An event to support women in business in the Mid-West region featuring inspirational entrepreneurs and speakers from across Ireland has been deemed a huge success by the Local Enterprise Office.
An event to support women in business in the Mid-West region featuring inspirational entrepreneurs and speakers from across Ireland has been deemed a huge success by the Local Enterprise Office.
Approximately 100 women attended the ‘Getting the Edge’ networking event which took place at the Bunratty Castle Hotel last April 21st and was organised by the local enterprise offices in the region including Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Tipperary and Cork North and West.
The event provided a backdrop for women in business to gather and network, sharing their own experiences, peer to peer, learning new skill sets and receiving advice about key aspects of business from experienced guest speakers and network facilitators.
Commenting on the success of the event, Bernie Moloney, Assistant Head of Enterprise for the Local Enterprise Office Limerick said; “this regional event was organised to support business women in the region in their endeavours and create an opportunity to learn new skills, bring them to practice and explore collaborative business opportunities. Topics covered during the event ranged from how to sell, to developing a PR Strategy and creating awareness and perfect pitching and we’ve received fantastic feedback from all those who attended. Women particularly enjoyed the motivational and educational talks, workshops and networking opportunities throughout the day and found there are amazing business opportunities available in the region.”
Leading advisor on reputation management and crisis handling to corporations, Governments and individuals - Terry Prone spoke about the development of a PR Strategy and how to create awareness of a business in the public area.
Catherine Moonan, Managing Director of “Communication Matters” introduced everyone to the art of the “Perfect Pitching”.
Guest speaker Julie Currid, a Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of “Initiafy”, currently employing 25 people across three offices in Dublin, New York and Toronto, discussed international business opportunities and focused on selling techniques and building a sales process.
She spoke about different sales approaches and different selling methods, underlined the importance of market research with particular attention on lead generation.
A panel discussion took place in the afternoon and featured five inspirational entrepreneurs from the region, including West Limerick Business owner and entrepreneur Maura Kearney from “Kearney's Homebaking”, Maura Hunter of “MH Designs LTD”, Karen Pleass from “Swinky Doo”, Irish Fashion Designer Marion Murphy Cooney and Maeve Sheridan from “Western Herd Brewing Company”.
The brainstorming forum highlighted key areas for the future in helping women to start, build, develop and grow their businesses.
Plenty of valuable advice was given during the discussion and the session was completed by the highly energetic and positive presentation from keynote speaker Isolde Johnson, Co Founder of “The Cool Bean Company” who presented “The Story of Cool Beans”, an exciting, agile and innovative new Food Start Up which has been awarded Silver at the Blas na hEireann Awards and Best Ready Meal at the Quality Food.