Around the regions . . .

DUBLIN: "National Enterprise Week went extremely well in the Dublin area," says Dublin regional manager Stephen Mason.

“We had five major customer events in venues around the region and more than 1,000 customers turned up to them. The quality of speakers at the events was also tremendous; we had the Lord Mayor and Minister Eamon Ryan in the House of Lords, we had the Tipperary’s all-Ireland winning hurling manager Liam Sheedy at the event in the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel and we had very interesting speakers such as Linda Lucas from Lucas Promotions. The message was ‘get up and get on with it’, and it was great to see that sort of positive attitude out there.”

According to Mason, almost 750 businesses participated in the Show Your Business events during the week. “This gave those businesses the opportunity to become better known in their own communities and to generate new business in the process.”

Another element to the week was the various business networking events organised by branches. “The branches organised lots of these breakfast and evening events catering for maybe 20 or 30 people,” he notes.

“In Dún Laoghaire, the branch organised an event called ‘Meet your neighbour for a cuppa’ and it was amazing how well this went. Businesspeople dropped into the branch during the day for a cup of tea or coffee and met each other, many for the first time. The great thing about events like this is that you can pick up an idea from someone or meet someone who might be able to help your business. This was repeated throughout our branch network.”

The overall highlight for Mason was the positive mood in evidence. “There was a good positive mood all around and this gave everyone a lift,” he says. “It’s great to see entrepreneurs out there in the marketplace getting back to old fashioned networking.”

NORTH WEST MIDLANDS

The main highlight in the Midlands region was the customer event in the Mullingar Park Hotel on Tuesday, November 23rd. “This was our main regional event and 160 people turned up to hear Gavin Duffy speak,” says regional manager John Keegan. “It was a really positive session. Gavin not only gave a great talk on business success but also gave a really good tutorial on networking at the end of the presentation.”

This networking masterclass came as somewhat of a surprise but went down very well. “He set up the networking session really well,” says Keegan. “The first thing he did was get people to challenge their natural inclination and seek out people they don’t know.

“He told people that if they were interested in broadening their business base they had to stand up, look around the room and find groups of people who they didn’t know and go talk to them. It was a very useful session and it really helped those people there who were new to networking.”

For Keegan, the Show Your Business element of the week is possibly the most important in the long run.

“I visited quite a few of our branches during the week and they were like retail shops. Having these businesses showcasing their products and services changes the mood in the branches and creates an entirely different atmosphere. I called a few of the customers who had taken part and the feedback was really positive. One guy asked me when the next National Enterprise Week is going to be because he wants to exhibit in another branch next time to extend the reach of his business to a new town.

CORK

The branches in the Cork Region were particularly busy during Enterprise Week according to Regional Business Manager Peter Walley. “We had Show Your Business events in 20 branches across the region and these were very successful,” he says. “Some of the smaller branches might have had one business displaying each day while our larger branches would have had a roster of businesses coming in and out during the day. We had businesses showing baby buggies and we had personal trainers and everything in between. The reaction was great both from the businesses and the customers.”

And Show Your Business did generate real returns for participants. “One businesswoman in one of our city branches got nine new business contacts in her first hour,” says Walley. “Businesses taking part put a lot of effort into organising their stands and many of them won new customers as a result.”

The positive theme continued through to the major event of the week in the region, the business briefing held in conjunction with Cork Chamber of Commerce in the Clarion Hotel. “More than 160 people attended, and there was a very good QA afterwards which was very positive in terms of the views being expressed by the businesspeople there. They had the opportunity to ask difficult questions of the bank and they got good forthright responses. To give you an idea of the mood, one person suggested that every newspaper should carry at least one page of good news every day to counterbalance the negativity that’s out there at the moment.”

Ten of the larger branches around the region also organised networking events of their own, while a further five held early morning breakfast briefings for customers. “Overall, the week went very well and we were able to reach out to a large number of businesses and show them that Bank of Ireland is here to support them.”

SOUTH LEINSTER

“I honestly believe what we have done during National Enterprise Week has made a difference to businesses in the region,” says regional manager Kate O’Donnell. “We held our flagship regional event on Monday night in Carlow and more than 250 business owners and entrepreneurs from throughout the four counties of Kildare, Carlow, Wicklow and Wexford turned up for it. They heard a very interesting presentation from Fergal O’Byrne, managing director of local high-tech firm Sonru, who told them how he turned his idea into a business reality, and they also heard from Sean Gallagher who really gave us a tour de force on the night.”

She describes Gallagher’s presentation as “fantastic” and “electrifying”. “He spoke for 45 minutes and you could have heard a pin drop during the presentation. He spoke about the people in the room being the lifeblood of the economy, and you could tell that he believed it – and he made everyone else believe it as well. We believe that too at Bank of Ireland, and want to do whatever we can to support SMEs.”

Gallagher mixed charisma with practical advice, she says. “He told the audience not to focus on the negative macro-economic stuff that’s in the news and to concentrate instead on the micro part; to look at their own business and how they can make it better. It had an amazing effect on the audience. One customer told me that it was the most positive two hours they had spent in a very long time and another said that they had been to quite a few events like that and they had never left one feeling so good.”

One of Gallagher’s messages which struck a particular chord with the audience was his call for businesses to network and look after each other. “He spoke of the businesspeople in the room as being a tribe and told them that they had to look after each other. He spoke very forcibly about the value of networking and told everyone that they should not leave without speaking to at least 10 other people there.”

Another more personal highlight for O’Donnell came at the launch of Enterprise Week in Wexford branch. “On Friday, November 19th at our National Enterprise Week Launch in Wexford, the chairman of the Wexford County Enterprise Board presented an award to one of our business managers, Pauline O’Neill, for the support and advice she has given over the past 10 years to the several hundred participants who have undertaken the board’s Start Your Own Business Programme. Pauline has turned up voluntarily at the final night of each of every course for the past 10 years, and has helped hundreds of businesses on the way. This is the type of support that our staff are giving business day in and day out.”

The Show Your Business events were also a huge success. “We had 170 businesses – both customers and non-customers – exhibiting in our branches during the week, and I think it really made a difference to a lot of them”, she says. “At the moment, most businesses have had to pare back on costs and overheads, and this means that marketing and advertising budgets have probably been hit as well. Some of our branches get as many as 1,500 customers visiting them every week and the Show Your Business events allowed the participating businesses to reach those customers at little or no cost.”

NORTH EAST

National Enterprise Week kicked off in the North East region with a series of launch events in strategically located branches in Dundalk, Trim, Kells and Cavan. “We invited all of the Show Your Business participants to these events to involve them in Enterprise Week from the very beginning,” says regional manager Gerry Prizeman. “We had more than 200 businesses take part in the Show Your Business events during the week, and it was great to see those numbers.”

One event which stood out for Prizeman was a “speed networking” breakfast held in Monaghan branch, where each of the businesspeople had a limited amount of time to speak to each other before moving on to the next person in the room.

“We weren’t really sure if this would work or not,” he recalls. “It was very new to us, but we decided to try it out to see if businesses would benefit from it. We had about 25 businesses represented at the event and it succeeded beyond all expectations. All of these people have businesses in the same locality and many of them weren’t aware of each other. It was great to see them getting to know each other and finding ways to work together and help each other.”

The main event in the North East during the week was a business briefing in the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan last Thursday. This featured presentations from award-winning branding and social media strategist Krishna De and TV “dragon” Bobby Kerr.

“We had about 200 people at this event and Krishna De’s presentation was excellent,” Prizeman says. “Also, Bobby Kerr is hugely enthusiastic and is great at energising people. We also had a local accountant, Dermot Brennan, speaking on the night and I think everyone there got something out of it.”

WEST MUNSTER

The West Munster region saw well over 100 different businesses participating in Show Your Business events across its 31 branches. “The response from the participating businesses was tremendous and we got great feedback all through the week,” says regional business manager Denis Minihane. “For example, Cinnamon Alley is a cafe and delicatessen that exhibited in the Nenagh branch, and they told us they got eight or nine orders in one day as well as attracting people to eat in the restaurant for the first time. Another business which exhibited in Nenagh, The Scullery Relishes, took €600 in orders in a day.”

Similar feedback came from branches around the region. “It was very positive. In 125 O’Connell Street here in Limerick, we have had lots of participants coming to us already telling us they would be interested in exhibiting again next time due to their success this time around.”

The high point of the week was the Thomond Park business briefing event. “The turnout was tremendous for the Thomond Park keynote event on Thursday morning,” says Minihane. “Liam Sheedy, the all-Ireland winning Tipperary hurling manager, spoke about his experiences over the past year. Overall, at the Thomond Park event and during the rest of Enterprise Week we got across the message that Bank of Ireland is here to support business in the region.”

WEST

With a series of local networking events, more than 100 businesses at the Show Your Business events, a major business briefing in Galway featuring Sean Gallagher and Liam Sheedy,

and Christmas market going on in Galway city at the same time the West Region certainly had a busy time of it during the past week.

“The breakfast event in Galway’s Radisson Blu Hotel went very well, with more than 200 people attending but we had a lot of other innovative things going in the region as well,” says regional business manager PJ Kavanagh. “For example, I think we had a first for a bank branch in Ireland when Mid-West Radio broadcast the Paul Claffey show from Ballina branch on Friday. Castlebar also caused quite a stir with customers when Helena’s Chocolates set up a chocolate fountain in the middle of the branch.”

One big success was the agri-business evening held in Gullane’s Hotel on Monday. “This was the only dedicated agri-business seminar held during Enterprise Week and it was staggeringly successful,” Kavanagh points out. “More than 250 people turned out for it, and we had a very strong panel that included IFA chief economist Rowena Dwyer and Dara Kavanagh from Macra na Feirme, who spoke about farming into the future. This was followed by a forum chaired by Paul McCarthy from RTÉ’s Higher Ground programme. The forum focused on exploring alternatives in the food and agri-sector, and we had great engagement from everyone there.”

Another significant event was held in Salthill branch where John Killeen of ‘Let’s Do It Galway’ spoke of how the city won the right to host the Volvo boat race and told the story of how it is coming back in 2012. “Tourism and agri-business are of critical importance to the West region so we were very pleased with the success of these two events,” says Kavanagh.

SOUTH EAST MIDLANDS

The energy and enthusiasm of the business owners and entrepreneurs participating in National Enterprise Week were the personal high points for South East Midlands regional manager Marguerite Brosnan. “In the middle of all the doom and gloom, it is great to see the energy, passion and enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs and business owners. It is so uplifting. These are the people that will drive the recovery and get the economy moving again, and Bank of Ireland is working in partnership with them to help them achieve their business goals.”

These qualities were very much in evidence at the flagship event for the region which was held in the Hotel Kilkenny on Wednesday evening and featured presentations from local logistics business owner Michael Brannigan and Bobby Kerr of Insomnia cafes and Dragons’ Den fame. “Michael Brannigan has built up his company from a small family business to one employing 300 people now and was quite inspiring,” says Brosnan. “His message was that if you have the energy, the drive and the passion for your business you are 90 per cent there, the other 10 per cent is just the everyday necessities of business. That was great to hear.”

Bobby Kerr shared his ten tips for personal success and 10 tips for business success with the 200-strong audience before giving them an update on his eight Dragons Den investments. “People could really relate to the stories about the investments and that was really great. One of the most memorable pieces of advice he gave was not to associate with negative people and don’t let others rain on our parade. We still have a lot of positive things going for us as a country and we should focus on them.”