Am I out of the loop??

I did an interview this week for Business Quarterly Magazine. Turns out they are kind of a big deal, distributed to 10,000 business leaders from all over the region, both Chris Baxter (Geni) and Claire Barber (PR) think its a big coo.. but I have to admit, I had absolutely no clue what it was!

Now I put this down to complete inexperience in the entrepreneurs field, as you have to remember I am not exactly a business leader and really, I don't know any (or at least well enough to go through their post) so how am I meant to have come across it before.

Anyhow, the interview went great, they even said they could make me look like I am not slightly losing my hair! This could seriously improve my chances of meeting a future wife!

Interestingly though, I featured this week on www.ifwecanyoucan.tv in a video we shot a few months back about young entrepreneurs in the north east. Click here if you want to see me ramble on http://www.ifwecanyoucan.tv/home/resource/A9BE-LFA0-XZN7-7RIN-C4OJ about Dovcor and the need for a young entrepreneurs group in the North east. At one point I do say I have not seen one of my bathrooms finished, I have been told off for this!

Sadly as the manufacturer I am kept slightly out of the loop, as the shops/fitters are middle men in the process so I never meet the end customer. Its a shame I spend so much time on my products and never get to meet the person who uses them! I think I need to find a way of changing this!

As you can tell from the video, I am very passionate about helping young entrepreneurs from all over the region. Essentially I saw how organisations were ploughing investment in to creating entrepreneurs in schools but them dropping them in the deepend after school! I kind of realised some one should take up the mantle once these kids leave school, providing them with a launch pad and supporting them all the way through.

For this reason, while www.dovcor.com is my work, my hobby is now www.youngentrepreneurstrust.org.uk. We are now running the under 35's in business dinners once a month for all young entrepreneurs throughout the north east . Who said I had spare time!

When young people start out in business they don’t have years of experience to back them up. Usually the urge to go it alone is because they feel they have the raw talent to be better than the competition in their particular field, but from experience we know most are not experts in all the other areas needed to make a business tick.

The experience of starting a business is daunting no matter what the age, but we recognise that young entrepreneurs have a different set of social issues to the norm. Often young entrepreneurs can still be growing up, with friends that often do not understand the stresses and strains of running your own business. It can be both the most exciting and socially stressful moments of their lives.

The under 35’s in Business programme is designed not only to bring young entrepreneurs together socially, but also to provide them with the support needed to run a business by providing social and business mentors along with training to help them set up on their own.

Time to force my way into the loop I think..