Penkridge Market seeks New Apprentice…

Are you a young budding entrepreneur - An Alan Sugar in the making? Well Penkridge Market may be the start of a very successful career.

The owners of Penkridge Market have announced today that they are launching a new initiative to help school leavers start their own business. They are offering any young entrepreneur, the opportunity to take a free stall on the Market, for two weeks, to see if their business idea works. If the stall is a success, the candidate will then be entered into a competition to win a long term pitch on the stall at a discounted rate, plus help and advice from the Market Manager and other Market Traders.

The competition is open to anyone aged 16 – 19 years old, who lives in Penkridge or the surrounding area. The winner will receive a 6 month pitch on the Market at a discounted rate, plus advice on marketing, sourcing suppliers and general business support from the Manager and other experienced Market Traders.

Matt Williams, Manager of Penkridge Market said:

“We know how tough it can be to start up a business at any age, but especially when you’re young. We’ve noticed one or two really bright, enthusiastic young people on the Market and we just wanted to give everyone a chance... and who knows where it might lead to, we could have another Alan Sugar in the making!”

Lord Sugar did indeed start his career at the tender age of 16 as a Market Trader and is now reported to be worth an estimated £770 million, making him one of the richest people in the UK! He started by simply selling car aerials and electrical goods out of his van and then moved on to selling homemade shampoo! At the grand age of 21 he started his most well-known and successful business, Amstrad, and the rest, as they say is history!

Matt is kindly offering a 10 foot pitch on the Market on a Saturday and if you don’t have the necessary equipment, he will even provide you with a table.

The Market attracts up to 5,000 people every Market day, from around the Region, including people from as far as Telford, Stoke and Walsall. It is therefore a great place to test out a business idea and to attract new customers.

Penkridge Market is situated in the centre of Penkridge, and is signposted off the A449 (postcode ST19 5AP).

For further information and to book a stall on the Market please call Matt Williams on 01785 714221. Please book early to avoid disappointment.

Adam Corbally - Stay the right side of business's Smoke and Mirrors !

Well, I’m sure that the gorgeous weather has brought out the customers and with it some unwelcome competition.

I personally like competition, it makes you up your game and brings out the best in businesses, although the best person to compete against is yourself by asking yourself the simple question: ‘Can anyone else be doing something to threaten my business?’

If the answer is ‘yes’, then why aren’t you doing it instead?

I saw the new movie about a criminal gang of illusionists, Now You See Me, recently where the ‘magic’ is keeping the victim close and thinking they are looking at the trick when the trick is happening elsewhere. It’s the same in business, you have to keep the competition close and focused on what you are doing while all the time working on a new plan to develop the business further, without them knowing until it is too late. In this way you get to use your existing brand and overheads you already have in place to launch a new product or service, while the competition would have to start from scratch and take a much bigger risk.

Now take the tragic example of Blockbuster, who must be wishing they had remained one step ahead of the competition in the shape of LoveFilm or Netflix, who have cornered the online presence for film rentals. The key is never to let your business get complacent no matter how big you get. This is a technology driven fast changing business world we live in today, so we all have to be thinking ‘what next, where’s the next big thing I can tap into that is in line with my existing business?’ Comet, too, would have wished they had established a strong online presence in their heydays before all the competition got a head start on them.

It may be a cliché, but if we do what we have always done, we only get what we always have and, these days, that’s just not good enough. Another good example of creating you own competition to stay ahead of you rivals is the Independent newspaper, which set up the cheaper tabloid form of itself, the ‘i’. This new product has largely made up for flagging sales with the parent broadsheet offering. The Daily Mail, too, was quick to exploit the growth of online content provision by getting in early and investing heavily to become a major global player in this sector while other UK newspapers, which sold more hard copies than the Mail, are lagging behind in the digital market.

Online continues to grow apace and I find myself doing more transactions through my mobile phone than any other way and consumers are increasingly doing this. By exploring the chinks in your armour you can head off potential threats to your business before the rivals spot the potential. We all need to sit down and take a hard look at what would pose the biggest challenge to our businesses, both today and looking to the future.

So whether its introducing a new line to our stalls? delivery service? putting together that well overdue website? or maybe even bringing in that direct debit machine you have always talked about? it’s vital for us traders to keep exploring ways to raise the bar before someone else raises the bar for us!

The question is, what is stopping us from trying something new?

The answer, Ourselves.

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

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