As the new financial year kicks in on 6th April, your business will naturally find itself focused on the challenges and opportunities the new year will bring – projecting leads, assessing pipeline, forecasting income, and planning budgets.
Of course, these metrics will always look stronger if you invest in specific initiatives to support them, giving you a springboard into the new financial year, rather than simply being carried along with it.
And this is where membership of Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce comes into its own. So, what’s on offer?
Network, connect, convert
“People buy people”, goes the saying, and nothing succeeds in business like strong, direct, personal relationships, built on close contact and mutual trust.
In short, networking should be a key focus to maximise budgets and opportunities, and we’re proud that here at Beds Chamber it’s something we excel at. Not just because our members are part of a community of well over 700 local businesses of all sizes, with around 60,000 employees across all sectors, but because through our Meet the Buyer events, for example, we go the extra mile, actively matching your business to the prospects most likely to be receptive to your products and services.
This sits alongside numerous other networking opportunities we both host and promote - plus permanent listings in our online directory, member profiles in our quarterly Focus magazine, and coverage in our 1,600 plus subscriber newsletter.
Each of these builds reach for your business and enables you to start the new financial year as you mean to go on!
Upskill your business for the year ahead
However, networking aside, often your planning process will reveal a need for more education, training, or knowledge within your organisation, to help you grasp the new opportunities and manage the new risks that the next 12 months could bring.
This is why we enable members to access workshops, webinars, learning resources, courses, and documentation - covering areas as diverse as import and export paperwork, doing business internationally, employing immigrant workers, cash flow management, mental health awareness, and many other topics that may suddenly become a lot more important to you this financial year than last, as your business grows.
Equally, you can even demonstrate your business’s own expertise by running a Chamber webinar yourself, offering another chance to raise your profile and, ultimately, add further fuel to your forecast.
Start the year on a funding high
For many businesses, funding is an essential tool in their financial armoury, and here, too, the Chamber has valuable advice and services for you as we move into the new financial year.
We have built a formidable reputation for unearthing the support businesses are entitled to, through local and central government grants, funding partners like Wenta, and local development agencies such as SEMLEP - with some funding also available directly from us here at the Chamber.
Grants and funding can be complex to access, and eligibility can be difficult to decipher, but Chamber members benefit from advice and guidance on both fronts – and the start of a new financial year is a very timely moment for you to engage with it.
See the new year in properly – join us!
Forecasting and planning, then, isn’t just a matter of scheduling income, actions, and expenditure – it’s about having made sufficient connections, garnered sufficient interest, and acquired sufficient skills and knowledge to populate those plans, and to do so credibly and robustly.
And at the turn of the new financial year – as at every turn – we at Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce stand ready on all these fronts to help our members.
Isn’t that the kind of help a business like yours could use at this point in the calendar?
For more information on how to join Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, visit www.chamber-business.com, or call 01582 522448.
