The Great Business Breakout

Last week, both Business Development Managers, Jamie from East Anglian Seals and Tom from our sister company Horsemat Ltd. had a couple of days out of the office and attended the Great Business Breakout course at the luxury Five Lakes Resort near Colchester. The objective of this course was to step back, focus and work on US and OUR businesses. It gave us the opportunity to reiterate and reinforce our sales and marketing strategies, with time to really drill down and reflect on what we can improve on to continue growing. With a diverse group of small businesses from an independent Travel Consultant to a “Spoon Whittler” on the course it enabled us to exchange ideas; debate marketing strategies; and most importantly have fun.

With us being the “class clowns”, we quickly managed to lower the tone and had everybody in stitches. Tom’s “self-charging watch”- which charges by him jiggling his wrist! – being the source of much of the hilarity and inuendo across the two days and of course the really important topic of who between myself and Tom on day one, was going to be big spoon in our shared hotel room, with pushed together twin beds. I think our wives were rather jealous of our “couples” retreat without them, especially after the selfie we sent them in our matching robes! To be honest, I was just happy to have one night without a ten month old waking every hour. I was filled with excitement at the prospect of a night of undisturbed sleep, I’m a light sleeper and I even managed to ignore Tom snoring like a Walrus, although, I confess that may have been helped by a beer or two!

The Five Lakes Resort, was the perfect place to host the event with a huge range of meeting rooms and facilities. Our idea of heaven, it felt like our mums were there waiting on us hand and foot as we were fed constantly from start to finish! They certainly know how to keep the lads happy! The gym and spa facilities offered a great place to unwind after a “hard days work!” and Tom and I were up bright and early, taking advantage of the sauna and cleansing the alcohol from our systems. As we reluctantly acknowledged, we might not be able to keep pace as we used to, it’s safe to say we might still be recovering now from some of the alcohol consumed in the lobby bar on Thursday evening!

The course was delivered brilliantly by Jacky Ling and Rebecca Thornton, over the two days with just the right amount of discussion and practical activities. We worked hard (I swear!) and although it was an intense few days the content was just right and has given us a lot to go away and think about, with new tools to help us streamline our processes! We couldn’t recommend the course highly enough for any business’ that wants to step away from the office for a few days and really refine their sales and marketing strategies.

Now it’s time to go away and implement our new ideas!!