Solelution is a small business based in Bristol, selling footwear in-store and online. Founded 17 years ago, owner Tanya has two shops based in Portishead and Clifton and offers customers a wide variety of quality branded footwear to purchase, as well as an expert shoe fitting service for children and adults alike.
Hit by restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tanya quickly realised that the business needed to adapt and become more resilient to potential unexpected events and have plans in place if anything like this did happen again in the future.
“Throughout the pandemic, I was looking for what support and advice was out there for businesses like mine", explained Tanya.
"At some point, I made contact with Julia Gurr, via the Workforce for the Future programme and I’m very pleased that I did.”
With online sales increasing throughout the pandemic, the company’s website really came into its own during that time, still allowing them to sell products and offer advice to their customers whilst the stores were closed, but it also shone a spotlight on potential future issues.
“With the website generating more sales and me wanting to expand the business without opening another physical shop, it became obvious that the digital side was the way to do this, but that there were skills gaps within my current workforce”, continued Tanya. “The Workforce for the Future programme seemed like a good way to obtain help and advice about that.”
Through speaking with Julia, a Business Skills Advisor at Business West, Tanya was able to talk through her business aspirations and goals, what barriers to growth she may face and find out more about the support that was on offer to help her reach where she wanted to be.
Tanya explained, “Through the programme, we’ve been able to put some of our staff on training courses, such as customer service training, which has boosted their skills and motivation. We’ve explored different funding opportunities and apprenticeships and I’ve been able to attend free webinars on different business subjects. Julia also put us in touch with colleges and universities in Bristol, to work with their talented students on our business projects. Before this, I didn’t even think that working with students would be an option for small businesses; I assumed it was just big companies that got involved in that sort of thing.”
Tanya has worked with international students from UWE who created a top-level marketing plan for her business as part of their course and a student from Access Creative College, who put together a creative summer marketing campaign to roll out across the shops and online.
“I can’t praise the students highly enough, they were absolutely amazing”, Tanya said. “Their input into the business was also quite eye-opening – it was great seeing things from different perspectives. One student from Access Creative College has created a whole summer marketing campaign for us – he came up with a slogan, posters, took pictures, designed a social media campaign around it and used it as a theme for some newsletters – he’s also working on a video.
"It has been a real benefit to the business to have someone new to spark ideas off and it’s made me realise I need to look at a few things too, such as branding guidelines which we didn’t have before, but will really help going forward. Without the help from the students we’ve worked with, the campaign may not have happened - I have all these ideas to do things, but not the time, when I’m busy running the day to day of the business. It’s been brilliant to see some of these ideas come to life.”
Tanya continued, “Having Julia to show me what is out there in terms of support for businesses was really appreciated and I’d definitely recommend the Workforce for the Future programme to others.”
About Workforce for the Future
Business West is delivering Workforce for the Future in collaboration with other partners and the West of England Combined Authority.
For more information on Workforce for the Future, please visit the West of England Growth Hub. The Growth Hub is the West of England Combined Authority’s dedicated business support service which offers free, one-to-one advice and guidance for SMEs.
The West of England Workforce for the Future programme has received £4m of funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England. The Department for Work and Pensions (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the England European Social Fund programme. Established by the European Union, the European Social Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support skills development, employment and job creation, social inclusion and local community regenerations. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.
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