Meet Parvez, our Mentor of the Month for June! 🎉

Since Parvez joined us back in 2022, he's been an absolute powerhouse of support for our community and consistently gets incredible feedback from his mentees - so we caught up with him to find out what he loves most about mentoring small businesses 🥳

Where are you based in the world?

London, England 🇬🇧

What's your day job?

Product Portfolio Director at EY

What's one thing you're amazing at?

Product development, and startups

What do you love about mentoring small businesses and charities?

Giving back

If you could start your own business, what would it be and why?

I'm not telling you that !! Probably something in fintech to help people reach financial security

What's one top tip you always share with small businesses

You're not the boss, your customer is.

If you could sit next to one famous person at a dinner party (dead or alive) who would you choose and why?

Prophet Muhammed, to teach me compassion.

What Parvez's mentees have to say 👇

"Parvez was incredibly insightful, helpful and personable. The session provided me with a wealth of information and things to consider with regards to furthering the development of my business. Would highly recommend to anyone thinking about starting a new business."

Mustapha, Caterer Catalogue

Parvez offers mentoring in Business Strategy, B2B Sales, and Leadership and Founder Advice, find him on our platform here👇

Meet Ellie, our member of the month for July! With a focus on connecting people back to nature and protecting the environment, Ellie creates beautiful hand drawn illustrations and sustainably produces all her incredible cards and gifts! 💚

We caught up to find out all about her business and why she loves being in the Digital Boost community 🥰

Tell us a little bit about your business

I am an illustrator and print my artwork onto a range of cards, homewares, and gifts. After I had my kids I wanted to go back to my more creative roots (I was in graphic design previously) and wanted to prove it was possible to run a creative and GENUINELY sustainable business that made a profit. (I'm still working on that last bit...)

Taken from Ellie's Instagram @elliegood_illo

What's your favourite thing about being a small business owner?

I love the flexibility and freedom and control.

Let's chat about your business journey...

It all started when my second child was very small. I started making cards, printed in England on 100% recycled paper. People liked them and I quickly scaled up to selling online, selling wholesale and expanding my product range. Everything I make has to be useful or meaningful - and be made with closed-loop production or biodegradable. Over a year ago I employed a VA, who helped set up lots of systems as I found I was getting overwhelmed with all the different jobs I was doing. Last year I started using a brilliant fulfillment company, and I am hoping to outsource more jobs and create new product lines this year. It's still very hard work but it is good to know that I'm at a point where people love my products and I have a much clearer idea of the direction I want to take things in.

What made you decide to join Digital Boost?

I heard about it on an Instagram live with Holly Tucker and thought it sounded like such a brilliant resource. I have had some excellent advice and support, particularly on email marketing, from the mentors on the platform. I've recommended it to so many people!

What's changed or happened in your business since you started being mentored?

I've been more focused on the importance of email marketing, and I have also had a couple of sessions with people on SEO, so have got my head around that a little bit more too. The latter actually helped me realise that I can't take SEO on myself, so have outsourced that. It's great to have some basic understanding of what you're outsourcing though and the session definitely pushed me forward with that.

And finally, what's been the proudest moment with your business?

Two things! My notebooks were featured in the Guardian over a year ago and I still get hits from that today. Secondly, I've been working on a Sleep Journal with a life coach friend and we just won an award for it, so we are stoked about that!

Taken from Ellie's website, www.elliegood.co.uk 🧡

Want to try our free business mentoring for yourself? Click here to get started 👇

Whether you're a small business owner or you're running a charity or organisation, it's important to get a birdseye view of your business - that's where a SWOT analysis comes in.

In this beginner's guide, we'll walk you through the steps you need to take to conduct a SWOT analysis in your organisation and how you can use it to take action and grow your business 💪

So what is a SWOT analysis?

SWOT is an acronym for:

Strengths - these are what set you apart from your competition

Weaknesses - these are areas that may need a little improvement (don't worry, every business has them!)

Opportunities - these are new possibilities or areas you may be able to branch into to keep strengthening your business!

Threats - these are anything that could threaten or prevent your business from growing

Conducting your own SWOT analysis

Examples to help you get started

Strengths: What makes you different from others in your industry?

• exceptional customer service
• high-quality materials
• personalisation
• talented team

Weaknesses: What areas need a little more love and improvement to help your business excel?

• need additional training in particular skills
• struggling to keep up with social media trends
• limited marketing budget

Remember, by being honest and acknowledging your weaknesses, you then have a better idea of what you need to work on which will feed into your strategy - making you a stronger business overall 💪

Opportunities: What haven't you tapped into that might positively impact your business?

• online marketplaces like Etsy
• Facebook communities/ word of mouth to promote business
• industry collaborations

Threats: What could potentially threaten your business from growing?

• financial pressures (cost of living etc.)
• changes in regulations
• competitors producing products for lower price points

Putting It All Together: Developing a Strategy

Once you've completed your SWOT analysis, it's time to transform insights into action 💪

Prioritise the most critical things from each category and brainstorm ways that you can leverage your strength and opportunities to overcome your weaknesses and threats.

You'll be surprised how many new ideas this exercise opens up! 💡

Once you've brainstormed, you'll be able to feed everything you've learnt into your business strategy. If you're looking for a business strategy framework, check out our blog post on creating a business strategy that actually works!

Remember, it's important to regularly review your business, so we recommend reassing your business with this framework at least once a year, if not more depending on the changes happening in your market.

Don't struggle alone!

Whether you're needing some support to go through your SWOT analysis, you're worried about how to overcome threats, or you want to develop a concrete business strategy, our free mentoring can help!

Our mentors are on hand to support you through all these challenges and more, totally free of charge 💜

After discovering Digital Boost's free business mentoring, Gary couldn't believe there wasn't a catch! He was able to meet with expert mentors who helped him to develop his website and increase his sales by 1300% in just a few months 🚀

Meet Gary...

Gary is the genius behind YoBack, a revolutionary health & wellness product that's designed to ease back pain and improve posture! Having experienced back pain for many years following an accident, one day Gary had the idea to create a totally portable wheel that would allow users to stretch out their back, wherever they were in the world.

The idea was born on a napkin in a restaurant and within just a few months, Gary had mocked up the designs and was ready to take his idea to the world 💪

Image from YoBack

Finding free support

Having attended many virtual networking sessions with our partners at the FSB, Gary was introduced to Digital Boost! He joined a couple of Masterclasses before deciding to see if he could get some help with his website. He took the leap and within 24 hours he had a session booked with an eCommerce Website mentor!

"I called my partner up and said, 'this is amazing! I've just had a conversation for an hour and 20 minutes about my website [...] and it cost nothing, it's free! It's amazing"

Gary, Founder of YoBack

Visa mentoring day

After experiencing great results from his 1:1 mentoring, we decided to invite Gary to an exclusive Mentoring Day we were hosting with our partners at Visa. Throughout the year, we work with incredible industry partners to create special experiences that take mentoring to the next level. Gary was able to meet with some of Visa's top-level European team to discuss his product and by the end of his personal workshop, he'd come away with a whole new approach to his product and reimagined who his ideal client was!

Getting results

After realising how powerful mentoring is, Gary has gone up to become a Digital Boost regular, consistently booking sessions and taking steps to make his business better day by day 💪 Through our free mentoring programme, we've been able to support Gary with business strategy, export trade, conversion rate and so much more!

And through consistent hard work and support from our community, Gary has increased his sales by 1300%! 🚀

What Gary's mentors have to say about him

"Gary came to me with a great product, however the strategy did not fully encompass the amazing work he had been doing so far nor highlighting the full potential of the product. As a result we stripped everything back to basics, from the Website, the digital marketing proposal and business strategy to get a solid foundation and start again. Within the first few weeks we saw sales more than triple and since then Gary has pushed the brand into new platforms and exploring additional marketing opportunities which has seen a growing brand reputation and sales increasing. I am very happy to have played a part in his business and no doubt his early retirement."

Ian D., BT mentor

Watch Gary's full story here

Want to see how mentoring can help your business?

As we continue our Volunteers' Week celebrations, we wanted to show you just how easy it can be to start adding volunteering into your life!

1. Find a cause that's aligned with your passions

Maybe you're passionate about animals? Perhaps you're interested in the environment? Or maybe you're interested in careers and seeing young people thrive.

Whatever your passion, there's a cause and a volunteering opportunity out there for you!

2. Research local and online opportunities

Once you've identified your passion, it's time to find the right volunteering opportunity for you!

Looking for local organisations and groups related to your passion is a great starting point, but in this technological age, don't rule out our online opportunities! Lots of communities are now offering remote and online volunteering opportunities to enable skill sharing and support to those further afield.

Try searching keywords like 'online volunteering' or 'remote volunteering opportunities' to see what comes up!

3. Decide how much time you want to give

Whether you can volunteer for one hour a week, a day or two a month, or even a couple of times a year, there's an opportunity out there to suit everyone's schedule!

When researching opportunities, it's important to understand how much time you need to commit to your chosen cause. Some opportunities will ask for a minimum commitment, but many others won't! Here at Digital Boost, we don't ask for a minimum commitment on our volunteering as we want it to be as flexible to you and your schedule as possible 🤗

4. Make it a habit

Once you've started volunteering, take it one step further by making it a habit! Volunteering and giving back to communities has been proven to increase your happiness, so let's keep that happiness high by making volunteering a part of your every day 💪

Once you've decided how much time you can give to an opportunity, make sure to schedule volunteering sessions in advance in your diary where you can, so that you carve out the time to give back to your chosen cause 😊

Lots of volunteering programmes will have scheduled events that your're able to join and others, like Digital Boost, will allow you to book sessions in your diary in advance so you can easily manage your volunteering around your day job 🎉

Interested in volunteering? Why not become one of our volunteer mentors!

Introducing our latest platform update - say hello to our new Messaging Centre!

Communication is Key

Communication is at the heart of everything that we do here at Digital Boost, so after receiving awesome feedback from our community, we knew we needed to develop a kick-ass new messaging feature that would make it easier than ever for our community to connect and collaborate after their mentoring sessions.

Building our dream feature

The team spent months working on this feature, making sure that every little detail was totally perfect. We're all perfectionists and we won't ever release anything for our members until we're completely happy with the experience we're creating for our community 💪

We're delighted to now have a Messaging Centre that allows our members to see all their messages in one place and makes it easier than ever to book follow-up sessions!

Features that go above and beyond

➕ Allows you to contact any mentor or mentee that you've previously met with

💬 Control who has access to contacting you

🤝 Easily book follow-up sessions and take action

💌 Stores all your messages in one place, so they're easy to manage

As a community of volunteer mentors, we're delighted to be celebrating Volunteers' Week here in the UK 🎉

We're incredibly passionate about volunteering, but don't just take our word for how awesome it is! Read on to find out about the positive benefits of volunteering 💪

Creating Purpose

We all get busy, and sometimes we can get so lost in the weeds of our 9-5s that we lose focus on what's important to us. Volunteering allows you to get out of your comfort zone and reconnect with what lights you up.

Whether your purpose comes from sharing your skills, your time, or just connecting with new people, there are amazing volunteering opportunities out there that will allow you to reconnect with your purpose and give back to society 🥰

Build Your Skills

Volunteering offers a unique opportunity to not only give back but to also develop personally too! Whether you choose to volunteer at a food bank, animal shelter, or share your skills as a mentor, all of these opportunities will hone skills you already have and teach you new ones too 💪

Learn & Grow

Volunteering is often seen as the act of giving, but what most people don't know is that actually, there's so much that you as a volunteer can gain from volunteering!

The volunteer mentors in our community constantly report that they learn just as much as their mentees during their mentoring sessions. Often you'll be sharing your expertise, but you'll be learning about an industry that's maybe new to you or learning more about the world through the eyes of a small business 🎉

Build Meaningful Relationships

Volunteering connects you with people from all walks of life, who you may never have met if you hadn't started volunteering 😊 It also allows you to build deep relationships with people who are connected through a shared purpose. Meaningful connections like these have been shown to improve the quality of our lives and make us happier overall!

Lots of our volunteer mentors end up offering ongoing mentoring to the mentees that they meet because of the deep and lasting connections they build in their sessions together 😊

If you feel inspired to get involved with Volunteers' Week, why not become one of our volunteer mentors today?

Meet John, our Mentor of the Month for May! 🎉

This week marks John's 2-year anniversary volunteering with Digital Boost, so we caught up with him to find out why he loves mentoring small businesses 🧡

Where are you based in the world?

Belfast, Ireland

What's your day job?

Regional Ecosystem Manager at Ulster Bank and Dealmaker for Department for Business and Trade

What's one thing you're amazing at?

Taking complex things and simplifying them down... or in a word, storytelling.

What do you love about mentoring small businesses and charities?

Being able to play a small part in helping someone move closer to their dream is what brings me happiness.

If you could start your own business, what would it be and why?

I have, I previously launched a wifi software company. Next time it'll definitely be something more fun. As an ex-food critic, I'd definitely love to build something that crosses over food and tech.

What's one top tip you always share with small businesses?

Saying you're an expert and mentor is easy to do on LinkedIn, but it doesn't make it true. Just because you see someone wearing a vintage Nirvana 1992 Reading Festival t-shirt doesn't mean they were at one of the most iconic concerts of all time. Investors do diligence on entrepreneurs before investing money into a business. You're basing strategic decisions on an expert's advice. Make sure you've done your own diligence to know you can rely on that advice.

If you could sit next to one famous person at a dinner party (dead or alive) who would you choose and why?

I like a raucous party, so I'll pivot and say my dinner party is loud (with a mix of punk and grunge music blasting) so everyone can dance. And I'll invite along Kurt Cobain, Joan Jett, and Anthony Bourdain.

John offers mentoring in Fundraising, Public Relations and Leadership and Founder Advice, find him on our platform here👇

Thinking about dipping your toe into the world of AI? This easy-to-use guide will walk you through what you can do with AI to grow your small business and teach you the golden 80/20 rule that will ensure your business stays human 🚀

Uses of AI for small businesses

Streamlining Operations

Running a small business often means wearing multiple hats and juggling a million different tasks, but with a few simple AI tweaks, you can automate a lot of easy processes and free up some of your time ⏰

Tasks you might like to automate:

• Simple customer inquiries 👉 AI-powered chatbots
• Social media manual posting 👉 social media scheduling tools (check out Canva, Later and Hootsuite!)
• Reviewing CVs manually 👉 AI recruitment & candidate screening
• Writing meeting notes 👉 Automated notetaking

Data Analytics

If data analysis is giving you a headache, AI can help to take that off your plate!

AI can be used in conjunction with data tools like Google Analytics to help you analyse and interpret your data and make things that little bit easier to understand 💪

Content Creation

When you're a solopreneur, trying to produce content for your socials, emails, ads and more can feel pretty daunting!

The most common use of AI that we're seeing is content creation, and if you're looking to save some time it can be really helpful 💪

Programmes like ChatGPT can create basic content for you to then build on, removing that awful feeling of staring at a blank page!

Sales

If you work in an industry where you're presenting often to clients - don't reinvent the wheel each time you do a presentation!

You can use AI to build your presentations for you and have them looking super professional in no time - allowing you to focus on the selling and not the creation 🎉

But how do we keep it human?

We all know that people buy from people, so it's crucial that as you begin to move into the world of AI, ensure we're keeping the human front and centre of your business 🤖

As our mentor John from TryAI Consulting recommends, stick to the 80/20 rule - 80%, 20% human.

So what does 80/20 look like?

Well, when you're using AI to create a blog post for example, allow the AI to get you 80% of the way there, but then allow yourself time to review the content, tone of voice the blog post and ensure it's on brand and looks and feels how you would have written it! That should give you the 20% you need to humanise your content whilst halving your workload 💪

Want to do a deep dive? Check out John's webinar, AI for Small Businesses here 👇

You know what you need help with, you've selected your preferred mentors and now it's time to write your request 🎉

Read on to find out how you can write the perfect mentoring request and increase your chances of being matched with a mentor 🚀

Imagine you're chatting in-person

We're a family at Digital Boost, so when you send a request in, remember there's always a person at the end reading it!

When you write a request, you might like to imagine you're already sitting down and chatting with a group of our mentors who are there to help you 😊 It'll help you to write a more chatty and personable request that will get our mentors' attention!

Just make sure to not address your request to a specific mentor! Check out our golden rules for more information on this at the end of this blog 😊

Make it personal

Similarly to our first point, when you start writing your request remember to include a little bit about you and your business - this helps your mentor to get to know you and start building a picture of your business ✅

Context is king

As you're likely meeting your mentor for the very first time, they're not going to know anything about your business journey yet! So it's really helpful if you can give some context about what you need help with and what you've done up until this point to tackle the topic or issue. Your mentor will then understand your situation and tailor their advice to you and your business.

Leverage your links

The more information you can give your mentor, the better! Whether you need help with your social media, website, or fundraising, ensure you link your website, social media channels, and any other relevant materials that will help your mentor to establish how best to support you 🤗

Golden Rules

• Never share personal information in your requests - we've set everything up so that you can request and join sessions right from within our platform, so you'll never need to share personal contact information with anyone in our community ❤️
• Avoid addressing mentors by name - if your preferred mentor isn't available, we'll ask our wider community to help! Using names can cause confusion, so keep your request nameless 😊

Looking for inspiration? Check out our example here to help you get started 👇

Ready to write your own perfect request?