Context and Challenge
To cement its commitment to developing entrepreneurial students Staffordshire University joined a collaboration of 12 UK Higher Education Institutions in mid-2006 to deliver the Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education (SPEED) programme to 750 students over 2 years. Staffordshire University commissioned Blueberry Training to design and deliver a full programme of enterprise skills workshops to 102 SPEED and Enterprise Fellowship Scheme (EFS) students. Staffordshire University is a large university with approximately 12,000 full-time and 3000 part-time students. It is situated on three main campuses, Stoke, Stafford and Lichfield.
Objectives
Staffordshire University required a training workshop programme that built a toolkit of enterprise skills appropriate to student entrepreneurs with a wide range of business ideas. The workshops would give delegates the necessary legal, marketing, finance and sales skills to ensure that their new ventures got off to the best possible start.
Programme
A programme of eight full-day workshops run weekly for two years over a two semester cycle from October 2006 to March 2008 attracted over 60 delegates in its first year. Individual workshops were themed:
Results
Delegate satisfaction over the programme averaged 90.1%. Satisfaction was measured against such criteria as whether their performance would be improved as a result of the workshop, the learning methods used, quality of the content, and the facilitator’s enthusiasm and ability to answer questions. Here is a selection of the delegate feedback:
"Marketing and business is an area I lack knowledge. So the whole course so far has been considerable in terms of learning experience, as my skills are design based"
"Excellent but hard work"
"Group work and 1-1 talks with Andrew proved great benefit"
"I enjoyed participating and felt involved and unpressured"
"Andy has been a fantastic trainer for the past 8 weeks"
“It was really nice to talk to someone who gave me ideas and advice without saying that was ‘the’ way to do it. I’m very grateful.”
“We have gained sufficient knowledge to run our business with confidence and with competence.”
Effect and Impact
“The feedback that has been received from the delegates has all been very positive and they have really enjoyed the ‘hands-on’, practical experience that the training package gives them. The students have been able to take the learning and apply it directly to their businesses. Andrew has been great to work with and he has a very professional, flexible and enthusiastic approach. This has helped our student companies to develop their business and their own personal experiences or entrepreneurship.” Rachel Baker, Business Development Manager
What do you do first? Developing a business idea, testing your idea, protecting intellectual property and insurance....
How to keep business records? What exactly is cash flow and how do you go about fundraising for business?
How to carry our market research, promotional campaigns and get your product sold!
