Doing what you love is not something you do; it is who you are, so they say. It’s how you want to live life—all of us create the life we want. Whether you are in a happy fulfilled job like me or whether you’re a frustrated business owner I think it’s human tendency to find ways to keep ourselves sane and happy. And you can only be sane and happy (in my opinion) when you like what you do at least a little bit. Most of my job I love, its varied and interesting but like us all, there have been times when I have pondered that there must be more to life than this. I love podcasts about people who in their 50’s has gone on that big adventure, moved abroad to work and now live in a cabin in the mountains working a few hours a day. I watch the videos on Facebook of the panda keepers in China and think how much fun that must be to work with baby pandas all day (big sigh time). If you hear of any openings for panda keepers do let me know 😊
One of the questions I get asked all the time from younger people is about how to get into a management role, and I have worked with so many people in my career who have moved up the ladder and find that what they liked about their job before they don’t get to do so much of. That is so true, the more senior the role the less opportunity there is to go back to the floor and work with people, customers, or clients. Don’t get me wrong I work with people all the time, but my interactions in the most are brief and then I am handing it over to someone else to continue it’s the nature of the role. However, this week I got to go back to the floor and deliver face to face training, this was my first time in front of people for four years. In the last four years I have delivered the odd workshop but all online due that covid thing.
Nervous, yes, I was definitely …. however, after about ten minutes I settled into the flow and realised how much I had missed delivering training to real people. If you are interested the training was on public sector contracts, not the most exciting of topics for some but vital for the small business community in Barking and Dagenham. In the UK last year, the public sector, spent £242 billion with 33% of that going to small businesses. This is something Barking and Dagenham council and its partners like Be First have committed to do more of, so training small businesses in the process and what to expect is a key driver for us at the BEC if we want to keep revenue in the borough, grow local small businesses and fulfil our ambitions for economic growth in the area.
As part of our Amplify programme in partnership with Barking and Dagenham Council we are delivering a series of workshops for small businesses of course we are keen to support local businesses but if you are not from our borough, you are still very welcome to attend any of the workshops.
You can find out more about them on our website www.beccic.co.uk and I will be delivering a bid and grant writing workshop soon too.
We also have a small business event on Tuesday, where we will be working with Film Barking and Dagenham to look at the opportunities for small businesses to get contracts in our new growth area.
There are a few spaces left you can attend by following the link below:
Finally, to the person who left the training I delivered yesterday on public sector contracts and said ‘I am fired up’ thank you, you didn’t realise it, but you made my day 😊
