Business Advisor

Job Purpose:

The Business Advisor will work with a wide range of customers looking to start and grow their own small businesses. Responsible for a caseload, the Business Advisor will manage clients through a business start-up programme, identifying the support required to improve their confidence/knowledge or remove barriers to progression. Business Advisors will assess the support clients need and help them navigate a wide range of available provisions, building a rapport to maintain engagement on the programme and coaching them to succeed. Key to the role is also developing and managing the relationships with the referral organisations and their staff to generate suitable and appropriate referrals to the programme. Delivery will be both faceto-face in person and virtually.

Key Responsibilities:

• Achieve self-employment job start targets and ensure sustainability to job outcome stage.
• Coaching and then advising and mentoring sole traders or small business owners to help them start and grow their business to a financially sustainable level.
• Manage client caseloads, relationships, and referrals to provision to achieve or exceed output and impact targets, capturing all required evidence.
• Undertake detailed discussions with clients to understand their suitability for the programme.
• Use appropriate tools, processes, and systems to identify any personal or business barriers and make sound recommendations for appropriate actions.
• Develop Action Plans detailing the support and actions required to help clients grow their business, deliver the appropriate training and mentoring to ensure clients engage with the identified interventions, and reflect progress made or agreed next steps in clients’ Action Plans. Maintain client contact via face-to-face meetings, group sessions, phone, email, and Microsoft Teams/Skype.
• Monitor and manage key client milestones.
• Ensure client enquiries and partner referrals are correctly recorded on CRM and associated service-specific data capturing systems, updating progress against agreed actions as plans progress.
• Closely monitor the achievement of any outputs, including new businesses created, businesses sustained and other service-specific outputs/outcomes that result from the support provided.
• Work with administrative colleagues to ensure that interventions are recorded, outputs are evidenced, and all required paperwork is completed in accurate and timely manner.
• Prepare monthly performance reports as set by the line manager.
• Establish and maintain effective relations with referrals partner organisations key staff members and teams to promote and explain the self-employment intervention to help facilitate high quality referrals.
• Proactively identify and engage with complimentary resources and provision that would support and enhance the self-employment delivery in the region.

Prerequisites:

• Proven track record in a business advisory or personal coaching role.
• Strong general consulting skills, and practical and technical knowledge of undertaking personal and organisational needs analysis.
• Detailed knowledge and experience in facilitating early-stage growth in a business.
• Good working knowledge of the challenges faced by micro and small business.
• Understanding of government policy about self-employment, and the ability to understand how the services we offer may need to change if/when the external environment changes.
• Strong interpersonal, communication and negotiating skills. Ability to engage and motivate clients from a range of backgrounds, demonstrating clear empathy and credibility

Required:

• Desirable – One or multiple of: – IAG Level 4 qualifications, SFEDI qualifications, Business Coaching qualification, Qualification for a level 3 teaching and learning
• Experience – Strong knowledge of all the core self-employed elements i.e., Business reviewing and planning, Finance, Sales, and Marketing etc.

Benefits:

• Company pension & events
• Gym membership
• Private medical insurance; Wellness programs
• Employee Forum (Your voice matters, our employees have a say in how we run the business.)

We are a Disability Confident Employer and welcome all applications. Get Set UK is an Equal Opportunity Employer, offering employment without regard to age, disability, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and any other protected status. Our aim is to support and maintain the physical and mental health of all people at work. If you require reasonable adjustments in applying for a role within, Get Set UK Group, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please direct your inquiries to HR Department at recruitment@getsetuk.co.uk