Finalist at the Broadland & South Norfolk District Council Awards.

Focalise Finance are thrilled to have recently been named as a Finalist at the Broadland & South Norfolk District Council Awards.

As part of launching our company, we were delighted to have won a grant issued by Broadland District Council called the ‘Business Builder’. Although we’re both experienced in supporting businesses through their funding requirements, we didn’t shy away from the fact that running a business would be a new experience to us both. We researched about the best routes, and alongside speaking to some professionals, discovered the Business Builder course.

The course was an online course that one or both of us could complete as new business owners to help us think through some of the steps of launching a business that are often forgotten about. Provide us with basic financial templates (it’s always helpful to look at different versions of these), and general advice in this area.

Having both completed the course, we also explored the Grant aspect of the course. How could we best invest £1,000 into our business to support its early development & progress?

We’d already decided upon working with a local marketing expert, Jimmy Hale of Halekorero, to help us develop our brand & image that we launched the company with. The additional funding from the council then enabled us to continue this spend to work with Jimmy as a guide & support to us in the first 3 months of launching our business. This meant that we had somebody external to hold us accountable to our plan. We knew we’d both get engrossed in the business & our time with our customers early on and that the marketing would slip. Jimmy helped us with this, and ensured that we kept our messaging consistent; how we can support our clients, how we want to do this time & time again, and how we can be the difference for our clients 

Broadland & South Norfolk Council host awards every year for various businesses within the catchment area, and we were thrilled to be named a Finalist for this category. The category of Business Builder is nominated by council staff for firms who have benefitted & received the Business Builder course & maximised their impact & return on investment through the grant.

If you’re looking at our website because you’re a new business, looking for funding – we can certainly help, but do make sure you look out for other support too, here’s a link to the Business Builder website; southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk/business/business-builder-programme

We can’t wait for the Awards night on the 19^th of March to see if our presentation to the judges at the end of January has won us the award!

A big thank you to the council for their support, not only with the course & grant but subsequently in keeping in touch with us & what we’re up to as a business as we look to support other businesses in the local business community!