‘Silver Bullets’ aged 50 plus recruited to help small businesses grow..
An army of low cost ‘Silver Bullets’ aged 50 plus have been recruited to help young, small businesses grow…
A service that helps people aged over 50 find employment has created a hit squad of 400 senior business trouble-shooters to fill skills gaps experienced by small businesses.
Called the ‘Skilled People Silver Bullets’, the idea is to give small business owners easy access, at low cost, to highly experienced experts with a minimum of 25 years’ experience and know-how across all areas of business.
The initiative responds to figures published by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group (APPSBG) which showed that almost a third of small businesses at start up have difficulty finding skilled staff .
Dr Dianne Bown-Wilson, small business advisor and founder of over-50s organisation in my prime commented: “This is an innovative and practical initiative which will go some way to solving two of the greatest challenges in our economy today: under-resourced small businesses and under-utilised older people. Bringing the two together has the potential for enormous benefits – allowing business owners to profit from the wealth of skills, experience and wisdom older people have to offer
The knowledge on offer from the ‘Skilled People Silver Bullets’ ranges from IT, finance, sales and marketing to HR, production planning and international development. To make it economical for fledgling companies to get help, every Silver Bullet has agreed to charge no more than £185 per day which is around 75% less than an equivalent consultant. Many will accept a lower rate in exchange for the chance to share their experience and ‘give something back’
Skilledpeople.com, the website behind the initiative, stresses that this is not a mentoring service. “Our ‘Silver Bullets’ want to do real practical work. They don’t want to pontificate or only give an opinion and walk away,” says skilledpeople.com’s managing director, Keith Simpson.
They claim that the quality of support is likely to be better than that from many big name management consultancies because the ‘Silver Bullets’ have more real world experience on which to draw. “Who would you respect more,” asks Simpson, “a 27 year old consultant with a briefcase full of theories or a 54 year old who’s been round the block a few times?”
“A young entrepreneur can get the best of both worlds with a ‘Silver Bullet’ who can draw on decades of knowledge to give great advice and will then practise what they’ve preached.”
Small and medium sized businesses who want to know more can visit their website or call a freephone number, 0800 331 7785, set up to give advice to small businesses on hiring people aged over 50.
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