Students get enterprising

Students at NEWI took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about themselves and to find out more about running a business in a special day long event entitled ‘Wake Up To Enterprise’ last week.  The event was organised by the Sparks team, the team at NEWI which is dedicated to helping students and graduates develop their enterprise skills. 

Dr Max Blumburg from Capetown, a leading corporate psychologist and entrepreneur with a wealth of experience in business consultancy, was the first speaker of the day.   He focused on personality and success and discussed perceptions of what success is.  Those that attended undertook a short personality test but Max was quick to discourage them from reading too much in to it.  Max studied psychology after he sold his technology business in the late 90s and firmly believes that some of the personality traits which make a good entrepreneur can be learnt and developed. 

Stuart Lloyd is considering setting up his own business and attended the event to find out more and learn from other people’s experiences.  He is planning to set up a website selling herbal medicine but he has come up against scepticism from family who feel he should opt for the security of working for someone else.  Stuart asked Max for advice on how to persuade people that he is doing the right thing, Max said, “You need to show them how serious you are.  Why not sit your family down and give them a business presentation on your plans?  That way they will see that you have put an effort in to convincing them and you can persuade them that you are really committed.”

Stuart found the talk helpful, “It was great,” he said, “I found a lot of what he said was very pertinent and his advice was really valuable.  I will definitely be taking it on board”

Kath Williams who has successfully run her own travel consultancy business for two years talked about the trials and tribulations of starting a business and the benefits that franchises can offer.  Other presentations on the day included Victoria Reynolds, a successful artist who spoke about her work and how she makes a living from doing something she loves and Nadira Tudor who has worked on a range of productions for television and radio talked about careers in the media.