street, with a small intimate group which gave the opportunity for everyone to circulate and meet everyone else in the room.  Great for really building on those relationships and finding out a little more about what we all do and how we can all help each other.

 

Our guest speaker was Jo Rogers of North Star Legal Ltd.  Jo has spent her legal career to date advising international clients on mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures and company law requirements and now advises businesses how to reduce their legal risks by getting their businesses in ship-shape. She spoke about "Navigating your business through the legal unknown - 10 steps to guide you to safety". Something we all need to know, whether we are SMEs or larger businesses.

Here are Jo's top tips:

• Always read and understand the paperwork
• Avoid pirates: know who you are dealing with
• Keep a treasure chest of records
• Everything is negotiable
• Know the likelihood of something happening - avoid the storm
• Evaluate the consequences and effects upfront
• Keep things ship-shape
• Plan your next destination
• Seek wise counsel
• Be the captain of your ship

It did stir up an interesting discussion about how often we read the smallprint!  As Jo suggested, always print off the Terms & Conditions at the time of the transaction and keep them safe - just in case you ever need to refer back to them.  And preferably read them too!

 

 

SPARKLING!

A roomful of sparkling ladies attended the first LWMB meeting of the year which took place at Swarovski Crystallized on Thursday 20th January.

Julia Macmillan

The bubbly flowed, the food was delicious, the company was wonderful and our guest speaker, Julia Macmillan, gave a fantastic talk about her experience in setting up her internet business, Toyboy Warehouse. Of course, for those interested in learning how to find a toyboy, there was ample time for a chat with Julia after her talk!!

Julia is a former fashion designer and artist, and began Toyboy Warehouse following a successful art commission, having discovered that she couldn't find what she was looking for on "traditional" dating websites.  From starting the site with open source software, and a group of friends as her members, she has now grown the business to a point where she is talking to investors and is about to launch internationally.  The ideas that Julia used in growing her business can be readily applied to most businesses - find a unique name that gets people talking; in addition to contacting newspapers etc, build relationships with freelance journalists so that they call upon you as an "expert" in your field; ensure you have a targetted (not Adwords) Facebook campaign if you have a digital business; offer added value eg. Julia now has a VIP section, hosts member events and a dining society and is planning to launch an online game.

Thank you Julia for giving your time to share your experiences with us.

Drawing the raffle

Congratulations to those of you who won a raffle prize - we hope you enjoy making use of the gifts on offer which ranged from a £100 Jaeger voucher, a bottle of Bollinger Champagne, to a relaxing floatation session, a massage treatment and a £500 voucher to spend at a hair & beauty salon.  And a special thanks to Cory Cook who offered half a day of her services in time management or organising your life.  Your generous donations mean that we raised £110 pounds for the charity Childreach.

Thanks are also due to our photographer for the evening.  You may have noticed Claire Swindale clicking away in the room.  Claire is an experienced photographer who has worked with such brands as Revlon, and we were delighted to have her with us on the evening.  Her photos of the evening are now on our gallery, and there is a separate blogpost about Claire with further details of her work, her special offer to LWMB and an invitation to her "meet the artist" day at her exhibition in March.

And finally, a thank you to Carrie and all at Swarvoski Crystallized who were wonderful to work with.  Several women in the room disappeared downstairs to the shop during the evening returning with a Swarvoski Crystallized bagful of goodies.  And who can blame them, with a 70% sale, or the LWMB 15% discount on non-sale goods to take advantage of!!

Thank you to all of our guests who made the evening so successful.  We hope you enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you again soon.