Hello again,

I could design a quiz or games but I won’t do that. I would really like to tell you what I have learned this few days because I really learned a lot. So first of all I have learned a lot about setting up your business. I have knew few things about business plan before I came here but I have learned tones of new things about how to write it, what thing’s you need to put in. Also in what kind of order we need to put the information’s.  The Monday’s session about social media was also very interesting and helpful. I really like social media so I was really happy to learn how you need to use it. Social media and online marketing expert Lynsey from SocialB was really good at presenting us the things we need to know for doing marketing trough social media.

Today we were working on a problems of real businesses that we have visited yesterday. Our group (Anja, Emma, Alma, Heini and Heleri) got to “solve” a problem of Hopes of Longtown village shop. Our problem was: “We need to increase our signage – on the road and virtually on the internet. We want to use our logo for a road sign but it needs to be ful, creative and readable when passing in a car at 30mph. Our road sign and online presence needs to appeal to customers who don’t know who we are and encourage them to visit, find out and purchase.“ I think we took “solving” this problem really seriously. We were researching different thing that would be helpful with solving this problem. During trying to find the solutions I find out that your sign needs to be interesting, convincing and it needs to tell what your business is. I knew that we in Slovenia have to had  a permition  for putting up a sign and now I know that a lot of countries need a permition to put a sign on a public place. 

 Dear readers,

I just spend an amazing day visiting local businesses. First we stopped at a little local shop called Hopes of Longtown run by Christine Hope. Christine started her business in year 2003 with basically no money. She got a loan and she make an arrangement with the previous owner about the rent.  Basically her business is a little village shop and a post. There you can buy almost everything from toilet paper to magazines, honey,..

Next up we went to a farm with B&B and restaurant. White Haywood Farm Restaurant in run by Pauline and Philip Goodwin and their family. The restaurant and B&B set in a 400 year old barn is run by Pauline and the farm is run by Philip.  At this restaurant they served us with an amazing lunch. I must say that I respect them for doing everything by them self.  

The third business that we visited was Wiggly Wigglers. A business that is promoting self-sufficiency and natural gardening through the mail order.  The owner Heather Gorringe showed us ther office and the place where they make flower bouquets. I really liked the atmosphere in the office. I think that they are like a big family and my opinion is that if you want to work well together you really need to get along very well. They also showed us where they produce bird seeds.  

I loved visiting all this places and most of all I really loved meeting the local people.

So a day well spend.

                                                                                                                Anja

Hi.

Today we were talking about entrepreneurship, business plan and social media. First we started with  brain storming about entrepreneurship. Next up we hade to work in groups. We were discussing about business plan. It was really cool to find out more about haw we need to write a business plan and what are the most important things to put in your business plane.  After a lunch we hade an amazing workshop about social media. Today’s workshops were all very good.  I enjoyed it a lot and a part of this I have learned a lot of new things. 

During today’s sessions I have learned that if you want to be entrepreneur you need to be determent, hard working,. You also need to be creative and you have to think outside the box. When you are working on you’re business plan you have to what very carefully what you put on first three pages, because usually this are the pages that most of people read. So that’s why you have to put in  what you are gona do, why you will do it and for who you will do it.  When you are writing a financial plan you have to write about cash flow, how much you need and how and when will you return the money. When you are writing business plan you have to watch that the words say the same thing as the numbers.

The last part of the session was about social media. The session whit title: Social media for building a rural enterprise was presented by social media and marketing expert. 

Hi everybody.. My name is Anja and I come from Slovenia. I am a board member of Slovenian rural youth association. I love to travel, read,... And oh I am kind of obsessed with tv series. Otherwise I am a student of management of tourism companies at Faculty for Tourism Studys. My home association has more then 4000 members in 10 different regions.
Because I like economy, bussines, marketing etc. I am hoping that this week I can learn a lot of interest things about bussines. But orherwise I hope I will be able to remember all the names of the participants by the end of the week. And last but not least I hope I'll make a lot of new friends.

 ....This is it for now :)