Make Your Mark Blog

Are you a business person based in the North East? Would you like to help inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs?

Make Your Mark Enterprise Clubs are:

A dynamic network of student-led enterprise clubs, currently over 300 nationally, 35 of which are in the North East

Open to students in schools & colleges and are completely free

A great route into schools for employers and a great way to raise your own profile in TV and get positive PR

What the Make Your Mark Enterprise Clubs need from employers:

Real enterprise challenges from you e.g. design challenges or real business problems

Opportunities to talk to you and to learn from your business experiences & expertise

Support and guidance in planning their own business ventures

For you to inspire them about what is possible for them in their future

What’s in it for you?

A chance to

Work with young agile creative minds

Help develop the necessary skills in your future workforce

Raise the profile of your business

Generate lots of positive PR

Offer your staff self development opportunities

Market test some of your products with your potential customers

and …… an opportunity for you to be inspired by our young people!

If you would like to get involved, please contact Julie:

Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826

Hi, Shed here… Might I say how gorgeous you look today…

This month, I’ll prove to you that the process for turning your ideas into amazing adventures is wonderfully and devilishly simple. It goes something like this: you have an idea in your head, you take steps to make it happen - then… incredible opportunities arise:

All you have to do is START DOING SOMETHING NEW…

THE WORLD’S NEWEST CELEBRITIES - let’s see what you think…

This is a great example of how an idea can cause an adventure. Three years ago, I created a new range of sweets - and unknown to me, a packet of those sweets got sent to a guy in China called ‘Dominic’. He called me up, we became great friends and three years later - just recently - Dom flew me out to Beijing for a book launch for my new title, IDEAS MAN.

Years before I made contact with Dom, I’d been trying to release a new set of ‘trading cards’ for kids (the full exciting story is chronicled in my book). The range of characters is called ‘HELLEBRITIES‘, and here are a couple:

Even though the HELLEBRITIES trading cards never got the backing for a global launch, whilst I was in China I took the opportunity to see if I could turn some characters into 3D Figurines instead. What’s brilliant about China is that there are loads of talented people over there who can help with your idea (for a much lower price than here), and they’re even reachable through the internet (just Google ‘China Manufacturers’). Here’s what the sculptor produced:

If you’re a manufacturer or a retailer and you’d like to help make the HELLEBRITIES range the huge worldwide success it deserves to be, please get in touch through my personal site.

So that shows you how one idea (my range of sweets) can then create a huge adventure (a trip to Beijing) and also make another idea come to life (the HELLEBRITIES models). Pretty exciting!

And this is proof that…

***WHEN YOU START MAKING A NEW IDEA HAPPEN, YOU NEVER QUITE KNOW WHERE IT MAY TAKE YOU…***

All the best and here’s to your ideas!

Yours,

Shed

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Shed’s bestselling, inspiring and amusing book IDEAS MAN is out now.

See more of his adventures and products on www.IdeasMan.co.uk

Read Shed’s inspiring story.

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We had our own version of the Apprentice final yesterday when some of our regional teams were in Birmingham for some media training with the COI. Two teams had to come up with some ideas to extend media interest in Enterprise Week, both beforehand and afterwards.

To much giggling Alex Ross (our Alan Sugar) appeared through a cupboard door to the Apprentice theme music except the CD had been paused in the wrong place so that didn’t really go to plan. Sandra from the COI and I were his Nick and Margaret although we managed not to alienate any university towns with our comments.

We picked team two although we have made budget available to make ideas happen from both teams; these include ‘Five Go Live’ where we get five entrepreneurs in each region to do regular blogs, ‘Beacon of enterprise’ which shines a spotlight on enterprising places around the UK and someone dressing up as ‘Billy Business Banana’ who would visit the high streets of towns across the UK to hear your business ideas. Katy was heard to mention she could even bungy as a banana…

Watch this space for further developments. As for the actual Apprentice final my money’s on Claire although I’ll have to watch it on i-player later in the week so don’t tell me what happens!!!

As we turn the corner of a new era, we need new people to help us continue with our enterprise message - As the new HR manager I am excited to have some great opportunities available to continue the enterprise message through our people. We are looking for people ready for new challenges and passionate about what we do - whether you are a self confessed enterprise junkie or want to embark on an amazing new journey you might just be in with a chance - so who’s in?

Vanessa

Enterprise Junkie - and - Make Your Mark HR Manager

Was good to see Make Your Mark ambassador Carrie Grant on Eurovision on saturday reading out the UK vote.

Carrie is also a judge in the Girls! Make Your Mark Awards, which we have recently launched with handbag.com.

You can find out more about the lovely Carrie in her inspiring story.

Not so good to see - the UK limping into last place with a lowly 14 points…a pop travesty?!

There’s a new programme within the Switch slot on Saturdays - it’s called Revealed and tomorrow they have a feature on entrepreneurs. From the trailer I see that Ben Way, Giles from Diabetic Hampers and Peter Jones all appear. They’re all interesting characters and hopefully will shed some light on what it’s like to make your idea happen and earn some money from it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/switch/revealed/episodes/millionaire.shtml

The Sun and Walkers are running a competition where you can vote for your favourite talented youngster. Today they’re profiling Make Your Mark ambassador Fraser Doherty (Lorraine Kelly’s favourite) and I’m definately going to vote for him right now!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article1150145.ece 

Here’s why Lorraine Kelly reckons Fraser Doherty should win the Walkers Young Achievement Award.

Nineteen year old Fraser Doherty is the kind of young man who would hope your daughter would bring home for tea.

Not just because he would bring some of his fantastic superjam to slather on the scones, but because he is such a decent, hardworking, and clever young man.

Fraser learned to make jam from his granny when he was a wee boy, and he uses her secret recipes to make the healthiest product possible.

The actual process is a closely guarded secret but involves using grape juice instead of sugar or artificial flavourings and cramming in “superfruits” like cranberries and blueberries.

I really admire the way he has tapped in to the whole “healthy eating” market but unlike most holier-than-thou health foods, superjam tastes really good.

My favourite is “rhubarb and ginger”. You can spread it thickly on your toast and be smug in the knowledge that you are eating a really healthy jam that tastes fantastic.

Fraser has combined his granny’s considerable know how with a flair for marketing and business that is astonishing in one so young.

He is studying business and accountancy at Strathclyde University, and is already on his way to making a massive fortune, by selling his jams to supermarket giant Waitrose.

We are so used to reading about British teenagers going off the rails through booze and drugs, being workshy and being caught up in the repellent gun and gang culture, that we forget that there are young people like Fraser out there doing us proud.

It is so refreshing to see his success story, and he gives hope to anyone who ever sat in the kitchen and dreamed of selling their home made products to a wider market.

His parents must be bursting with pride, and he is the kind of young man that gives you hope for the future. That’s why he gets my vote and I would love you to give him your backing too.

A colleague in USA just stumbled across this on YouTube… Bilimoria with advice on being an entrepreneur… irreverent title, but fairly serious/inspirational content.

Hello. My name is Shed.

I know that sounds a bit odd, but my parents called me that from an early age (it’s short for ‘Sheridan’).

Anyway…it’s great to be with you.

One of my huge passions is coming up with new ideas and then making them happen. You can see the sort of mischief and entrepreneurialism I get up to, on my personal site.

Right now though, my only focus is YOU. My aim is to make this blog incredibly useful (and hopefully also entertaining and interesting) for you. You can judge whether I succeed. . .

First off, I’m going to read your mind. So, prepare to be astonished.

Ok, good… hold still…it’s coming through.

The fact that you’re visiting the ‘Make Your Mark’ website tells me so much about you. First off, it tells me that you’re someone who wants to make things happen.

Secondly, you’re someone who searches for information on how to make those things happen. Already, these two facts about you mean that I know you’ve got all the talents needed to achieve success in any field you want, namely: you’ve got both the desire to succeed and also the intelligence to search for ways to make your success happen.

So that’s good news for starters, isn’t it!

In this series of blogs, I’m going to share with you some of my adventures in creativity and entrepreneurialism and give you my secrets of success. Hopefully you’ll find them both interesting an inspiring… If you enjoy them and find them useful, you can read more of my adventures and secrets for success in my latest book ‘Ideas Man’…

All the very best and I wish you great success…

yours,

Shed

SHED’S TEN QUICK SECRETS OF SUCCESS (PART 1: Secrets 1-5)

1- TO GET YOURSELF NOTICED, GO ABOVE AND BEYOND

For my first job in television, I wanted to make myself stand out amongst the thousands of applicants all equally able and willing to get their chance at working in one of the most diverse and upcoming production companies in the UK.

So, I sent my potential employers a pizza with the following message printed in the lid: “Wanted to give you a pizza my mind and say thanks for the interview…”.

Oh, how cheesy (ouch) is that! But it worked because the bosses noticed me. After I sent them scripts proving I was passionate about the job, they interviewed me and eventually hired me as a trainee.

So…research is key. Find out all you can about the job you are going for and the people who are ultimately responsible for making the decisions.

Then use your initiative to go above and beyond and make your application stand out.

2- FIND INSPIRING PEOPLE WHO SHARE YOUR DREAM TO WORK WITH

No matter how great and unique you are, it’s always better when you’re succeeding with someone else. We all need other to help fill in our skill gaps.

So it’s a good idea to always search for the best (and most knowledgeable people) in the field you’re hoping to succeed in and persuade them to work with you.

It’s also a good idea to share your goals with others by telling people (who you trust) about your aims.

Doing this will set your idea in motion, because when you’ve told someone you’re going to do something, you’ll want to prove to them you can.

And hopefully, they can also help you stay motivated. . .

3- DON’T JUST DREAM IT…DO IT

When you have an idea, the worst thing is to sit there and spend valuable time thinking about making it happen. So, stop thinking and start doing.

We all have creative ideas from time to time and the longer we sit and think about them the more we fill ourselves with self doubt and in the end stop doing it.

These days, with the internet at your fingertips, you are always so close to people who can help. As long as you start making your idea happen and then learn from the journey, you can’t go far wrong.

And remember, as Walt Disney said so well, “If You Can Dream It You Can Do It”.

4- PACKAGING IS KEY

One of the first novelty products I launched was the ‘Butt Plug’ – a bum shaped mould that goes on the back of an electrical plug.

Unfortunately, the packaging wasn’t quite right. It didn’t clearly tell the customer what the plastic bum was for.

Presentation is always key when you’re pitching anything – you must communicate quickly and professionally what your message is.

5- AIM TO FAIL

Try to re-train your mind and persuade yourself that when you try something new and than you fail, it’s a good thing.

It’s good…because, if you fail at something, you know you’re moving towards your goal.

All you then have to do is learn from those hiccups and power onwards and you’ll succeed.

(SECRETS 6-10 coming soon….)

All the very best in your endeavours…

Yours,

Shed

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To read more of Shed’s adventures in entrepreneurialism and find out the secrets of success, see Shed’s New Book ‘Ideas Man‘ and view his news and products on www.IdeasMan.co.uk.

Also, if you work in the Tea Bag industry, The Bottled Water Industry The Cheese Industry or would simply like to explore working with Shed on one of his new ideas, please contact him through www.IdeasMan.co.uk too.

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Read Shed’s inspiring story