You may remember that Gemz By Emz were hand picked by Theo Paphitis as a winner of the Small Business Sunday Award (#SBS) in June 2017?! Well on the 23rd February 2018 I attended the #SBS Winners Event and it was AMAZING! Whoop whoop!
The event took place at the ICC in Birmingham and there were hundreds of other winners who also attended on the day. The day began with me collecting my name badge, before I entered the conference room and took my seat… where I found a beautiful personalised and brightly coloured notebook on my chair, which was given to me courtesy of Ryman Stationery who sponsored the event. The day kicked off with netoworking, games, teas and coffees, presentations and 1-2-1 sessions with the event sponsors.
Just after 11am the CEO of Ryman came on stage, followed by the event sponsors and then Theo Paphitis himself! Theo was really motivating to listen to, extremely down to earth and very very funny, he gave us some great advice, some of which I have captured on video and will be sharing on a separate post. Theo said that we need to be more confident with being a small business instead of worrying that we are not as good as the bigger chains, that we are at a greater advantage because we have a personal relationship and bond with our customers. He also said that years ago it was easy to predict how your customers would behave in years to come, whereas now we all change our minds so quickly, that he is having to re-evaluate his marketing strategies every 6 months!
Next we had a break for lunch and this time was used to network, play games, win prizes, eat delicious food and attend the fantastic training sessions provided free of charge for us! I also had a great session and talk with the legal team, found out some very interesting information that I will be implementing this year.
After lunch it was time for the Question and Answer session with Theo Paphitis and John Roberts – the Owner of ao.com and this one of my favourite parts of the day! I gained so much knowledge, insight, advice and motivation from this talk and I walked away with tons of ideas that I have already started implementing into my business. John said he never worries about his business failing because 'what's the worst that can happen?' he will just have to go out and get a regular job instead, he believes it is better to try and fail, than to lie with regret and I completely agree!
The last part of the day was spent doing more networking, meeting Theo, having my photo taken with Theo and collecting my certificate. I was also given a huge goodie bag before I left, filled with lots of freebies which I am incredibly grateful for!
I had an amazing time at the #SBS winners event and I found out I can attend every single year, so I can't wait for next years event!
