I don’t know about you, but I have been feeling pretty glum lately, a lot going on at home and at work and let’s not get started with the weather. I am so over all the rain and grey days. Like all of us I try to be bright and cheery but that mwah! feeling takes over on occasions. It struck me over the weekend that sometimes we all need to be reminded of the creative light that is and always is in each and every one of us. Sometimes we all need just a little help switching that light back on. Sometimes we all need to be reminded to get out of our own way and just to be present.

I think this year’s theme for International Womens day sparked a thought about what we do to inspire inclusion as an organisation and as individuals it is part of our role to ensure we inspire women to be entrepreneurial, great leaders and elevate other women where possible.

Here are our top tips for inspiring women.

1. Just do you - Be your unapologetic self, don’t try to shrink yourself, be quieter, or take up less space. This is your time to shine and show others you mean business. It took me a long time to accept that you are the only one who must spend every single day with yourself, so make sure you love yourself. It will be a far more enjoyable experience.

• Support other women - Openly supporting other women is going to be a huge help when you want to inspire others. Champion women from all backgrounds, of all ages, and let people know why you support them and how they have inspired you. This will show women that we are not competition for one another the way we may have been brought up, to be seen and not heard, that our opinions and thoughts are not valid, and that other people know what is best for us. We need to build and lift one another up. The only place for competition between women is sport!

• Share your experiences – In Barking and Dagenham there are so many rich and enlightening stories of women who have overcome challenges and adversities to be their best selves and doing magnificent work with communities. Whether they are politicians, community champions or business leaders. The fact is that talking about your experiences with other people to inspire them and show them that anything is possible. Be honest and authentic and speak nothing but your truth.

• Live dangerously – go against the status quo and break free from expectations we all grow up with them from childhood but do what is right for you, spend time figuring it out!

• Personal growth- do whatever is right for you, podcasts, books, listening to others, or attending events. Sometimes personal growth takes a back seat when women are such givers, and it can feel incredibly selfish to take time for yourself but do it. Others will reap the benefit as well as you.

• Network – network with anybody and everybody. You never know who you might meet and who you may be able to team up with! You could be inspiring them, just as they do for you.

So, are you ready to inspire other women?

If so, then please join us for our Speed Networking event to celebrate Womens Empower month on Wednesday March 20^th at 5pm till 7pm. This is an informal networking event all are welcome and a private room will be available for those breaking their fast.

You can sign up with the link below:

It was the BEC’s 8^th Anniversary in February and that means that we have been celebrating International Women’s Day the same number of years. Of course, we go big in Barking and Dagenham with a whole month of events and celebrations. From the BEC perspective, for obvious reasons some years have been bigger than others due to lock downs and home working and of course any event is reliant on how much you want to spend. Our ethos at the BEC is that any money left after running the business should go on delivering more programmes to support businesses locally. However, this year’s theme ‘Inspire Inclusion’ resonates well, with the work that is being done across the borough in supporting women and girls to have the same opportunities as others.

As a senior leader in an anchor institution, I certainly see that it is my role to do my bit in championing this cause. I am blessed with a network of strong female leaders, in both my own organisation. I have a strong work wife in our Operations Director Donna Finley, and the wider social sector. I haven’t looked at the statistics, but women leaders outweigh men in this borough in the social sector. Of course, our partners in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham have a female Chief Executive and there are more women than men in the cabinet of elected members.

Why is this important you ask, well there are several reasons, providing visual representation as role models to women and girls, comes to mind first. Secondly, the evidence suggests that women often make better leaders for a variety of reasons, from their ability to add fresh perspectives and diversity of opinion, to their willingness to compromise and respect work-life balance. I think women are more comfortable in asking for help, certainly. in our industry of business support there are far more women who reach out for support than men, the men tend to leave it until there is a problem and are not always comfortable in seeking assistance.

Most importantly Barking and Dagenham has the youngest population in the country, and so it is our duty to inspire all young people to be the best they can be, make use of the opportunities and strive for fulfilment and of course to be happy which is so important in these challenging times with mental health deteriorating at an alarming rate.

If you would like to find out how you can help inspire inclusion in Barking and Dagenham, then please join us for a speed networking event on Wednesday March 20th from 5pm – 7pm,   where you can get to network w with other likeminded people. Where we will all be publicly pledging to do one thing to inspire inclusion for women and girls in Barking and Dagenham in 2024.   You can sign up for the event here.

Ps men also invited before you feel the need to comment! 😊

February is an exciting month for us at the BEC – it is our 8th anniversary! If you are not familiar with our history, then you will not know that the BEC spun out of the local authority in February 2016 as a Community Interest Company. In those early days we just had the one building and four staff with me leaving my career in local government to focus on developing the BEC. When you live it, breathe it, and become consumed in the daily stuff, it is hard to focus on the achievements to date.

I like to use February as a period of reflection to focus on the outcomes and think about the next year, it is always helpful as it helps inform our budget for the next fiscal year so is very timely. It can also provide negative thoughts as an ambitious organisation committed to our values it can be easy to look back on what we did not manage or what could be better. A stark reminder is that this is 96 months and 417 weeks; and that Rome was not built in a day.

What has remained solid in those 417 weeks is our commitment to providing quality services to the business community in Barking and Dagenham. Whether that be affordable accommodation, training or one to one mentoring for businesses we are proud of the quality of service we provide.

We have found our place as one of the boroughs anchor institutions, and we have so many partnership working arrangements across a wide range of sectors. This makes the work exciting and affords us the opportunity to help shape initiatives for the future and the growth and development of the borough as well as the residents. Our strength is in our values as a company, and our Board and staff reflect this ethos through the work they do in support of the BEC. We are blessed with a range of freelance trainers, mentors, and support contractors, who are committed to the values of the BEC and deliver excellent support on behalf of the organisation. With our family run business approach, we know the value of looking after our own: colleague or client, we treat all those we work with as part of the clan.

What have we achieved in the last 8 years? well we have developed over 500 start-ups; this could have been more but of course covid and the cost-of-living crisis has meant a downturn in people wanting to start a business. We have however seen a rapid growth on people wanting to start a business for a social purpose in the not-for-profit arena, more about that later. We have invested over £750k back into the borough with our funded training and mentoring programmes which we fund from income we generate. We have gone from one building to three including our first capital project (still recovering from that one) and our two-pizza team has expanded to the point that there is now only one slice each!

What’s next you may ask; we are looking forward to working on Amplify a borough funded business support programme from UKSPF funding which will provide intensive support to businesses with growth potential. A generous portion (no pun intended) of the programme is working with food businesses which is a real growth area for the borough. To find out more about Amplify you can check out our website or watch this short video here.

Hot off the press we also have other exciting news, that from end of March we will be able to support charities, social enterprises, CICs, and startups in the not-for-profit world for the next three years. We are grateful that City Bridge Foundation can see how hard we have worked on this over the last few years and have granted funding for a more targeted approach. The project with no name …good suggestions welcome! It will provide a vital resource to Barking and Dagenham.

@CityBridgeFndn, @City-Bridge-Foundation, @UKSPF, @lbbd

Celebrating Social Enterprise Day

If you know me well, you will know that I am passionate about business, its my job after all, but my greatest passion is business for a social purpose. I have had the honour of leading the BEC since before it was its own company, and therefore unashamedly am very proud of what we have achieved collectively, the staff, our Board, our community, and the fabulous businesses both commercial and social purpose that we support. 

We are now hurtling towards our 8^th Anniversary in February 2024; I would be fibbing if I said it has all been plain sailing it has been both challenging and rewarding in equal measure. I look back at the early days and wonder how we ever got this far, probably the recipe is tenacity, resilience, and the determination to support the business community locally and further afield. Of course, our success is attributed to the growth of Barking and Dagenham and our supporters in local government who have helped and supported on our journey and long may it continue.

We have had some interesting changes to our work in this last year, a notable increase in the number of people wanting to start a business for a social purpose. The closure of Everyone Everyday (Participatory City) and the distribution of the assets has led to several groups of residents wanting to continue their journey to delivering meanwhile services to their community. We are excited to see the future of these makers, sewers, and crafters and how this works, and of course will continue to support them on their journey to creating a Community Interest Company that sees all the assets from Everyone Every day put to good use.

We ourselves have teamed up with Make it Barking and are delighted to have been successful in the bid for the commercial kitchen which will be used to support both commercial food businesses, and community businesses alike. Hopefully from early next year.

However, in addition we lots of other people wanting to start social enterprises with ideas about bringing mental health services to the heart of the community, tackling obesity, and supporting people who have experienced domestic violence to name but a few. It is an exciting time and whilst we have seen a downturn in commercial business start ups (for obvious reasons) we have seen an expediential increase in the number of community-based businesses.

Diversity and inclusion are a hot topic these days, and the reality is that a Community Interest Company is far more likely to be led by people from BAME backgrounds than a commercial business. In the traditional commercial world only 10% of businesses are led by people from BAME backgrounds.

Another trailblazing initiative across the world of social enterprise is those businesses who are tackling the climate emergency. It may seem obvious but if your purpose is about helping people and creating social change then working in sustainability as a social business is booming.

This Thursday November 16^th is Social Enterprise Day, a chance to look at the world of business for a social purpose or change. So maybe you could find that not for profit coffee shop or purchase a Christmas gift from the range of independent not for profit retailers to support the commitment. 

Or maybe you want to join the movement and start a social enterprise and join the 100,000 social enterprises in the UK, contributing £60 billion to the economy and employing 2 million people.

If you want to find out more about our mentoring and support for social businesses, an idea or  you already exist but need help then reach out to us at reception@barkingenterprisecentre.co.uk.

Years ago, a barista drew a smiley face on my coffee cup, and I’ve been loyal ever since.

I had walked into this quiet independent cafe with my partner. As is common for LGBTQ+ people, we were on guard for disapproving looks. The smiling cup was a gesture that said “we see you’re nervous, and you are welcome here”.

Actions like these are where ‘inclusion’ may start in your small business.

If you’ve worked in big companies, ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (we’ll call it ‘inclusion’) might have looked like:

• Carefully designed hiring practices
• Company-wide religious celebrations
• Anti-racism training
• Disability champions
• Gender neutral dress codes
• Staff equality networks

Not all of these are relevant for our small businesses right now.

So is ‘inclusion’ relevant for our small businesses?

Yes.

Initiatives like the ones above don’t represent all inclusive business behaviours. Think of inclusion as your response to this challenge.

“In a community and economy with people of many ages, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, disabilities, nationalities, family types, faiths, languages, social classes and life experiences, a majority will experience unnecessary, unfair barriers as customers, colleagues and fellow citizens. In what ways will you give people a break from these, as they see and interact with your small business?”

Put like that, it makes sense to strive to be inclusive.

Great businesses always aspire to delight customers and eliminate their frictions - see: contactless payment, free delivery, birthday emails. As consumers opt for quicker, bigger, cheaper, closer, and newer things; many of our customers also opt for businesses that make them feel safe, valued, equal, good about themselves and optimistic about the world. We can take inclusive actions that help achieve that for customers.

Inclusivity matters in our business networks too. When a business owner made sexist jokes about his wife to break the ice at a recent networking event, it put me off working with him and recommending him. We as business people also flock to the people who make us feel safe, valued, equal, good about ourselves and optimistic about the world. We can build beautiful, diverse networks through our inclusivity.

Entrepreneurs may also have personal reasons to value inclusion.

Being excluded or undervalued as employees is a huge driver for people becoming their own bosses in the first place. For example, whilst disabled workers face high levels of discrimination, the number of disabled small business owners actually reflects the disabled population at large^[1]. Many of us want to break the negative cycles we’ve been involved in, and treat others better.

In many cases, our businesses are often an expression of who we are. Our products and services are our creative endeavours. We want them to be our legacies.

If that’s how you feel about your business, you should know that inclusive small businesses are helping to build the world we want to see. We don’t need to become charities to do that; we can pay attention to inclusivity in the things we do and the ways we operate. Any of us with personal experiences of racism and prejudice know that actions and gestures of support, from organisations large and small, can be meaningful.

Are there times when inclusion might be particularly relevant to us?

As we saw around the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, your inclusivity may be a lot more visible or powerful at times of heightened injustice, tension or fear. Right now, there is an upsurge of anti-gay violent crimes in London. LGBTQ+ people in Barking and Dagenham may feel especially vulnerable and unsure who has their back. Could it be you?

Tragedies and news cycles aside, people in minority and historically excluded groups have been around forever. That means there’s never a bad time to think about them.

But I find that most people interested in inclusion have personal moments or reasons why it became so relevant for them. One of mine was a time when I hadn’t really thought about how my new disabled colleague was going to join in a day of company-wide activities I had organised. What I felt from them was frustration, disappointment, embarrassment and the eye-roll of never being thought about enough. From then, I wanted to be proactive about including people, and never make someone feel like that again.

The inclusivity of our small businesses is always relevant. My tip is to find your reason to care about it. That will be your fuel.

I think I have mentioned this before but sometimes I struggle with blogs especially when the idea or theme does not flow. This happened with this one and then I thought about my impending holiday coming up and then had the lightbulb moment.

It is a busy time at the BEC with lots of exciting new projects about to start; I have been saying to my long-suffering work wife and my husband at home this is not the right time to go on holiday. However, on reflection there never is the right time for a holiday when you work or own a business or for some of you who do both!

However, in lockdown we all learnt the importance of work life balance if we didn’t understand it before! Which clearly some of us didn’t.

So here are some reminders I promise you will thank me.

Establish Boundaries and Prioritising Self-Care

Setting yourself clear boundaries is essential for maintaining work-life balance. From implementing technology boundaries…step away from the mobile, laptop, tablet. Learn to incorporate self-care rituals into your daily routine, small changes can have a profound impact on your ability to balance work and life.

Learn to manage your time.

Blah blah blah, but time management is a critical skill for business owners seeking work-life balance. From prioritising tasks and delegating responsibilities to leveraging technology tools for increased efficiency, learning how to optimise your time to achieve your professional goals while still making room for personal pursuits is key.

Delegating and Outsourcing for Freedom

As a business owner, it's important to recognize that you can't do it all alone. Delegating and outsourcing tasks is essential to regaining your freedom and maintaining work-life balance. Learning how to build a reliable team, whether through hiring employees, engaging freelancers, or partnering with virtual assistants is a skill you must master. Discover the benefits of entrusting others with specific responsibilities and how it can empower you to focus on your core strengths and passions.

Creating Systems and Processes for Efficiency

Efficiency is the foundations of work-life balance. Let’s explore the importance of creating systems and processes that streamline your business operations. Identifying areas where automation and standardisation can save you time and energy is essential. By implementing effective systems, you can enhance productivity, reduce stress, and create more space for personal pursuits.

Achieving work-life balance as a business owner is not a luxury; it's a necessity for your well-being and long-term success. By setting boundaries, prioritising self-care, mastering time management, delegating effectively, and implementing efficient systems, you can reclaim your sense of freedom and create a fulfilling and sustainable business.

Remember, work-life balance is an ongoing journey that requires regular reflection, adjustment, and self-care. Embrace the notion that success is not solely measured by business accomplishments but also by the quality of life you experience. Take the power to change to a business and a life that aligns with your values, aspirations, and desire for freedom.

Here's to regaining your freedom, balancing work, and life, and creating a business that allows you to truly enjoy the journey.

With that in mind I am taking a dose of my own medicine and I am off on holiday, leaving you with a great guest blog next week from our LGBT+ guest blogger Taz, and my work wife a handover the size of the yellow pages 😊

I’m not in control. I’m not perfect and over the last few weeks I have felt completely overwhelmed by the simplest of tasks… So maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I did feel a huge amount of disappointment, frustration, and guilt. Here’s what happened.

I came back from holiday with a nasty chest infection which really knocked me off my feet, instead of having a spring in my step like Tigger. I was in fact doubling up as Eeyore, slow and unresponsive and not seeing the joy in everyday things. Work was piling up post-holiday and there was a tender to write in a few days which had to take priority. I have been feeling guilty that I haven’t been blogging, not sure why as I don’t know if anyone reads them, but I find joy in writing them so will continue until someone tells me to stop!

 It felt horrible to feel that way, and I couldn’t shake the feeling for a couple of weeks, the guilt of not being at my best, and the frustration just kept rising, even after I had tried to move on. I know that feeling bad wasn’t going to fix anything, so I just needed to get over it. Eventually, I started getting frustrated that I couldn’t get over my frustration and then something clicked.

My light bulb moment - Focus on reality, not feelings.

I’ve always been told not to let myself be controlled by my emotions. The state of reality isn’t based on how we feel — in fact, it is often quite the opposite. For instance, even though I was not at my best, the BEC was still moving forward because I have an awesome Operations Director who always has my back and when I am struggling, which thankfully isn’t often she just takes over, and there are several good things happening here at the BEC.

But the problem is that when you feel bad you start being negative, and negativity can leave you feeling even worse.

I know there’s a few tactics to combat this cycle of behaviour, and I hope they help

• Acknowledge your mistakes and your frustration. Instead of trying to push through frustration by ignoring it, figure out why you are frustrated. Writing it down can help to clarify why you are so frustrated

• Figure out how not to make that mistake again. Sometimes it is more complicated, such as checking an angry reaction. In any case, a mistake can be valuable if it keeps you from making an even bigger mistake.

• Stop replaying the situation in your head. Find something else to focus on by changing activities or scenery. If this isn’t possible, then write out or tell someone what you keep replaying in your head, as this often helps differentiate reality from mental escalation. Replace the negative thinking with positive self-talk.

• Keep going, don’t let negative feelings keep you from doing what you’re supposed to be doing. It should be a rare thing that our frustration gets so out of hand that we become crippled. In some ways, this requires a “fake it until you make it” kind of mentality: You may not feel like you can work cheerfully for the rest of the day, but you can at least keep working and be as cheerful as you can, which often leads to genuine cheerfulness.

As the Summer holidays approach, it may be time to take a well-earned break, the BEC will still be here but we reign in on social media and posts as we want to encourage down time for businesses if they can do it. Also, my fab Operations Director disappears for most of August leaving me home alone 😊 so I need to be around to be reactive the challenges the team may be encountering. Touch wood things are normally quiet.  I like to use August to plan and review what we do.

I know the cost-of-living crisis is hitting businesses just like people but …If you can get away, take time off, or even just slow down for a few weeks please do! The BEC will still be here if you need support or advice. Have a fab summer folks!