HSBC Halesowen helping local small businesses to connect

The HSBC Halesowen branch held a small business get together meeting last Thursday which was quite informal but allowed small local businesses to attend and get to speak with each other.

As always at such events food and drinks were available, and for us, we experienced no real hard sell of HSBC or its products which was perhaps reassuring for some. Although those attending surely were there to know more about how HSBC could possibly benefit their business or at the very least identify a way for them to have access to financing.

It still never fails to astound us…..! Why on earth do business people go through the time and hassle of saying they’ll be attending a meeting and never actually turning up or even apologise for not being able to attend beforehand?

Unfortunately, the meeting at HSBC was no exception and suffered the same as other small business events held in the West Midlands region a high volume of no shows – that said the no shows did not distract from the meeting.

It could be argued that the purpose of the meeting was twofold – firstly allowing small local businesses to meet someone else which they may never or would be likely to ever have come across – secondly two allowing HSBC to get to know more about your business, its plans and its current issues.

Whichever way you look at the meeting it provided an opportunity – and for the 'no shows' it could be said for them at least it was a missed opportunity.

Partway through the meeting at HSBC, a small business customer gave a quick talk on who they are, what they’ve done and more importantly for those attending how their business came about and how it’s doing currently in this economic climate.

The small business in question was Lockman UK which was started and is run by Josh Singh.

Josh explained that the Lockman UK business was started about 3 years through luck more than judgment – whereby at the time he had lost the key to his car and went back to the car dealership where he was advised that his car key was a programmed key and the replacement would cost somewhere in the region of £300.

Staggered at the cost, he started to explore alternative suppliers which provided the same service but would not cost as much – unable to find any suppliers he immediately thought of this being an ideal route for a new start-up business.

With a background in engineering, off he went and devised a way to undertake such a service and the result has been that over the past 3 years his business has grown to such an extent that the plans are to open store branches over the coming months.

His clients are the likes of the Police, The AA, The RAC, vehicle fleet and lease companies, plus the normal car driver who has unfortunately lost their car key.

An example of the cost-effectiveness of the service which Josh has created is that the cost of the key which Josh was originally looking to replace 3 years ago costing £300 but would take 3-4 days to fulfil can now be provided by his Lockman UK company for £180 within the same day.

During conversations last night at the HSBC we were advised that the Birmingham New Street branch are looking to hold their own Small Business meeting event later this month – we have requested to be informed as to the exact details as it is our intention to attend so that we can connect with Birmingham businesses.