Northern Lights newsletter – client trends

Client trends – sharing the latest

Thanks to all our clients for giving us an exciting start to 2016 – we’ve never been busier!  Here we share some of these projects to give you insights and ideas for your own business.  Call us if you would like to know more details on any of them.

1. Whitecap strategy advice

We’ve been working with Whitecap strategy consultants, who launched their white paper, How to create and deliver an agile strategy earlier this year.

Richard Coates, founder of Whitecap Consulting and one of the authors, looks at the major challenges businesses face in developing and delivering a strategy and provides the answers on how to overcome them. There are also interviews with business leaders sharing their own tips and insights.

We emailed this to the chief executive of one of our clients, who said:  “Thanks so much for this – very readable!  Read it in the bath last night – really good couple of kicks and reminders in there…”

You can download a free copy and meet Whitecap at FinTech in Leeds on 27^th April 2016.

2. Personal branding for chief executives and directors

Business leaders are understanding the importance of LinkedIn if they are looking for non-executive positions or changing career direction.  Thanks to a string of recommendations, this year we have already helped six business leaders to shape their personal brand and written their LinkedIn profile to support it.  We have helped a few with their CVs as well and written blogs for others to give personality to their LinkedIn profile.

In all of them we are including keywords that will help them be found on Google searches.

Feedback from one ceo:  “Just a quick note to let you know that I have secured an interview with …. Reworked CV has clearly worked some magic, now it’s down to me!!

3. Business wins from social media

We ‘met’ Gabriela Castro-Fontoura in Uruguay, through social media three years ago, asked her to write a guest blog for us and stayed in touch on Twitter and LinkedIn.  She has just asked us to work with her – she will be in the UK from 8 June for ten days.

If you are interested in expanding your exports to Latin America she can guide you through where to start, carry out market research and set up meetings.  She’s also happy to speak at events for your clients – a good tie-in with the Olympics coming up?

Another win from our blogs – an entrepreneur in New York wants to change her image from the fashion profile she’s built to a serious businesswoman building her fashion empire.  She wants help with her LinkedIn profile and found our blogs about personal branding and LinkedIn – and now we are working together.

4. Dubai – networking to win business

One of our clients in the UAE asked us to work with their country lead managers in Africa and the Middle East – to help them win business using LinkedIn and developing their relationship and networking skills.

5. Pat Chapman-Pincher in the news

Pat Chapman-Pincher continues to influence boards and directors to think about the future and the impact of technology.  She wrote an article for the FT, challenging business schools to play their part, and for other business media and is now a regular guest speaker for corporates and conferences.

Read Pat’s blog We’ll have robots at work before gender equality – based on her talk for Accenture.

6. The voice for contractors

Our client Danbro Accounting Ltd is championing on behalf of contractors – they look after the accounts for 8,000 contractors – raising awareness of the impact of legislation changes.  Damian Broughton MBE is regularly commenting in industry media.

7. Congratulations Restaurant 92!

More than 180 people celebrated the launch night of Harrogate’s fine dining Restaurant 92.

The venture between 23-year old chef Michael Carr and businessman Ian Humphreys has just received an outstanding review in the Yorkshire Post – with 19/20 stars.

8. Social media for leadership team – Calderdale Council

Ben Pindar ran a workshop for the leadership team at Calderdale Council to understand the strategic value of social media.  Read his blog about how councils are using social media.  He had great feedback – even from the sceptics!

9. Digital is critical for the future of professional firms

We supported another client, the Leeds Law Society, to stage a major debate that featured the heads of the legal sector in the UK. The leaders of the Legal Services Board, the Legal Services Consumer Panel and the Legal Ombudsman all came to Leeds to debate the future of the profession and a key message was that professional firms must embrace digital technology to remain competitive.

The head of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, Elizabeth Davies, told the audience in Leeds that “digital is a critical part of the solution” but warned there is a growing appetite for the provision of online services from business consumers and law firms are failing to rise to the challenge.

10. And from the home front

CEO of Northern Lights, Victoria Tomlinson, was awarded the VC’s Outstanding Leadership award by Sir Alan Langlands, for her chairing of the management division’s advisory board.

She was guest speaker for the Mosaic Trust at the regional finals of Enterprise Challenge – teams from schools in deprived areas pitch business ideas to business leaders.  Really inspiring young people and congratulations to winners Dixons Academy.   Watch out for their future entrepreneurs – and Mosaic (founded by HRH The Prince of Wales) would love to hear if you would be a mentor.  Call Leah Larkin on 0113 205 8208 if you are interested.

Victoria was also guest speaker at the World Franchise Forum in Dubai, the UAE, for high net worth individuals wanting to invest in country and regional franchises.

We have won a number of new clients in recent months and look forward to sharing their stories in our next ezine.

Call us on +44 (0)1423 562400 or +971 (0)50 678 72