Parents in Business Magazine Autumn 2021 by parentsinbiz

OCT 2021

AUTUMN

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E Learning from business mistakes

In Conversation with Sharon Keegan

Coming to terms with being involuntarily childless

Helping children to unlock their full potential

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Contents BOOK REVIEW

COMING TO TERMS WITH BEING INVOLUNTARILY CHILDLESS

WOMEN WHO DO BOTH

SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT POP MY WAY

FLEX EDUCATION

SPECIAL FEATURE - LEARNING FROM BUSINESS MISTAKES

IN CONVERSATION WITH SHARON KEEGAN

STRESS FREE CHRISTMAS? EARLY PREPARATION AND PLANNING

SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD’S WELLBEING

IN CONVERSATION WITH JO CARROLL

HELPING CHILDREN UNLOCK THEIR FULL POTENTIAL

IN CONVERSATION WITH JAMES SUTCLIFFE

PARENTS IN BUSINESS DIRECTORY FEATURE

*cover photo credit Peter Love, Mill Studios

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Disclaimer Views expressed in the articles are those strictly of the authors. Every effort is made to ensure that all information given is correct but Parents in Biz limited accepts no liability for inaccuracies, errors or omissions that may occur or their consequences. This publication is copyright and may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher. Copyright includes (and not limited to) the content syndication of the RSS feed of this publication. The content and images used in any of the articles of this publication. The Parents in Business Magazine logo and any of its derivatives.

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Meet the contributors SALIHAH AGBAJE Founder And Creative Director At Spoken World Productions Salihah is the founder and creative director at Spoken World Productions, a theatre in education organisation for children that specialises in providing physical and virtual Drama, movement and mindfulness workshops to enhance confidence, creativity and much, much more. www.spokenworldproductions.com

SHONA CHAMBERS Marketing Consultant Shona Chambers is a Marketing Consultant and owner of Shona Chambers Marketing, a Marketing Agency based in Nunhead near Peckham. Specialising in helping Small Business Owners and Freelancers with their marketing. *Photo credit Portrayed Photography www.shonachambersmarketing.co.uk

LOUISE ARNOLD 923 Jobs Louise Arnold spent five years at City law firms before moving to an in-house legal role at London’s Borough Market. She loves her role as part of the 9-2-3 team and really feels inspired by the changes that are unfolding before her eyes in the world of work. www.923jobs.com

KAREN GIBB Founder Of Mind Marvels Karen Gibb is a former teacher, now educating young people on their emotional wellbeing with a range of calming strategies and practical tools to support. www.mindmarvels.co.uk

Do you like what we do? Why not become a guest contributor. Let’s collaborate contact bridget@parentsinbiz.co.uk Magazine designed by B81 Designs www.b81designs.com

BERENICE SMITH Freelance Designer and Founder of Hello Lovely Berenice Smith, MA, runs Hello Lovely. She works with business owners, publishing houses and authors to bring ideas to life through creative, bespoke user-friendly design. Hello Lovely is an ethical business advising on planet-friendly solutions and donating to charities. www.hellolovely.design

SOPHIE THWAITES Helping Children Get Back Into Their Body And Ready To Learn Sophie has helped children all over the world with varying learning differences. She has developed a broad understanding of how best to work with children and help them establish greater connections with their surrounding environment; ultimately allowing them to unlock their potential, enjoy learning, and grow in confidence. www.sophiethwaites.co.uk

YUKI SOLLE Healthy Eating Adviser, Eco-Living And Money Savvy Blogger. Greenie. Yuki is the founder of Cultivate Life Lifestyle blog that focuses on healthy eating, Eco-living & Money Saving topics. Being a passionate foodie, Yuki shares tips and hacks on how to eat well without costing the earth (or our pockets!) www.cultivatethelife.com

CATHERINE ERDLY SMALL BUSINESS RETAIL EXPERT Catherine is a small business retail expert, a Forbes.com contributor on the subject of starting and scaling a product business, a judge of the Good Retail Awards on the Editorial Board of Modern Retail www.resilientretail.com

OCT 2021

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Letter From The Editor Welcome to the 14th issue of the Parents in Business Magazine. The Parents in Business Magazine is 3 years old! In celebration of turning 3, we have a new look we hope you like it. In this bumper issue, we have articles from Sophie Thwaites, who writes about helping children unlock their full potential, and Karen Gibb writes about Supporting your child’s wellbeing. Do you want a stress free Christmas? Early preparation and planning is the key. This is the perfect time to get your marketing messages really focused and effective on page 36, Small business retail expert Catherine Erdly has you covered. There is much misunderstanding about what it is to be involuntarily childless perhaps it comes from not knowing what to say or do? Berenice Smith, a freelance designer, and founder of Hello Lovely, writes about coming to terms with being involuntarily childless. We have an interview with Sharon Keegan, Founder of Peachylean. Sharon Keegan is the founder of Peachylean. Peachylean is an award-winning fitness wear brand for women. That sells supportive garments in sizes 6 -26, supporting the everyday everybody to live life in full colour. Sharon has appeared on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den and secured £100,000 for her ever growing business. We also interviewed James Sutcliffe, the CEO of The Founding Network, a community of the UK’s most innovative founders who collaborate, enabling them to scale as efficiently as possible. And Jo Carroll, Co-Founder of Winchcombe Farm. Jo runs an independent holiday retreat that is hidden away on a private country estate in the glorious Warwickshire countryside on the northeast tip of the Cotswolds in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Thank you so much for being so supportive over the last 3 years!

Bridget

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We are a Work for Good Partner and give a proportion of proceeds to charity.

Book Review Startup Culture, written by Alexander Nicolaus The term startup is associated with businesses in the technology sector, raising huge sums of money, changing the world. Everyone could name a few, from Uber to Facebook. But startup also extends to small businesses, using their own resources, whether people or time to bootstrap funds, to get moving and growing. If you have a website and a product to sell, you are a startup. Start Up Culture - Your Superpower for Sustainable Growth is written by Alexander Nicolaus, a professional with a team building, culture development background. Having worked in corporations, he then switched to startups & worked in some of the fastest growing companies globally.

The book is full of advice on how to create a culture within your business, whatever the size, that will help everyone involved to feel engaged and proud of the company as it grows. Thriving in business is about being agile and disruptive. If we look at some of the best performing companies at the moment, they all created change either through new products and services built from scratch or disrupting what was already there.

Startup Culture is a useful and interesting book if you want to consider culture more for you and your business. Shona Chambers Marketing Consultant www.shonachambersmarketing.co.uk

Although it is the product or service that people mean when they mention Netflix, Amazon or Facebook, it is the people who work for these companies that make the culture. We are now in the position where people need organisations less than organisations need them. This is because of the way we can now work as freelancers or for ourselves using the innovations of technology. Companies must build appealing cultures to keep top employees, which in turn translates into happier customers.

OCT 2021

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Women who do both

Salihah Agbaje, Founder and Creative Director at Spoken World Productions

The media might convince you that it’s a walk in the park for women Juggling motherhood with a career. The glitz and glamour on social media tend to demonstrate that raising children and enjoying the heights of a successful career is smooth and easy sailing. The reality is that this is an illusion for both novice and veteran.

Many believe it’s not possible to raise children and maintain a career, but there are women doing this everyday. For the majority, this will resemble self-sacrifice on every level, late nights, early mornings and all that comes with adult life whilst balancing the best interests of little people. For others, it represents a task force, a team effort, delegation and plenty of time management strategies. For all, it will look and feel like hard work! You may have caught episode 10 of Spoken World Podcast featuring the creative director of Creative Homes, Sally-Anne Donaldson. We spoke at length about mothers juggling their careers whilst navigating the world of motherhood. We found that women that wanted to maintain a career whilst raising their children were often fighting against a system built for men, by men. For Sally-Anne, it meant juggling lectures for her Masters with breastfeeding her newborn in a quiet corner of her university which had no baby changing facilities. It meant giving up a job she was passionate about because the employer couldn’t afford her childcare costs. We surmised that although it is hard work, it is possible. With support and determination, women can successfully balance motherhood and a career. Here are a few tips we have picked up along the way and seen work. Let us know if any of them work for you.

Pick a tool that works for you Consider a time management technique that works best for you, this might be time batching which much like batch cooking, it means you have done the bulk of the work at once, whether that is taking photographs for your social media or researching several topics ahead of time. Whatever the task, you’ve scheduled the time to get it done in bulk, you no longer have to think about it. You could be more of a one-thing-at-a-time sort of person, if so, you can be just as productive by employing methods such as the Pomodoro effect. This technique proves that time and productivity can work in synchronised harmony. Simply set a timer, complete your task within that set amount of time. Once that timer has gone off and you have completed the task, you reward yourself with a break before moving on to another timed task. After completing several tasks, your reward time gets longer, and the sense of moving through that to-do list productively boosts your endorphins-it’s win-win!

www.spokenworldproductions.com

Build a support network Ever wish that you could clone yourself in order to be in two places at the same time? Well, a support network of family and friends can work like that! This special group of people you trust works as an extension of you. Build relationships with friends that you know share the same ethos as you so that you can relax knowing your children are in safe hands whilst you grab some much-needed rest or head to that high profile meeting.

Be the master of your own time Many look at time as the enemy and speak about it as though it’s a negative thing- I’m running out of time, I’m running against the clock, and time just vanished! It doesn’t have to be that way- time should be looked upon as a friend and not something we are constantly in pursuit of. Approach your time with a positive mindset and a plan to utilise your precious minutes in the most effective way.

OCT 2021

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Flex Education Over the last year, you’ve probably thought a lot about flexible working – whether you intended to or not. After all, in March 2020, we embarked on the largest remote-working experiment the world had ever seen. But it wasn’t flexible working as we’d previously known it – international crises do have a way of turning things on their heads like that, don’t they? I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly never envisaged working with my toddler clinging on to my leg, punctuating my most delicate client calls with demands for more breadsticks. Now the pandemic is hopefully on the wane, schools have opened, and we’re all emerging, blinking, into the light, what have we discovered about genuinely flexible working? And what lessons will we take with us as we move forward into the new normal?

Louise Arnold, 923 Jobs Firstly, let’s look at the basics. What is flexible working? Well, it’s almost any way of working outside the usual pattern. Compressed hours, job sharing and part-time and remote working, are obvious examples. They’re a lifeline for many parents, allowing them to continue to build their careers whilst balancing work with the needs of their families. It’s allowed me to pick up my children from school every day, to hear the intricate details of who stepped on their toes at playtime, and why they’ve lost their second jumper in a week. It’s enabled me to feed the ducks with my youngest child and watch my eldest at sports days. (Do you remember those? I know – barely.) Employees have reported that saving time and money on commuting helps them lead healthier lives, makes them less stressed, and frees up enough time to exercise or walk in the sunshine. *Studies have shown that flexible workers are happier workers and happier workers are more likely to show loyalty to their organisations. After all, a sense of autonomy and empowerment at work - the feeling that your company trusts you to do a good job – is always going to lead to greater job satisfaction. And what about companies? What do employers get out of flexible working? Quite a lot, actually, according to research. *Studies have shown that workers are often more productive when working from home and take fewer sick days. Remote working possibilities

now mean that businesses can attract the best talent worldwide whilst reducing their office costs. Flexible working offerings show that a business is progressive and often helps organisations to attract and - crucially - retain great staff. It can contribute to a more diverse workforce, open up more roles to people with disabilities, and reduce the gender pay gap, all of which make for a better, happier workforce and a great reputation as an employer. Of course, it’s not always a bed of roses, as the last year has shown us. In some circumstances (such as, well, a lockdown, for example), working from home can make some workers feel isolated or lonely. It’s crucial that both organisations and employees maintain good communication and use the technological tools available to them to ensure that remote workers feel included in and supported by their teams. After all, we’re all probably more aware than ever before of the mental health implications of spending too much time alone. *Initiatives such as walking team meetings in the sunshine or randomised coffee trials can be really useful in making employees working in different locations feel that they are an important and valued part of the broader organisation. Some companies have found that it’s more challenging to train junior members of staff remotely, and it’s been said that a wholly remote team can make it difficult to bounce ideas

around. Certainly, Helen Wright, founder of 9-2-3 Jobs, a recruitment agency that specialises in placing experienced professionals in flexible roles, says that “We have seen a huge rise in the popularity of hybrid working – a mix of office and home-based working – amongst our clients and candidates. We think that this is going to be the future. It gives companies the opportunity to build team cohesion, encourage creativity, and improve work-life balance for many employees. This new way of doing things may require some strategic planning, but we’ve loved talking to our clients about how we can help them achieve these new goals and how getting it right can make them really desirable employers so that they attract the best talent.” 9-2-3 Jobs’ experience seems to be borne out by the statistics. A *study has found that 88% of UK workers want to be able to work flexibly, even after the pandemic has passed. It seems that employees’ expectations of the world of work have changed radically, and organisations wanting to attract the best people may need to bear this in mind when building their teams. Household names like Microsoft, Twitter and Spotify have already said that they will be embracing new ways of working flexibly going forwards. Interestingly, Helen Wright has noticed that “Pre-pandemic, many of our candidates were working mothers. I think that people are now aware that flexible working can benefit everyone – men and women with caring responsibilities, people with disabilities, older workers who might not be interested in retirement – and that many people will be expecting it to form part of their relationships with their employers going forwards, as a matter of course. There has been a seismic shift”.

* www.cio.com/article/3097577/want-happier-moreproductive-employees-be-flexible.html * www.independent.co.uk/life-style/work-homeproductivity-talk-talk-coronavirus-b466148.html * www.nesta.org.uk/blog/institutionalisingserendipity-via-productive-coffee-breaks * www.workplaceinsight.net/large-majority-of-peoplewant-to-continue-some-form-of-flexible-working

www.923jobs.com

88% of UK workers want to be able to work flexibly

I’ll leave you with a happy story I heard at the school gate recently. A friend is a senior lawyer for a bank. I asked how she was enjoying working remotely. She grinned. “Well, nobody ever schedules meetings for between 6 and 8pm anymore. They’re all – male and female – doing bedtime.” It seems the working world has changed beyond recognition for many of us. And what if, having seen how things could be, we’re just not willing to turn the clock back?

OCT 2021

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Sharon Keegan,

IN CONVERSATION

Founder of Peachylean Peachylean is an award-winning fitness wear brand for women. That sells supportive garments in sizes 6 -26, supporting the everyday everybody to live life in full colour. Sharon has appeared on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den and secured £100,000 for her ever growing business. Three Dragons, Touker Suleyman, Sarah Davies and Tej Lalvani, offered her money. She decided to bring all three backers on board in return for a 30 per cent stake in Peachylean. *Photo credits Peter Love, Mill Studios

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Tell us about your journey. How did you get here? In 2015 I gave birth to my first son Liam. Unfortunately, I fell ill with Postnatal depression and to pull me out of that dark period, I used the gym as a form of antidepressant. I couldn’t find any gym wear on the market that was supportive enough for my new mum tum and shifted pelvis. So I designed the first pair of Peachylean leggings like Spanx for the gym.

Tell us about your experience of appearing on Dragon’s Den? Growing up, I watched the Dragons Den show with my Dad and brothers every Sunday on BBC2 so getting a chance to appear on the show was a real dream come true. I had to battle with my inner dragon just to walk through the lift doors and pitch, convincing myself I wasn’t making a huge mistake. I was so happy on the evening I got such an overwhelming response. The Dragons are so lovely, not intimidating like you see on the TV, yes you have to know your numbers, but they are all very lovely people who want you to do well. Getting offers from 3 dragons was magical, and I was honoured to have the dream team Sara Davies Touker Suleman and Tej Lalvani made offers on the night.

What was the last thing you did that made you really proud? Last month I produced a podcast to help people with their inner critic. My whole life, I have wanted to write, produce and present a show where we teach women and men about that inner voice keeping us from achieving our goals and dreams. Every time I went to put pen to paper, my inner dragon piped up, telling me I wasn’t good enough. The day it went live, I was so happy it’s now doing so well, its called Let’s Talk Inner critic, and you can find it on Spotify. I hope to share these interviews to inspire anyone who struggles with their confidence.

What’s been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome? I have had PND after both of my boy’s. Liam 6 and Bob, who is just turning 3 the past 6 years, have been a real rollercoaster. I launched Peachylean in 2018 when I was pregnant with Bobby, so the most difficult obstacle I have had to overcome was juggling a newborn with a growing business. The juggle was real! Throw in a global pandemic, home-schooling and grief after the loss of my little brother, and I can safely say I’m proud of getting through the past 18 months.

How do your values show up in the work you do? My values are loyalty, authenticity, support, encouragement and kindness. When looking to build out our team, I look for all these qualities in people. The word support is the most dominant value we have at Peachylean. We ask ourselves in everything we do, “Are we providing support ?” Will this support our team, our community. This goes with content, new products, staff meetings and goals, community events and get-togethers.

How do you manage your time between family and business? The most valuable asset I have is TIME. As a mum of two and a busy business owner, I find TIME is precious and needs to be managed properly so your most valuable asset won’t burn out. I wake early, and workout at 6am using this hour for my mindset, like filling your car with petrol, movement in the mornings is like a supercharge of fuel or petrol for your body and mind. Mornings are madness as they are in all households with smallies getting ready for school and crèche. As time is precious, I prioritise the school hours as my hours to get all my work done. No coffees, no phone calls, no social media distractions! Head down, get the work done. When boys come home at 4pm I’m back to being Mum, and I enjoy the role of mum and bedtime routine.

It hasn’t always been this way, I found it incredibly difficult to balance work and home life at the start of the PL journey, you do get into a routine suitable to you, it’s hard work, but you will get there, just keep going!

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? As a kid, I would spend all my weekends mucking out stables in my local horse riding centre, I went on after school to qualify as an AI horse riding instructor with the British Horse Society. This was my labour of LOVE, my passion project. In my spare time now, I like to hack out with a friend or just be in the presence of animals. I train everyday, swimming or weight training, and I find that moving your body can help with the management of anxiety and stress, also it gives you a ton more energy to play with your kids!

Who or what inspires you? I am inspired by the everyday hero. The single mum of 4 boys who raised one million in funding to manufacture her unique pharma product while holding down a part-time job and wading through a messy divorce. (My pal Sinead) The Dad who shows up everyday for his kids, dropping them to school to support his wife or partner so she can have a career, or build her dream business. He makes the lunches, hangs out the washing, even picks up the shopping each week. (My partner Sean) The parents who lost so tragically this year and had to say goodbye to their son’s / daughters in a pandemic with no funeral, no family support or hugs or loves. (my parents) Life can be extremely tough at times, and my inspiration comes from the everyday heroes who choose to live their best life against all the odds.

www.peachylean.co.uk

OCT 2021

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Supporting your child’s wellbeing

Karen Gibb, Founder of Mind Marvels

I’ve worked with young people for a number of years now, in a range of capacities. Firstly as a youth worker, then as an early years practitioner, graduating as a teacher and now as Founder of Mind Marvels.

Throughout, it’s become increasingly clear that children and young people were facing mental health crises even before Covid-19 emerged and is what initially encouraged me to quit teaching to focus on working directly with young people on their emotional wellbeing. Now, after such a prolonged period away from education, school can feel daunting and overwhelming for some pupils. Young people may be feeling anxious, stressed or unsure how school will be for them now. Younger children don’t say, “I’ve had a hard day, can we talk?” They say, “will you come and play with me?” We can often forget play is a vital component for children to talk about their day at school and their feelings. For older children and teenagers, it can be a drive in the car or watching a TV show together that can spark deep conversation. Actively encouraging children to talk about things that upset them, including any fears or worries, can be therapeutic for the child. It won’t necessarily burden them further, they can feel relief instead! As parents and educators, it’s ok to share some of your own childhood worries and fears. This will help children to understand that feeling anxious and worried is normal and acceptable. We all feel this way sometimes – even as adults! We can model by talking about times when we felt certain ways, so children know that we have experienced similar feelings and that we are here for them. Building a solid support system around our children is crucial for their development, especially right now. If children confide in other adults, that can also be positive. It shows they have built further secure attachments in their lives. School can be a worry for pupils as they may have experienced long periods of isolation during lockdown. This can induce further concern for the young person with a range of different viewpoints from “Will anyone even remember me?” to ‘I’ve forgotten how to talk to my classmates!”. We can help build children’s vocabulary by introducing different words for our feelings from an early age. For example, sadness could also be anxiety or scared. Children may notice how their body reacts when they experience different types of feelings, such as their tummy might be sore when they are feeling stressed. We can sometimes mistake this for sickness, or children may think they are themselves ill. Take note of children’s physical complaints if they complain of a tummy ache/headache etc., and gently explain that it might be their body’s way of telling them something. We can have that open OCT 2021

dialogue with our young people by letting them know we sometimes have that “knot in our tummy”, too. School can be increasingly stressful for older pupils - the worry about the cancellation of exams and college/university entrance for some.

The number one important tip is one most adults may not practice very well themselves...sleep! Young people need ideally 8-10 hours of sleep a night. We know we are not always getting enough sleep, particularly due to phones or gadgets being accessed until late into the night. For young people especially, it can help to make an effort to go to bed earlier and keep phones away from the bed.

Tip 2 is exercise - even when young people

feel they “don’t have time” or are “too busy studying”. Exercise will release those endorphin hormones that give us the natural high for increased energy and alertness for learning.

Tip 3 is healthy eating. Eating well can give that much needed energy to clear minds and help with memory. Besides eating well, hydration is important for our brains, so we should aim for 6-8 glasses of water a day. Tip 4

to help with school stress would be to concentrate on our breathing. We breathe all day, every day, but when we actually take the time to deep breathe, inhaling and exhaling, this makes a huge difference to our bodies. Controlled deep breathing allows minds to be clear and ready for life’s challenges. Finally, self-care is so vital. Take some time to enjoy life. Watch a movie, make a cup of hot chocolate, have a bath - inexpensive ideas, but this will allow young people to destress and unwind. It’s not necessarily important for young people to “catch up” on their learning. Looking after our mental health must be addressed first and foremost in order to feel ‘brain ready’ to learn. Most of all, in the ever-changing chaotic world we live in, being present for our young people is key.

www.mindmarvels.co.uk

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Helping children unlock their full potential by building a stronger foundation The first few years of a child’s life (starting from conception) play a vital role in creating and establishing a solid foundation for further development.

Sophie Thwaites, Helping children get back into their body and ready to learn Essential brain pathways are created during these first few years, but if not correctly formed at the right time or in the right order, they can significantly impact a child’s development. This can lead to later challenges around how they learn, how they co-ordinate their body, how they interact with their environment and how shy, anxious or confident they are. If, for any reason, these brain and body connections are not made during this period, we can actually create them later in life through specific movement programmes, ensuring that the child develops these strong foundations - crucial for all areas of life. Before I briefly cover the theory behind this, let me first start with my story. When I was 16, I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia and was offered additional support at school. I received help with my essay writing, was taught tools to help me understand and retain information, and was provided with colour overlays to ease reading. But I didn’t feel like these were helping and instead felt like the gap between my peers and me was widening.

Fortunately, a staff member at the school had recently completed some training, which focused on movement-based exercises to help children overcome a range of challenges, including writing, co-ordination and concentration – my key difficulties. She assessed my suitability, and I was soon set up on a 12-month programme. I was required to do a specific set of exercises, which mirrored early movements carried out as a baby, for 5-10 minutes every day, which changed every few weeks. The changes I experienced over the course of the year were gradual, but after my family and I compared who I was before the 12 months to after, we realised the changes were astonishing. My grades had improved, my handwriting was a lot neater, my ability to concentrate and retain information was better, my general co-ordination and balance had improved, and I was no longer a shy, introverted girl, but someone who was more confident and grounded in all areas of my life.

The programme that was so instrumental in shaping me into the person I am today is the same one that I now use to help children overcome their challenges and reach their true potential. I have witnessed some incredible transformations in children over the years; and have seen huge improvements in areas such as writing, reading and maths, all without picking up a single pencil or book during the exercises. The theory behind these transformational exercises lies with primitive reflexes. Primitive reflexes are a group of motor reflexes found in newborn babies. These develop within the womb and are essential in the birthing process, as they help the newborn take its first breath and support its early survival. They instinctively enable us to perform certain tasks such as feeding, grasping, responding to danger, lifting our head, rolling, crawling, standing and eventually walking. All being well, the primitive reflexes should be fully integrated and suppressed within the body by the age of 1. If these reflexes are not suppressed in the first year, they can interfere with subsequent motor development, visual functioning (needed for reading), hand-eye co-ordination (needed for writing), and perceptual skills. While there can be many social and educational factors for specific learning difficulties, physical abilities underpin every learning and social interaction aspect. When these challenges are corrected, children can start to not only achieve but thrive. Over the years, I have witnessed incredible transformations and long-lasting changes in every child I have worked with, including confidence growth, improved writing, easier reading, and better coordination. The programme is simple yet amazingly powerful. It works from the source of the challenges, creating a more solid foundation from which everything else falls into place. If you are curious to learn more about the bespoke programmes I run and how they could help your child, please feel free to contact me to arrange a FREE assessment and consultation.

www.sophiethwaites.co.uk

OCT 2021

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James Sutcliffe

IN CONVERSATION

CEO of The Founding Network James Sutcliffe is married and a father of 1, he is the CEO of The Founding Network. His team has just launched a four-part documentary series called Founders Changing The World, showcasing the insights behind 25 leading entrepreneurs looking to change the world; their day-to-day lives, success and failures, trials and tribulations and the rewards of seeing a project come to fruition.

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Tell us a bit about yourself? I run The Founding Network - a community of the UK’s most innovative founders who collaborate, enabling them to scale as efficiently as possible. I (try to) balance this with family life - my wife Mel, our one-year-old daughter Mila and our red fox Labrador Leo!

Tell us about your journey. How did you get here? I have always been passionate about entrepreneurship, studying successful founders and starting businesses as young as 10. Following university, I worked around the world for one of the leading global membership organisations, I saw the power of bringing like-minded people together and couldn’t help but think how impactful this would be for founders who wear so many hats to scale their businesses. You can’t be an expert in everything, but we can create a community that is.

What are some challenges you faced early on, and how did you beat them? Having run the business on the side for about a year, I left my job to work full time on The Founding Network in March 2020, the same month the first lockdown was enforced. For added pressure Mila (our baby) was due in the July. It’s easy to start doubting yourself about whether you have made the right decisions when things don’t go your way, but you just have to stay focused on the bigger vision!

How do your values show up in the work you do? Since day one of The Founding Network, I wanted to create a place people would love to work. Our team are incredibly talented, and we can therefore give them full autonomy to focus on what we can achieve rather than when/where we are working. We also live our product by making full use of our community when we need advice or feedback ourselves.

What was the last thing you did that made you really proud?

How do you manage your time between family and business?

We are so proud to have recently released Founders Changing The World - our four-part documentary exploring the mindsets, ambitions and realities of some of the UK’s most innovative founders.

This is a really tough balance and one I don’t think you can ever get 100% right. As a founder, your mind is constantly on the business, which comes with the guilt of never been fully present with family and friends.

We were determined to give a very raw insight into life as a high growth, innovative founder. The sacrifices these people make does not act as an advertisement for entrepreneurship, but they make the way they are truly trying to change the world, that much more inspiring. Check it out at www.founderschangingtheworld.com

I learned early on just how time consuming starting a business is, and you start to feel like you are always in the wrong place at the wrong time, home life needs your attention while at work and vice versa (particularly with a young child).

Today, rather than focusing on a balance of time, I aim to be 100% present in each moment (either at work or with family) - this is much easier said than done, something I’m still working on.

What advice would you give to a parent who is about to start a business? It may not be the ideal time to start a business, but I am a big believer in ‘it’s the hardest point in your life to start a business, but it’s the easiest it will ever be’. This is what pushed me to finally take the plunge. I have found that it’s really important to give yourself some flexibility and be very open with those you work with on this flexibility. If you need to pick the kids up in the afternoon, say that rather than having a ‘meeting’ in the diary!

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Work-life is fairly full on, so in my spare time, it’s great to unwind by spending time with the family - we often go on long hikes with the dog. I’m a big Leeds United fan and like to play football (to a terrible standard!) as well as getting down to the coast to surf whenever I can.

Who or what inspires you? I am lucky to be inspired by the founders we work with every day. They are doing incredible things to either change the world or an individual’s whole world. I have come to realise that feeling inspired is very temporary, and the thing to look for is what truly motivates you. This is what will get you up each morning.

www.founderschangingtheworld.com

OCT 2021

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Coming to Terms with Being Involuntarily Childless I’m Berenice, a freelance designer, and founder of Hello Lovely, a design business in Cambridge creating print material including books for all age groups, including primary, branding, and websites. I guess I’m also a rebel in writing here as I’m not a mother to a living child. I’m one of the seventy-two percent for whom IVF fails and makeup one of forty-eight million women who are involuntarily childless. Creating allies is an area I’m keen to explore with you

Berenice Smith, Freelance Designer, and Founder of Hello Lovely It’s been eleven years since my last IVF cycle resulted in a miscarriage - almost to the day of writing. Since then, I fell apart with PTSD, adopted a rescue dog, walked to the edge of an actual cliff, went through redundancy, graduated with a Masters Degree in graphic design and typography, have won or shortlisted for awards including the Cambridgeshire Digital Awards and The IPSE Freelancer of the Year. I have spoken at Fertility Fest in London twice. I am an Ambassador for World Childless Week. I’m an unreformed goth, nerdy about fonts and passionate about equality and the art of listening. In learning to live with my grief, by understanding it’s a bag I’ll always carry, but I can share the load, I’ve cycled through the stages of grief and back again. In times of bitterness, I’ve walked away from parents for fear of judgment, pity, being asked if I’d tried hard enough or considered adoption. I understand why one may want to offer a solution; it’s in our nature to help. Much misunderstanding about what it is to be involuntarily childless perhaps comes from not knowing what to say or do? Every media story that reveals a happy ending to a journey of infertility shuts down another, which ended with loss or never began due to circumstance. It’s telling that the statistics on men are unrecorded. Dr Robin Hadley, a researcher on male infertility, says, “Research on men who are

involuntarily childless is important not only because of actual and projected demographic change but also because the evidence based on the effects of male involuntary childlessness on men as they age is virtually nonexistent. However, in many countries, there are more childless men than equivalent women.” As I’ve come to terms with my losses, I set up a podcast, The Full Stop, with Michael Hughes and Sarah Lawrence. Between us, we’ve broadcast thirty-two episodes on subjects around childlessness to encourage conversation in our community and to educate and inform family, friends, and relatives of those who are. One in 6 women are childless; it’s very likely you know someone.

What do I mean about creating allies? Well, it’s sharing experiences and boundaries to set an expectation of how childless, not by choice, people deserve to be treated. And that’s not an easy task, not least because of centuries of misrepresentation. Cruella de Ville, witch-hunts, and numerous evil stepmothers comes to mind. Even in The Game of Thrones, fathers are portrayed as sexual and brave warriors. Childless men are inferior, unwanted or sickly. These narratives invoke shame, one that

subconsciously feeds into society’s perception and creates a climate of pronatalism. Overcoming these narratives requires a considerable act of self-forgiveness, the fragility of which is easily upended by external criticism or narcissism. It’s building bridges, so the next generation - your children and grandchildren - experience better mental health and are accepted into society. If you find yourself wondering if that’s real, the Full Stop has broadcast episodes on social divides. Yvonne John, the author of Dreaming of a Life Unlived, discussed fertile and racial stereotypes; in Loneliness In A Pandemic guest, Julia shared the intense isolation of living in Spain during lockdown as a lone single person surrounded by families. In Men Matter Too, guests talk about being eyed with suspicion as childless men as if they were criminals. Our mental health episode with Meriel Whale remains one of our most popular downloads.

In learning to live with my grief, by understanding it’s a bag I’ll always carry, but I can share the load, I’ve cycled through the stages of grief and back again. The noun ally is defined as ‘being a person who associates or cooperates with another’. As a verb, it’s ‘to enter into an alliance’. In practice, how might that work? •

We may struggle to communicate because we’re all uncomfortable. Not much about infertility is sexy, and to say one can’t have children conjures up all sorts of scenarios. Reading up about the reasons is beneficial. Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women, author, psychotherapist, and TEDx speaker, wrote ‘50 ways not be a mother (with apologies to Paul Simon).

•

Is there another introduction that can bring people together at your event or group or in your bio? What about the location, coffee, biscuits, Great British BakeOff or shoes - we all love shoes, don’t we?

OCT 2021

•

Baby showers can be upsetting, as can collections and scan photos. They are reminders of loss as well as celebration. Giving space and choice is recognising grief.

•

Appreciate that ‘as a parent’ isn’t inclusive language. Some experiences are specific to parenthood, but many more are universal. Try different scenarios or ‘the children in your life’ to welcome a wider audience, including childless and childfree.

• Enough of the stereotypes. Family is a broad term, and we’re all humans with diverse needs and commitments. •

If someone tells you that they can’t be a parent, it is a honour and an act of trust. Compassionate responses are ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘do you want to talk’ and not forgetting.

During the last eighteen months, I’ve seen friends from all sides, parents or childless (not by choice) and childfree (by choice) weather a front like no other. I have enormous respect for everyone. It’s the same storm, different boats.

Resources https://gateway-women.com/50-ways-not-to-be-amother-with-apologies-to-paul-simon/ www.thefullstoppod.com https://www.robinhadley.co.uk https://findingmyplanb.wordpress.com https://www.merielwhalecounselling.co.uk

www.hellolovely.design

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Small Business Spotlight Pop My Way Sashe Christopher Briefly tell us about you? Hi there, I’m Sashe, the owner and founder of Pop My Way. I’m married to an incredible guy and am the proudest mama to an amazing 6-year-old girl. Before Pop My Way popped, I spent 6 years in a senior position within ‘Buying and Merchandising’ at Burberry. Before that, I spent 15 years in the fashion industry for some iconic brands and also worked with numerous designer children’s brands in the UK, including Prada, Baby Dior and Roberto Cavalli.

What inspired you to start your business? A tricky pregnancy and birth of my daughter prompted me to start thinking about ways to make the early days with new babies easier. Frustrated by nappy changes and feeds complicated by inflexible and impractical clothing, the idea of a simpler way was born. Curious about where and how my daughter’s clothes were produced, I began to weave my other passion, sustainability, into the concept. I was born in Durban, South Africa, at the time the country was segregated under apartheid. As a child of colour, I heard all the stories about what my parents, grandparents and others had to endure. I noticed the injustices and the massive divide between those who were privileged and those who had nothing. Importantly, I noticed what everyday people did with the little that they had. I saw the informal housing settlements that people built by themselves from scraps of metal, plastic bags or other throwaway items that they found. Sustainability is a way of life in South Africa because people are forced to reuse and recycle as much as possible. Old clothes and leftover food are always welcomed by someone, and one man’s scrap is another man’s treasure. Bottles and cans are collected to be traded in for cash, and any usable material is used to build homes, toys, or ornamental items to be sold.

Pop My Way’s entire supply chain is fully GOTS-certified, so everything from energy and water use, to hazardous chemicals /use of non-chemical dyes, to the social responsibility and wages the factory workers get paid is monitored and audited regularly.

OCT 2021

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Small Business Spotlight This is so inspiring to see, and I want the world to know that my beautiful country is about so much more than violent crime – it is also about sustainability, ingenuity and innovation. I started Pop My Way with these ideas of sustainability and innovation at the forefront of my mind. Unlike other brands who claim to be ‘sustainable’ just by using organic fabrics, Pop My Way’s entire supply chain is fully GOTS-certified, so everything from energy and water use, to hazardous chemicals /use of non-chemical dyes, to the social responsibility and wages the factory workers get paid is monitored and audited regularly. Our factory in Peru is GOTS-certified by Control Union (Licence No 866191).” Pop My Way is a culmination of my knowledge and experience in the fashion industry and my ambition to create a transparent childrenswear brand that parents can trust.

Tell us about your niche? The Pop My Way collection features mix-and-match baby essentials with interchangeable accessories that are designed to “pop” onto the garment. Attach collars, bibs or dummy/toy straps to the shoulder poppers on the bodysuits, cardigans or two-way zippered sleepsuit. Lost socks are also a thing of the past, thanks to Pop My Way’s clever ankle poppers on the trousers and socks. Being manufactured in a registered GOTS-certified factory means that everything is measurably sustainable, from the harvesting of our cotton to the rights of workers in our factories, all the way through to our packaging and even beyond with the new “Pop My Way Preloved” scheme. The collection comes in 7 delicious pastel colours and is made from certified organic Peruvian pima cotton, so it is luxurious, super soft and durable. Pima cotton is the finest cotton on the market and is hypo-allergenic, free from impurities and highly resistant to pilling. This makes it the perfect fabric for baby clothing while also ensuring garments stand the test of time so they can be passed down.

“Pop My Way Preloved” launched recently to allow customers to return their used Pop My Way clothing to us in exchange for a discount. Our hope is that more quality used clothing items will remain in circulation, and more people will be encouraged to buy preloved clothing, thus reducing the amount of garments produced and reducing textile waste in landfills. This will introduce circularity into the brand and will allow Pop My Way to be accessible to more customers.

www.popmyway.co.uk

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OCT 2021

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SPECIAL FEATURE Learning from Business Mistakes

Let’s start with two facts that will probably make you feel somewhat uncomfortable but accepting them will help you learn more in the long run. Firstly, you cannot run any business without making mistakes. Those that thrive do so because they learn from their mistakes. Secondly, mistakes hurt, dent the ego and pride, leave us red-faced, and are, frankly, uncomfortable. But, again, what we learn drives us forwards, and those that hide from or deny their mistakes are more likely to fail. Mistakes are part of the business process; they are a learning opportunity, not a failure, so here is some insight into how business mistakes are really opportunities. OCT 2021

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1. Recording Helps You Move Forward It is tempting to deal with it and sweep it under the carpet quickly when you make a mistake. However, keeping a list of mistakes is thought to be a better approach. It isn’t to make you feel bad or keep you relieving the awful moment but as a way to check in and see your learning journey. Not only will you ensure you never do that again, but as the years roll by, you will be able to see how far you have come and how much you have grown.

2. Question Your Mistakes Take yourself out of the situation and hold a mistake post-mortem. This helps you see the learning points and understand how to do things better in future. Look at what you were trying to achieve and compare that with the dreadful outcome. How could you have stopped that from happening? Could you have done something differently (hopefully, this will be a yes!). What happens next time this situation arises? How are you going to approach it differently to ensure it is a success?

3. Reassess Your Goals Often we fail to achieve something because, frankly, we are human. From a psychological point of view, stating a goal will lead to a lack of achievement in almost 90% of cases because you were not smart. SMART goals have a much higher success rate because we constrain them with deadlines and a framework proven to succeed. Goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. It also means mistakes are less likely and certainly not repeatable!

4. Welcome Failure Ouch! That doesn’t sound great, huh. But actually, mistakes can only occur with movement, so if you are making mistakes, you must be moving forward. Businesses that stagnate will not make mistakes because they are not trying and will likely fail anyway; being ok with failure acknowledges our ambition and determination to succeed. If you don’t question, change and evolve, you are not going anywhere, so get out there and take to your prospects, see what they want, decide how you can change, and set out to move forward. If some of those changes fail, you have learned more lessons, and that is business growth so embrace it.

What have you learned from business mistakes? We asked some lovely business owners to share their stories and lessons, so read on to find out what business mistakes taught them.

Asif Ahmed Managing Director of Acclivity and author of The Finance Playbook for Entrepreneurs www.acclivity.co “When I first started out in business, I hadn’t fully appreciated the importance of having contracts in place to support every legal relationship, like partners, suppliers and customers. I realised that this meant that at any point of contention, you always end up having to concede, as you are the small business. My advice, as a result, is always ensure there is at least a basic contractual arrangement in place to cover all relationships to avoid ambiguity and expectation gaps.”

Charlotte Springett (nee Young) Home Kitchen Eco www.homekitcheneco.com “I found that saying yes to every idea that is suggested can lead to over diversification and customer confusion. Create a strategy for launching new products early on and stick to it, this avoids letting the number of SKUs get out of control and remain relevant to your business ethos. Virtual suggestion boxes are a great way to capture these insights in a well considered manner.” “At times, I have tried to control too much myself. Invest time in delegating to your team to avoid the funnel neck process where progress reaches pause because you are holding the decision making too tightly.” “Sell smartly online; make sure you factor in your distributor commissions, site fees, card charges, e-shop platform charges and of course postage/drop shipper charges before you price and list online.” “Before briefing web designers to create your e-comms or EPOS engineers to programme products to the till be clear how you would like the categories

OCT 2021

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to flow through layering. Create a spreadsheet to see how they fit together and keep in mind the user at all times to decide upon keywords, this is especially important when working across platforms.”

You need to be sure that your audience and your market want the thing you’re creating in the first place. And have paid customers for it before you create it. After the program I created didn’t do as well as I hoped, when it came to launching The Sleep Nanny Academy, I took a different approach. I mapped it all out and created the program but before I put every intricate detail in there I got some enrolments. I pre-sold it and only really had the first few modules built at that point. As we progressed, I built it as we went on. In terms of delivery to the customer, it’s seamless as they don’t even notice anything as you’re always working ahead of the time frame that they’re on. I see this all the time now with people launching online courses and it works very well. So - pre-sell and create later. “My next mistake is around ‘shiny new object syndrome’. One of my mistakes has been to see a shiny new object - which, for me, is usually a tech platform that I’m attracted to that I think will make my life easier but often it’s not necessary anyway or not as good as I’d hoped and turns out to be a distraction. I know in the past that I have spent more time setting up automated systems that will run on autopilot to save me time but in reality, it’s often cheaper and easier to ask an admin to do it for you. So, sometimes you can lose yourself time by trying to save yourself time so choose your tech platforms wisely.

Lucy Shrimpton Founder of The Sleep Nanny and The Sleep Nanny Academy www.sleepnanny.co.uk There are three big lessons that I’ve learnt on my business journey. “One of the biggest mistakes I made and learnt from early on was to pre-sell and create later. When you have an idea you need to be really clear and really sure of the marketability of something before putting loads of time and energy into creating it. The example I can give is for an idea I had for a program where I spent lots of time, money and energy on building it, creating it and it was great but I didn’t really have a marketing plan or how I was actually going to sell it! Whilst we did make some sales, it just didn’t have that big success. So, what I learnt from this was to pre-sell before making something.

“The plus side of that is that I’ve learnt a huge amount and have amazing tech set up for the business but I still have to stop myself sometimes because I’ve learnt not to just jump onto the next shiny new platform or whatever it may be! “My third biggest mistake that I have learnt from is not to “down-delegate”, a term I’ve made up! Make sure you always “up-delegate”. This comes from the time in business when you reach a point where you know you can’t do everything anymore and every growing business is going to hit that point. So what I’ve learnt is, don’t think that you can train somebody who is probably best positioned to do admin to do marketing, social media and PR and fully understand you and your business. All of these things require specialist skills. The chances are, you’re going to be pretty good at writing copy from your own voice or posting on social media so make sure you don’t “down-delegate” to someone whose not as skilled as you. Make sure that you’re never left thinking “this isn’t good enough, I may as well do it myself.” Delegate to people who, at minimum, are going to do it as good as you would, but ideally

much better.”you always end up having to concede, as you are the small business. My advice, as a result, is always ensure there is at least a basic contractual arrangement in place to cover all relationships to avoid ambiguity and expectation gaps.”

a scheduling platform so you can create and set up auto-post for your social content. For style it is important to keep your customer touch points the same, including your social, website, packaging - so keep your grid, highlights and colours on brand. 2. Don’t print your packaging until you have traction and a clear idea of your brand, package size and customer feedback. We printed our packaging very early, and ordered lots of it! But the size was too big for retail, and we didn’t highlight the right USPs on the front, something we learned from experience and some market research. As we didn’t want to just bin it, we now use it for food service, but it isn’t ideal. For a new business, try to use generic packaging with branded labels and nice details such as branded tape or ribbon as things change quickly. 3. As a self-funded startup, I have paid a lot of agencies and freelancers, some were invaluable, and I still use, but some I could have done myself with basic training. This isn’t to say what I could do would be as thorough or good as an agency, but understanding your knowledge gaps and looking to fill them yourself in the early days saves money and broadens your knowledge for when you are ready to hire someone. Look for quality courses or even classes at your local or online university. After completing the course, you will be able to take this on yourself, or you will have a greater understanding when looking for outside help.

Kari Sherman Tom Pom Organic www.tompomorganic.com 1. One of the costliest mistakes I made was hiring someone to kick off our Instagram and Facebook accounts without clear goals and expectations. Not feeling overconfident on socials, I wanted to create a style, grow followers and learn the ropes, so we hired a small agency. The flat fee was for three months under a contract. The first post was mid-month, and though they said they would do five stories a week, they were busy, had a holiday, and I did most of the stories. The end of the month came, and the full fee was billed as it was per the contract. SO, I learned first to be clear with contract start and finish dates and with clear, written expectations and goals. As for paying someone to run your social, save your money and do it yourself. Nobody knows your brand and tone of voice like you, so paying someone is a waste of time. It is better to invest in Canva and OCT 2021

It is tempting to deal with it and sweep it under the carpet quickly when you make a mistake. However, keeping a list of mistakes is thought to be a better approach.

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achieved absolutely zero and which I didn’t understand. This wasn’t the developer’s fault. I had no brief for him, no solid plan for what I wanted my website to say or do, didn’t get professional images done, and had no real strategy for driving organic traffic. I also was so hands off it became ridiculous. It became a lovely online brochure that nobody could find. My solution – once I accepted that I’d made a mistake, I reached out for a solution which in my case was to launch a quick blog site (take my original site down) and to start blogging using my own voice. I outsourced its creation (cost me about £300 at the time) and managed it myself, blogging several times a week. This bore results in terms of interactions and even work within three months. I learned people read and watch even if they don’t interact. Later I worked with another web developer to up my game, similar to my original budget however, more hands on, clearer goals. I’ve worked with that person ever since. Your website needs to evolve with you, it is not a static business asset, particularly if you are a consultant like me.

Fiona Scott Scott Media www.scottmedia.uk My biggest mistakes in business were: 1. When redundancy loomed, and I made the decision to go freelance, I invested in increasing my skill set instead of learning how to ‘do business’. I thought about being an even more highly skilled freelancer than being a business owner. Running a business is an art and a process, invest in this rather than adding professional strings to your bow. For start-ups, there is a lot of support out there, start with your local enterprise partnership and attend free events around how to run a business. My one skill around this is that I’ve always been quick to learn from my mistakes and to reach out for help – most journalists are ‘super connectors’ when we need someone, we can find them quickly. Invest what time and resources you have into solving your problems as they arise. I’ve always invested in business coaches to help me move forward, it’s a wise investment once you’ve found the right coach or mentor. Learn and move on quickly. 2. I knew I needed a website as I realised the digital world was crucial even back in 2008 – that was the bit I got right. I paid well over £2,000 for a website which

3. Apologising for being a parent – it’s very easy, often for women, to see being a parent as a weakness. Make it a strength. As I had in my last corporate role, I often felt like I had to apologise for being a parent, for not being able to work all of the time every day. One day, probably about two years in, I found myself doing this yet again, and I had a lightbulb moment. IT’S MY BUSINESS, AND I DECIDE THE PARAMETERS, and that’s no-one else’s business. From that moment on, I did not apologise, my diary was my own, and I became unembarrassed to say ‘that’s my family time I don’t work weekends’ or ‘I work until 5.30pm only’. Today as my children are older, that’s less of an issue however, it’s still my choice. Being a parent and a business owner is about managing time well, including personal and family time and setting boundaries. Remember, time and money are currency – the former can never be replaced. Being there for your children at key moments is priceless – and if that means your business grows more slowly, accept this and act accordingly, don’t just pay it lip service. My tip here is to be authentic and unapologetic about who you are and your life story. Even as a journalist I had to learn this for myself. I made the decision to run my own business because of my family rather than seek out another full-time tv role. Own it. Make it part of your journey, and the right customers will come. Those who won’t accept the way you work are not your customer and don’t value what you do.

There’s nothing quite like the magic eye of a graphic designer to give your business that extra wow!

Brand Identity Marketing Material Business Stationery Advertising

www.b81designs.com

champions your brand design that

OCT 2021

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Stress free Christmas? Early preparation and planning is the key Catherine Erdly, Small business retail expert For retailers and service providers - Christmas is the ultimate adrenaline-filled, action-packed, make-or-break time of the year. Life is a whole lot easier if you start your preparation and planning early to ensure a smooth-running festive period and to maximise the time of year when purse strings are loosened. Customers are ready to buy something special for those they love, including experiences, meals out, pamper days – there’s a spending customer for everyone – so get planning! During the peak months, you can expect to see higher traffic to your website and more people in your stores if you have a physical shop. There will be more people in restaurants and bars with Christmas parties. All of this should (fingers-crossed) be translating into higher sales, with more stock to be sent out and more customer service queries to deal with.

This is the perfect time to get your marketing messages really focused and effective. You need to plan any promotions that you want to do and think about how you can reach out to your customer at this crucial time of year. You want to convince them that your products or service are the perfect gift for others or treat for themselves. As a small business owner, you are also juggling getting ready for this peak time with all of your other personal commitments. In other words, the pressure is on, and there is a lot to do! The good news is that you can prepare a lot in advance so that your main focus during the peak months is purely on driving sales. During those months, you should be selling and talking to your customers to make sure they are delighted with what they buy and the service they receive, not frantically looking for images for an unplanned promotion.

In an ideal world, you will have started over the summer but don’t panic if you haven’t yet – you can catch up. Below is a checklist that you can use from now in October.

October: 1.Planning Both practically and financially, planning can make a huge difference in how successful your holiday season turns out to be. Take the time to plan your Christmas sales based on what you know you want to achieve for your business. If you haven’t already decided on your Christmas product range or service offers - arrange final orders and confirm deliveries with your suppliers so that you are not having a lastminute scramble for stock or materials. 2.Marketing Dedicate a good chunk of time to planning out your festive marketing – your Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Christmas, Boxing Day to plan around – plan out weekly promotions and messages. Christmas emails to prep and nay paid advertising – plan all of this, and you’ll reap the rewards. 3.Staffing Check all your staffing requirements - book any extra help you might need to get packages sent, man your stall or shop, answer customer queries or just have an extra pair of hands! 4. Online Ready Plan a thorough check of the website to make sure that all processes are working correctly - now would be the perfect time to ask friends and family to test it for any bugs or issues. How will your customers search for your product or service during the holiday season? Think of season-specific SEO terms like “stocking filler” and so on. 5. Review Your Planner Refine your week-by-week planner for the peak weeks - making sure you have all the relevant dates for promotions being run by any partner organisations - e.g. Etsy or notonthehighstreet.com, what are their key dates? 6. Check all of your basic business services Are you ready to go and set up for the big push - you don’t want to be worrying about shopping around for insurance in December! OCT 2021

7. Pack Away The Pumpkins After Halloween is the perfect time to launch your Christmas campaign/switch over the website/ graphics/windows to more festive themes. If you don’t want to go all in with a full festive launch, you could add a few teaser images to your social media.

November 1.Keep Messaging Up to Date Update your business listings with your Christmas opening hours (if relevant), dates for ‘last chance to buy’, posting cut offs etc. 2.Don’t Forget Boxing Day! If you’ve decided to have a Boxing Day sale, now is the time to review which products you want to put into that sale. Take a look at what is selling and make a decision about which products are not working and need to be cleared. 3.Get Set For Black Friday OR Small Business Saturday Make sure you have thought logically about what you want to promote if you are participating - don’t get sucked into a last-minute discounting frenzy to drive sales! 4. Sell, Sell, Sell! Sales should have started to build - in fact, for some types of products, this may be a bigger month for you than December. (For more details on the sales peaks, download the checklist with key dates here).

December 1.Sell, Sell, Sell Again! This really should be your main activity for this month, which is why you want to do as much as possible ahead of time. Remember that this is the time of year where you will be reaching more customers than at any other time, so make sure you are surprising and delighting them now so that they come back in the new year. Ultimately the Christmas season should be one of the most exciting and fun times of the business year so whatever you do – make sure you enjoy it!

www.resilientretail.com

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Jo Carroll,

IN CONVERSATION

Co-Founder of Winchcombe Farm Jo spent 27 years working for the Government (DWP, DfT and MOD), 15 years of which were spent working as a press officer. Birmingham born and bred before emigrating to Warwickshire 10 years ago, when wellies became my staple footwear. Mum to two boys – Will (aged 11) and Bob (aged 6). Both dyslexic plus Will is autistic (PDA) with ADHD, SPD, dyspraxia and anxiety. Chicken keeper, alpaca mummy (4 more boys) and pony owner.

Jo runs an independent holiday retreat is hidden away on a private country estate in the glorious Warwickshire countryside on the north east tip of the Cotswolds in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Surrounded by a working farm, Winchcombe Farm lies beneath the famous battlefield landmark of Edgehill and makes the perfect base for exploring Stratford-upon-Avon and some of the picturesque Cotswold villages nearby.

Tell us about your journey. How did you get here? Expert juggler (not with balls). Ancient mother of two young children who runs very nice holiday lodges for people who like star gazing and spending lazy summer days in hammocks. Opened in 2018 with one holiday lodge and now have six, all built and designed by my long-suffering architect partner Steve, who loves it when I decide to move walls when he’s just built them.

OCT 2021

The learning curve when starting this business was vertical. I’ve learnt a lot from making mistakes but always aspire to be the best at what we do. We seem to have hit on a winning formula, and I still don’t quite know how.

What was the last thing you did that made you really proud? The last thing that made me really proud was when we opened our sixth and final holiday lodge earlier this year. We did it against all the odds. We built it during the second lockdown when we were closed for six months. It really was incredibly hard - juggling homeschooling children, running the business while simultaneously constructing a new lodge with no income, and I managed to stay sane!.

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What’s been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome? I’ve had to overcome many big obstacles in my life, mainly health-related, but I believe they all teach you a valuable lesson in life. Overcoming challenges feels good, and I’ve learnt that there are very few problems in life where you can’t find a solution, although it isn’t always immediately obvious.

How do your values show up in the work you do? I always believe that you should treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. I think honestly, kindness and integrity get you a long way in life, along with always trying to do your best.

How do you manage your time between family and business? I don’t really manage my time between family and business very well at all. Working from home running a business when you are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week while caring for two young children is never going to be easy. I just try and keep all the plates spinning and hope for the best!

What is your best tip for someone struggling to take their idea forward? My favourite mantra is ‘Only dead fish go with the flow. Never be afraid to give it a try as long as no one dies, it will be ok.

How do you keep yourself motivated? The smell of success always makes me get out of bed in the morning. I want our business to be the very best it can be. I want my children to be happy. I want to look back and think I made a very small difference to this world.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? My only hobby since having kids is sleeping. It’s more of a luxury than a hobby, really!. In my carefree childless days, I choreographed and performed in amateur shows and received my NODA 25 year medal for services to dramatic arts.

Who or what inspires you? My father. He is the most caring, honest, gracious, thoughtful, calm, considerate, humble, accepting man on this planet.

www.winchcombefarm.co.uk

Easy nutrition hacks for a busy home and business

Yuki Solle, Healthy eating adviser, healthy eating, eco-living and money savvy blogger. Greenie. Following this past crazy seventeen months, each working parent will tell you what a juggling work, home and school life has been. We’ve all been on a roller coaster with the pandemic and have been affected in some shape or form. Eating well for better health and energy is important now more than ever before. As a foodie and nutritional adviser (I also blog about eco and money-savvy topics), one of my favourite ways to engage with folk is to keep food interesting and fun. There are so many fads out there. Is coconut oil good for us? Or eggs bad for cholesterol? One myth is about carbohydrates, as many people think they are bad and avoid them at all costs. However, one needs to be careful, as carbohydrates are not necessarily bad, one lady I worked with avoided carbs and was often hungry (but would end up eating fats). Factors such as metabolism and how active a person is, can play a big part. Thankfully, I assessed her food intake and made some food suggestions, and she did incredibly well to lose 5kg in 8 weeks. Understanding what food can do for us nutritionally, energy requirements and how to prepare food is so key. OCT 2021

So here are 7 simple tips & hacks to help you navigate the fine balance of eating well whilst also being a busy business parent. I touch on three things that many working parents struggle with regarding healthy food; time, budget, and food ideas.

1) Prepare Meal plans are fabulous, and lots of parents do this religiously as it’s one thing that can help make a smoother week ahead. But supposing you are a not a big fan of rigid plans? Supposing the meal you have planned for your family is not the flavour of that night? By prepare, I simply mean prep the ingredients so you can be flexible with your dish; get vegetables chopped, cut up some crudités, boil & peel eggs for protein fixes & salads, blitz up some homemade houmous, look up quick-cook recipes that take little thought or effort. There are certain ingredients that I always have in my fridge that have a longer shelf life, such as flour, herbs, salt, coconut oil, puff pastry, Greek yoghurt, eggs, peas and of course, tins of tomatoes, pulses and fish in the freezer!

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Working from home, I’d defrost ingredients from the freezer at lunchtime and have dinner organised by the time I’m back at my desk. I use trusted recipes that are always around 30 minutes or under.

and actually liked it. Getting vegetables in our diets can mean preparing it differently. They are all simple to make. (I recently made videos on these recipes on ‘Cooking for Good’ YouTube channel )

2) Eating the rainbow

3) Time hacks

You may have heard of this one, eating a large range of fruit and vegetables in different colours is an easy way to keep a wide range of nutrients in our diet. One of my favourite books is Ancient Remedies by Dr Josh Axe, his recipes use lots of different ingredients that can be a healthier choice. I love how Dr Axe explains why certain coloured veg are good for what. We often play dinner games – how many colours can you guess in this meal? Which means eating vegetables can actually be fun. Having ‘greens’ in our food is to grow garden vegetables or herbs, I know that in summer, I can pop to the garden and make nasturtium or basil pesto, cut spinach or kale crisps (they take 7-8 mins), and it’s an easy way to toss some green into our food! (No shopping required.) Eating seasonally also means that kids grow up knowing a diverse range of foods and keeps dishes interesting. (My 7-year-old knows it’s her job to peel the pomegranate & pick the cape gooseberries from the garden!) There are so many benefits to eating the rainbow, and it ensures that we cover a diverse range of nutrients.

Time is everything when it comes to productivity and business. So, understanding your energy can make a big difference.

We’ve all been on a roller coaster with the pandemic and have been affected in some shape or form. Eating well for better health and energy is important now more than ever before.

Especially If you have a large family, snacks are often overlooked in the healthy eating space. Rather than gravitating to the crisp’s packets and chocolates, have you thought about crudités ready chopped with houmous on standby? Other ways can be to have energy balls made – these keep really well and are usually made from nut butters, dates and all kinds of other nutritional ingredients from chia to ground almonds, beetroot powder to spirulina. Often dates are used to sweeten, so they end up with less sugar. Homemade cheese straws with chopped olives and sundried tomatoes are another easy favourite. Jars of olives and sundried tomatoes also keep well in the fridge, and you can use the left-over oils as salad dressings!

What if kids are not keen to eat certain veggies, I hear you say? What about fussy eaters? Could you put your left-over roasted veggies in a soup? Or create a vegetable puree and use it as a sauce? I’ve already mentioned kale crisps, what about parsnip crisps and chickpea snacks? I once made a vegetarian Bolognese out of mushroom for a non-mushroom eating friend. And guess what? He ate the mushroom

Are you a morning person or an evening person? Preparing meals and food prep is all about thinking ahead. Preparing vegetables, and peeling potatoes, for instance, have you thought about whether potatoes actually need peeling? As the skins provide fibre which helps clear our systems out. During the lockdown, I put a post out about making rustic chunky pub chips at home and how they only cost a few pence to make, and I got crazy interest in it, the post was a huge hit. It is so doable, and doesn’t take long at all. Just scrub some Maris piper potatoes, cut in chunky chips, boil in salted water for 15 minutes, then have a pan of olive oil heating up in 190 C oven, once potatoes are cooked, strain well and put in the sizzling oil and let them crisp up. I usually add Rosemary from the garden to add a herby flavour (and it’s green, of course!) and viola delicious chips!

4) Don’t forget snacks!

5) Quick cook equipment I’m not a big gadget person, as I like to keep a fuss-free kitchen, but the few pieces of equipment that have stood the test of time are my Nutribullet and Instapot. With my Nutribullet, I can make a quick houmous, pesto, purees, soups, even pasta and cake mixes. I’ve had it for over 10 years, and it’s extremely

handy at blitzing ingredients, only taking a few minutes. I make my Orange Peel cordial with this, and you can find the recipe in my blog. I created a way of making cordials out of orange skin as my kid loves squash, and I wasn’t too keen on the artificial sugars that were in most squash drinks. With the Instapot, I once poached a whole chicken in 22 mins! I put in leeks, carrots, Shitake mushrooms & ginger and used the pressure function. I cooked rice in the rice cooker simultaneously, then picked my child up from school club, and dinner was on the table in 30 minutes. The chicken broth was not bad either! I recently got an air fryer (my family loves crispy food), and to reduce the amount of oil in cooking means I can crisp up my chips in 10 minutes!

6) Make it fun Making food as a family - for those of us that are super busy with work, we can often feel guilty for not spending enough time with our kids, or guilty for allowing them to have too much screentime whilst we have to submit work, make calls and run our businesses. Why not make cooking fun? My 2-ingredient pizza base is so simple, and dinner is served in about 15-20 minutes! Mix a 500ml tub of Greek yogurt and self-rising flour until it becomes a dough, then flatten out in rounds. Have a colourful mix of vegetables and toppings, and everyone decorates their own pizza. Toppings can include chopped red peppers, tomatoes, grated cheese, spinach, chopped ham & cooked chicken, tinned pineapple chunks, tomato puree, fresh herbs. Grill in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, and viola, hopefully, the family has had fun, and you’ve all had some family time over dinner (or lunch!) For older kids, it’s also a way to teach and delegate so kids can grow up with at least one dish they know how to cook.

version and means no costly filters and no plastic, as they can be revived in 3 months by boiling then composted and cost around £8-£10. Hydration is so key, how often do we have kids shout mum (or dad!) I’m hungry!! We all know jolly well ‘hungry’ means for crisps, chocolate or other convenient snacks- why not start a rule in the house that before anyone says they’re hungry, they have to drink a glass of water first? Other ways include adding lemon, cucumber, oranges, limes & mint leaves to add taste. Water is a key to mental alertness and even helps digestion pre-dinner. Why not revive your energy by taking water differently? I hope you have found this helpful, and here’s to a stress-free and healthy Autumn & beyond! You can find my recipes and more on my blog, Cultivate Life.

www.cultivatethelife.com

7) Hydrate We all know water is good for us, but why do we not hydrate enough? I’m not talking tea, coffee, alcohol or fizzy drinks, but clear water that helps our cells to function at their best. One way I found to make water more attractive is to have a good filter. There are so many filters out there, and one of my favourites is a Berkey filter. I bought a medium one, and believe it or not, for a family of 3, the filters last for about 11 years! So, this works out so economical in the long run (and saves buying bottled water – and using disposable plastic). Ours is located by the dining room table and on tap, it has improved the drinking habits of our household. A charcoal stick is a cheaper OCT 2021

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Parents in Business Directory Joy Foster TechPixies

Salihah Agbaje Spoken World Productions

Vee Roberts Insight2marketing

TechPixies is an award-winning CPD accredited online learning platform with a social mission to help women leverage the power of modern technology (Social Media, WordPress and MailChimp) to improve women’s access to employment or help them to start a business.

Spoken World Productions are a Theatre in Education organisation operating across London and the globe (virtually!) to bring fun, educational and enriching Drama lessons to primary aged children. Their sessions are designed to work in line with all subjects and can be tailored to the individual curriculum, so if you are a school teacher, home educator, enrichment officer or parent seeking a drama package for your child to enjoy, they can help.

Insight2marketing is a Full-Service brand & Marketing agency led by Vee Roberts, an award-winning Brand & Marketing Coach.

Podcast

Services offered

Courses

1-2-1 coaching sessions

Social Media Management and Event Services

www.techpixies.com

Online drama sessions

Services offered Free training Workshops

www.spokenworldproductions.com

Services offered Strategic Planning Campaign Design and Implementation Brand Development Web Design Leaflet Distribution

www.insight2marketing.com

You can find these businesses and more on our online directory

Michelle Molyneux MJM Virtual Solutions

Louise Worsley Worsley Training

Nadene Martin Format Services Limited

Your everyday virtual admin solution providing personal assistant support to conquer general admin tasks, so consultants and small businesses can focus on growing their business.

Worsley Training is run by Louise Worsley, a professional teacher with an instinctive ability to make learning First Aid memorable and enjoyable. She has over fifteen years of hands-on First Aid experience, both as a global expedition leader and as a parent.

Format Services is a Virtual Assistant Company taking care of all of your administration needs. Offer various services which can support you to grow your business, and you can view them further in the Services section. There are many benefits of outsourcing your administration, which you can discuss further as every business is unique.

Services offered General administration Research Proofreading and editing Virtual personal assistant www.mjmvirtualsolutions.com

Some of the courses offered Baby and Child First Aid Paediatric First Aid

Services offered

Mini Life-Savers (first aid for primary school children)

Email Management

Teen-Aiders (First aid for teenagers & secondary school children)

Project management

Basic Life Support with Defibrillator First Aid Training So many other courses are on offer so be sure to check out the website.

Transcription Venue Bookings And so much more, be sure to check out Nadene's website www.formatservices.co.uk

www.worsleytraining.co.uk

OCT 2021