Business Gateway Clackmannanshire: Support, Guidance & Grants for New and Growing Businesses

Meet the Team

Our team of experienced advisers in Clackmannanshire are on hand to discuss your ideas, provide support in setting up your business as well as providing assistance in helping your business grow.

Maggie
Business Gateway and Development Director
Maggie Gorman manages the Business Gateway Clackmannanshire team in conjunction with her role as Development Director to businesses in the area. Maggie heads up the Business Gateway team, overseeing service provision and development of business support. Maggie started out her career in economic development after completing a business degree followed by a law degree at Strathclyde University. Maggie has worked with local economic development agencies including Scottish Enterprise, when she owned her own management consultancy firm, providing SME’s with support to improve culture, implement growth strategies and support leader development. Maggie is keen to collaborate and partner with local agencies and businesses to utilise available resource to better serve the businesses in Clacks and across Forth Valley.
Mandy
Business Adviser
Mandy Campbell is the first point of call for new businesses in the area in her role as Business Adviser for Business Gateway Clackmannanshire. She has almost 20 years experience of helping SME’s develop in Forth Valley, including some time as Manager of a Business Training Centre, and offers businesses advice on record keeping, insurance and the legalities of forming a new business. Mandy also delivers many of our workshops for new business.
Andrea
Marketing Strategy Business Adviser
Andrea McFarlane is a fully qualified marketing professional with extensive experience in both B2B and B2C marketing. She has a strong track record in corporate and marketing communications, strategic planning, relationship management and brand development. Andrea's specialties include integrated marketing communications, campaign management, B2B and B2C marketing, financial services marketing, creative copywriting, marketing and social media training. Andrea is results oriented – everything she does is about improving the bottom line. She helps clients get better results from their marketing activity so that they can focus on what they do best – running their business.

There are many ways we can support your start-up journey.

Our Business Support Tool is a great place to begin. It takes just 10 minutes to complete and provides you with an instant toolkit with key resources & information. We'll then connect you with a member of the team at our local office for further support.

Our website offers a business plan guide and template to download when you’re ready, market reports and research, as well as handy online guides, articles and video tutorials. Plus, we have a great range of webinars to hone your start-up skills – from writing a business plan to marketing on a budget.

Our start-up advisers can help you:

Write a business plan
Understand business finance and cash flows
Find ways to market your business
Access workshops on business skills
Find specialist support available

With our help, you could be in business sooner than you imagined.

Our resources and one-to-one support can help you strengthen your business.

Whether you’re looking to take on premises or learn more about digital marketing, we can help you take the next step. Get started by taking 10 minutes to complete our Business Support tool and get a personalised dashboard of online resources and webinars.

We can also offer 1-1 advice at a time that works for you. Together, you and your business adviser can create a strategic action plan to help you achieve your goals. Our growth business advisers can offer you:

Access to workshops
Support to find new ways to expand your business
Access to networking opportunities with other businesses

Our online resources and webinars can help you learn new skills, create opportunities and gain confidence. From HR to restructuring, innovation and digital marketing - we can help. And if specialist input is required, we can connect you to other sources of support.

This is aimed at helping small rural tourism businesses to develop in a sustainable way whilst at the same time generating local community benefit.

The grant available is 50 percent of eligible development costs (up to a maximum of £10,000) towards capital purchase. The grant can also be used on business development costs that promote the sustainability of the operation or area.

Community benefit must be delivered as part of the business development and must be measurable and evidenced through a local community organisation. You must provide a business plan with your application. More information is available on the Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER website.

This private and public sector partnership aims to enable all businesses both large and small to work collectively.

The aim is to create a strong, business-focused environment for the benefit of the local and regional economy. Core objectives are to:

improve communications between businesses across the sectors
raise the profile of the business community both within and outside their areas
engage the business community in the economic regeneration activities taking place.

All businesses in the Clackmannanshire area are invited to participate proactively in key business events taking place throughout the year.