Get Inspired And Boost Your Business’s Potential

When you think about your business, what are your goals?

If you’ve been thinking recently about challenging yourself and your business, take this article as a sign to get you inspired.

We’ve found a course that is geared to transform the way you work and the way you lead in order to unleash the full potential of your business.

If you’re a business owner, leader, or senior manager, the Help to Grow: Management course has been designed to motivate, educate, and equip you with the knowledge and skills that you’ll need to lift your business to the next level.

That’s exactly what it did for Becky Lodge.

She took the course herself and is now a mentor for others on it. Becky is also the founder of Little Kanga, which is a management consulting firm that helps universities and corporate businesses to understand the human face of start-ups and small businesses. They also work to improve interactions to build a stronger start-up business ecosystem in the UK.

Here, Becky tells us about how the Help to Grow: Management course boosted her business and her career, the key lessons she wants her mentees to learn, and the power of communal education.

You’ve participated in the Help to Grow: Management course yourself as a student. How valuable was the course in scaling up your own business?

Building a team is critical if you want to scale up, or you will soon just burn out and not be able to continue.

I was previously a sales and marketing director before becoming a founding director of my own company, so I have built successful teams before. Even this, however, doesn’t prepare you for the other things that you just don’t know.

The Help to Grow: Management course is designed to help you focus and to prepare for the things you don't know by providing a practical growth action plan.

The course is challenging, but nothing in life and business that is easy is worth having (that’s my point of view anyway!), so I think that it came exactly at the right time. I love learning and this gave me an opportunity to grow my skill set.

How helpful was it to study alongside your peers and share the experience of learning?

Peer support and learning are so valuable. You share experiences and help one another. You will also find yourself with larger companies and SMEs on the programme that have already faced and overcome the types of challenges that you are facing.

In ‘weird times’ like now, human-to-human connection (even online!) is critical. The women that I met on the programme found equal value in being able to connect with others for developing personal support networks, as well as supplier relationships and new business leads too.

By the end of the course, you definitely have a new set of trusted business friends and supporters, as well as some new business – and that is priceless.

You’re now a mentor on the course. How does a mentor help a course participant?

Having been a participant on the course with my business and now helping to mentor the programme on behalf of the University of Portsmouth Business School, I have so far seen over 100 small business leaders and owners transformed, both professionally and personally.

What I would say to anyone considering this programme is: if you do what you’ve done; you’ll get the results that you have always got! Change is tough and it makes us uncomfortable, but there is a vast team of support that shares your journey.

For leaders to grow as people, they need a safe space for people to listen and then try out ideas themselves. Failure in a safe space is a good thing! This is how people can develop their skills as leaders and ensure that they are able to show up for their teams as well.

What is the key lesson that you want people to learn from the Help to Grow: Management course when you’re mentoring them?

That anything is possible – it’s just a question of asking and being receptive to help! Successful leaders are high in emotional intelligence and many have forgotten that showing vulnerability is a strength and not a weakness. We are only human!

This is why business culture as well as a vibrant mission, vision, and values should be crystal clear. Employees need to go with the leaders on their journey in order to care and ‘show up’ each day. Without people, you simply don’t have a business, or you will remain an eternal solo founder. It’s an individual’s right to choose which path they wish to take in business, but I am glad to say that I now have the help and support to continue to grow my business and team – profitably!

The Help to Grow: Management courses are available at leading business schools all around the UK. Click here to find a course near you and sign up to this brilliant course!