GREAT Guns Marketing has ceased trading with a loss of 40 jobs.

Devastated with the news, the managing director of the B2B telemarketing business Liz Jackson paid tribute to her hardworking management team and staff.

Based at The Square, on Basing View, Great Guns Marketing specialised in telesales-led generation, appointment setting and database building and boasted clients such as Accenture. RBS and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Explaining what led to the business collapsing, Mrs Jackson said: “We had quite a tough recession, but had traded well in the last 12 months.

“I started another company called Talk Telematics, which I funded through Great Guns.

“This put cashflow under pressure, and then we experienced a couple of bad debts and our bank lost confidence.”

Alan Limb from business recovery and insolvency firm BRI said following a creditors meeting set for August 12, Great Guns Marketing will go into liquidation.

Mrs Jackson started her business in 1998, with a £1,000 grant from the Prince's Trust.

Initially, based in the then 25-year-old’s rented Basingstoke flat, Great Guns Marketing flourished, generating revenues exceeding £3million.

The story is all the more remarkable as in the same year of starting the business, Mrs Jackson lost her sight because of an eye disorder called retinitis pigmentosa.

The charismatic entrepreneur has won numerous awards, including TMobile Business Woman of the Year 2003 and the INSPIRE08 Business Woman of the Year.

In 2007 she was awarded an MBE from the Queen and has received honoury doctorate from Staffordshire University and is an honorary fellow of the University of Winchester.

FEBRUARY 2017: Managing director Danny Walls has asked the Gazette to point out that Great Guns Marketing is now trading again.