Business support programme helping Oldham’s self employed thrive

An innovative pilot business support programme has added over £12.7m in business revenue to self-employed workers across Greater Manchester.

EnterprisingYou is a fully funded business support service that offers a mixture of workshops, coaching, health and wellbeing support to self-employed and gig economy workers across the region.

Since launch, EnterprisingYou has had a positive impact on over 3,000 participants and the wider Greater Manchester community it has supported, from boosting the local economy, driving business growth and empowering self-employed workers.

Gary Manners from Oldham has been a self-employed Travel Counsellor for nearly 10 years, but after the pandemic he realised he needed to adapt his business.

He joined the EnterprisingYou programme to see what new skills he could learn.

Gary said: “The pandemic really affected the travel industry, so I decided I would use the extra time sensibly and get up to date from a technology and marketing perspective.

"The new knowledge has given me the confidence to get back out there again. It's been a huge benefit and I've really enjoyed it.

“I’ve learnt plenty of new things to help improve my business, I've retrained to benefit my business in so many ways. 

"I've taken away so much that has really helped propel my business.

"I’ve achieved all my goals and got from the programme everything I hoped for my business.”

EnterprisingYou was launched in 2019 to combat the issues raised in a stark report in 2018 from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

The report found that despite the over four million-strong self-employed workforce contributing over £270 billion to the UK economy in 2017, they were often at the sharp end of the nation’s fiscal and financial challenges.

The programme works with self-employed Greater Manchester residents who have earnings of less than £27,000.

Yvonne Sampson - Head of Enterprise, GC Business Growth Hub, said: “The UK has a proud tradition of self-employed workers.

"We just want to make sure that tradition continues.

“Many were already struggling, but the pandemic magnified those issues.

"Programmes like EnterprisingYou offer help and support and are designed in a way that people will eventually be able to stand on their own.

“We’re really proud to have helped thousands of self-employed people in Greater Manchester to succeed.”

Extended twice due to its success, the pilot programme was commissioned by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), with funding from the Department for Education (DfE).

Alongside the millions in revenue added by the self-employed, the Insight Report shows the programme’s 3,000 participants saw a £663,246 reduction in benefits claimed and a £4.7m increase in businesses profitability.

With the impact of the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ continuing to be felt, programmes like EnterprisingYou are making a real difference to communities in the UK.

If rolled out Nationally, the programme could add £136.7m to self-employed business revenues and increase self-employed business profits by at least £50.6m.

To celebrate three years of EnterprisingYou and its success, GC Business Growth Hub hosted at an event in Manchester’s historic Midland Hotel (see image above) which was attended by alumni, representatives from each Greater Manchester local authority, universities and all those involved in delivering EnterprisingYou.

The event looked at the important role EnterprisingYou played in unlocking opportunities for the Greater Manchester self-employed workforce, with talks led by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and the team that delivered the programme.

Find out more about the programme’s impact, click here

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