Before we give you a recap of who came to speak in the 2024 events, to give you a flavour for the wonderful mix of speakers we usually attract, here is a rundown for the first three 2025 events.
Up first in 2025, we have Rachel Hayward joining us as a speaker.
Rachel is the Managing Director of Ask the Chameleon, a multiple award-winning procurement consultancy, and she is an experienced bid writer. Rachel will be coming to the Peak District Business Hub on the 22nd of January to speak with us about why applying for awards is an important facet for your marketing and tips on how to put together winning applications.
⏰ 17:00 – 18:30
📅 22 January
👛 Free
🔗 https://www.fsb.org.uk/event-calendar/bakewell-in-person-networking-jan2025.html
Rob Dawes is the Owner and Creative Director of Briight, a video and marketing agency focused on using video and visuals in brand-building, strategic marketing, and content creation. The three areas that catapult businesses to new heights.
With over a decade of experience and a client list that includes McDonald’s, HECK Foods, and Microsoft, Rob has a particular love for all things B2B, creating marketing content that builds strong connections and elevates brands in the corporate world. His approach combines sharp strategy with compelling visuals, helping businesses cut through and engage their audience with memorable marketing.
The title of Rob’s talk will be “6 Ways You’re NOT Using Video in Your Business That Will Make You More Money,” Rob shares his successful strategies that go beyond standard video use. Showing companies how to leverage video at pivotal moments in the sales and marketing journey.
For example, “The Enquiry to Meeting Pre-Sale Testimonial,” which shows how sending a well-structured testimonial before a first meeting establishes trust early on. Rob explains how this technique taps into peer review and drastically improve you positioning, creating a positive bias before the conversation even starts. This session will leave attendees with practical insights into new way to use your video content to elevate engagement, strengthen influence, and, ultimately, drive growth.
⏰ 17:00 – 18:30
📅 19 February
👛 Free
🔗 Watch this space for a link very soon
In a strengthening of the relationship between the FSB and Business Peak District, BPD will be jointly delivering the event quarterly.
We already welcomed BPD Chair, Peter Dewhurst to join us in June 2024, and in March Pete will be joining us again, inviting a Business Peak District member to speak at the session.
⏰ 17:00 – 18:30
📅 19 March
👛 Free
🔗 Watch this space for a link very soon
We are fortunate to have a wide network of small business owners with a wealth of skills to draw upon to help us deliver an exciting and interesting programme of speakers. So, take a look at the 2024 roll call below 👇
We can’t believe it’s been a year since the first networking event of 2024, where we invited experienced business coach Emily Coy from Business Butterflies to the Business Hub to talk to us about the three factors she believes every business owner should know. And if you don’t know what these three factors are… why not get in touch with Emily to find out?
The February session was a brilliant event, where we were joined by the ex-managing Director of Toyota Europe and former High Sherriff of Derbyshire, and now Deputy Lieutenant Tony Walker CBE DL! Tony came on a cold night in February to educate and encourage attendees to apply for the King’s Award for Enterprise – an award which celebrates outstanding achievement by UK businesses. He was joined by two recent Derbyshire small business winners of the award to bring the subject matter to life, and so we were also delighted to welcome Rob Barlow of Wirksworth-based TDP and Head of Innovation for Bakewell-based ARS Ltd, Roger Doonan.
In March, we were joined by Summa Watson, the Disability Employer Engagement Officer for Derbyshire County Council. She came to speak to us about the support that she and her team can offer to employers who have employees with disabilities or long term conditions not classed as a disability, such as cancer, the menopause or ME that affect their ability to work. She offered a wealth of advise on how to create a more inclusive, accessible working environment for all employees.
The first speaker in Q2 was Angela Williamson from Peak District Counselling. Angela is a psychotherapist/counsellor accredited by the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP). Angela came and spoke to us about how stress can affect small business owners, and helped us to explore strategies for coping. A fascinating an uplifting session.
Joining us in May, Paul Dolan, IFA came along to give us tips on maximising our finances for the best efficiencies! Paul has over twenty years of experience in financial services and is a qualified member of the Chartered Insurance Institute’s Personal Finance Society, the professional body for the Financial Planning industry in the UK.
Our guest speaker in June was Peter Dewhurst, the Chair of the Board for Business Peak District (BPD). Peter was keen to share BPD’s priorities for action with FSB members and to listen to their experiences of doing business in and around the Peak District. The input received from attendees in June was used to inform BPD’s lobbying activities and we are delighted to be strengthening this partnership as we go into 2025.
July was an incredible event where we showcased the brand-new Peak District Business Hub based right next door to where the usual networking is hosted. July’s event kicked off with a Q&A ‘Meet the CEO’ session with the Chief Executive Officer of the Peak District National Park, Phil Mulligan, who then helped us launch the Hub to the local business community.
In August, Debbie took the reins, where she led a talk about digital marketing. She covered what it is, what it covers, how to approach intergrating it into your small business operations and what SME owners can do for themselves to implement a healthy digital marketing mix into their business strategies.
Almost 90% of small businesses now use digital marketing in some shape or form, but there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye – a challenge a lot of small businesses face, which Debbie tried to level out during her talk… and all packed into 30 minutes!
A regular attendee to our sessions in 2024, local VA business owner, Lisa Tennant came along. Lisa is the Managing Director of Derbyshire-based L.T. VA Services, who provide affordable business solutions for small business owners short on time, and she is also a CRM whizz! Lisa provided lots of food for thought and left us with many ideas on how to implement CRM systems into our businesses.
In October, we heard from the founder of ThinkingitBetter, Ian M Travers. Ian founded the organisation back in 2012 to realise his passion for working with individuals, teams and businesses to help them transform their performance by unlocking the potential of them and their teams. He works with high performance individuals including sports people and racing car drivers to help them unlock their thinking.
The title of Ian’s presentation was: “Might We Be Getting In Our Own Way? What We Think Matters.” Ian showed us how to unlock marginal gains in our methods of thinking to help us realise the potential of ourselves and our teams.
November brought mentor, speaker, and specialist healthcare professional – Heather McLellan of HKM22 Consulting. Heather brought some incredibly valuable advice to help you get back in the saddle at work following periods out of business due to long term ill health, and how to mitigate for the risk of losing key personnel in the business in the first place. This was a really important wake-up-call session for the small business owners in the room, leaving us with lots of food for thought, and with a fresh eye on reading our key-person and loss-of-income insurance policies!
To round off the year, we thought we would put together a festive and just for fun event to enable the group to get to know each other a little better with some festive fun and games. This was a great chance to wind down and celebrate the year that had just passed. With games, mince pies and most importantly, a big box of Celebrations as the prize for the night’s shenanigans, it was a brilliant evening, and has set us up and looking forward to more, more, more networking in 2025!
If you’d like to talk to us about this news piece, or you’d like help with digital marketing strategy, content marketing, SEO or anything else digital, please email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199.
If you’d like help with digital marketing, ads management, SEO, copywriting, websites, branding or social media management… or anything else related to the internet and digital, then get in touch with us. We’re a friendly bunch.
You can email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199 or you can use the contact form at the bottom of this page.