Demand for business training soars during lockdown says Forbes coach Adam Stott
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As millions of workers have been forced to stay at home over the past few months, there has been a massive spike in the number of commercial opportunities being created by entrepreneurs. Data from startups.co.uk shows that at least five new online businesses were started every day during April, representing an increase of 60% on April 2019. Similarly, statistics from research company, Growth Intelligence, found that more than 85,000 businesses pivoted their traditional sales model to launch e-commerce stores or join digital marketplaces in the last four months.
Lockdown has also seen a huge appetite for business training and coaching, according to one of the UK’s leading business speakers and coaches, Adam Stott. Despite not being able to hold any live business events due to Government restrictions, the Essex-based entrepreneur has achieved double-digit sales growth of his online mentoring and training programmes over the past three months. As well as recording an uplift in UK customers, his business has expanded into international markets with students registering for courses from continental Europe, Dubai, South Africa and the USA.
Having founded his first company in 2008 at the age of 25, Adam built a £40million turnover company in just ten years, which was recognised by Amazon as one of the UK’s fastest growing car retailers and twice voted one of the London Stock Exchange’s ‘Top 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain’, in 2015 and 2016.
In 2016, Stott founded Big Business Events with the aim of sharing his business insight, challenges, successes and failures with both established and aspiring business owners in the UK and overseas. Having developed his status as an international business speaker over the past eight years, Stott has created a business network of over 70,000 individuals and has personally helped hundreds of entrepreneurs achieve their dream of running their own business. In recognition of his contribution to the business community, Stott was accepted into the prestigious Forbes Coaches Council in 2020, where he will continue to share his expertise and knowledge, as well as working with other international business colleagues.
Commenting on the significant increase in online training and coaching, Stott said:
“With more than 750,000 businesses being forced to close their doors under lockdown, the pandemic has levelled the playing field and created the opportunity for entrepreneurs to identify market gaps and deliver online goods and services. There’s no doubt in my mind that traditional businesses must embrace digitalisation if they are to survive. Having sold more than £50million of products and services utilising social media, I want to help new and established business owners to embrace the online space and maximise the potential return from a digital offering. We responded quickly to the economic impact of the pandemic by developing a free ‘Build your business from home’ course, which has been incredibly popular.
“Start-ups and SMEs are crucial to the nation’s financial recovery, so Big Business Events will continue to respond to the needs of those wanting to make the move into business ownership, as well as those looking to pivot and exploit the benefits of social media. All our courses have been designed from first-hand experience, enabling delegates to harness tried and tested strategies that have helped me to achieve business success.”
In addition to launching new programmes, Stott has diversified his offering by teaming up with UK reality TV star, James Lock, star of mainstream shows including ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ and ‘Celebs Go Dating.’ The pair have joined forces to create Instagram Secrets, a new programme for entrepreneurs wanting to learn how to boost their brand engagement, make an impact and generate more sales from their presence on the social media platform.