CASE STUDY
Support Programme: LEAD
Company Assisted: ColourFusion
Support Activity: Leadership Development
LEAD is a programme that focuses on leadership and management skills but, as Lancashire artist Razina Patel has proven, it can be as beneficial to small businesses and sole traders as it can to larger multi-departmental organisations.
Background:
By the end of 2009, Blackburn-based artist Razina Patel was living a very busy life. She was bringing up two young children, studying for the final year of her degree at St Mary’s College and, all the while, planning the re-launch of her contemporary art business, ColourFusion-Online.
A talented artist, Razina had always enjoyed painting and she had worked on a succession of art courses since the age of thirteen. She took her first steps into the world of business after a meeting with Enterprise4All’s Chief Executive, Ilyas Munshi, who introduced her to a Lancashire based art gallery. This led to her first exhibition, which was very well received and yielded her first sales.
In 2009, during her second pregnancy, she took a break from painting but soon after her daughter’s birth, she resolved to start again. However, time was an issue and when she received an invitation to enrol on LEAD, her initial reaction was that it would be impossible to do so while meeting all her other commitments. Nevertheless, she attended a preview session at Blackburn College’s University Centre, where she met up with other self employed individuals, and discovered that many of them were in very similar situations.
Finding the event both useful and inspiring, Razina saw LEAD as an opportunity to develop new skills and contacts. Determined to use her time as effectively as possible, she duly enrolled for the programme.
Support Provided:
“From the very beginning, LEAD has proved very helpful,” says Razina. “Even at the preview event, I started making useful contacts – people who were dealing with the same issues as myself and who were all willing to share advice and ideas.
“I found that I was getting the sort of advice that I’d never have expected to get from anywhere else; really useful, practical suggestions that I have been able to use and which have had a really positive impact on the business.
“The LEAD facilitators have been great; for me, it’s always a challenge to fit things into my timetable but everyone has been very helpful and flexible. We’ve organised action learning sets around nursery times and family commitments, and I’ve been able to get coaching support over the phone at times that suit me, so the whole thing has moved along very nicely.
Results:
Buoyed by her experience, Razina is now expanding her creative horizons.
“I’m having a lot of success with paintings that incorporate various forms of script,” she explains. “I’ve started incorporating children’s names and traditional English sayings.
“In the children’s market I’m working with retailers such as Kiddies in Blackburn, and with my contemporary works, I’m collaborating with Ze’Faith in Bolton. I’m getting interest from businesses, too. They seem to like original hand-painted works because no two are ever the same.
“I’ve just launched my new website -www.colourfusion-online.co.uk – and a new range of paintings that incorporate Swarovski Crystal. So all in all, it’s going very well.”