The Fearless Finance workshop with Ally really was an eye opener into how important and useful it can be to understand the financial side of your business even though from the offset it can appear daunting. It has helped me to see how I can begin marking my progress and understand my business in more depth to allow me to understand its capabilities for growth. My subsequent 1-2-1 with Ally was great to begin setting up some important financial documents, creating annual and monthly targets to check that I'm on track and make sure that I am making my business is working for me. Thank you Ally for your knowledge and encouragement.

—Clarice Price Thomas Jewellery Designer/Maker

Ally worked for over a year as a financial consultant on the New Creative Markets Programme. Her specialist knowledge and experience of working with businesses in the creative industries allowed her to quickly build confidence with the artists and designers. She delivered excellent 'Fearless Finance' workshops that were accessible to businesses at various stages of growth and engaged participants through visual mapping. She worked with businesses on a 121 basis and received consistently good feedback. I would highly recommend Ally as a consultant for creative businesses and her work on the New Creative Markets Programme has had a measurable impact.

-www.spacestudios.org.uk and Lena Nix - Artist Development Manager

Ally is great person to work with and her financial skills and knowledge has helped BDC develop its financial management arrangements from financial planning, monitoring and projecting through to the statement of accounts. She puts a lot of effort and time into assisting my office manage the income and expenditure accounts throughout the year giving solid quarterly advice, financial information and benchmarking for key performance factors that we agree which is invaluable in successfully running my business and projecting to the end of year statement of accounts.

—Byron Davies OBE, Managing Director BDConsulting (UK)

Allocating the time to your business plan just doesn't seem to happen when you are busy working on a day by day basis. However, working with Ally from Business Bright on our business planning process has been of such a huge benefit to JacBee and a great way of making you as a business take some dedicated time out to focus, discuss and more importantly plan'.

—Victoria Beesley, Co-Director, JacBee Ltd http://www.jacbee.co.uk/

Business Bright make a refreshing change to the usual accountancy firms, taking a keen interest in the intricacies of our business over and above the routine number crunching. Our regular review meetings definitely add value and help us to shape our ongoing business marketing and development plans

—Ronsons Restaurants (Herb & Ellies)

Before I started working with Ally on my Financial Roadmap, I was hesitant because I already had a bookkeeper and accountant on my team. However, after my initial chat with Ally, I found that she didn’t use too much jargon and made it all really easy for me to understand my business numbers.

The feature that I loved most about the program was that I became crystal clear (well almost) about what my financial statements actually meant and Ally found some errors in my accounts that I was not aware of. Together, we quickly got my accounting system up to date and sorted and I also had a set of forecasts so that I could secure much needed additional funding. I can now track my progress and grow my company with greater confidence. By the way, I increased by income by 95% and reduced my business expenditure by 25% so far since starting our financial strategy sessions.

I certainly would recommend the Financial Roadmap Program to anyone that is scared stiff about financials, doesn’t understand their accounts and doesn’t know what questions to ask their bookkeeper/accountant.

I now have Ally as my monthly finance coach which has been invaluable because I get to sit down with her every month. She prepares my management reports and talks me through my statements as well as being a sounding board for my non-financial business issues and ideas.

- Alex Palma - Kina Events, London

What people say about the Right-Brain Business Planning Course:

This course helped me re-energize and align my vision, purpose and actions. In fact, engaging in this class got me so inspired again about my business that I found myself in action implementing my plan while simultaneously creating it! Results are already materializing.

— Amy Egenberger, Spirit Out!, Inc, www.spiritout.com

Approaching the writing of a business plan with a right-brain creative aspect makes it less intimidating and more inspiring. It certainly isn't boring! I think the creative approach makes it more personal.

The best aspect for me in this class is feeling that I have a better direction for my business. It pushed me to move in a direction that I've been contemplating for almost a year."

—Amy Crawley, Amy A. Crawley Fine Art, www.amyacrawley.com

"I've written business plans before, but this helped me do it in a way that let me stay in the right mindset for the project. The old ways felt like trapping the creative flow in false structure that misled me. But my Right-Brain Business Plan® not only provides structure, it provides inspiration and puts me in the right (ha!)mindset."

—Tori Deaux, The Circus Serene, www.circusserene.com

"I definitely appreciate the fact that this course emphasizes and acknowledges how important visuals are to the right brain person. This concept really helps me stay focused and interested in the planning process of my business. Phew! This is the furthest I have ever gone in the planning process. I typically don't make it past reading the two words, ‘executive summary'."

— Lisa Hause, Lisa Hause Photography, www.lisahause.com

"If you don't have a plan for your business, you need one. If you want to have fun learning how to develop a plan, take this course. This course takes the ‘scare factor' out of creating a business plan."

—Tracey Asai, Tracey Asai Designs, www.traceyasaidesigns.com

'I learned a great deal about how to put profit first, plus how to keep my artistic integrity and pursue the gap between a financially viable commercial photographic career and a flourishing art practice.

Thanks for the financial documents - these are great! It’s really helpful to see these figures down on paper; it frees up space in my head to get on with the creativity!! Finally, I can see a financial future!'

—Karen Roswell Photography 

'I met Ally in the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship Caribbean training program for Jamaican Entrepreneurs. Going into the program, I had a basic knowledge of accounting. I wasn't confident in reading financial reports, and what reports were most beneficial in monitoring cash flow, "real profit," cost savings or waste.

I wanted a financial mentor since financial planning was a valuable skill necessary to scale and grow my business, but I was not prepared for the impact Ally would have on my business and my mindset. Each week we would meet for advisory sessions, where I would outline strategies and prospects for revenue, and Ally would give advice. She stressed the importance of planning and understanding the actual cost associated with my services.

Ally emphasized measuring the financial health of my business by tracking my cash flow using agile reporting templates. She coached me with demonstration and practice to understand budgeting and forecasting, that cash is king, and that there are distinct differences between sales, profits, and cash, in how they affect business growth. I no longer feel like a rookie in financial planning due to Ally's mentorship.

I am more enthusiastic about reading my financials monthly because now it makes better sense for the growth of my company, and I now have better financial goals in mind. I use my accounting system differently now; ensuring accurate data input provides me with the correct reports and balances synced with my bank.

Thanks to Ally, I can confidently use financial terms, whether basic accounting or top-level economic language when speaking with financial institutions. Ally gave me more than just financial mentorship; she gave me financial confidence and better business health''.

Every business needs an "Ally"

- Stacy-Ann Wilson Odem Creative Media Limited