March 29, 2024

SME BUSINESS NEWS

Small Business News from NTSI

Business support firm recognised for lockdown work and success as she makes finals of business champion awards

A BUSINESS support management company has reached the finals of a business awards after supporting businesses and growing her own business throughout the pandemic.

Karen Brooks, who runs Pellings Business Solutions in Whiteley has fought off tough competition to reach the final in the Town and County Business Champions awards for Hampshire.

Karen achieved the feat because of her work helping sole traders, consultants and growing organisations to adapt during the pandemic and offering services that suited all, including a reduced-fee Covid package that offered services to firms that needed support, but didn’t have massive budgets.

She also developed her own training sessions to teach clients how to create customer relationship management (CRM) systems with a fully-comprehensive document to supplement it.

She has also created several free services, including a free mini version of the health audit, to give as many people help and advice at no cost.

The mum-of-two, who started the business support services business in 2014, decided in the first lockdown that she wanted to do something to help businesses as she found that people were struggling to manage their day-to-day back-office tasks due to the pandemic.

As well as helping others, she has also seen her own business grow and has taken on four new long-term clients over the last 12 months.

She offers a vast range of services to allow business owners more time to focus on moving their companies forward, including admin support, credit control, telemarketing and digital and social media marketing.

Her generosity has come back around to her as she has now been able to grow the business out of lockdown, recently going from being a sole trader to the director of her own limited company and growing her team up to seven, with four of those joining in the last year.

The team has over 100 years of combined employee business experience.

She was also recognised for her hard work last year as she was named Virtual Assistant of the Year by Digital Women.

Her ultimate goal is to become recognised as the leading business support service in the South.