Events

Discover how to use free coverage in newspapers and on radio and television to raise your business profile.

This workshop is led by former broadcaster and journalist Colin Kelly. He will show you how to identify and develop the most interesting stories within your business and then use them to achieve free, positive coverage in the mainstream media.

Topics covered include:

• How the media works and how it can help small businesses.
• What makes an interesting story?
• How to define your key messages.
• Speak about your business with confidence.
• Improve your television and radio interview skills.
• Take control and make sure you’re not misquoted.
• Write press releases that get used by the media.
• Build a ‘media friendly’ strategy for your business.

To book a place, click here.

This session will cover the main areas of HR that all businesses should be aware of.

This session will cover the main areas of HR that all businesses should be aware of.

Starting with an understanding of an employers duty of care pre employment, during and afterwards through to the paperwork you should have in place to keep you compliant.

Where time allows we will also discuss employment relations matter and any issues that the audience may wish to highlight in advance.

To book a place, click here.

As a business owner, you need an accountant who does more than manage numbers. A good accountant adds value with financial insights, aiding decisions, streamlining processes, and ensuring compliance.

As a business owner, you will have many important relationships that determine the success of your venture – from your customers to your suppliers. Amongst the most important is the relationship with your accountant. More than just someone who ‘looks after the numbers’, a good accountant can add a huge amount of value to your business – providing crucial financial insights to help inform key strategic decisions.

However, the value of an accountant is not always fully maximised. Despite having a detailed understanding of your financial position and operational strengths, many business owners fail to tap into these all-important insights. It’s a missed opportunity. We’re going to look at some of the ways an accountant can add value to your business – and how to maximise the relationship, streamline your accounting processes and ensure you meet deadlines and compliance duties.

The course will cover topics such as:

• To ask what do you need to know from your accountant.
• Decisions you need to make.
• What’s the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant.
• What you should be doing.
• And what you shouldn’t be asking.
• The cost of not working in partnership.
• What do you want to do and what do you want someone else to do.
• How to make the relationship with your accountant more profitable.

To book a place, click here.

Write award entries that do you justice and get the results you deserve.

There’s an art to writing award entries. Every year, highly successful businesses fail to win awards, not because they don’t deserve to, but because their written entry submissions aren’t strong enough. Your trainer for this session, Colin Kelly has won, lost and judged various industry awards in his career. He’ll show you how to write award entries that catch the eye of the judges, meet the criteria and get results. This session will make specific reference to this year’s Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce Business Awards but will include lots of advice and tips suitable for any business awards you enter.

To book a place, click here.

This session will introduce you to free and low-cost tools for producing and editing both static and video content, alongside the best free stock image and video platforms to elevate your visuals.

You’ll learn by doing – with live demonstrations, simple frameworks, and guided exercises to help you confidently create engaging content that supports your goals.

Perfect for beginners and busy professionals, this session will show you how to:

• Generate content ideas that align with your brand and audience.
• Create and edit visuals (both static and video).
• Repurpose and reuse content across different platforms.
• Build confidence in your tone of voice and messaging.

Whether you’re creating content for a business, charity, or personal brand, you’ll leave with practical tools, tips, and a head start on your next piece of content.

To book a place, click here.

Whether you’re promoting a business, managing a campaign, or just starting out in marketing, this session will give you practical knowledge you can put to use straight away.

Don’t feel overwhelmed by jargon, numbers, or complicated tools!

This plain-English, beginner-friendly workshop is designed to help you start measuring the impact of your marketing with confidence. You don’t need to be a data expert or have fancy software – just a desire to understand what’s working, what’s not, and how to make better decisions.

We’ll cover:

• What “Return on Marketing” really means (without the buzzwords).
• Simple ways to track the success of your activity – even on a small budget.
• Common marketing goals and what to measure for each one.
• Easy tools and methods to get started.
• How to make sense of the numbers and apply them to future plans.

Whether you’re promoting a business, managing a campaign, or just starting out in marketing, this session will give you practical knowledge you can put to use straight away – no spreadsheets or stress required.

To book a place, click here.

This workshop will give you 30 uncomplicated, effective steps that you can do yourself for free that will help strengthen your digital presence.

The workshop will be broken down into 3 sections:

• Making sure you understand what you’re doing and why.
• Helping you gain control and organise your assets.
• Be confident in knowing not only what content you should be producing, but where you should post it to be of most help to your customers and potential customers.

You will leave feeling motivated and with a sense of purpose. Confident that even if you don’t complete all 30 steps you are doing something constructive to help your business during this time.

To book a place, click here.

As of 18th April 2026, all business who last year turned over more than £50,000 if either in self employment or as a landlord are now in scope of HMRC Making Tax Digital.

Maxing Tax Digital for Self Assessment has arrived. As of 1st April 2026 all business who last year turned over more than £50,000 if either in self employment or as a landlord are now in scope of HMRC Tax Digital.

Going forward this will mean the submission of 5 Self Assessment returns digitally per year. The last dash on the 28th January to your bookkeeper or accountant is over.

As well as going through the main aspects you should know regarding MTD the course will cover the following review of cloud accountancy as well.

• Digital/Cloud Bookkeeping – an introduction.
• Choosing the correct Cloud accountancy package that works for you.
• Using Xero as base.
• Setting up Cloud Accounting software.
• Bank reconciliation.
• Purchase and sales ledgers.
• Payroll
• VAT

To book a place, click here.

Your business is judged on what customers see and how they feed when they visit you online. This session will help you ensure their first impression is a good one.

In this webinar you will learn how to:

• Audit your business across key web and social channels and build an action plan to improve how you come across.
• Understand what makes your business special and develop key messages to portray.
• Recognise what makes a successful website and how to improve yours.
• Consider different audiences and customer journeys so that your business is found whether they’re conducting Google searches, using apps or hearing about you via word of mouth.
• Explore the role of AI in the future of online marketing and what you can do now to take advantage of it.

To book a place, click here.

Learn how to stand out, connect with purpose, and turn LinkedIn from a positive CV into a powerful networking and marketing tool.

LinkedIn is more than just an online CV – it’s one of the most powerful platforms for building business connections, generating leads, and growing your personal or professional brand. But most small business owners don’t use it to its full potential.

This hands-on session will walk you through how to improve your LinkedIn profile and use the platform more strategically to make real connections with people who matter to your business.

You’ll learn:

• How to optimise your LinkedIn profile so it’s clear, creditable, and compelling.
• What makes a good first impression on LinkedIn (and what to avoid).
• Ways to grow your network organically – without spamming.
• How to engage with the right content and start real conversations.
• Tactics for getting found by the people you want to do business with.

Whether you’re brand new to LinkedIn or you’ve had a profile for years but felt like you never quite “got it”, this course will help you use the platform with more purpose – and see better results from the time you spend there.

To book a place, click here.

We will explore your potential customers, the problems your business can solve for them and how you can do that better than the competition.

Whatever your reasons may be for considering being your own boss, Business Gateway is here to support you and this webinar will help you decide if this is the right path for you. We will explore your potential customers, the problems your business can solve for them and how you can do that better than the competition. Once that is clear, we will look at the key activities and costs involved in starting and running the business and tools for determining the commercial viability before considering the main options for business structure (sole trader, partnership or limited company).

We will look at:

• Personal finance planning – how much do you need to earn?
• Researching your market – to develop an understanding of your market, who your customers are, understanding your competition and what the trends are within your chosen field.
• Business structure – what are the main business structures? How to decide which is right for you and how to register as a business.
• Creating your start-up action plan – an outline.

Attendees will be provided with a PDF copy of the slides and a workbook to complete. We will also signpost you to Business Gateway’s Planning to Start tool which will then direct you to further resources and your local Business Gateway adviser.

To book a place, click here.

Understanding the needs of all when producing digital content helps you to market your business inclusively. This webinar will highlight these challenges and help you to make your content accessible.

Everyone consumes and understands information differently, with some facing additional challenges that aren’t always considered. In this webinar, we’ll explore the challenges that people can have when accessing digital content and we’ll look at the ways you can improve your digital content to be inclusive and considerate for all.

By the end of this webinar, you will be able to:

• Understand and consider the barriers and challenges faced by others when accessing digital content.
• Assess your digital content on how easy it is for others to access, consume and understand.
• Review your website content with an understanding of what adjustments you should make to ensure that your content is catering to all.
• Use social media functions and tools to help make your content more accessible.
• Understand and use an “Accessible Ready Checklist” for any of your content to ensure you are designing and developing content for all of your audience.

To book a place, click here.

There are 24 hours in every day. How do you use yours? Make more of those hours work for you, not against you.

With the constant demands on our time, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the lack of time we have to meet those demands. In this interactive workshop you will be given the gift of time to evaluate how you operate, and plan how to make those 24 hours work for you – not against you.

To book a place, click here.