Meeting at an awards ceremony finalist evening has led to a new joint venture for two local business women.

Purpol Marketing, led by Denise O’Leary and Sales Coaching Solutions, led by Alison Edgar. were both finalists in the Small Business of the Year and Business Person of the Year categories in the Wilshire Business of the Year Awards,

The prestigious Business Awards, developed by Newsquest Wiltshire, reward and celebrate the many dynamic and innovative businesses in Wiltshire, and now have provided inspiration for a new joint initiative.

Purpol Marketing are specialists in government contract bid management and Sales Coaching Solutions are specialists in sales training.

Following a conversation at the awards finalist evening on March 4, at Thrings Solicitors in Swindon, the passionate entrepreneurial pair believed they could create an exciting new venture by combining their expertise to provide practical and valuable insight into how SME’s can effectively bid for Local Authority contracts.

Denise said: "Bid management is a specialist field, for success you need the generation of a compelling response backed up with relevant evidence.

"Chatting with Alison at the award finalist evening, we both realised we could contribute our individual business expertise to provide local SMEs with the tools that they need to be able to bid with confidence.

"We will take them through the bidding process from the supplier perspective, providing hints on what they need to include and also importantly what not to do.’

Alison said: “With the announcement by Lord Young that the government wants 25 per cent of its £230bn procurement spend to be with Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME’s), we knew immediately that our joint initiative could help local businesses win government contracts.

"Starting with looking for opportunities, through the completion of procurement information and also importantly how they can sell their businesses at the interview stage." 

The workshop, scheduled for the 15th April at the Chippenham Golf Club, starts with coffee, tea and biscuits at 8.30am.  The course will get underway at 9am and places are £49.99, including lunch.

Booking is via www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/yes-you-can-win-government-contracts-tickets-16199263433

Denise and Alison understood that they both had great business chemistry when they met at the finalist evening and both were keen to use their combined expertise to show their audience how to achieve consistently successful bids.

"This is a really exciting initiative," said Denise.

"Having helped companies win places on £4bn construction frameworks as well as much smaller local government contracts, I am keen for local SME’s to understand how they can get a share of the government spend.’

Alison said: "We practice what we preach. We are delighted to have our businesses recognised for our success and believe we can really help other local companies win more business."