Whenever anyone asks me how I got into business I always start by saying, ‘by accident’! Even now when I look back at my journey so far I feel that luck played a huge part in it too, and it started with a friend asking if I could write...
I was in a transient period of working, with two small children I didn’t want to leave with a full time minder or wrap-around care, so I started walking dogs for pocket money, working around the pre-school and primary school timings. I was in the changing room at the local pool, about to go for brunch with a friend one Monday, when a primary school friend phoned to ask if I could write.
She’d started her business a few weeks prior and was looking for a bit of support. So, of course I said yes, and the following week she asked if I could do more. This became a familiar routine until I was doing more writing than dog walking and realised it was easier too!
One day we were setting up a conference room for a free seminar about optimising LinkedIn profiles, or setting up a Facebook page, I forget which, as we talked about how our lives were changing so rapidly and it was like being pulled in all different directions. My friend was referring to children, husbands, homes, primary school committee, running a toddler group, and her small marketing business.
That’s when I told her I was being pulled in one less direction - I’d given up my dogs so I could give her the time she was so often offering me.
Her response to that was, ‘shit, now I have to take this seriously!’ And thankfully she did.
I became that friend’s first employee about a year later, with a desk in a small office and everything! And we had a wonderful 10 years(ish) together...
Then, just before Covid was a thing, in January 2020, I was made redundant. I was offered the clients I solely worked on, and all the support I could need to go and start my own business – we were great friends, and still are...
But quite frankly I didn’t want to do it. I thought it wasn’t for me, I wasn’t dynamic enough, I didn’t want to show myself up! So, I got a job – with an old client of the agency of all people...
Uninspired and trapped
Do you know the feeling? Not allowed hot food in the office, no separate break room area, stuck in the middle of an industrial estate, leaving my dog at home, not able to take calls from the girls during the day... All those things I’d forgotten about after being employed by an amazing boss who gave me so much autonomy.
And, as bad as it might be to admit it, after 5 weeks of feeling a bit shit about a bad decision, I was relieved to be put on furlough. Then, when that ended in July I was let out of my contract while still under probation.
That’s when I really shat myself!
Help from mentors
I went to my old tutor, my lovely ex-boss, and a friend ‘up north’ for advice from successful business owning women. That’s when my tutor told me about a local opportunity. Full time, self-employed (by way of probation), and with someone I knew. August was looking up :)
So, I went for an interview that turned out to be simply to hash out what I wanted to do, how many hours and how much I needed to be paid. I’d effectively become a business owner at that moment – just with one client, but as I expected to be employed soon, I thought no more of it.
Lockdown 2…
That was fun! I lost my self employed job with zero notice, in the most expensive month of the year – the one before Christmas and half my family’s birthdays - twat.
So, I bitched about that twat to my yoga teacher, who asked if I could help her with her socials and blogs, then a friend in class called me and asked if I was on commission because she’d noticed the change in posts.
This woman owned a construction business, and I’d helped her write her new website in the agency, so she knew what she saying – and that was my second client.
Then, the twat came back to give me more hours, client 3 – I know! I should’ve told him to stuff it then but I’m a sucker!
Someone I’d done some free writing for during lockdown came back to ask if they could pay me to do their socials – client 4
And all this before I’d updated my LinkedIn or had a website... Oh, the twat let me down again by this point, by the way, shocker!
Be careful what you ask for...
So, I thought I’d best do something about that and wrote myself a crappy website, and updated LinkedIn – that’s when I started getting messages – ‘Are you back on the market?’ ‘Have you got time for me?’
All of a sudden I was busy, doing the work I loved, in my lovely house, with my lovely dog and even my lovely husband working from upstairs. I was setting my own hours, choosing which networking to do and when, and best of all, I was there when the girls needed me.
Carbon Copy is now four years old, and I still think running my own business is the best, even if it is a ‘vanity project’ or a ‘wannabe business’. It’s mine, I made it what it is, and I fucking love it!
PS: Do you like the picture of me, working from home with one of my rescue hedgehogs in the background?!
Commentaires