26 May 2009

Businesswoman Wins Another Award

Last Thursday ten business women and ten of the UK’s leading businesswomen joined in the celebration when the winner of the FreshIdeas Events Mentor Competition was announced at a ceremony hosted by HSBC in London.

Karen Darby and Paula Wynne were stunned to find out that they had been chosen as the most successful mentoring couple from the very strong group of contestants, all of whom who had successful partnerships with their mentors.

Karen Darby, CEO of Call Britannia and Paula Wynne, co-founder of Remote Employment and the Remote Worker Awards, and Jackie Brennan, Director of FreshIdeas Events and organiser of the Mentor Competition, are available to share their mentoring experience with the millions of small business owners across the UK.

The eager entrepreneurs who entered the competition six months ago, have been mentored by the ‘cream’ of the UK’s entrepreneurial business women, fondly known as the MAD 'Make A Difference' Woman.

Karen Darby, founder of SimplySwitch, Karen Hanton of tobtable.co.uk and Jo Haigh, Author and Head of Corporate Finance of MGR who has bought and sold over 300 companies in the last 20 years, and Polly Gowers, Founder of Everyclick.com, a search engine that gives half of its revenue to charity, shared their experience with the large audience.

From the 10 businesswomen mentees, Paula impressed the judges with her passion and enthusiasm to succeed and for the innovative Remote Employment concept. Paula is Director and Co-founder of Remote Employment, an online web service dedicated to connecting employers with job seekers who work remotely or work from home, and has seen substantial expansion to her business with Karen’s help and guidance.

Paula said: “I am thrilled to win this prestigious award! I feel so privileged to have been a part of this competition. Working with Karen has been an incredible experience for me and my business!”

Karen Darby kicked off the evening with a talk about mentoring and how it can help a business grow. She finished by saying that she enjoyed learning from Paula’s experiences and because it was such a ‘buzz’ she was now mentoring other business owners.

The successful mentoring 'couple' shared their journey with delightful stories of Karen fishing frogs out of her garden pond to add intrigue to Paula’s stand at an Olympia exhibition, and Paula wearing brightly coloured guest slippers while Karen served chocolate crepes and vanilla ice cream during their meetings at Karen’s home.

Along with lots of fun and laughter, the audience also heard about inspirational moments, determination, business ‘savvy’ and revenue growth. After meetings with Karen and her whirlwind of lateral thinking, Paula invariably dashed off firing all guns, buttons, and cylinders to create new marketplace activities.

One of the initiatives Karen and Paula have worked on is launching The Remote Worker Awards, which highlights how remote working benefits business mobility, and if offering life changing prizes such as a home based franchise worth £15k, an Open University study grant and five business start up kits.

During the evening incredible stories emerged about how this mentoring experience has not only changed the Mentee’s businesses, but also changed the way the experienced and gifted Mentors do business.

Paula and Karen were presented with prizes from HSBC and Business Link in London, who have supported the innovative competition.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Fran Currie, Chief Operating Officer at Business Link in London congratulated the participants on their achievements. She said: “Congratulations to all of the participants for their hard work and perseverance. These women learned from the best in the fields and I am highly impressed with the quality of all the entrepreneurs.”

Pointing to recent research conducted by Business Link in London, Ms Currie said that many women entrepreneurs continue to face barriers to developing and growing their business. “Business Link in London was delighted to support this worthwhile programme. It is vital in the current climate that London’s women entrepreneurs are encouraged by other established businesses and organisations to develop and succeed in their own business ventures.”

Jackie Brennan, Director of FreshIdeas Events said: “The awards evening is a fitting celebration of the entrepreneurs’ achievements. We are pleased to have matched such bright entrepreneurs with some of London’s leading businesswomen. This scheme has required hard work from all of these women, and the positive outcome from this mentoring programme is extremely promising for the UK’s small business community.”

Along with her daily business, Paula is a SEEDA Women's Enterprise Ambassador and talks to women around the UK about the exciting new remote working culture. Her personal experience and proof of her determination and persistence is inspirational. Paula’s passion and enthusiasm for knowledge, new experiences, and business focus motivates other women’s belief in their business and renews their confidence.

For more details, go online www.freshideasevents.com or browse www.remoteemployment.com. For a chance to win one of the life changing prizes on offer, check out www.remoteworkerawards.com.
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How to set up a home office ...

Before you set up a work station at home, check out our Seven Top Tips on how to work from home:

Your Home Office
Ideally, you will have a spare room to create a home office. If not, a corner of another room, will be fine as long as you are not constantly distracted in the family fast lane. Set up your kitSet up your computer, files and phone to give you maximum comfort for long hours. Have enough plug points for PC, printer, phone, scanner, mobile charger, fax machine and answer phone. Even better get an all in once mod con to save on a jumble of cables and wires.

Pick your desk location
You should be able to see the door of the office from where you are sitting or at least more of your surroundings. Beware of facing the garden and the bird bath – too tempting to watch the world go by! A hard chair will give you backache so spend a little extra on a good one.

Working Hours
Working outside 'normal' working hours helps to balance your work and home life so don't feel guilty dashing off to take the lads to footie after school, as long as you get your work done. Catching up in the early morning or later in the evening works well, but also watch out for going OTT. Make sure you close down and walk away at some point or the family will go hungry.

Have a breather
No matter what kind of work you do or what home you do it in, you can go bonkers if you spend 24 hours a day at it. Get out, whenever you can, to clear your head and to see other people. Use lunch time as a good break to pop down to pick up groceries for dinner, step outside to feed the birds during your coffee break or walk the dog around the block to clear the cobwebs. This is also a great way to mull over a document or get inspiration for new ideas.

Keep in Touch
Have no fear that your social life at work comes to an end if you leave your office to work from home, in fact in some cases your relationship with your colleagues may improve. Email is instant but be careful of 'funnies' – they can eat up a huge chunk of time. Chat through business issues by phone and meet for a quick bite every now and then.

Goal scoring
Give yourself little goals and objectives and then reward yourself when they are complete. Make sure family and friends know your hours or days of working at home and stick to that. Don't be tempted to pop over for a coffee or cook a large meal. Give yourself this time as a reward for getting up early on a Monday to finish a long-winded report. Or if you score well with a new client take five to put your feet up before the school run. Whatever incentives work for you, use them to motivate yourself to balance your time around your other responsibilities.

If you have any suggestions on working from home, please submit your articles to grace@remoteemployment.com.

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