Training scheme targets mature entrepreneurs

Mature adults aged over 50 will have a chance to learn how to start their own businesses thanks to a new training scheme.

The Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise is an eight-week course consisting of extensive workshops and online resources that is designed to ensure that these aspiring entrepreneurs have the skills to advance with their dreams of running their own businesses - whether that's operating a shop, running a restaurant or something completely different.

According to the Yorkshire Post, the programme that is currently targeting individuals in Leeds includes training on various aspects of starting a business, including managing accounts, understanding the legal requirements of your chosen sector and producing a business plan.

There will also be plenty of opportunities to network and garner advice from expert guest speakers.

With hundreds of thousands of self-employed people working across the UK, there is real scope for online resources to allow them to brush up on vital business skills in their own time - something that is crucial when any interruption to your work day means less money in your pocket at the end of the day.

Particularly for small business owners who have hired staff of their own, training becomes an important consideration if they wish to get the most from their resourcing investments. Of course, utilising online courses has the benefit of keeping prices down, thanks to their scalable nature - they can be offered to everyone across the sector regardless of time and location.

This also allows for course providers such as Virtual College - which offers 300 different vocational courses for small businesses and their trainees across a range of sectors - to tap into much richer sources of expertise, rather than smaller-scale local courses that will often only be as good as the knowledge of the particular trainer giving them.

In fact, a series of small businesses in New Zealand recently banded together to showcase the benefits that they have enjoyed as a result of utilising effective staff training, with several business owners agreeing that up-skilling members of staff in one and two-person businesses will make an easily recognisable contribution to rising profit margins.