S1, Ep8: Winning Awards, Tenders & Funding your growth with Rachel Hayward (Ask the Chameleon/Swap Shop)

Welcome to the People Focus Podcast, with Gary Parsons from Talk Staff. Join us as we celebrate the most important asset that we all have – our people – the people that help keep our businesses running each and every day, the people that motivate us when times are hard, help us make decisions that don’t always feel like they’re the right ones and challenge us when we need to stay on track to achieve the overall company mission – the purpose behind why we do what we do.

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On this episode we speak with Rachel Hayward, who is the founder of Ask the Chameleon, a multi-awarding winning micro consultancy supporting SME's and charities to grow through creating winning tender and funding applications, and gain exposure through successful business award submissions. She's also a University academic, Area Lead for the FSB and a charity trustee. Despite securing over £35 million for clients, Rachel recently found herself excluded from Government support and in 2020 co-created the Swap Shop to support fellow small businesses, which is essentially a simple website facilitating non-monetary exchanges of skills, talents, products and services. She's no stranger to awards and has won Enterprising Women Female Entrepreneur of the Year and other awards in the Professional Services categories.

Rachel explains what makes a great awards submission, gives some important tips and the benefits of getting your name in lights with lesser known categories too.

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Please FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE to the show, on your podcast app to be reminded of new episodes. You can find out more about Talk Staff's people focus here: https://www.talkstaff.co.uk/peoplefocus