Why Was I Crazy Enough to Start My Own Business?

If you asked me three years ago, i would have said NO WAY would I ever start my own business.  Too risky, too scary, too much room for failure, I'd say.  For me it was a culmination of a series of events: a family crisis, achieving an executive role while my health deteriorated, a growing desire for giving back and doing more purposeful work as well as the need to control my own schedule to be the best mum, wife, step-mum, daughter and friend that I could be.  Was there just one event that caused me to make the decision? Not really. It was a series of events, that kept forcing me to ask myself – why don’t I start my own business?   For so long I worried what if I fail?  Can I really succeed? Do I have what it takes?  Will I be able to endure the setbacks? It's that imposter syndrome that wouldn't go away.

When discussing the topic I would make the odd excuses – “I hate dealing with the accounting! I’d much rather be dealing with the people side of the business.” OR “How am I going to market new clients AND make a living?”  Marketing is so NOT my forte because I’m one of the mums who doesn’t say a lot on Facebook.  How am I ever going to succeed and start a business that requires a regular social media presence? 

All these questions and more hounded me for months, gosh, really for a couple of years.  The most important question, what’s really holding me back?  Plainly it was just ME!  If not for my husband, let’s just call him my cheerleader and by the way everyone needs one of those, he was the one who kept saying “why don’t you just do it?”    Just out of curiosity I did a tally of how many clients I’d coached over the last 3 years and to my surprise I had completed 350!!!  So when my husband committed to becoming my Business Manager, he effectively removed my excuses.  All I could say was, “YES! Let’s DO THIS”.

We then set out on a journey – defining my target market, my brand, my logo, business cards, website design, photo shoot, business plan, marketing plan, social media training – the works!  Don’t worry, I made some mistakes and had some false starts and eventually I realised, I need to engage others, actually women to help me, and then everything started to fall into place.   A lot of thinking and collaborating and deliberating was done, but finally I can say officially “Business launched!” 

Now I can do what I love, which is becoming the cheer squad for so many others and taking them where they need to go.  Being in director positions all these years, taught me some hard knocks in giving too much of myself away for no gain – I remember my daughter asking me why am I on the computer all the time, pulleeze come play with her! Or I remember laying off employees who no matter how hard I tried, I could not make sense of why they were being let go.  I’ve had bosses who treated me so horribly that I couldn’t bear to give them one more day of my energy . It is because of this that I want to shield other women from being forced into these situations. I learned that I love coaching others, especially women, as they are too often under represented.  And well, I just needed a “Robin” at those tumultuous times in my life.  That is my mission now, to empower others to achieve purposeful work, to take charge of their careers and know they deserve it.

This story would not be complete if I failed to give a bit more detail on HOW I got there. I’d like to give a big SHOUT OUT to thank the following amazingly talented ladies who helped me on this journey:

·        Kathryn – for inspiring me and modeling for me how to run an ethically minded          business while staying true to yourself

·        Lenka – for helping come up with the business name, logo, brand design (a bit          girly)

·        Irene – for designing my lovely website showcasing my passions and values

·        Suzy – for making my hair look shiny and glamorous for the photoshoot

·        Anh – for doing my makeup to make me look 10 years younger

·        Natalie – for NOT letting me look like a stuffy corporate type in my website                photos

·        Yesica – for teaching me and my husband how to navigate the world wide web          of Facebook and Google analytics

·        Belinda – for helping me create a marketing plan and then ripping off the                    band-aid to start it!

Lastly – I’d like to thank my lovely supportive husband, Matt, who never waivered as my cheerleader, and just for me he learned XERO accounting software, Facebook campaigns, Google advertising, tax man rules (I know right!), ABN rules, all while completing his own career transition.  Thank you Matty, and thank you ALL.  xx