Events
Entrepreneurial Academy
Entrepreneurial Academy
Looking for support to grow your business? If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, join this series of online workshops delivered by experts in their field. Get useful insights and techniques to help scale your business and meet like-minded peers so you can build your networks.
What is the Entrepreneurial Academy?
The Entrepreneurial Academy provides transformational education designed to support the growth of Scotland's ambitious entrepreneurs. The programme offers a series of workshops delivered by experts in their field with real experience of supporting entrepreneurs.
If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, this programme will help transform how you approach growing your company.
Learn about topics that will be indispensable to your scaling strategy and get the knowledge and tools to grow your business. You'll also get the opportunity to meet your peers and build networks.
Who is it for?
The Entrepreneurial Academy is for:
- Business startups who are pre-revenue and yet to make their first sale
- New entrepreneurial companies less than three years old
- Scaling entrepreneurs looking to drive their company to the next stage
- Entrepreneurs who want to arm themselves with the knowledge and tools to grow their business
What does the Academy provide?
The programme offers a series of workshops on the following topics. You can book the whole series, or just the workshops you're interested in.
- Business model and value proposition development (two day workshop, delivered by TRKR Ltd)
- Responsibilities of the director (one day workshop, delivered by Future Sales Factory Ltd)
- Executing a digital strategy (one day workshop, delivered by NS Design)
- Brand development (one day workshop, delivered by Spreng Thomson and Graven)
- Entrepreneurial sales (two day workshop, delivered by Future Sales Factory Ltd)
- Entrepreneurial finance (one day workshop)
- Pitching for investment (one day workshop, delivered by Maryanne Johnston)
- Strategies for improving (one day workshop, delivered by SkyRocket Wellness)
When will it run?
The workshops will run from October 2021 to March 2022. Each topic will be run twice over the six months.
All workshops will be held online and will be split into half-day sessions.
Follow up support
If you attend two or more workshops, an optional two hour follow up with a relevant supplier is also available (for a maximum of 50 companies).
Full workshop details
This workshop will encourage you to rigorously validate your business proposition by considering both your proposed market and potential customers. You'll be introduced to market and customer validation methods in the first stage of this workshop, where you'll be encouraged to develop your proposition so that it can easily be presented to customers.
The second stage of this workshop will take place around four to eight weeks after the first. It will have a debrief style format, where you can share your experience of putting what you've learned from the first workshop into action. You'll be encouraged to move from customer validation to market validation as your product/service matures.
You'll get methods and tools to support with your market/customer validation, and your value proposition development.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn techniques to assess market potential and prioritise your initial target markets
- Learn how to develop customer insight and build customer profiles
- Find out about tools and techniques to communicate your business proposition effectively to customers
- Get an action plan for implementation in your business
Workshop dates
Three half-day (morning) workshops are available in October 2021:
- Tuesday 5 October
- Thursday 7 October
- Thursday 28 October
One-to-one sessions are also available - 1 hour per company.
Three half-day (morning) workshops are available in January 2022:
- Tuesday 11 January
- Thursday 13 January
- Thursday 27 January
One-to-one sessions are also available - one hour per company.
This workshop provides an overview of what's expected of a company director, and what a company director should expect of their board. If you're new to the position of director, this one-day workshop is for you.
Get an in-depth overview of the various functions that a company director has a responsibility to undertake. You'll also find out how to work with an existing board, and how to effectively develop a new board.
The workshop will be delivered by someone with experience and expertise as a company director as well as an in-depth understanding of the fiduciary duties (of trust, loyalty and care) of a company director operating within the United Kingdom. They'll also have previous experience of delivering training of this type.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn about the role and responsibilities of the company director
- Find out about the role and responsibilities of a board
- Learn techniques to work effectively with a board
- Find out about the fiduciary duties of a company director
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in October 2021:
- Tuesday 19 October
- Thursday 21 October
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in January 2022:
- Tuesday 18 January
- Thursday 20 January
This workshop will encourage you to focus in on your customers’ digital footprint so you can accurately target your online sales and marketing activity. You'll get an overview of best practice use of digital platforms to build market intelligence, engage with customers, and gain business insights.
It will help you understand your customers’ digital profiles so you can develop an effective pipeline of sales leads, using the digital channels most appropriate to your customers. A variety of channels should be considered to meet the needs of companies that operate on both a business-to-consumer basis and a business-to-business basis.
This workshop will provide an overview of the best practice methods for using various online channels (social media, website, email), and an understanding of how to bring these streams together into an effective, single, digital strategy.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Find out about different digital channels and how to effectively use them to gain market and customer intelligence
- Learn techniques and tools to manage inbound and outbound marketing
- Get an action plan to develop and implement a digital communications strategy
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in November 2021:
- Tuesday 2 November
- Thursday 4 November
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in January 2022:
- Tuesday 25 January
- Thursday 27 January
This workshop provides an opportunity to evaluate your own brand and to consider how this brand is best developed. You'll be encouraged to consider your brand from a customer perspective and to think about how you can best communicate the mission, vision, and values of your business.
The workshop will cover the development of brand values, reflecting the brand within your business strategy and how strong brand guidelines can work as a foundation for communicating with colleagues and customers.
This workshop is for management team members with little experience of marketing or brand development who can benefit from an insight into the key points to be considered when developing a new brand. It will focus on the messages behind the brand more than the development of any specific advertisements or visuals.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Improve your knowledge of what a brand is and how this can be valuable to your business
- Understand the key points that can make a brand successful
- Learn about brand values and how they shape the product and service, and how these are delivered to customers
- Get an action plan to develop and implement a brand strategy
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in November 2021:
- Tuesday 9 November
- Thursday 11 November
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in February 2022:
- Tuesday 1 February
- Thursday 3 February
Attend this two-day workshop to get a better understanding of the theory and best practice for developing sales strategies. Learn the practical skills and techniques necessary to significantly improve your organisation’s sales.
You'll also gain an understanding of effective sales processes. This includes a discussion on how to research your customer journey to ensure the sales process is useful and easy for them. Find out how to question effectively and handle objections, how to negotiate the key points of the sale and how to create and manage an effective sales team.
You'll learn that sales is an activity that requires careful consideration and that founders/managers should consider all sales channels (including online platforms) and processes to ensure the sale can process smoothly for both the business and the customer.
The workshop will be delivered by someone with experience and expertise in developing effective sales strategies and training successful sales teams. Their experience will cover a range of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales positions. They'll have a clear understanding of how to effectively structure a sales strategy for new products/services. And they'll have previous experience of delivering this type of training.
The impact of Covid-19 on sales pipelines and strategies will also be considered in this workshop. You'll learn how to adapt your approaches in the current environment.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn about the sales process from initial research to post-sales account management
- Get practical tools and techniques to increase sales from existing customers and to generate sales from new customers
- Develop an action plan to develop and implement a sales strategy
Workshop dates
Four half-day (morning) workshops are available in November 2021:
- Tuesday 16 November
- Thursday 18 November
- Tuesday 23 November
- Thursday 25 November
Four half-day (morning) workshops are available in February 2022:
- Tuesday 8 February
- Thursday 10 February
- Tuesday 15 February
- Thursday 17 February
This one-day workshop will cover the key points of commercial finance and will provide guidance on how to create and execute a finance strategy. Get an understanding of the key terms used in fundraising and learn how to design a finance strategy that's right for your business.
The workshop will cover the various funding routes available to young companies including: equity funding, venture capital, crowd funding, angel funding. Find out about the pros and cons of each funding instrument and get direction on when they may be appropriate.
You'll also learn about the key points typically found in term sheets and capitalisation tables.
The workshop will be delivered by someone with a track record in raising significant investment for early-stage companies in the UK. They'll have an in-depth understanding of the investment landscape in the UK and abroad.
They'll also have a knowledge of the potential investment routes open to early-stage companies and be able to coach you on the positive and negative aspects of each. And they'll have previous experience of delivering this type of training.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn about the key points of various options for growth funding
- Find out about the key components of a finance strategy
- Get an action plan to develop and implement a finance strategy
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in November/December 2021:
- Tuesday 30 November
- Thursday 2 December
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in February 2022:
- Tuesday 22 February
- Thursday 24 February
This workshop will cover the most important aspects of pitch delivery and will focus on honing a pre-prepared 60-second pitch. The workshop will focus on the delivery of the pitch but also provide direction on how to best curate content to ensure the final pitch is engaging and effective.
You'll be coached on how to develop your tone and pace to speak engagingly and credibly, with proven tools and techniques for doing so. You'll be contacted prior to the workshop to describe the workshop’s objectives and to provide guidance on how best to prepare your first draft 60-second pitch.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn about practical tools and techniques to improve your investment pitch
- Draft a 60-second pitch for your business
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in December 2021:
- Tuesday 7 December
- Thursday 9 December
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in March 2022:
- Tuesday 1 March
- Thursday 3 March
Recent research into the effect of poor wellbeing on scale-up entrepreneurs has demonstrated some specific challenges. Find out about solutions that can help improve wellbeing and how this can positively impact your business.
This one-day workshop will provide strategies for improving wellbeing during a crisis or stressful times. This includes: how to remain optimistic, maintain relationships and networks, ensure rest opportunities and learn from past experiences (personally or within networks).
It will also cover: employee wellbeing, how to ensure your employees are supported, regular contact, two-way communication, clear communications, and methods for employees to feedback. You'll also get guidance on best practice methods for improving wellbeing and supporting your employees.
By attending this workshop, you'll:
- Learn practical tools and techniques to help with improving wellbeing personally and for your employees
- Get an action plan to assist with identifying and resolving issues
Workshop dates
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in October 2021:
- Tuesday 26 October
- Thursday 28 October
Two half-day (morning) workshops are available in March 2022:
- Tuesday 18 March
- Thursday 20 March
How to apply
Register for the Entrepreneurial Academy workshops. You can book the whole series, or just the workshops you're interested in.