We caught up with Bernard, our Innovation Director, a week or so ago and we took ten minutes out to reflect on his first month in the job. It hadn’t actually been quite a month as he started on the 10th January but he said he felt like quite a lot had happened already!
He told us, ‘Firstly, everyone I’ve met has been so welcoming and helped me settle in. I’ve been impressed with the way the centre is organised and run by the team. It’s a great space and has a great vibe to it with first class facilities.’ I suppose he had to say that didn’t he?
He continued, ‘I’ve been humbled too by the businesses I’ve already met. Everyone is ambitious, energetic, focused and determined. Nice people too, I must add. It seems to me that the secret sauce is the community itself and I must think of ways to continue to leverage this for our customers’ benefit.
Picture above: Bernard chatting all things marketing and business planning with our customer Tailored Ltd.
I have tried my best to meet as many customers in person as I can in this first month and I feel that I could have done a better job! I’ve been wandering around as I get used to the geography, so still have many faces to put to Company names. I am mostly basing myself in the business lounge for maximum visibility and accessibility, only occasionally using private rooms for my induction programme or private meetings.
John, Liz and I have been tailoring the next centre networking event on the 28th February as more of an ice braker and introduction for me too. I’m looking forward to meeting more customers and using the session to gain some important insight and feedback from them. I can then utilise this to develop plans for business support sessions amongst other things!
I have already had some productive, deeper conversations and I hope these will continue and yield fruit. One MD fed back to me, “Great to talk with you today Bernard. You gave me a lot to reflect on, reigniting previous thoughts and providing me with a few new ones. I’d very much like to meet regularly as you suggested to dig into things more deeply. Then get me more focused on what’s going to grow my business”. This is so positive and I’m really looking forward to working with him…
How I can support our customers’ growth ambitions is the key thing for me, but being a supportive and objective sounding board who can offer an alternative perspective is important too.’
It really feels like Bernard is settling in well and we’ll be catching up with him again over the summer to find out what he’s been up to….
