Froggo have just attended the business start-up show, in London at Earls court, and my, what a shock we got… I’ll share that with you later.

We weren’t there as an exhibitor, but as students of such an event, and to see what was on offer to start-up businesses, and what new companies were breaking through.

In case any of you were unaware, it’s also been Entrepreneur week this weekThis means very little for most of us, but if anything it does give gratitude and praise to those of us who are in business, going against most crowds and enjoying the freedom of business ownership, and helping others through our products and services.

It also brings some resources together to enable start-up businesses to gain traction and grow in the way they should, which has got to be good.

The business start-up show also demonstrated some of the immense talent this country has been able to offer in business, and, for me, was brought to the forefront with a young and hugely talented Entrepreneur called Louis Barnett.

Here’s a guy who’s 20 years old, and at the age of 13, had managed to get his own brand Chocolate into a major UK supermarket, and subsequently into several more. He now trades, I believe, in 27 countries with his largest markets in India and China.

His confidence and business knowledge were exceptional. He truly stood out from the crowd and it was clear he was already experiencing huge success, and who knows what he could go on to achieve. I think this is what the event was all about – especially young people, in business, achieving huge success.

This leads me nicely to areas of the event which, although perhaps insightful to the many inexperienced and very early stage conceptualists and idealists, was not really so great in my opinion.

I sat in on several of the hundreds of short seminars and workshops, and obviously was more drawn to either the big success speakers or anything to do with the internet – this is where I encountered the most disappointment. I was shocked to see web designers giving beginner lessons in web design and not once talk about conversion, page layout, heat mapping, prospect flow etc etc… All he seems concerned about was pretty colours and font – which are obviously important, but it highlighted greatly, for me, the enormous difference between a graphics designer designing your website and online exposure, and a marketing expert designing it with the use of a graphics designer / SEO expert / Internet expert. And in fact, the potentially enormous disservice and damage someone who Isn’t a marketer providing real online growth education could do to a business, which is using it’s hard earned cash to invest, it what it thought, a wise asset.

This brings me to another short seminar I sat in on about blogging. This is clearly a skill and art which all businesses should employ, AND is also a tiny cog in an online marketing machine for businesses looking to truly expand. Its crucial, yes, but the way these particular individuals advocate, it seemed to be the be all and end all of online marketing, to which, all I could think was ‘If only they knew’ about actual marketing, then marketing online, as they actually make themselves look rather foolish when those more educated are in the room.

They, of course, can only speak from their experience, which allows me to accept their points of view, however limited, and they are truly experts in their field – but that’s all, THEIR field. It’s not the be all and end all.

Anyway… a slight rant of a blog today but one I hope allows you to see that there is far more to these skills than some people may allow you to believe.

Some people run workshops on this type of information which are genuine and add so much weight to a business' marketing force. Find the right one for you, and they'll take you to an entirely new level!

Enjoy your day