Masterclasses and Workshops for Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Businesses

Unfortunately we are unable to collect funding for businesses who have already received funded business support with us, or with Boost, between 1st Jan 2024 and 31st March 2025. As a goodwill gesture we are happy to allow existing customers to access Zoom sessions.

January 2026

This ‘Scale Up’ Masterclass delivered by John Woodruffe is designed for businesses who have at least 1 employee, and are ambitious to grow.

Some of the topics covered in this Masterclass include:

  • What is Leadership?
    • Defining what is meant by leadership
    • The differences between leadership and management

Leadership Skills

    • What are the skills required to be an effective leader and manager?
    • Exploring why these skills are needed

A simple approach to leadership

    • Using a simple leadership model to understand how it’s done
    • Looking at a range of leadership approaches

Basic Leadership Skills

    • Questioning and Listening
    • Motivating and Inspiring the Team
    • Assertiveness
    • Influential Communication

Managing Performance

    • Dealing With Under-Performance
    • Setting SMART Goals and Objectives
    • Effective Performance Management Discussions
    • Performance and Development Planning

Decision Making and Problem Solving

    • Pro-actively Identifying Problems
    • Problem Solving Tools
    • How to Make Effective Decisions

Skills Practice

    • An opportunity to practice the skills

There will also be an opportunity to chat confidentially with a small group of like-minded scale-up business owners about your experiences of managing employees and valuable networking opportunities over lunch.

Strictly limited to 12 businesses maximum

Thursday 22nd January – Fylde Council Town Hall 10am until 1pm

(nearest train station is St Annes On Sea which is walking distance from the venue)

Lunch is provided!

This is an entry level Digital Marketing workshop to go through the fundamentals of:

  • Websites (what? how? why?)
  • SEO
  • Social Media
  • Paid Ads
  • Email marketing
  • Strategy and sales

This is designed for the business owner who feels they don’t have a grasp of the basics of digital marketing and want to undertake a mental review of all areas in a simple, accessible fun way.

Delivered by the incredible Jean Atkinson

Held at Peel House FY4 5JX – 10am until 1pm including Lunch – delivered by Adrian Meakin, Sales Geek

Do you sell online, or want to sell online and know you should be exploring Amazon but have no idea where to start?

This session is for those who want to sell on Amazon or are already doing so, and finding it difficult to navigate and manage.

Held at Wyre Civic Centre 5.30pm til 8.30pm (nibbles and drinks provided)

Held on Zoom 10am until 12pm on Friday 30th Jan

Applications will open for both the BIBAS and The Eva Awards in January – so this Masterclass has been strategically timed to prepare you for both.

Awards are not a ‘popularity contest’ and while there is a cost to attend these awards ceremonies, these are a tax deductible business expense, and a business who is struggling to afford to buy a ticket is probably not at the right stage to be considering entering awards just yet.

Aside from all else, they are an incredible networking opportunity – being in a room with 900+ other successful local entrepreneurs!

We will be covering:

  • What makes a good / poor award application
  • Why you have not been successful in the past
  • Common mistakes
  • What the Judges are looking for and how to give them what they want

Nikki has a 100% success rate of being shortlisted for awards both for herself, and for clients when she used to write them in her capacity as a marketing agency.

February 2026

Held on Zoom – more info to follow

Held at Peel House – 1pm until 4pm (lunch is provided on arrival) – delivered by Victoria Hopkins

What does Leadership look like in an Ai driven future?

Wyre

Held at Peel House 10am to 1pm

Held at Blackpool Enterprise Centre 1pm til 4pm by Hayley Caine

Does your role require you to create Presentations / Slide Decks / Powerpoints? Do you feel you spend many hours adjusting slides, branding content and making it look good when this is not really your skillset?

Do you want to learn how to create eye catching presentations using Ai and automations in a jiffy?

This session will show you how to massively reduce the time you spend creating professional looking presentations – we will go through this step by step in the session so that every person leaves able to implement this themselves.

Delivered by Nicola Pickup, on Zoom

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