Workshops

As a member of The Business Community, you get access to as many of the following workshops as you like. They are genuinely commercial workshops that if you weren't a member, you would be paying for. Do take advantage of these offers as all small business owners should be continually developing and learning new skills.

The people offering these workshops are not being paid to do so - it is part of their contribution to the community - it would be great if you could support them.

Each online event is limited to 10 people, and will be 60-90 minutes, dates below.

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Beyond the Pretty Picture: Mastering Graphic Design Fundamentals

Mark Coster, Pixooma

An invaluable graphic design toolkit for those producing their own marketing materials. What you’ll get: An explanation of key design principles, errors to avoid, and practical considerations. At the end of the session, you’ll have the opportunity to get advice and feedback on a project you are working on, and you’ll be given a PDF checklist of design principles for you to refer to in future.

Thursday 8th January (12-1.30pm) - Book now.

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Making The Most of PR

Eleanor Lester, Shrewd PR

After attending the workshop you’ll have a better understanding of what PR is, and have 10 handy tips that you can use to PR your business.

Thursday 22nd January (12-1.30pm) - Book now.

 

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 Create Quick Content with Canva

Marie-Louise O'Neill, Lovely Evolution

Ready to make content creation faster, easier, and a whole lot more fun? Join us for a hands-on session where you’ll discover how to create professional, on-brand content in just a few clicks using Canva’s powerful AI tools.

Thursday 19th February (12-1.30pm) - Book now.

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The 3-Second Rule — Grabbing Attention in a Scrolling World

Emma Watson, Specky & Ginge

Business owners: you’ve got 3 seconds to grab a lead. Here’s the rule. You’ll learn a 3-step framework (Stop-Signal-Spark) to grab attention in the first 3 seconds, so your posts, videos, and messages get noticed instead of ignored.

Thursday 5th March (12-1.30pm) - Book now.

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Previous workshops:

Mental Health – how do you stay well, and what to do when things start to go wrong?

Dr. A J Yates, White Dog First Aid

A discussion about what constitutes mental health. An introduction to the stress container and how to manage it and a look at the recognition features for common mental health conditions.

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AI and You: Smarter Copy ~ Bigger Impact

Stephen Church, Copywriter Pro

A hands-on workshop designed to help small businesses use AI effectively in their copywriting. Attendees will learn how to choose the right AI tools, craft better prompts, refine AI-generated content, and keep their brand voice authentic. It’ll also cover ethical considerations and where human creativity outshines AI, so you can write faster, smarter, and with impact.

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Understanding Agentic AI 

John Scotcher, Pearson Treehouse

Using AI as you personal assistant and asking it questions is great. However the real power is in sending it off to do stuff for you without you having to babysit it as it does. This is agentic AI. This session explains the concept and how it can be used by small business to save time and work harder.

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10 ways to optimise your content for your target audience

Kevin Robinson, The Content Generator

With all the changes in SEO and AI search, it is more important than ever that your content not only meets the new search needs, but that it reaches the right customer. We will look at a series of practical, easy to do, tips to make sure that when a potential customer finds your site, it is not only for the right reasons, but that they then stay, buy and return.

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Selling with Ease without the Sleaze

Julie Futcher, The Sales Ace

This workshop has been developed to help two types of individuals, those who are not natural salespeople that would like to learn sales techniques and those who would like to brush up their sales skills. You will learn skills that YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH and understand that selling is not a dark art; you do not have to be an “in your face salesperson” to win business. Take the fear out of sales and get basic sales skills that will help you win more business.

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