Diane Stephenson

Credit Crunch, Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch?..

One Nottinghamshire business woman doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. The current climate may have spelt disaster for many small companies but Diane Stephenson, Managing Director of Everything Solutions Ltd is enjoying a 50% increase on turnover this financial year.

The support provided by UK Trade & Investment has just helped the budding entrepreneur to go global. The Nottinghamshire business woman has never been so busy. Fresh back from two overseas visits; Brazil and Russia; she now has an international law firm to add to her list of clients and has ongoing conversations with a number of organisations in both countries including two leading Universities and 4 blue chip companies.

Founded in 2007 her company, Everything Solutions Ltd, specialises in personal and  professional development and provides clients with a broad range of services including skills training, mentoring and 1:1 coaching to improve performance and personal effectiveness.  Her mission statement is ‘to help people be the best they can be' and to date she has helped more than 100 companies and their staff do just that.

Diane's successful relationship with UKTI started over 12 months ago when she accidentally came across a stand staffed by UK Trade and Investment at a trade fair. "Exporting being a long term goal of mine it seemed an opportune moment to enquire about the eventual possibility of exporting my services overseas"
"I was amazed by the extent of support available to would be exporters. Not only once businesses have decided to export but also while they are going through the ‘should I, shouldn't I process'".

After an initial face to face meeting with my own International Trade Advisor, I decided to start the process of serious evaluation. After going on the UKTI weekend exporting course, ongoing meetings of research and review with my International Trade Advisor (ITA) I then took a deep breath and stepped in to the world of exporting. "Wow what an amazing journey of learning and discovery! I loved the whole process. It was scary but very exciting and with the support I had behind me from the UKTI team it felt very achievable. We are all very aware of the myriad of challenges being facing businesses in the UK today.  It's a shame that we are not equally aware of some of the fantastic support available to us"
Diane is keen to encourage other companies to make full use of the services UKTI has to offer.

"Of course exporting isn't an option for every business however, in today's economic climate it is worthwhile exploring.  You can get help with:

• Deciding whether exporting is an option
• What the potential for your goods and services might be in different countries
• Important steps to improve the chances of success
• Potential contacts

Of course it's no good going in to a decision to export with a cavalier attitude or over optimistic approach but if you have a good product or service, are competitively priced in the your chosen export market and are prepared to work within the cultural and legislative framework of that country then there is a fair chance that you might join the thousands of businesses successfully exporting goods or services every year".

Diane received a combination of grants to help her towards some costs, matched funding to help cover others and almost unlimited expertise, encouragement and general support only a phone call away. She particularly benefitted from the advice given on how to make her marketing materials, website, and presentations export proof.

"I would urge anyone who is interested in exporting their goods or services to talk to UKTI to see what support might be available to them. You might be as surprised as I was!"
Diane is looking forward to revisiting both countries later in the year to follow-up on strong leads. In addition she has received an invitation from the Prime Minister to attend a reception at Downing Street which is to promote UK Exporters delivering goods and services to the world market. I guess the big decision facing her now is ‘what is a girl to wear?'