28 companies attended our December meeting.
Joseph Gilhooly, Director of Services with Leitrim County Council spoke to the network members about services available and developments within the county.
Joseph discussed a number of items including:

• An audit of the counties infrastructure
• 3rd level courses available through the council
• The recent broadband survey
• Ideas around attracting sector specific companies to the county
• Tax relief on units available for rent

With regard to ideas from network members, Carmel Murphy from HR Solutions shared an experience about services companies she had contacted that did not return her calls and highlighted the importance of simply following up on enquiries.

Next Meeting: January 13th.

UPDATE: Fully booked out.

Leitrim Business Network Meetings in association with Leitrim County Enterprise Board take place on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm in the The Ramada Lough Allen Hotel, Drumshanbo

We would like to invite you to our Network Christmas Dinner taking place on Tuesday next, Dec 2nd at 6pm in The Lough Allen Ramada Hotel.

The menu is available at www.leitrimbusinessnetwork.com.

Please confirm by Friday Nov. 28th as places are limited. First preference will be given to Network Members who have attended previous meetings followed by those who reply by this coming Friday.

Ramada Hotel and Suites at Lough Allen – Menu

Fan of melon and orange sorbet with an accompaniment of mint and ginger syrup

Home made country vegetable soup

Roast turkey and ham prepared with sage and onion stuffing and presented with its traditional garnish
or
Oven baked organic salmon, in a dill cream sauce

Seasonal vegetables accompany the above

A palette of Yuletide desserts

Tea or Coffee

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have special dietary requirements, or special requests. Where possible we will most certainly try to accommodate them.

For more information and reservations call 071 96 40100, Ramada Hotel and Suites at Lough Allen, Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim

Leitrim Business Network Meetings in association with Leitrim County Enterprise Board take place on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm in the The Ramada Lough Allen Hotel, Drumshanbo

Next Meeting: Tuesday December 2nd – 6pm SHARP. Agenda to follow.

15 companies attended our November meeting and again, welcome to our new members.

Glenfarne native, Fergus Burns gave us an honest insight about his company, NOOKED.COM, and the story so far. Highlighting a number of key areas such as finance and percerverience, Fergus also advised members not to be afraid to ask for help, financial or otherwise.

3 network members were also invited to share a recent experiences  which may be of use to others.

1. Google Adwords – monitor your spend especially over weekends.

2. GroupNet Broadband have developed an internal database system to manage stock installed for their customers.

Leitrim Business Network Meetings in association with Leitrim County Enterprise Board take place on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm in the The Ramada Lough Allen Hotel, Drumshanbo

Next Meeting: Tuesday November 4th – 6pm SHARP.

Agenda:

6.00pm – Welcome – Member Introduction

6.05pm – Keynote Presentation – Fergus Burns from nooked.com (See below)

6.30pm – Presentation Q&A

6.35pm – 3 useful ideas from 3 network members – 1 per member

6.40pm – Update from Nicola – Leitrim County Enterprise Board

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Keynote Presentation: Fergus Burns – Nooked.com (Fergus is originally from Glenfarne, Co. Leitrim)

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Fergus is currently the founder and CEO of Nooked, a market leader in RSS Marketing. Nooked is also one of the top Web 2.0 companies in Europe.

Fergus has worked in technology since 1993 – a Computer Science graduate, who previously worked in Microsoft for 6 years and was also involved with numerous start-ups, ranging from hands-on type roles to advisory roles.

Autumn 2008 Training Courses

Leitrim County Enterprise Board is currently inviting participants for the following Business Development Training Programmes

Start Your Own Business
This programme is geared towards those who are considering establishing their own business or who have recently done so.

Programme Content includes:
Self Assessment / Start You Own Business
Legal Issues for Start Ups
Preparing a Business Plan
Marketing for the Small Business
Researching the market.
Finance
Funding Sources.
Basic Book keeping
Sales
ICT & the Small Business

Duration: 7.00-10.00pm for six Monday evenings.
Start Date: November 2008 Cost: €40.

Work / Life Balance

Content Includes:
• Introduction to Work/Life Balance
• Personal effectiveness
• Increase self awareness
• Stress
• Time/Priority Management
• Motivation
• Decision Making/Goal Setting

Duration: 7-10 pm for 5 Wednesday evenings
Start date: November 2008 Cost: €40

Financial Review Clinics

We are offering financial review clinics for small business in County Leitrim.
This review could be used by you to look at your current financial position and options for improving your business going forward, if you want to avail of this resource please give us a call.

Social Media Marketing Masterclass

Content Includes:

- Discover what social media marketing is and why it’s a critical element to your small business marketing plan

- Explore case studies of how other small businesses in Ireland and across the globe are leveraging the use of social media

- Receive an overview of the different social media platforms available.

- Learn how to integrate your social media marketing programme within your marketing plan.

- Discover free resources to get you started in applying new media and social media marketing.

- Create your personal social media marketing plan including the 5 actions all businesses must take in today’s digitally connected world.

Duration: 1 Day
Start Date: November 2008 Cost: €30

For further information and a booking form for any of the above courses please contact Nicola Mc Manus on 071 9620450, or book online at www.leitrimenterprise.ie through the events calendar.

Last week I met with Conor Daly of Travel Logic Limited and he is currently looking for 2 software developers for the Sligo office.

These are positions with a difference.

“The software developers will enter into a commercial relationship with IT Sligo, where they will be awarded student status that will allow them a tax-free salary.
At the end of the project, the students will be awarded a master’s degree from IT Sligo, without having to attend classes or sit exams. In addition to these roles, Travel Logic is seeking to recruit sales and marketing professionals to support its growth and expansion into the UK market.”

For more details, please click on the links below.

Irish Developer Network

Silicon Republic

A late Tuesday Push for LouderVoice.

From Damien

“LouderVoice has been about for a good bit now and for those unaware of it, it’s a service that allows people to review anything they want and have the review republished to their blog or elsewhere. There are loads of ways to send in reviews too from Twitter and Jaiku (sub-niche site, don’t worry about it) to SMS.”

I have been using this service for some time and now they have a business edition worth checking out.

Next meeting is on November 4th at 6pm in the The Ramada Lough Allen Hotel, Drumshanbo.

Keynote Speaker: Fergus Burns from nooked.com.

16 companies attended our October meeting and welcome to our new members.

Enda Madden gave an informed presentation on Zoho.com. Zoho has an extensive suite of web-based products for business and a huge attraction is 80% of these products are FREE. Enda showed us Zoho Business which comes with all the tools you would expect from Microsoft Office and more, however Zoho Business is FREE (for up to 10 users in most cases).

Enda also showed us Zoho CRM which can provide your business with an extensive customer relationship management tool, covering prospects, leads, sales and most importantly detailed reports and analyis and it’s FREE for up to 3 users.

Other cost saving ideas were discussed. Paul Fahy (exploreleitrim.ie – coming soon) highlighted how he has cut his mobile bills with 3 Mobile so they should be worth a call.

Brian Dolan brought attention to lowering car fuel consumption with Dipetane.

Do you have any cost saving ideas? If so, please leave them in the comments section below.

See a comment from Enda here.

Remember, we encourage you to JOIN the network via LINKEDIN. 107 Leitrim Business people already have.

Leitrim Business Network Meetings in association with Leitrim County Enterprise Board take place on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm in the The Ramada Lough Allen Hotel, Drumshanbo

Next Meeting: Tuesday October 7th – 6pm SHARP.

Agenda:

6.00pm – Welcome – Member Introduction

6.05pm – Keynote Presentation – COST SAVING WITH ZOHO.COM (Details below)

6.30pm – Presentation Q&A

6.35pm – 3 cost saving ideas from 3 network members – 1 per member

6.40pm – Update from Nicola – Leitrim County Enterprise Board

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Keynote Presentation: COST SAVING WITH ZOHO.COM

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Speaker: Enda Madden – MD – SaasTek, Co. Leitrim

Today organisations have an opportunity to reduce their spend on IT by up to 80%. Developments in Cloud Computing and Software as a Service are eliminating the need to purchase and maintain expensive servers. Along with this the price of software is dramatically reduced allowing Small to Medium Enterprises to afford the type of software that until recently was only used by large corporations.

One of the implications is that companies can focus their IT budget on adding value. Reaching their customers, increasing sales and improving productivity.

Zoho is creating the most comprehensive suite of affordable, online collaborative productivity applications and business applications for companies. To date, Zoho has launched 20 different applications and more are in the works.

In this talk we will introduce Zoho CRM and Zoho Business. Demonstrate how businesses can use these tools and what are the advantages.

SaaSTek works at the cutting edge of where technology and business meet. With our clients we design, build, deploy and support systems that aid the flow of goods and services in our clients’ businesses. We were early adopters of Lean Principles in our delivery process and we help our clients tailor and adopt these practices in their businesses.

We work with businesses to;

* Significantly reduce their spend on IT infrastructure
* Eliminating waste from their current processes through better use of their existing technology or by employing new technology
* Removing bottlenecks in delivering value to their customers

Members, do you have family, friends, neigbours getting married?
Wedding Chair Covers specialize in hiring chair covers for weddings and events.
We are offering a 10% discount of the hire of chair covers to any bride who is recommended
through a network member. Just ask the bride-to-be to contact Anne