Kickstart Your Business: The Roadshow

George & Gerard take their popular programme on the road in an extended format.

Engines ready… Whilst the early days of a new business are an exciting whirlwind of activity for the entrepreneur, they’re typically filled with an equal measure of exhilaration and anxiety, and the new owner can do with all of the encouragement and advice they can get from others who have traveled a similar road.

Since taking to the air on Newstalk in 2010, Kickstart Your Business, featuring George Hook and Gerard Tannam, has captured the imagination of listeners eager to hear of the courage and initiative of Ireland’s latest wave of entrepreneurs.

The show has featured over twenty-five start-ups to date, including a brewery, an online horse-trader and a kettle bell trainer, and has helped deliver dramatic results for business-owners who have acted on the mix of encouragement and advice on offer from George and Gerard.

As Mike McQuillan from Pet Sitters Ireland puts it: “George & Gerard’s hard-hitting advice has revitalised our business and helped us to grow our bookings by over 200% in less than one month.”

Now Kickstart Your Business is taking to the road in an extended format, with the first stop being Venture Network at The Gresham Hotel on July 1st.

Gerard is a member of Venture’s Beacon Group, and suggested to George that one of the Network’s signature Joint Venture events would be a great place to kick-start the live initiative. Once George had met with Venture’s Shay Cahill to learn more about what Venture does and how it works, he too was won over to the idea.

During this quick-fire event, George and Gerard will consider the challenges of doing business in 2011, present the five unbreakable rules for business success and kick-start three businesses from around the Venture Network.

George Hook is one of Ireland’s most popular broadcasters and hosts The Right Hook and Hook’s Saturday Sit-In on Newstalk Radio, as well as being a key man in RTE’s legendary team of rugby pundits. Success came late to the outspoken and controversial Corkman and he describes his own failed business efforts over thirty years in Time Added On, his compelling story of a life of misadventure and redemption.

Gerard Tannam is owner of Islandbridge Brand Development and a popular speaker and commentator on branding and business start-ups. Before setting up Islandbridge in 2004, Gerard was a Senior Inspector of Police and moonlight entrepreneur in Hong Kong where his businesses included a events management company and art gallery. He will publish his first book I’ll Buy That: A Business-Owner’s Guide To Brand-Building in 2011.