Enterprise Week 2008

28Oct08

We were involved in running a very successful Enterprise Week here in County Kilkenny as part of the regional ‘Spirit of Enterprise Week’ in the south east, which ended on 17th October last. Thanks to all our partner organisations who were involved in hosting the various events around the County.

The ‘flagship’ regional event – the ‘Making Business Happen’ Conference was held on Thursday 16th October here in Kilkenny. There were almost 200 people in attendance. There was also an exhibition of agencies and organisations providing supports to entrepreneurs beforehand, so that attendees could get a chance to see what help was available. 

There was a great line-up of speakers - you can log into www.spiritofenterprise.ie for the podcasts of each of them. The conference was chaired by John Purcell, Managing Director of ‘KCLR 96FM’, and he did a fantastic job on the night.

The keynote address entitled ‘From Politician to Entrepreneur,’ was delivered by Ivan Yeats – the former Fine Gael politician who now owns the Celtic Bookmakers chain. You should log in to hear his speech in full – very sobering…

He began by giving a brief outline of how he first got involved in politics in his hometown of Enniscorthy, how he quickly moved up the ranks within Fine Gael, how he became Minister of Agriculture 1994-1997, and how he then decided to retire from politics because he just got bored with it all!

He went on to outline from his experience the traits of the most successful entrepreneurs, some of which I list here: ‘ability to listen;’ ‘ability to persuade others to do what you want them to do;’ ‘have passion and self-belief;’ ‘have determination and perserverance to succeed;’ ‘have courage;’ ‘attention to detail;’……

He imparted his own instructive advice to those in business, again some of which I list here: ‘make lists of everything you must do today, this week, next month, etc. and revert to them regularly to make sure that you are acting on them;’ ‘learn to say NO - but dont take NO for an answer;’ ‘preparation is absolutely key to success;’ ‘have clarity of purpose – know what business you are in;’ ‘business plans are important but get outside independent people to critique them;’……

He reflected on: how does one know if they will make an entrepreneur or not? – ‘if you could imagine you are on your deathbed and you would die with regret if you did not do it – then u know!’

He commented on the downturn in the economy and upon the recession BUT he finished on an optimistic note, with a number of predictions: ‘inflation will fall next year to around 1%;’ ‘the price of oil will remain low;’ ‘the price of commodities will continue to fall;’ ‘interest rates will be cut further;’ and ‘the Euro will fall in value against sterling and the dollar.’ However, he wasn’t taking any bets on any of his predictions……

The mood of the conference afterwards was very upbeat and in speaking with some of the delegates afterwards, it was clear that each of the speakers on the night had made an impact in telling their story and provided inspiration to others.

I can assure you that Enterprise Week is now a fixture in the calendar and I am already looking forward to improving upon our schedule for next year.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie

Filed under: spirit of enterprise   |  1 Comment