Small business award for Lisburn company

Clare Rimmer from Kip McGrath Lisburn, which provides after-school tuition to children aged 6 to 16, attended the award ceremony on Friday 30th of March in Birmingham after winning the competition run by the star on twitter.

Small Business Sunday, shortened to the hashtag #SBS on Twitter, was created by Theo Paphitis in October 2010. Each Sunday Theo rewards small businesses that tweet him @TheoPaphitis and describe their business in one tweet by re-tweeting his favourite six. As he has over 230,000 followers, this can provide a massive boost to the chosen businesses.

Clare Rimmer from Kip McGrath Lisburn said, “Getting a retweet from Theo was a huge confidence boost for our business and attending the #sbs winners event and getting to meet him in person was the icing on the cake! There is a lot of doom and gloom in the business world at the moment and to be part of such a positive and inspirational initiative for businesses is really important”.

Since winning the business competition in September 2011, Kip McGrath Lisburn has seen a surge in the number of children attending the education centre. “Word of mouth is really the key to making our business a success and this had grown steadily since we opened in 2007. Winning Small Business Sunday has allowed us to promote our services to a wider audience,” said Clare Rimmer.

At the event Theo gave the business owners the chance to take part in a question and answer session and revealed the new #sbs winners website which gives the winning businesses a chance to showcase their services and provides great mentoring advice and help for small business owners.