On Friday 12th February 2016, My Son and I ventured down to Birmingham to receive a very special award from Dragon's Den star and renowned businessman Mr Theo Paphitis.
We were invited to meet the entrepreneur after Angels’ Share Glass was named a winner of his Small Business Sunday (#SBS) initiative back in March 2015. It had been a long and patient wait to hear when we would finally get to meet Theo and receive our award. So when we received our invite we registered straight away and planned for a day of networking, motivational speakers and the all-important chat with the inspirational businessman.
After a bit of an epic journey down to Birmingham we arrived at the ICC in the heart of the City. We were early and so had lots of pre-event catch ups with other winners all of whom we keep in contact through a facebook group and twitter. Having never met before it was really great meeting so many different types of businesses and from all areas of the UK.
Cormac was a real credit. Being the youngest person there he got lots of attention and was really in his element.Hopefully it will inspire him to become more involved with the family firm once he’s older as well as setting up his own business one day. First off we got appointments with some of Theo Paphitis Retail Group buyers and a meet the experts from some of the sponsor companies.
The main Event was hosted by Theo, on stage and I got to ask him an all important question.. "would he try and test our product for his new launch website"? www.sbsshopping.co.uk - He answered with "if I like it I'll buy it!" that was a non commital answer but I got to stand up and ask out of hundreds of people.
A premium lunch was served with drinks and lots of opportunities to chat to other new or well established businesses. Cormac was even treated to some excellent magic during the lunch break.
The afternoon was a fabulous Question and Answer session with Theo and business associates Mike Pickles from the really useful box company and Holly Tucker co founder of Not on The High Street. valuable advice was dispensed and some real inspiring tales from the 3 panelists.
The Finale was being able to meet Theo for a 121, receive our award certificate and have official winners photos taken. He was delighted to meet Cormac and interested in why he was with me, he asked him a bit about his role in the business and Cormac answered "I'm really the Boss"
So that was The SBS Event 2016. It was an honor, a fabulous day and a huge continued resource and support for small businesses. We left feeling, absolutely, what we do is worthwhile and we also left with a huge goody bag filled with enough stationery supplies for about a year!
you can read more about #SBS with Theo Paphitis
