Having been a senior manager in a Lancashire SME that experienced huge growth and strategic change over a 10-year period, Yolanda Collinson had learned the importance of enabling people to grow as well. When she completed a Level 7 Executive Coaching & Mentoring qualification, she also learned that what she really wanted to do was to start her own business as a business coach. Yolanda the Coach was born.

“I started by coaching small businesses in Lancashire and Cumbria, which is great” she says. “But I know that to have real, sustainable impact I need to work with larger, corporate organisations. So I’m really at a transitional stage.”

It was this transition that made the two-day Health Innovation workshop so appealing, coupled with the convenience of its Lancaster location. “I thought: it’s called Innovation for Growth, and if I can learn about different ways to grow my business that I haven’t considered myself, then timing-wise it fits perfect as I focus more of my energy on the business.”

Yolanda says she was also motivated by the fact that the workshop - delivered as part of Lancaster University’s Health Innovation Campus initiative - focused on implementing ideas in the health and wellbeing sector. “Mental health issues in the workplace are rife and it’s my belief that coaching can be a vital preventative measure. I saw that the course would give me fresh perspectives on this – and it has definitely given me further ideas for how to develop my coaching practice to perhaps fit in this area.”

“I went with an open mind, because it was about allowing a very unbiased look at my business and not expecting a certain outcome,” she says. “I found the content to be in line with my current thinking - which helped me feel like I knew what I was doing – but more than that, it gave me the reassurance that I’m not alone. I found it incredibly useful meeting people who are basically in the same situation as me and talking to them about their businesses. I’ve stayed in touch with them too, so the experience didn’t end with the last day of the workshop.”

The workshop was facilitated by Dr Ian Gordon, who communicated a wealth of experience, Yolanda says. “Learning from experts in their field – and from people who’ve been successful – that’s gold for me.” She was particularly struck by visiting Entrepreneur-in-Residence Stephen Thorpe, CEO of NGPod Global. “He’d had highs and lows but was ultimately very successful. As an entrepreneur you need to hear that sort of thing.”

As a further takeaway from the workshop, she recalls an exercise during which she and her fellow delegates were invited to hold up coloured cards indicating the extent to which they felt they had a robust business strategy. “Very few people said they had one. I said I did, because I have a robust business plan - but what I took away was that I needed to go back and make sure the strategy I wrote down at the start is actually what I’m doing, and actually suitable for the move I’m making. And I definitely have changed a few things. So the workshop triggered little actions like that, the implications of which might be huge.”

The Innovation for Growth workshop is fully-funded through the European Regional Development Fund and available to Lancashire-based SMEs (eligibility criteria applies). The next workshop is taking place on 4^th and 11^th July – to find out more visit www.lancaster.ac.uk/health-innovation/business or contact 01524 595005.