Member Article

Wedding headache becomes wedding bliss with the help of GBLF

A successful Sunderland entrepreneur is turning her dream business venture into a reality with the help of North East-based Gordon Brown Law Firm LLP (GBLF).

Local business woman Gemma Jay has been able to pursue her vision of the Wedding Handbook – designed to meet the needs of any couple looking to tie the knot – with support and expertise from the Core team at GBLF, who specialise in providing SMEs with honest and affordable legal advice.

The Wedding Handbook is a step by step wedding planner to help brides and grooms to be organise everything from the engagement party, the stag and hen do and the big day itself.

Gemma became aware of the services offered by Core through an Inspire Network coffee morning where she met Joy Heron, a member of the Core team. This was followed up by a meeting with Gwen Jones, who heads up Core at the firm, for guidance after receiving incorrect and costly legal advice implicating her company’s terms and conditions.

Gwen and her team stepped in at a crucial time for Gemma, whose business was then in the early stages of development, by completely rewriting Gemma’s business terms and conditions – essential to helping her grow both her roster of suppliers and customer base.

With this fundamental part of her business now locked down, Gemma can cement plans to expand nationwide with bespoke, regionalised versions of the handbook and a 2.0 version also in the pipeline for 2017.

Gemma said: “When I initially approached GBLF, some bad legal advice had put me on the back foot and knocked both my finances and confidence considerably.

“However, Gwen and the team listened to my needs and helped put me and my business back on track. They took me right back to basics in order to understand exactly what was needed and cut out all of the legal jargon, leaving me with robust and accurate terms and conditions and a package which is completely bespoke to me.

“They absolutely went the extra mile to ensure my business was exactly where it needed to be at what was a critical stage for getting it off the ground.”

Gwen Jones, Head of Core and solicitor at GBLF said: “Being a business woman herself, Gemma knows only too well the importance of accurate terms and conditions. Unfortunately she had been given very poor advice and her existing terms and conditions simply weren’t appropriate for her business, which could have had a very negative impact on her venture.

“We started from scratch, redrafting in line with Gemma’s business needs in addition to the needs of her customers and suppliers. Joy and I sat down with Gemma to go through the documents with a fine-tooth comb until we were satisfied it would meet her individual requirements – the very ethos Core is built on.”

GBLF has since helped Gemma with advice with her #VOOM 2016’s “Pitch to Rich” application, which is an annual competition for entrepreneurs created by Richard Branson, and could see one start-up company win a business support package worth up to £450,000 including marketing support, business mentoring and a number of other perks.

Gwen added: “At GBLF we get to work with many up and coming North East businesses and it is always a pleasure to help them get to where they want to be. It has been great getting to work so closely with Gemma and to support her with such an exciting and promising new business plan. We wish her every success with both the VOOM 2016 competition and her future plans for the business.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gordon Brown Law Firm .