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Chester Enterprise Society’s AH-HA Moment event aimed at inspiring new entrepreneurial endeavours amongst University of Chester students. Students, University staff and business owners from the local area were all invited to the free event held at Riverside Innovation Centre, giving them the opportunity to network, share ideas and have just a good old chin wag.

Following networking, Michael Williams spoke about the importance of entrepreneurs within our society and how Chester Enterprise Society, The University of Chester and Riverside Innovation Centre are all helping to support entrepreneurs go from idea to setting up and running a successful business. Michael was then followed by guest speaker James Headspeath who gave an incredibly inspiring talk on how he overcame adversity to become an Iron Man.

Michael will be involved in several more Chester Enterprise Society events over the next academic year, aimed at promoting entrepreneurship in and around Chester.

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After drawing up and submitting a business plan Michael Williams was picked by the judges as a finalist for The University of Chester’s Enterprise Challenge sponsored by Santander. The competition was open to all University students, both at undergraduates and postgraduate levels, from which many entered. The judges: Money Supermarket’s Simon Nixon, Click Consult’s Matt Bullas, Daisy & Jake’s Lisa Collins and M&S Money’s Colin Kersley, shortlisted 7 successful entrants to give a 5 minute pitch at Riverside Innovation Centre, of which Michael was one.

Michael gave a presentation which talked about the future strategy of Free Coin, Entirety Media’s cashback site, wowing the judges with current statistics and how far the company had come so far. Other finalists included Dominic Langmead, Claire Darlington, Gina Unsworth and fellow Business Management and Entrepreneurship student Steph Hooker. The winner was an announced at an awards dinner held at the University’s Senate House, attended by the Vice Chancellor: Professor Tim Wheeler, judges, local business owners, faculty staff and other special guests. Unfortunately Michael was not selected to receive the £1000 cash prize, which was given to circus skills events startup, run by Lauren Keeling, a third year drama and theatre studies student.

When asked about the event Michael said: “The Enterprise Challenge was a great experience, I’ve received a lot of great feedback from the judges and I am looking forward to implementing a lot of it into Free Coin and Entirety Media’s operations. I’d like to thank Connie Hancock for organising the competition and allow me to take advantage of this great opportunity to mix with like minded students and extremely successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.”

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Michael Williams, along with a select number of other University of Chester Business School students traveled to Liverpool recently to attend the worlds largest gathering of entrepreneurs at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2012, held at the Liverpool Echo Arena.

The congress featured talks from Virgin boss Richard Branson, amongst other entrepreneurs and finished the day with a John Bishop talking to the Managing Director of Liverpool Football Cub.

As well as being able to listen to some inspiring talks from some of the worlds top entrepreneurs it was a great opportunity to network with many like minded people including students from other institutions and many well established entrepreneurs.

Michael commented on attending The GEC by saying: “it was a great opportunity to spend time listening to some inspiring people, from which I’ve been able to take away so much that I think will help me with my studies and work. I’d like to attend next years event too, although it isn’t quite as close to home as Liverpool” The 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Congress will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Business Management and Entrepreneurship students at the University of Chester have teamed up to form the university’s first enterprise society, aimed at boosting business and leadership skills amongst students across campus.

Featured in the Chester Chronicle (December 8, 2011) and at the University’s website the society announced it’s launch event, a Christmas fair held on campus for all students to attend. Local businesses were encouraged to get involved and many donated items that were raffled off to raise funds. The society has teamed up with NACUE (National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs) and hopes to work with them closely in the future.

When asked about the society Michael had this to say:

Being part of such an enthusiastic team of budding entrepreneurs over the past few months has been great, we’ve really learned a lot about ourselves and each other, the team instantly bonded and we’ve been working super hard to get the society off the ground. I’m really excited to be working with fellow students, faculty members and business leaders: both locally and nationally. We’ve still got a long way to go but it’s going to be exciting to see how far we can take it. Our president and vice presidents are doing a great job and I can’t wait to see what projects are thought of next.

Continue reading »]]> Whilst sorting out my huge collection of books this week I came across 2 books that had been collecting a lot of dust on my shelf and I suddenly remembered: ‘I’m a published writer!’.

Whilst at school I entered a competition to write a poem, the prize was to be included in a published book of poetry written by young people from all over the country. I was successful 2 years running and I have decided to display my poems right here on my blog!

The Battle Of The Seasons
Ding ding ding, they’re off!
It’s the final round of the season match
Between Summer and Winter
The race begins,
The reigning champion, Summer,
Who boasts of sunshine,
Flowers and long days, is tired.
Winter is refreshed.
That’s a left, a right and another left.
Hallowe’en,
Advent
Christmas,
Bonfire Night
And there are real fireworks
In the ring tonight.
Winter takes the lead,
Summer tries to fight back.
That’s a foul, the ref steps in.
Turkey,
Potatoes
Carrots,
Sprouts (yuck!),
And the finish gravy!
And Summer’s down and
Out for the count.
1, 2, 3…
Winter wins!

Michael Williams – Aged 12

This poem was published in Young Writers – Great Minds from Cheshire (2005) and is available from Amazon

The second poem that I had published was:

Terror
A terrible word…

That of sorrow, that of pain
But we must not let them reign.
We will always be vexed,
Vexed about the reason why.

Who, when, where, why and how
They think they’re heroes,
They think they’re great,
But, from the whole world there is animosity.

It costs nothing to be nice
But they don’t want to pay the price.
They think their destination is Heaven
As they put the world through hell.

And often the aftermath is worse
As people often think, on them is a curse
A curse with a fatal cost
As we cannot replace, anything that we have lost.

Michael Williams – Aged 13

This poem was published in POP! Expressions from the UK and is available from Amazon

Continue reading »]]> As anyone who follows me on Twitter will already have seen, I am proud to announce that I was one of many A Level students celebrating getting excellent grades this year. I completed the final year of my Applied Business Studies course this year in which I achieved A*A grades

When added to the other A Levels that I completed last year I now have a total of 5 A levels, although with a grade B or higher: with 1 A* 2 As and 2 Bs (A*AABB). These were achieved across IT and Business Studies. After the hard work and dedication of the last three years (as I started my IT A levels early) I am thrilled to see that it has all paid off.

A press release from The University Church of England Academy where I studied my A levels reads:

The sky’s the limit for Academy students, with an overall ‘A’ level pass
rate this year of 97% and 63% of grades were grade C or better. The
majority of our students have achieved fantastic results, students who did
particularly well are:
Stephanie Horton
Lee Griffiths
Imogen Joinson
Michael Williams
All fantastic achievements with nearly all students who applied for
University having received and accepted their places.

To read the full press release please click here

At the same time I’d like to thank all of the teachers and my friends who I have worked with over the past 7 years whilst being at University Church of England Academy. With a special thanks going to Jack Picton, who without him I wouldn’t have been pushed to achieve my full potential. Without the help I have received I would not have been able to become the first UCEA student to achieve an A* in A Level Business Studies.

I look forward to attending The University of Chester from next year to study a BA in Business Management and Entrepreneurship, I hope to meet plenty of interesting people, learn plenty of new skills and build even more relationships that will help build on the success of myself and that of others around me. Attending The University of Chester will also allow Entirety Media to remain within the heart of Cheshire.

Continue reading »]]> I have been featured in the University Church of England Academy’s Compass Magazine. Talking about how I became a Managing Director as as well as being a student completing A levels.

The ‘Student Focus’ article reads:

‘I have always loved computers and the idea of being a business man, when I was 12 I was given the chance to take my GCSEs in ICT at the Academy (then Sutton High) so I jumped at the chance.

I was awarded a Diploma in Digital Applications and by the time I was 17 I had a BTEC National Diploma in ICT. During this time, I developed a love for building websites and after leaving year 11 within great GCSEs, I launched my own business, with the help of fellow UCEA student Laura Doggett, in 2009. We worked with two companies called Cashillion UK Ltd and WOW Media UK Ltd. We promoted some of their websites and after a few months we decided to reinvest the money we’d made into some new products.

We bought a cashback site called Free Coin in February 2010 for £10 and after a month, we’d turned over 100 times the amount we’d spent on purchasing the site.

Since we’ve been running this site we’ve worked with some of the UK’s biggest brand names including Mobile Phone Networks, Computer Games Stores and Supermarkets. The site has gone on to win a ‘BeenPaid Award’. As we carried on expanding into different areas of internet marketing I began to use my business in my Business Studies Coursework.

In January 2011 we converted the business into a Private Limited Company and I became its Managing Director. We won a contract with another company to manage one of its biggest websites as it had been suffereing falling sales and profits. Just one month in we’ve made a great start in turning it around and their sales have started to rise again, so muuch so that they have asked us to manage another part of their business. Looking to the future I’m working with a number of companies in the local area with plans to help them move their businesses onto the internet, not just by building them a website, but getting them a presence on social networks as well as other methods of marketing online. I believe the Academy has a lot of potential, many of the members of staff are incredible and I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have today if it wasn’t for their guidance over the past 7 years.’

If you’d like to look at the article check it out on Entirety Media’s Facebook page!

Keep your eyes peeled for some more press coverage coming over the next few months!

Continue reading »]]> Fact. According to research by insurance company Simply Business,.On average, the age of small business is owners has been declining since 2007, predominantly due to an increasing number of young entrepreneurs.

Between 2007 and 2010, there was a 6.5% increase in the number of people aged between 25 and 34 who owned a business. There was also a 4% increase in the number of 18 to 25 year old business owners across the country.

It’s almost becoming a fashion to setup a business and work for yourself rather than work for someone else. Being a teenage MD and working with many people who fit into the ‘under 34 year old business owners’ group has been extremely beneficial to me. It’s given me great experience in business and in life and I’ve learned skills that I have been able to transfer across to other areas of my life, including my studies. None of which would have been possible if I hadn’t setup my own business.

Continue reading »]]> The amount spend on online advertising grew by 12.8% in 2010 to a whopping £4 billion! This continues to growing trend for businesses, small and large to switch from more traditional advertising mediums to the, often more powerful, online equivalents.

TV Advertising is restricted to large organisations thanks to the massive costs that are involved. Radio advertising is also off limits to many smaller businesses as there is a lot of up front cost. Newspaper and other print based advertising is sometimes limited in its success although its still worth doing for many businesses.

Online advertising is a great way to grow your business. You pay for the performance of your adverts, for example: with advertising methods such as Google Adwords and Facebook Ads you only pay for the clicks that you get through to your website.

With affiliate marketing, you only pay your money when you get a sale. This makes advertising very affordable and removes some of the risk, its accessible to many more businesses as your budget can be set very low to begin with and you can increase it as you start to grow.

In 2010, the entire online advertising industry grow at a rate 3 times higher than it did in 2009. Display advertising on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, grew by an astonishing 200%. This is prominently because businesses are waking up to the fact that in the UK, internet users now spend 25% of their entire online time using social networks.

With estimates saying that there are now 30 million Facebook users in the UK and the fact that the social network allows advertisers to target their adverts to only the people who will be interested in their products, there is no wonder why advertising is growing so rapidly.