How Destination Digital benefitted from Derbyshire Accelerator video transcript

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[Debbie Porter speaking:]

I'm Debbie Porter, managing director of Destination Digital Marketing, and we're based in Bakewell in the  

Peak District National Park. We're a digital marketing agency and we look after lots of household brands like Mr Fothergills Seeds, Heck Sausages, Faith in Nature, and quite a few local businesses as well.

I met a CRF Grant Officer — because we're located in the Derbyshire Dales — and accessed some grant money, but also a Zellar subscription to help us employ an apprentice in the business, and so that all went through.  The guy that I was working with, he was really useful as well in giving pointers and direction to help us — to not only just receive that grant funding, but how we might be able to turn that to our best advantage.

  

The Accelerator programme enabled me to take on an extra person. I was in a situation where — as all small businesses are — you you have a tipping point where you need more help but then you can't really afford more help because of the setup costs associated with taking on new people. And so it enabled to smooth that process in order to take a new person on and increase our capacity — so that's been the major impact, is just to free up more of mine and my team's time, and to give somebody else a job in the local community.

I got grant funding which included a wages subsidy for an apprentice that I took on, and also some money towards equipment to set her up with a computer and monitors and so on, so that she could do her job. And then I also got a Zellar subscription to help with looking back at sustainability of the business as well. 

I was on a webinar with somebody from the East Midlands Chamber and heard all about the CRF Grant Pilot fund, and Derbyshire Dales was one of the first ones to be included in that. And so managed — it was on very short timescales — but managed to be able to get all the ducks in line to be able to take full advantage of that during its pilot phase.

I'm seeking to grow my business, as all small business owners do. In order to do that — and again, I'm at the stage in my business, like a lot of people with small teams are, where they are a delivery agent as well as the strategist for the business, so I need to be able to step back from that and build a team around me that can  take over the delivery parts of our business and enable me to to grow us more. So hopefully, you know, under schemes like the Help to Grow scheme, I could probably get some more assistance from the East Midlands Chamber going forwards as well. 

There's no harm in trying — just get in touch and have a conversation. It's quite easy to have a conversation and just see what your options might be and whether something's right for you. And as they say, if you don't ask you don't get, so you may as well just step forward and see what happens.

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