Speedy Does It for Portsmouth's Women Entrepreneurs

InBiz in Portsmouth celebrate Women's Enterprise with Speed Networking Day

InBiz in Southampton Road, Portsmouth celebrated Global Entrepreneurship Week by holding a day of speed networking, presentations and advice from business experts for women on 17th November.

InBiz is a national organisation specialising in promoting self employment and entrepreneurship as a means into sustainable employment, offering tailored support to people who are unemployed to help them start their own business. The Portsmouth office has helped 326 new businesses launch in the last year. InBiz programmes are government-funded and as such, services to people who want to start their own business are free.

The 'Speed Networking' element of the day focused on how to prepare your "elevator pitch" with participants practicing on each other. The event was also an opportunity for InBiz clients to show off their products, with catering provided by Menna Rawlings, who runs Vanilla Frost launched September 2010 with help from InBiz, and name badges provided by Event Calligraphy, and InBiz supported business, launched by Cathy Horton in June 2010.

Janette Faherty, OBE, Director at Avanta, InBiz’s parent company, delivered a presentation about the value of networking and sharing techniques and the benefit of her 28 years’ experience of running a business, while bringing up a family. Additional support came from Natwest Bank and Enham, a charity specialising in helping disabled people to reach their full potential.

Janette told the audience, "For many, networking with people you don’t know is fraught. You have to leave your comfort zones. Your biggest fear is rejection by those you approach and there is a tendency to huddle with colleagues or congregate with people you already know. The good news is that you can teach yourself the skills you need to network and feel confident in these situations".

Claire Rock, Business Manager, South East, said, "InBiz helps give people the business knowledge they need to turn a good business idea into reality. We specialise in helping the unemployed into self employment, and work with individuals to help them overcome barriers that may have prevented them from looking into self employment previously. This is especially pertinent for women, who often have other compounding issues including childcare, caring for elderly relatives or other family commitments.

"This event is focused on helping women who think 'I don't have the skills to run a business' to realise that running a family home involves many of the skills associated with running a business, such as budgeting, multi tasking, prioritising and working to deadlines. With the right support, self employment can be the perfect solution for many women trying to balance their work and home lives.

"We have seen some great, inspirational businesses come from Portsmouth and look forward to helping more in the future."
InBiz Preess Release