On Wednesday night, at the Brooklands Hotel in Weybridge, Shelley Wilkinson was crowned the winner of Dream Idea’s Britain’s Got 1 Million Ideas competition.

Shelley Wilkinson has already won numerous accolades for her Hampshire Chutney Company, including First Place awarded for Best Local Producer at the Royal County of Berkshire Show, and is currently a finalist for “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the Inspire Business awards. She now stands to benefit considerably from our comprehensive team of mentors.

The Dream Idea team pride themselves on championing entrepreneurs, and a couple of months ago Dream Idea launched its most exciting competition yet; a mentoring competition where entrepreneurs were given the chance to win a comprehensive mentoring package, and give their businesses the best possible start. In these tough economic times Dream Idea is part of a crucial movement which is encouraging businesses to blossom.

On why they felt so strongly about starting this competition, Dream Idea founders John Rebholz and Stephen Smith had this to say, “We created #BGI1 to recognise some of the brilliant ideas and entrepreneurs that are out there. It also demonstrates how Dream Idea can help you and your ideas. We wanted to help them succeed by creating a package that gives them support and guidance, crucial for any start-up venture!”

The team of mentors put together were specially chosen for their variety of skills, and level of expertise in their respective fields. Agnes Cserhati, a mentor and personal development coach brings more than 21 years experience of working with Businesses and Entrepreneurs to the table. Agnes states: “I am passionate about entrepreneurship and growing and developing people and businesses. Therefore I was delighted to sponsor the competition with £1,100 worth of mentoring package. I very much look for to working with the winner and being part of taking Hampshire Chutney Co to the next level.”

Legal advice on setting up a new business comes from Managing Director of Kiteleys, Mark Kiteley, whilst Neil Armstrong is on-hand to answer any marketing or creative queries. Managing Director of Kiteleys solicitors: “My firm have been delighted to play a part in the success of BGI1. The competition presents an opportunity to work with the innovators, movers and shakers of the future at the start of their journey. Although proud to be a part of the “mentor” scheme, I do hope to find the mentors have as much to learn from the applicants as they from us”.

Dream Idea founder Stephen Smith has been enlisted to advise on business strategy, and finally accountant Peter Stamps completes the team with his financial know-how. "Being a new small business, I know how important the right help and support is to make a dream idea a reality. That is why I wanted to be part of the competition to pass on what I had learnt to others. Congratulations to Hampshire Chutney, I am looking forward to meeting you."

Shelley Wilkinson, founder of the Hampshire Chutney Company, has certainly got a good team behind her now.

“If anyone reading this has an idea they would really like pushing forward then Dream Idea UK can really help you do this. Their whole concept is a breath of fresh air and is exactly what is needed for people like you and me who could benefit from having experts guide you step by step passionately, enthusiastically and honestly.”

About Dream Idea:
Dream Idea is an online community platform bringing entrepreneurs, business experts and investors together in order to help entrepreneurs where they need it in the process of starting and running businesses.

Dream Idea was set up by John Rebholz and Steve Smith who understand the importance of networking in business and set out to provide a less time-consuming and daunting platform for networking, meeting investors and collaborating.

More information about Dream Idea and the Mentoring competition can be found at DreamIdea.co.uk

Contact information:
For more information, imagery or to discuss coverage options, please contact Roz Skellorn at Cre8ive Wisdom on 01202 707032. Alternatively, email roz@cre8ivewisdom.com.

Are you a mummy with a blog?

Here at Joker's Masquerade we have a plethora of fancy dress costumes, accessories and party supplies. We have a warehouse filled with various items that will be sent all over the country. What we don't have, however, is your opinion, and in a customer orientated business that relies so heavily on word of mouth we're hoping that you can help us.

Here's what we're looking for:

As Halloween approaches we begin to see an uptake in spooky fancy dress costumes. It is important to us that we make sure our customer base is happy and that we are sending out products that are of a high quality and the recipients are happy with what they or their children will be wearing when October 31^st comes round.

This year, it is our goal to make sure that our customer service is as good as it can be and one of the ways in which we can ensure that to be the case is by requesting product reviews from people who own blogs. Whether they be personal or business related they are both good mediums to receive feedback and in a public forum showing that we have nothing to hide. We think negative feedback shows that we have a transparent service and that we are effectively attempting to improve!

If you are the owner of a personal blog, one in which you share your photos, thoughts or whatever may come to mind and you would like a costume to review in an honest manner that you or your child can wear and keep, we may be interested in hearing from you.

If you have a business and you have a blog, but maybe don't have time to keep it updated allow us to guest blog for you. We can cover various topics such as costumes, SEO, business or we can  supply a costume to review. It's your blog so why not compare it to an item you sell, link to items on your site in the post. It's a way of creating content that's new and Google responds to that.

If you'd like to contact us and have a chat about you reviewing a costume for us or even us sharing content with you, you can tweet us @joke_co_uk (remember you need to follow us before you can DM us), you can send us a message onour Facebook page here or you can contact us on our website. Just select 'marketing enquires' as the subject.

Tip: I don't have a blog, should I have one?

We're going to let you in on a piece of information that is essential if you happen to be small business owner that relies on the Internet to bring in revenue for you. Having a blog on your website can act as a medium to share news, insights to your business and can offer search engine optimisation benefits. The phrase 'content is king' is especially true when in reference to the search engine. Writing unique content will allow you to rank for hundreds of terms in your niche, it is also a way of creating content that is fresh and new as well as creating internal links. Google has stated 20% search queries in a day are unique so there is always the demand for new content.

If it is your goal to rank on Google as high as you possibly can and you do not have a blog we encourage you to create one. Create posts about interesting stories that happened in your office and link to products or pages on your site that you wish to be better ranked. This is a basic SEO tactic.