Rags to Wreckages, the new digital magazine for successful entrepreneurs, has put together a free 7 Point Plan on How to Grow Your Business in 2010.  The 7 Point Plan, which is delivered in seven short and to-the-point online video clips, focuses on how successful entrepreneurs are moving ahead and starting to grow their businesses again, now that the worst of the recession is over but given that we are left with a very different economic environment. 

Successful and would-be successful entrepreneurs can access several video clips containing the first few points of the 7 Point Plan – ‘Accepting today’s business reality’, ‘Rapid product and service innovation’ and ‘Creating a local pool of freelance talent’ – at www.ragstowreckages.com. To access the remaining four points from the plan, they will need to sign up to the free Rags to Wreckages Successful Entrepreneur newsletter. The newsletter delivers a helpful monthly digest of all the latest news and feature articles on the Rags to Wreckages website.

Subsequent video clips will cover business overheads, marketing innovation, business efficiencies and ‘you’.

Digital magazine Rags to Wreckages… to Riches offers business strategy advice to successful and would-be successful entrepreneurs based on the premise that we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes. It offers short, insightful articles on various topics, from business goal setting, to outsourcing, and the benefits of keeping a business lean.

Neil Lewis, publisher of Rags to Wreckages and partner of its parent company MediaModo, says: “As business leaders, we are living in difficult times – we have less cash and fewer resources, but have the same need to grow. Added to that, we know that government cuts to spending are inevitable and will impact at least some of our customers if not our businesses directly.  Surviving is all about flexibility and speed. At Rags to Wreckages we’ve looked at how successful entrepreneurs are preparing to weather the storm and we share these insights in our 7 point plan.”

– Ends –

Notes for editors

About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business leader based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book 100 Rules for Successful Entrepreneurs and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. MediaModo offers a contract publishing service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They also recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on Rags to Wreckages… to Riches, visit: www.ragstowreckages.com

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Sarah Leatherbarrow
sl@mediamodo.co.uk
MediaModo
Tel. 01865 861717
Mob. 07900 887987

Alex Connock, CEO of Ten Alps, will be speaking at the Enterprise & Freelance Fair in Warrington. Alex will be explaining why as the co-founder, with Bob Geldof, of Ten Alps plc, he is passionate about building media businesses with freelance talent and how he has used this competitive advantage to grow Ten Alps PLC into one of the fastest growing UK media companies.

Alex has been several times shortlisted as Entrepreneur of the Year. He is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD (Fontainebleau), Governor of Manchester Metropolitan University, board member of Salford University School of Media, Northwest Vision and Media and Creative Manchester. He is a NESTA mentor to startup media companies, working with Roughcut TV, a comedy producer.

“I am delighted to be able to speak at this event as I feel that engaging freelancer talent can considerably improve business performance” explained Connock.

The Enterprise & Freelance Fair is a brand new concept and will provide a series of unique forums for local businesses, agencies and freelancers to meet and build relationships, with the ultimate goal of working with each other. The fair includes two parallel workshops that will offer business attendees the opportunity to learn how freelancers can help them gain the competitive advantage needed in today’s difficult economic climate. Then, at the end of a briefing session, freelancers, companies and agencies will be invited to mix, network and develop ways of collaborating and working together.

To find out more about the Enterprise and Freelance Fair you can visit www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk.

Ends.

Notes for editors – About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business leader based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on 100 Rules for Successful Entrepreneurs and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a contract publishing service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on the Enterprise & Freelance Fair, visit: www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk

For more information on MediaModo visit: Please contact us

An innovative business fair is being launched by Chester based Entrepreneur Neil Lewis.  Neil has had an eventful business career to date.  He successfully grew his first business to a point where it was worth approximately £12 million in 2007, but the recession has had a massive impact upon its success and it was closed last year.

“I’ve learnt more on the way down than the way up. The experiences you have on the way down are curiously more interesting.  One of the greatest things I learned showed me that had I employed freelancers our vastly increased flexibility would have enabled us to whether the storm,” explained Neil.

Using his experiences he has recognised that entrepreneurs and businesses, whether intermediaries such as agencies or end users, can benefit from the added talent and flexibility that local freelancers can offer to help grow businesses, but entrepreneurs are often unsure where to find them.  In contrast freelancers rarely get the opportunities to put themselves in front of businesses and often lack the experience to help maximize every opportunity.

The Enterprise & Freelance Fair is a place where businesses and agencies will be able to meet and recruit talented local freelancers, whilst freelancers and agencies can win better contract work and start building relationships with local companies.  The fair includes two parallel workshops giving attendees the opportunities to learn how freelancers can help business gain the competitive advantage needed in today’s difficult economic climate.

At the end of the briefing session freelancers, companies and agencies are invited to mix, network and develop ways to collaborate and work together.

“Traditionally, recruiting freelancers has been slow and difficult, and never with the speed that is necessary to fill gaps and meet immediate needs.  To meet our own requirement, we have begun to build extensive pools of highly talented – and local – freelancers. So, the Enterprise & Freelance Fair came about because we saw the need to develop local pools of freelance talent – and we thought if we need this to grow, then so will other entrepreneurs and business leaders – so why not set up a workshop to help more businesses connect with freelancers” said Neil.

This dynamic, information-rich day has three aims. To…

1. Help freelancers win more and better business
2. Show enterprises how local freelance talent can offer low-risk business growth
3. Link freelancers and businesses together in profitable relationships

The goals:

• Freelancers: will get at least three high-quality leads from potential clients
• Entrepreneurs: will meet at least three freelancers they could hire in the next six months

The first two Enterprise and Freelance Fair’s have been confirmed at Village Hotel, Warrington on 6^th October and St David’s Park Hotel, Nr Chester on 7^th October.  For more information you can visit www.EnterpriseFreelanceFair.co.uk.

Ends

Notes for editors – About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business adviser based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on classic entrepreneurial mistakes and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a consultancy service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on the Enterprise & Freelance Fair, visit: www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Ceridwen Hughes
MediaModo

Email. ch@mediamodo.co.uk
Mob. 07971 983028

Digital Magazine for Successful Entrepreneurs

18th March 2010

 

New Digital Magazine Rags to Wreckages… to Riches Launches

Shows How Successful Entrepreneurs Use Failure to Create Success 

A new, free digital magazine – Rags to Wreckages… to Riches – has just launched, offering entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs valuable, regular business advice based on the concept of ‘been there, done it’. Entrepreneurs who visit the site www.ragstowreckages.com and subscribe to the accompanying newsletter will find regular news, features and opinion pieces designed to help others learn from the mistakes and experience of the driving force behind the site, entrepreneur and business adviser Neil Lewis.

The new digital magazine offers business strategy advice to current, would-be and successful entrepreneurs based on the premise that we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes. It offers short, insightful articles on various topics, from business goal setting, to outsourcing, and the benefits of keeping a business lean. 

Neil Lewis, publisher of Rags to Wreckages and partner of its parent company MediaModo, says: “It’s only by failing and looking at your mistakes that you learn – successful entrepreneurs aren’t necessarily successful the first time round and they don’t know if they can do it again if they’ve not failed. Successful entrepreneurs learn from failure because failure means that we have an opportunity to refine and improve what we are doing – so that we can come back even stronger next time.”

Neil’s advice comes from experience and he continues: “Before the global economy began to turn, many entrepreneurs took unacceptable risks or made bad decisions that didn’t impact on those enterprises UNTIL the economic tide turned. I count myself in that group too.  I saw the business mistakes of the previous five years make my company untenable, so that from a £2k start-up in 2002 to a £12m valuation in 2007, my first business closed its doors in August 2009 and we, the shareholders, walked away with nothing. It was quite a journey – and probably the best real life MBA you could ever get!” 

– Ends –

Notes for editors

About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business adviser based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on classic entrepreneurial mistakes and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a consultancy service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on Rags to Wreckages… to Riches, visit: www.ragstowreckages.com

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Sarah Leatherbarrow
MediaModo
Tel. 01865 861717
Mob. 07900 887987