4 minute read
Announcing Old Mill’s Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme
While the West Country has a vibrant food and drink sector with some stunning success stories, it’s a well-known fact that small business failure rates can be depressingly high – especially in those critical first five years.
Research shows that many embryonic businesses fail to get traction because they struggle to compete in three key areas: funding, cashflow and distribution. managed business to realise its ambitions by taking that risk and growing a sustainable, profitable enterprise that can be genuinely life changing.
With Brexit and the political situation continuing to add further uncertainty, it’s not getting any easier for businesses to gain a foothold. This has prompted us to consider what more we can do to try to assist businesses facing these challenges.
When you look at the typical life cycle of a business, the start-up phase can be particularly tricky, as businesses at this point are focused on generating momentum but are often short of cash and typically cannot afford to pay for advice at the point where, arguably, they most need it.
We’re not talking here about preparing a set of year-end accounts; it’s more about what we at Old Mill would describe as ‘business advisory’, i.e. the kind of practical insights that make a real difference.
We genuinely want to see our clients succeed – there’s nothing more satisfying than helping an ownerWe are committed to the food and drink sector across the South West, and we wanted to be able to put something back into the industry in a demonstrable way, that could help small businesses at different stages along the business life cycle.
So how could we best achieve this?
The challenge is that businesses have different needs at various stages of their growth trajectory. For startups it’s all about getting traction, while a more mature business may have plateaued but is ambitious to break through to the next level. Other businesses may be looking at expansion, and then there’s the tipping point when a business owner needs to start thinking about their exit.
It soon became clear to us that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach wouldn’t work and, during exploratory discussions with our key partners across the region’s food and drink industry, what emerged was the opportunity to develop an exciting new programme that we believe will resonate with business leaders at all of the different stages of their journey.
We are delighted to announce that, as part of our lead sponsorship with Taste of the West, we will offer a free financial mentoring support package to members – the Old Mill Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme.
This programme is aligned to food and drink businesses across the entire supply chain, and is designed to tackle the issues that affect you along your journey in a way that will make a real difference.
The programme will consist of different types of events, depending on your specific needs. But, just to be absolutely clear, these sessions are not thinly veiled ‘sales pitches’ that will leave attendees feeling disappointed – our promise is to deliver actionable content and access to our expert team who are passionate about the food and drink industry.
Starting this autumn we will run a series of workshops targeted specifically at start-ups that will cover practical business finance. These sessions are designed to help business owners get to grips with the fundamentals and will feature topics like:
• Forecasting and budgeting: planning for the future
• Optimising your business structure (including remuneration planning)
• Analysing your business: putting profit first
• Cash is king: the importance of cash-flow management and strategies for improving liquidity
Breakthrough discussions
While some food and drink firms are essentially established as lifestyle businesses, many others have growth ambitions to scale; however, this is notoriously difficult with just 4% ever reaching £1 million turnover.
So for more established businesses we will be running a series of roundtablestyle sessions, where business leaders can engage with like-minded individuals in a supported, peer-topeer environment designed to provide breakthroughs and insights to help you achieve your goals. The feedback we get from these discussions is phenomenal, and we will be running invitation-only roundtables in our offices in November and February.
Taste of the West’s CEO, John Sheaves said: ‘For some time now our members have been asking whether we could put something together that addresses the real-life, practical challenges facing food and drink businesses. Taste of the West is delighted to work with our partner, Old Mill, in putting together a programme that we believe will add real value to our members.’
To register your interest in Old Mill’s Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme, please contact us on 01935 709330 or email marketing@om.uk
