This month we caught up with one of our long standing and much loved Academies Being your own Boss. Being your own Boss have been part of the IOEE and SFEDI centre network for many years and throughout this time have gone from strength to strength supporting many thousands local budding entrepreneurs.
We spoke to the company’s founder Chris Calladine, a man no stranger to the enterprise world. Since the young age of 19 Chris has made his career path through self-employment. With now 40 years’ experience of creating and managing small and medium sized businesses, Chris has a huge amount of familiarity with the self-starter world. From working with government funded programs to delivering the business link contract in Derbyshire and finally starting his own company to use his extensive knowledge to help other hopeful self-starters. This desire to support enterprising business start-ups led to the creation of Being Your Own Boss in 2011.
Being Your Own Boss was set up with every aspiring business owner in mind- whether you’ve always wanted to start your own business or if you just want to explore a lifestyle change. Now running for 10 years, the program has been recognised by many different awarding bodies and is a SFEDI accredited business start-up programme which led to it becoming a nationally recognised business qualification. In the past, the course was run in classrooms across the county, with Chris driving from place to place to deliver the content in person. However, in light of recent times the program is now fully adapted to be online to ensure a safe delivery of the content and to suit every learners needs. The interactive online program is set over 2 days and covers all key considerations of starting a business. Subject titles include; ‘Managing Money and Making a Profit’, ‘Find Customers and Making Sales’, and ‘Producing My Business Plan’. Throughout the length of the program learners will have help from industry professionals to identify whether their idea is a viable business opportunity and then aid them through the entire start up process. Though the course is only 2 days, it is packed full of all the key important content a new business starter needs. It is perfect for those who want to get the full start-up experience in a short period of time. Even as the course comes to an end, the participants are given information on any support they might want after and any other further qualifications they might want to take with other companies.
The dedication Chris and his company has to its learners is proven by how well his customers do after the course. Since its start the program has had over 3000 participants and an approximate 75% success rate of those who went to go on to start their own business after. In the future Chris hopes to maintain the funding from Derbyshire County Council so he and his company are able to continue helping aspiring entrepreneurs and self-starters. We here at IOEE are so thankful to be working with a company so committed to the development of enterprise and look forward to seeing more of Chris’s students go on to becoming the self-starters they aspire to be.
To learn more about Being Your Own Boss and the course they deliver go to:
http://www.beingyourownboss.net