The Blog

The Able Label Adaptive Clothing Brand Launch Summer Collection

by digitalbeans

Live life to its fullest in comfort and style with The Able Label Spring/Summer collection of easy dress clothes. The Able Label Adaptive Clothing

The Able Label has just launched it’s new summer range. It combines the latest colours and trends with the most comfortable fabrics and designs that make them all easier to dress into and out of – you can now have style, comfort and function in clothes that look as good as they feel.

The collection brings you bright colours, including paradise pink, teal and golden lime. Brilliant prints and stripes form summer staples to fit any wardrobe. New woven shirts have been introduced in various designs including checks, gingham’s and floral prints. Each style gives a versatile casual-smart look.

The Able Label Adaptive Fashion Shoot

 

What’s ‘The Able Label’?

The Able Label designs and makes beautiful clothes that make dressing easier. For many, dressing can be challenging – lifting arms above shoulders, manipulating fiddly fastenings and bending down to pull trousers or skirts up can all be particularly difficult.  The ‘desirable and dress-able’ clothes use quality fabrics, discreet adaptive designs, innovative fastenings and colour-coordinated internals to make dressing quicker, easier and safer. Yet when they’re worn, no one would ever know they were adapted… it’s our secret!

Fashionable Adaptive ClothingIt all started when The Able Label founder, Katie Ellis, was a fashion buyer for the High Street clothing retailer, White Stuff. Her grandmother had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Katie saw that dressing was becoming increasingly difficult for her. So she searched for solutions but found there was nothing that fit the bill. Nothing stylish that was designed to be put on and taken off easily.

So that’s when Katie decided to do something about it. She designed, developed and tested a range of great-looking, adaptive clothing that so many people like her grandmother would love to wear yet also find it easy to live with.

Easy Dress Clothes from The Able LabelAnd that’s how The Able Label was born.

There are two key rules with The Able Label clothes:

·      No fiddly fastenings

·      No overhead dressing

We hope you love them as much as we do. 

Katie Ellis – Founder and Managing Director

To find out more visit www.theablelabel.com, call 01622 744242 or email cservices@theablelabel.com

 

Kent Foundation News

The Entrepreneur’s Journey Global Entrepreneurship Week UK

by digitalbeans

The Kent Foundation and The Business Terrace in Maidstone kick started Global Entrepreneurship Week UK by playing host to almost 50 local business people who joined them on The Entrepreneur’s Journey to The Entrepreneur's Journey - Global Entrepreneurship Weekget involved with the world’s biggest celebration of entrepreneurship.

The idea behind the inspirational event ‘The Entrepreneur’s Journey ’ tied in with this year’s GEW theme ‘Compass Points’ which identifies the various stages of business. Paul Barron, Director of The Kent Foundation, a charity providing free support to young business owners across Kent tells us more:

“The event was designed to project real, personal, factual stories of entrepreneurs who are at various stages in business. We achieved this by inviting four Kent businesses along to speak Paul Barron Director of The Kent Foundationand inspire others with their journey in business. Interestingly, collaboration was a common topic amongst all the speakers and this was confirmed as a vital link to running a business.”

“Collaboration in Business is the Way Forward”

The event featured speakers; Josh Bates from Cove Videos, Jo Hage and Sarah MacDonald from Rise Communications and Roger Williams from Intelligent Linking. Freya Briley, aged 23 and owner of Jest 4 Entertainment a recently established Maidstone based events company presented ‘Starting the Journey’:

left-to-right-jo-hage-and-sarah-macdonald-rise-communications-josh-bates-cove-videos-freya-briley-jest-4-entertainment-and-roger-williams-intellegent-linking“I’ve just started this journey which is interesting and really exciting. The idea for starting Jest 4 Entertainment came from my personal experiences through my drama degree and working for various private event companies. It became clear to me that I could build something for myself and add significant value to schools and businesses by boosting their interpersonal skills using drama based approaches. It is scary but there’s so much support, I am learning so much about myself and I’m loving it.”

Business support charity The Kent Foundation is dedicated to supporting young business owners such as Freya to reach their business goals. Paul Barron, Director reflected:

“This has been inspiring and portrayed a perfect example of a variety of entrepreneurial journeys from all backgrounds, business lifecycles and ages. The thing here is that at some point every one of them all recognised a gap and had to take that step to start their own business.”

The event was perfectly timed to celebrate the one year anniversary of The Business Terrace which provides a collaborative working environment for businesses to build a network, work with others and access free business support every day of the week.

Also a special mention to Ibi’s Kitchen who kindly sponsored the event by providing the catering – Absolutely amazing grub, do check them out!

Star Business of the Month

Day One Wellness – Star Business of the Month – April 2016

by digitalbeans

Day One Wellness is a holistic personal training company. We create and deliver programmes that make it as easy as possible for busy people to restore their health and transform their bodies naturally.

Day One Wellness - Be More BootcampsI started the company in October 2014 because like everyone, I absolutely hate seeing people suffer, so I wanted to create something that provided a real solution to all the problems I was regularly getting asked about. It seemed like no matter who I spoke to, people were complaining of low energy, low self-esteem, health problems or battles with their weight that was making them unhappy.

At the time I was working on a public health contract helping obese children and their families embrace a healthy lifestyle. A large part of my role was collaborating with dietitians and psychologists where I was exposed to a variety of different nutrition principles and behavioural change theories, from there I emerged myself in anything I could get my hands on to do with these topics. I’ve never been to university (apart from a brief soccer scholarship in the states – but that’s another story) but I’ve probably paid Amazon a similar amount to tuition fees in the amount of audio-books and paperbacks I’ve purchased!

The ‘Ah-Ha’ Moment for Day One Wellness

Day One Wellness Personal Training & Nutrition CoachingLike most business ideas, my ‘ah-ha’ moment for Day One Wellness was less of a light bulb and more of a combination of life experiences. I think particularly in customer facing roles you have to serve your time in the trenches first to discover and develop your own unique style. For me it was the combination of personal training in both the public and private sectors as well as the numerous life lessons, cultures and environments I experienced whilst travelling through Asia, living in New Zealand and experiencing my most physically demanding job to date; being what my mum liked to call a ‘Chalet Bitch’ for 5 months in Austria.

I eventually decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge after about 6 months of living with a nagging feeling that I should be doing something more. The first goal I set myself was to be 100% self employed within a year of starting which I’m pleased to say, not only did I achieve but by the time the year was up I was paying myself more than my last job too!

Day One Wellness As I’m writing this the business is still in its infancy – just 19 months old, and I’d never of predicted where we are now from where I started. We’ve recently moved into a new base at Southcote Chiropractic Clinic, working alongside some exceptionally experienced and educated health professionals. Our team of trainers are growing by the month to keep up with client demands, both for our 1 to 1 coaching programme and group coaching services, plus I’m doing a lot more ’empower workshops’ in the corporate sector to meet the wellness demand on the County’s workforce.

The vision for Day One Wellness is to be Kent’s most influential well-being company by 2020, providing inspirational outdoor venues and exercise referral schemes that make ‘healthy’ affordable, accessible and most importantly enjoyable for as many people as possible. It may seem like a big goal but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the last 19 months, it’s to keep faith and focus on one step at a time!

Business Tip

“My advice to any young entrepreneur, as cliché as it is coming from me is to invest in yourself first, you are the driving force behind your business so reserve some of your energy for you! Provide your body with real foods that fuel you, move hourly to stimulate more blood to your brain, switch technology off when you are socialising with friends and family (trust me you’ll need them) and prioritise your sleep because you are much more productive at 5am if you’ve got to bed by 10pm rather than attempting to pull an all nighter!”

Star Business of the Month

Reflect Digital – Star Business of the Month – August 2015

by digitalbeans

Becky CampbellReflect Digital Logo creative digital marketing agency

For as long as I can remember I was destined to do something in business. From an early age I used to copy my Kent Excellence in Business Award Winnerdad (a businessman) by using one of his old briefcases to carry my things around. As I grew older he used to refer to me as his personal assistant since I was always taking telephone messages for him from his colleagues when they called the house.

Despite having very good GCSEs and A level results, I knew university was not for me, to the consternation of my teachers although funnily enough not my parents! I was hungry to get out to work and start my “business apprenticeship”. Not a formal one but a succession of jobs that gave me the grounding in customer relations and management. The last of these positions provided me the inspiration to start my own business.

So what was this inspirational job?

Becky Campbell Reflect DigitalIt was an account manager for a digital agency that built and managed websites and the on-going digital marketing for these sites. I’d had account manager jobs before, but working exclusively in the digital world was like switching all the lights on. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised about this, my dad had worked in IT for 40 years! The more I researched and learnt about digital marketing the more excited I became by this vibrant and still emerging sector.

So in February 2011 at age 24 I took the plunge head-first into the unknown, handing in my notice and quitting a very well paid job. With just a £3k initial loan from my parents and working from the spare bedroom of my flat, Reflect Digital Limited was born.

Reflect Digital is the realisation of my dream to run a digital agency that cares passionately for its clients. We have “set our stall out” to play the long game; we want our clients to remain our clients this month, next month, next year and forever! We really want to be viewed as our client’s own digital marketing department showing them real ROI throughout the life of their website/marketing campaign. Understanding a client’s business is fundamental to getting results from their digital presence.

The one thing I believe you must have above everything else when starting a new business is passion! Bags of it! You are going to be living your work morning, noon and night, without that passion you will soon start to tire of the fight to get established. Also that passion is what is going to make you stand out and to be listened to by your new prospective clients.

How did I get my first clients for Reflect Digital?

My very first client was a City of London Law firm specialising in the technology sector, as I researched and learnt about this particular area of business I was able to appeal successfully to other law firms. This has led to us becoming quite a prominent name in offering digital marketing expertise to the legal profession in general. Technology companies were our second target sector and as the company grew and I had sales staff I encouraged them to pursue business sectors they were passionate about. This led us to winning Tottenham Hotspur Football Club as a client!

At first all of our development work, building websites, was contracted out to a third party company, which was the only option if I wanted to offer this service, since I can only dabble with a bit of HTML, I’m no expert! Bringing development in-house, which we started to do in 2013, has been a real challenge. In fact finding the right staff in general is one of the most difficult tasks you will face as you build your business.

Look after your employees…

Reflect Digital TeamYour employees will make the real difference with regard to how successful your business will be, running a business is a team event and you will need to know you have a solid core within that team. I have tried to make working for Reflect Digital special, I care about my staff and provide the best benefits that the company can offer whilst providing them the opportunity to develop their skill set and always encouraging further learning. We organise company days where we share thoughts about the direction of the company and have some downtime fun. My best recruit so far has been persuading my fiancé to join me as a director of the business. Paul’s skill set compliments mine and together we are the driving force.

Funding for a new business is never easy we found the traditional high street banks to be very unhelpful, fortunately for me my parents were able to extend a business loan when we needed to expand, this has helped tremendously with cash flow, something you will need to keep a very close eye on as your business moves forward. You can be amazingly successful but due to slow payment from your clients you can find yourself in difficulty when salaries need to be paid!

Having been a managing director of a successful technology company my dad has been a great source of advice and a sounding board for problems and ideas. I would encourage any new business owner to try to find a mentor that you can talk to. Having someone who has had experience of growing a small company to talk to is a real benefit in many ways.

Business Achievements, so far…

Reflect Digital Drum Search Winner2015 to date has been an amazing year for Reflect Digital, in March this year I was named as runner up for the Kent Women in Business Awards, Business Woman of the Year – which was a fantastic personal achievement, which I could not have done without the incredible team around me. Then in June we won a Drum Search Award for Best B2B SEO Campaign for our client Egress – which was amazing, as we were up against some of the biggest agencies in the country. June also ended on a high by being awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Kent Excellence in Business Awards – which was hugely unexpected against some really talented entrepreneurs.

It’s been four years since I started Reflect Digital and I’ve been amazed at the success we have had, we have literally gone from zero turnover to over half a million and from one person to a staff of 23. Now the fun really begins, we plan to organically grow the business to a turnover of £5 million in the next five years. This is going to be a very interesting journey.

Business Tip:

“Take time to ensure your recruitment process is designed to know as much about your new prospective employee before you extend the offer to join the team. You are going to need people who want the opportunity to do something more than just come to work. These people will be the building blocks of your company and together you will achieve great things.”

Star Business of the Month

Star Business of the Month – Teaching Support – July 2015

by digitalbeans

Teaching Support recruiting specialist support staff for schoolsTeaching Support are specialists in the recruitment of experienced teaching assistants. We are the only agency who specifically recruit teaching assistants rather than teachers and general education professionals.  I set up the business as I recognised there was a gap in the market for an agency who could supply quality support staff to special needs schools and to mainstream schools who have SEN (special educational needs) pupils that require specialist support.

At Teaching Support we all genuinely care about the schools that we work with and getting the right candidate to work with each child every time.  We build very strong relationships with the schools we work with. Unlike other agencies we will work in the schools every term so we can be sure that we are recruiting the right people for them.  This is really important as we work with the schools PRUs (Pupil Referral Units) catering for children with significant emotional and  behavioural difficulties.  The children have often been permanently excluded from one or more of their previous schools.  They are often very challenging, have huge barriers to learning and may also be both physically and verbally abusive.  It is vital we find the right staff especially when working with specialist support schools for children with profound and multiple disabilities including those who are physically disabled as well as often being non-verbal.  The type of person and the skill set that you are looking for when recruiting for these schools is very different. That is why it’s so fundamental that we work in the schools and have regular meetings to ensure we understand the school’s needs.

Sophie Timms on running Teaching Support…

I set up Teaching Support nearly 4 years ago after working for another company who also recruit for schools.  I was 26 at the time and I wanted to offer a really personal and caring service to schools, something that was people focused rather than target focused.

Teaching Support - Recruiting Specialist Staff for SchoolsThe area of development that I have had to work on the most is my ability as a manager.  I have 3 permanent members of staff and I recognised management does not come easily to me!  I initially found it very difficult to explain to people what I wanted from them and raising queries with them if I felt they were doing something wrong.  It’s obviously essential to the growth of any business that everyone is working towards a common goal. I realised that by shying away from telling people what I wanted was actually detrimental to the business.  You can’t expect people to understand what you want if you haven’t told them.  I have had situations (specifically the use of mobile phones) which I have found very difficult to tackle.  I used to worry that it would cause friction in the office – I think I wanted to be everyone’s friend rather than their manager.  As I have mentioned before I have a fantastic team and I learnt people would much rather that you tell them how you are feeling.  If you lay down ground rules and explain your reasons behind them, then people will respect you. As long as you are reasonable I have found it creates a better environment for people to work in.

The business has grown year on year.  I started working at home on my own and now having an office with a team of 4.  I was a runner up in The Kent Business Woman of the Year awards which was really exciting, especially as I was 9 months pregnant at the time.  That was a huge honour for me and the team – not to mention a particularly good send off for my maternity leave!  As a business Teaching Support has grown over 300% this year alone which is something that we are all very proud of.  We have maintained integrity and worked really hard as a team to build the business, it just shows all the hard work has paid off.

Business Tip:

“I think that one of the key things to building up any business is to accept help from others and to ask for help from those around you.  People on the whole are really keen to support young men and women in business so accept their advice and take help from wherever you can!”

Star Business of the Month

This Art of Mine – Star Business of the Month – February 2015

by digitalbeans

This Art of Mine, arts and crafts studio Maidstone KentAt This Art of Mine we help people to enjoy their leisure time through our program of art workshops and short courses. We deliver high quality courses that encourage people to try things they may never have tried before such as glass fusing, ceramic painting, jewellery making and painting.

We also run art workshops as corporate team building events and host several birthday or hen parties each weekend at our creative studio near Maidstone. Our studio is based in a converted barn on a flower farm and seats up to 60 people.

This Art of Mine Gemma BlackerMeet Gemma:

I started This Art of Mines in 2010 when I was 24 and it has grown steadily over the last five years. Last year we launched our own range of craft kits that are sold in independent retailers and online.

I started the business because after I left university I went down the traditional route of getting a graduate job in a corporate world and after a while I realized this was not for me. I really wanted to work for myself and my hobby was art so I thought I would take the plunge and set up my own company teaching art workshops.

This Art of Mine, arts and craft studio, Maidstone KentThe biggest achievements we have had as a company has been to turn a profit. I know it sounds silly but after paying off our set up costs we turned a profit in our fourth year of trading which was a great achievement.

Being featured in the Guardian was an exciting time plus we have had the opportunity to work alongside big corporations such as the BBC, Kimberley Clark and Mylan Pharmaceuticals which have made the job really fun.

The aim over the next five years is to become the best art course provider in Kent. To do this we will need to hire more staff and tutors and possibly relocate our offices. Currently one of our biggest challenges is running a business in a rural location. The scenery is beautiful and it’s a lovely place to work but the poor internet connection and phone signal are very difficult to deal with, making progress slow and frustrating.

Business Tip:

“My advice would be that you can work for yourself and earn a decent living as long as you are doing something you are really passionate about. If the product does not get you excited then it is not going to work, find something you really love and get behind it.”