New Business for Consultancy

Douglas Russell, who runs his small business, RDS Consulting, from his home in Longframlington, near Morpeth, has developed a website that is attracting significant new business leads, thanks to the support he has received from the North East Regional Portal, n-e-life.com.

(PRWEB) December 25, 2004 -- Douglas Russell, who runs his small business, RDS Consulting, from his home in Longframlington, near Morpeth, has developed a website that is attracting significant new business leads, thanks to the support he has received from the North East Regional Portal, n-e-life.com.

RDS Consulting offers independent business and finance advice and training to predominantly private sector organisations ranging from one-man bands to medium-sized enterprises.

But with clients across the North East, Mr Russell is out on the road for much of his working week. So his existing web site proved a valuable tool in providing information to both potential and existing clients when he wasnt around.

Yet he has never really had time to evaluate its potential to attract new business.

He says: I had a website already but I wasnt getting a lot of visitors to it. Then I heard about a scheme being run by n-e-life.com to provide me with a free mini-website on the Morpeth town portal which only required a small input of time from myself.

"With help, I had it up and running almost instantly. I use the micro site on the portal as a signposting service to my main web site www.rds-consulting.co.uk and now I benefit from more new business leads than ever."

The increasing pressures of employment legislation persuaded Mr Russell to go along the sub-contracting route to develop his business, rather than take on a large working staff of his own, and here too the Morpeth Town Portal has played a role in accessing contacts.

He uses its business directory to identify potential sub contractors.

I also make use of the site both to access local information and to identify new business contacts," he says.

Help in getting Mr Russells micro site up and running came from Grow Your Business, an initiative launched by n-e-life.com and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund and One NorthEast.

The aim of Grow Your Business is to help North East companies win more business, increase profitablity and understand that e-commerce is simply the route to realising these ambitions. For those located in and around market towns, access to free entry-level support, training, software and licences are available to aid in the development of a basic web presence or to create a simple virtual store. Other benefits include a reduced rate broadband service in country areas.

In addition, urban or rural business looking to upgrade to a more sophisticated solution to unlock the opportunities of e-commerce, may be eligible for development packages offering between 60 and 80% funding.

To find out more about Grow Your Business support packages, call (0191) 487 2002.

###