“THE GUY next door, I wouldn’t meet him in a million years,” said Michael Oni. “It definitely has been a good experience.”

The guy next door was Peter Barnett-Adebisi, an associate of the firm Beer & Partners, a firm that helps small and medium-sized firms find private equity. Last year, Beer & Partners helped raise about 15 million pounds for such businesses.

It is perhaps good that they met - for both sides. For if things work out, Beer & Partners could have a new client, and Oni and his partner, Ricardo Eversley, may find the additional capital required to lift their business to new dimensions.

APPAREL

Oni and Eversley own and operate a company called De Facto, that produces London City-branded fitted caps, recently moved into designer T-shirts and plan to introduce other apparel to the line. Oni deals mostly with the sales and marketing side of the business. Everesley is the creative one.

Theirs were among the ‘two or three’ business ideas Barnett-Adebisi came across last week at a Voice organised initiative that matched ethnic minority entrepreneurs with business and financial experts for advice and, if possible, financing.

Last week was the ending of the series that was developed in partnership with Barclays Bank.

The entrepreneurs invited to the sessions at The Voice’s Docklands offices were chosen from among the scores who responded to the paper’s invitation to submit their business plans for review by a team of experts.

“The initiative is part of The Voice’s attempt to build and help develop entrepreneurial skills in the BME community,” said Jenni Campbell, the paper’s manager for advertising. “A lot of people have ideas, but don’t understand, how or where to access financing or don’t know how to put together a business plan.”

EXPERIENCE

This was indeed the experience of some of the facilitators at the sessions, not least Alex Ayodeji, local business manager for Barclays Bank’s Shenley Road branch in Boreham, Hertfordshire.

“Some of them are at the preliminary stages,” said Ayodeji, who, with four Barclays colleagues, spent several hours fielding questions and dispensing advice to participants. “They were at the stage of finding out how you go about things. There were a few with real business plans.”

Added Ayodesji’s Barclays colleague, Suzanne King: “I feel that I am giving good advice, although I am doing a lot of things for Barclays as yet.”

But such advice may help the initial investment on which the return may come later. At least that is the expectation from the Barclays team.

TRANSFORM

For instance, Ayodesji spoke to one woman who is about to transform her sole-trader operation into a limited liability company. This woman’s current bank branch, a Barclays’ competitor, does not handle such accounts. She is now a potential Barclays client.

“For me, I think that I am sowing the seeds,” said Ayodeji.

For some participants, the session forced them to face some harsh reality of business: such that when the motive is profit, no one is about to do you any favours.

Well, that was something that Jackie Davis always knew but had allowed to slip. Bristol-based Davis is a solicitor by training, who four years ago parked the law in favour of a company called In-a-Roots. The firm provides public relations services and cultural and entertainment packages for corporate clients.

CREDIBLE

Davis told of sitting with a Barclays advisor and being told, “in a very nice way”, of her need of a proper business plan with credible cash-flow projections, and getting increasingly hot under the collar. In essence, the message was that in business expect no special treatment.

“The person who I spoke to told me what I knew,” she said. “I always knew I needed a business plan and so on. But I was sitting there, getting put out, sort of like that as a black person I should get special treatment.”

That important reality check included, Davis found the session “totally inspiring”.

“It was good to meet people from across the UK,” she said. “The opportunity is wider than Bristol. I met people who may not be able to help me, put people who I can put in touch other people for networking and to provide services.”

OUTFIT

Indeed, in an open session entrepreneurs spoke freely about the businesses and ideas, shared experiences and received advice from members of GAP (Growing Aspiring People), an outfit that help firms find BME sub-contractors in their diversity programmes as well as supporting black-owned company’s in their networking and search for capital. They also train young people as part of community enterprise projects.

It’s just before lunchtime and Kenneth Springer is talking about an invention that he will soon bring to market - a special adjustable cap which should help snorers beat the problem. Springer, who has patent in a special hinge he designed, has applied for one on the snoring cap.

He was not so much looking for capital, but generally advice on the operation of the business and marketing and promotion. He already has a website for the product.

FINANCE

“I have a reasonable amount of finance to get it (the snoring cap) to where I want to,” he told The Voice.

In that seminar with the GAP team, Springer talked about the efficacy of his invention. It has worked for him.

Suggestion about the potential obstacles and the possible marketing strategies came from the head table as well as fellow entrepreneurs.

“If somebody asks you if it works, what are you going to tell them?” asked CAP’s founder and head, Paulette West in her role of devil’s advocate. “You are going to have an endorsement.”

Springer’s project, if the inventor was so minded, might have been one of the projects that Barnett-Adebisi viewed as having potential for private equity. In the event, though, the Beer & Partners Associate was more than lukewarm Caroline Banin’s venture, Indulge Rum Punch, which won wide praise for both its packaging and taste.

“I am sure that all the other companies present would agree that not only were we provided with a great opportunity to network,” Banin said a post-event letter to The Voice. “We were also showered with an abundance of tools to help in the development of our business.”

POTENTIAL

Barnett-Adebisi reckons that in the normal course of business that for every eight potential client he sees, only one develops into a serious business prospect. So, the potential uptake from The Voice’s event was a reasonable ratio.

Moreover, if things moved forward with those firms with which Barnett-Adebisi sees prospects for doing business, the likelihood of Beer & Partners finding equity partners is more than decent, given the level of capital these ventures would require. “The average capital we raise is about £280,000,” he said. “The average investment required here is between £50,000 and £100,000.”

But while the immediate business opportunities for Beer & Partners are welcomed, Barnett-Adebisi said that last weeks sessions represent something more.

“Initially, my role was to provide private equity advice,” he said, “but most of what I have been is giving general business advice, which is alright because it is important for the black community to get into business - serious business.

“What I also found humbling is that many of the business plans were about mentoring and providing training for young black men and healing the community, about people wanting to give back. I found that quite interesting and very humbling,” he said.
– Paget deFreitas