Business advisor | Young Enterprise West Midlands

Young Enterprise Business Advisor

Overview

Young Enterprise is a national education charity with a mission to inspire and equip young people to learn and succeed through enterprise. The organisation operates a number of programmes on a learning by doing principle. In the Company Programme Achievers aged 15-19 run their own company over the course of an academic year.

The company is formally established with a board of directors and shareholders and has to fulfil pretty much the same level of corporate governance as any other business. To find out more about Young Enterprise and see how you can support better business education for young people check out the website at www.young-enterprise.org.uk or give them a call at 01865 776845.

Gareth Edwards, managing director of Arrowsmith Marketing Limited, has been assigned as a volunteer Young Enterprise West Midlands business adviser to King Edward VI college in Stourbridge, supporting YE link teacher Jeremy Panko. King Edward's is the top A level college in the West Midlands drawing in students from as far afield as Birmingham, Dudley, Wolverhampton and Kidderminster. It has an excellent track record in regional competitions and always supplies enthusiastic teams.

2009 -2010 Perception

Perception have just been formed as the latest King Edward VI Young Enterprise company to be advised by Gareth Edwards.

2008 -2009 Eco-Oce

Right from the start Eco-Oce were determined to live up to the environmental twist in their name. They decided to make bags for students and young people using old and recycled materials. True to their word they collected old clothes and had a bash at making their own bags from scratch using the sewing and design skills of the team. This actually proved to be a more difficult job than they anticipated, although the prototype bag (designed to fit college materials plus teen accessories) actually looked pretty good.

Undaunted the company looked for different ways to achieve their goals. They discovered that they could buy plain jute bags from an online wholesaler at a price which would allow them to add some value and sell them on at a profit. The company then focused on sewing, sticking and drawing on bags to give themselves a range of distinctive designs.

The bags were popular around the college and sold very well at both the West Bromwich and Stratford trade fairs. Eco-Oce made a pretty big profit and this amounted to a pretty good dividend for all those concerned. One interesting note for other Young Enterprise companies was the success of the Christmas raffle that Eco-Oce held. Basically they brought some prizes and then sold tickets around the college, and it proved to be a very good way to generate working capital.

2007 - 2008 Thing-amy-jigz

Thing-amy-jigz focused on creating themed novelty items to coincide with key events on the calendar such as Christmas, Easter and Mother's Day. Their Chav and Emo Reindeer Christmas decorations were a perfect example of products focused on the resident student population.

For Easter the team created a "Cream Egg Eating Kit" which ended up being a smash hit!

Despite only one company representative attending the Stratford trade fair Thing-amy-jigz actually sold quite a lot on the day. A nice touch was that the rest of the company unanimously voted a special bonus for that effort.

The company ended donating a large chunk of their profits to a local cancer charity.

2006 - 2007 Hotopz

Hotopz were the 2006-2007 company for Arrowsmith Marketing to support. Hotopz decided to design, print and sell a range of T-Shirts and hoodies focused on the their fashion conscious colleagues at the college. They also provided a customised design service that suited the fuddy duddys of Arrowsmith a little better. The Hotopz team launched a website (no longer available) with order details and a gallery of Hot Topz products.

Hotopz achieved a pretty good level of sales amongst King Ed's students and their families and were also brave enough to go out and get business from some Stourbridge shops too.

The team went on to win an award for their presentation skills at the Wolverhampton and Dudley area finals.

One of the team took the idea further the following year and managed to supply orders for the college itself and for a number of sports teams and recreational groups. Very entrepreneurial!

2005 - 2006 Four

Four (the name represents the original number of company participants) kicked off its existence by running a variety of fundraising activities including selling mistletoe (see newspaper article below) and car washing to raise capital for their major project.

In January the company launched a magazine aimed at the 1400 students (as well as staff, friends and family) of the college. At an early stage the team realised that to achieve the production values they wanted they would have to generate revenue from advertising. So they had to run an intensive sales campaign focusing on local businesses with a desire to promote their goods and services to students.

The magazine generated nearly £2,000 of advertising from a variety of Stourbridge firms - this was something of a milestone for King Edward's. Of course a full colour print run of 1400 doesn't come cheap so profits weren't quite as high as the team expected.

Four also attended YE trade shows in West Bromwich and Stratford-on-Avon. The impressive thing about them was their willingness to pull together a portfolio of products that they could sell. Most other YE companies had specific, tangible products to take to market.

It was a pleasure to work with this group of young people. They were pleasant, enthusiastic and confident. I really enjoyed the opportunity to provide mentoring support and help them succeed in making their ideas a reality.