New ‘clubs’ venture looks to bridge Scotland’s small business skills divide

A group of new business clubs will be rolled out in Scotland with the aim of closing the small business skills gap.

The Business Club venture has been founded by Neil Bradbrook, managing director of Ahead Business Consulting, after researching business owners’ needs. The first club has been established in Falkirk, with an initial event due to take place on 26 February.

Bradbrook said: “This is not another networking group – this is practical face-to-face training. Small business owners tell us they have never benefited from formal business training, so whilst they have a passion or area of expertise that they have gone into business with, their business knowledge and acumen is often less. I believe this skills gap is the reason most small businesses fail, so we wanted to fix that.”

He added: “To address this problemthebusinessclubhas assembled a team of experts in different fields from finance to marketing. The Academy will train members in all the key aspects of what it takes to run a successful business.

“We are confident the club will be a resounding success and once we have established the Forth Valley cohorts, we will be looking to roll the concept out across other regions in Scotland.”

The club’s Academy programme will run monthly three-hour sessions on a range of topics including business plans, branding, websites, sales, marketing, HR, leadership, funding and finance. There will also be breakfast round-table discussions on business topics of interest as well as quarterly networking/ social evenings with keynote speakers.

A launch party is planned for 18 Feburary at the new £80 million Forth Valley Campus in Falkirk. Stirling and Alloa clubs are set to follow.