Reporting live from Growing Your Own Business, Manchester

[DanMartin]

Greetings from Manchester! I'm currently manning our stand with Darren Falkingham at the Growing Your Own Business Conference & Exhibition (http://www.sme-events.com) at Manchester Central. If you're in the area, do pop by and say hello. We're on stand GYOB120.

Tickets on the door cost £8 but UKBFers can get in for free. More details here (http://www.businesszone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=193044&d=1095&h=1097&f=1096&dateformat=).

[Darren Falkingham]

Day 2, 9.54am and all's quiet in the Big Broth....sorry, GYOB exhibition here in Manchester.

Sore feet, but luckily not a sore head after a very sedate Friday evening - all good. Apparently today is going to be a very different affair to yesterday, with more of the public attending to find out about setting themselves up with a new business.

Do let us know if you're planning to be around. It was great to chat with a UKBFer yesterday - hi Joseph! (edmondscommerce).

[business123]

Were you there last year? Have you noticed any increase in visitor numbers? Was thinking that the economic situation may lead to more people looking for business opportunities/franchises.

[Darren Falkingham]

I think the floorspace is smaller this year, and it'll never be packed as it's not promoted as a free-to-attend event.

I was thinking about whether it should be busy because people might be looking for new opportunities, or quiet because people are worried about the risk. Who knows!

All I know is that my feet hurt. :)

[murdoch]

good marketing!! i love the 'reporting live from..."!!!

[Darren Falkingham]

Just had a very interesting conversation with the MD of Franchise Development Services. As many UKBFers know (and many of those from first hand experience) franchising is an attractive startup option, but requires a huge amount of careful planning and assessment of what the master franchise offers.

I'm getting the feeling here that the message is getting through to rethink franchising's image and its reputation for a lack of transparency - this can only be good. However there's still too much eagerness to defend franchising and have stats thrown at you like '98% success rate'.

[business123]

Perhaps now is the time for UK franchising to introduce UFOC's?

[An Oasis]

Hey boys sorry I can't be there was looking forward to chatting. Unfortunately we have had a lot of prepping to get through this week. That and the finance stuff, not the best time for the organisers to host the event, still, next time.