Parents in Business Magazine

ISSUE 7 • FEBRUARY 2020

IN CONVERSATION WITH

Niki Hutchison

ENTREPRENEUR

10 things to help improve your website

Don't fall out of love with your business Small business spotlight Box of Hugs London Market Yourself The Art of Self-Promotion 1

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CONTENTS ISSUE 7

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www.parentsinbiz.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2020

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36

MARKETING

FOOD

5 tactics to promote your business in 2020

6 CHALLENGE How to overcome any challenge and thrive in 2020

8 YOUR WEBSITE 10 Things to help improve your website

12 IN CONVERSATION Niki Hutchison of nikihutchison.com

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28

MARKETING Attract customers to your business with content marketing

RELATIONSHIPS 3 Top tips for a healthy relationship

Quick, easy, Nowt Poncy® bolognese Parents in Business magazine is available in

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31

IN CONVERSATION Melanie Hunter Yell

MARKET YOURSELF

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33

YOUR BUSINESS Don’t fall out of love with your business

PERSONAL STORY Anti-natal & postnatal depression – my story

digital and print.

The art of self-promotion

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34

SPOTLIGHT Box Of Hugs London

FOOD Healthy meal prepping

Don’t forget to follow us on social media, we love getting to know you!

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CONTRIBUTORS

RUTH BUCKINGHAM, FREELANCE MARKETING CONSULTANT Ruth is a Freelance Marketing Consultant operating as Kandu Marketing. She provides jargon-free marketing strategy and content marketing for small business owners. This usually starts with content strategy or copy-writing. www.kandumarketing.co.uk

SARA BUSSANDRI, WRITER, AUTHOR & MENTOR Sara is a Digital Content Writer who specialises in helping small business owners and podcasters with blogging and re-purposing audio and video content into standalone blog posts. She’s a mum of three boys who works around school runs, laundry loads, and football matches. www.sarabussandri.com CORI JOSIAS, RELATIONSHIP AND DIVORCE COACH American-born Cori Josias has lived in the UK for 40 years with a background in the music business, training teachers, building a health and beauty business, life coaching, and relationship coaching. She successfully navigated a 20-year marriage as well as an amicable divorce and is the proud mother to two grown sons. She continues to build several businesses and coaches high-flying couples and divorcees. Cori can be contacted at cjosias@mac.com. www.facebook.com/gettingoverdivorcewithcori FIONA MINETT, CONSUMER PR EXPERT Fiona Minett is a Consumer PR Expert and long-time supporter of small business. She spent six years running Peachy PR, an agency specialising in working with small businesses and start-ups and helped her clients make their mark through canny PR. Now, she wants to help you do the same. www.bossyourpr.com HYACINTH MYERS, FOUNDER/ MANAGING DIRECTOR OF SOUL CONSCIOUS CREATIONS Hyacinth is a dual heritage mother of two sons. She is a Creative woman who still cannot define her title and also Founder/ Managing Director of Soul Conscious Creations Limited offering her signature course and workshops on her EMPOWER 7 women's personal development programme. She also uses her intuitive coaching skills and Holistic Therapies to help heal past adversities by empowering women to create their life by design. www.soulconsciouscreations.com SARAH SCOTLAND, COMMUNITY NUTRITIONIST Sarah Scotland (Wiseaboutfood CIC) provides benefits to communities in Hertfordshire and further afield, with respect to healthy eating, diet, exercise and the benefits of socialising, specifically this is intended to be the elderly, isolated, disabled, disadvantaged and children; also people who care for these groups: care home workers, early years workers, their support staff, health visitors, school caterers, parents too. wiseaboutfood.co.uk KATE STOW, FREELANCE EARLY YEARS CONSULTANT/TRAINER Kate Stow has been in the area of Early Years for a long time, nurturing and inspiring children to successful onward learning. She has a breadth of experience in many different settings over the years, including roles as a Private Nanny, Nursery Nurse in both hospitals and schools. Kate works as a freelance Early Years Consultant/Trainer. Through her business Nurture Every Step she offers to EYP’s, workshops and high-quality resources. To parents, she offers workshops or 1:1 coaching sessions to advise and support ways to: engage with their child and how to enable their environment to help the children’s learning and development. www.nurture-every-step.co.uk SARAH TJOENG, WEBSITE DESIGNER AND STRATEGIST Using her 12 years of digital experience, working as a User Experience Designer for big brands such as Tesco and Canon, Sarah is now helping smaller parent entrepreneurs grow their businesses online and get them to the next level. She helps smaller businesses upscale their digital presence and attract more customers by implementing key design and layout strategies on their websites and recommending best practice layouts and structures. She thrives on the psychology behind a website’s designs and wants to ensure that people with small businesses understand the need to continuously improve and analyse what they’re doing with it! www.daretodreamdigital.co.uk KAREN WALKER AND JULIAN ABEL, THE NOWT PONCY FOOD COMPANY Karen and Jools and we’re on a mission! A mission to bring fabulously tasty scoff to the world that’s full of all the good stuff and leaving out all the nasties. Nowt Poncy® products are low sugar and coeliac and vegan friendly (apart from the Big Easy Creole). www.nowtponcy.co.uk JODIE WEBBER, THE BUSINESSES COMMUNITY Jodie Webber has had a long career gaining valuable experience in Marketing, Print Management and Customer Service. Following a short career break for some family time, she decided to take the plunge and utilise her skills and experiences to help other local businesses. So in 2017, with a newborn daughter in one hand and a laptop in the other, Jodie started Enfield Businesses (now The Businesses Community Enfield – TBC Enfield). They currently have a thriving Facebook group, regular co-working monthly Jellies and are growing a good social audience as a platform to help their members. www.thebusinessescommunity.com BHAVINI LAKHANI , GRAPHIC DESIGNER Bhavini is an independent graphic designer specialising in branding and design for print, and is a mum of 2. She’s based in Milton Keynes, with a client base that spans global brands such as Conti Espresso, Barclaycard and British Gas, as well as local businesses across the UK. www.b81designs.com 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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EDITOR’S WELCOME Welcome to the 7th issue of the Parents in Business magazine.

We are committed to 2020, and beyond being the best, Sara Bussandri writes about some of the marketing communication strategies that you might want to employ in 2020 (and beyond) to promote your business and to help you achieve your goals.

On page 6, Hyacinth Myers covers how to overcome any challenge and thrive in 2020.

We have practical, actionable tips from Sarah Tjoeng, a Website Designer and Strategist she tells us 10 things to help improve your website. And continuing with actionable business advice Ruth Buckingham covers how to attract customers to your business with content marketing on page 16.

Bridget

Bridget Daley Editor

Page 31 Market Yourself - the art of self-promotion Fiona Minett As unnatural as it may feel, we must be our own cheerleaders and our own best advocates.

Our business spotlight goes to Box of Hugs London three sisters Anna, Sophie and Lucy who started a business together after their mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour they were inspired to fill a gap in the gifting market.

We have two inspiring interviews with Niki Hutchison of Nikihutchison.com. Niki is an entrepreneur based in Edinburgh, Scotland. And Melanie Hunter Yell Founder of Huff Equestrian.

And with it being the month of LOVE, we have you covered with articles covering business love and relationship love.

Happy reading!

www.parentsinbiz.co.uk

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

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5 Marketing Tactics to Promote your Business in 2020 2020 is here, and with the start of a brand, New Year (and decade!) comes the opportunity not only to review how things have been going in your business but also to decide on the best way forward. You probably spent some time devising a marketing strategy for your business at the beginning of the year. So now that you're clear on what you want to achieve, do you know what tactics and techniques will help you get there?

In this article, we look at some of the marketing communication strategies that you might want to employ in 2020 (and beyond) to promote your business and to help you achieve your goals.

#1 Embrace video In 2018, Cisco predicted that by 2019 80% of worldwide internet consumption would be video content. We're now in 2020, so if you're not promoting your business and your brand through video, you might be missing out!

Whether you opt for pre-recorded or live video, you have plenty of options when it comes to technology, formats, and platforms. YouTube is still the biggest player in the video content space, but social media channels also provide great opportunities for small businesses and personal brand entrepreneurs like us. Over the last few years, we've seen the incredible popularity of Facebook live video.

But other social media platforms are now becoming more and more prominent in the business space. Think of IGTV, TikTok, or LinkedIn, which is rolling out live video to a larger number of its users.If you haven't created a video before, now it's the time to start showing your face!

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#2 Use LinkedIn While platforms like Facebook and Instagram have been pushing towards paid-for content (making organic reach harder for small businesses), comparatively speaking, and LinkedIn still has a relatively small number of active users. So if you haven't started posting and engaging on LinkedIn, give it a go!

Organic reach and user engagement are high at the moment, and while things might change in the future,

LinkedIn could represent a great opportunity for you and your business. Try it out - sharing your message and your expertise with your audience could help you become an authority in your field.

#3 Re-use and re-purpose your content Don't just post things once! As much as we like to think that everyone consumes all the content that we publish on the internet, they don't! People are busy, and they can't tune into your channels 24/7. Plus, we all like to

consume content in different ways - different platforms, formats, and even times of the day. This means some of your ideal customers may never see your content! Think about Twitter - the lifespan of a tweet is only a few minutes! Updates on LinkedIn, on the other hand, might still get eyes on your content for days and weeks after you post.

So think about re-using and re-purposing your content across different platforms and formats. For example, you can turn a long-form blog post into numerous tweets or daily posts on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. From that same content, you can then create infographics or short videos.

When you get creative, the possibilities are almost endless!

Never just copy and paste though.

Instead, create content that follows the rules of the platform or medium you're using. Vary your content and be strategic about what you post and when.Â

#4 Focus on a few social media platforms Have you been trying to be everywhere and struggled to be consistent? Then focus on two or three social media platforms at the most. Running a business is hard enough,

and when you try and be on all p ossible channels, you risk spreading yourself too thin and diluting your efforts and your impact. So choose the platforms you enjoy the most and where your audience is more likely to engage with you. Is it LinkedIn? Instagram stories? Facebook?

If you're currently using a platform where you post regularly, but no one seems to engage, you're probably not getting a return on your investments. If that's the case, you might be better off putting your energy into something that seems to work better for you.

#5 Create 'zero-click search results' type of content Having your content returned on the first page of the Google search results is no small feat. But going forward, the competition is going to be even fiercer. While working on providing the best possible experience for its users, Google is making changes to the way it displays search results. As a user, you may have noticed this yourself - Google aims to answer your questions right at the top of the page. This is called 'zeroclick searches', and according to research, more than 62% of mobile users never have to click on a page to find the answer

they're looking for!

So what does this mean for us business owners? It means we need to become even more strategic and laser-sharp focused around the type of content we create. Before you produce anything, think carefully about what your ideal customers might ask. This includes phrases they might type into the search bar but also fully-formed questions that your prospective clients might ask their Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri. Voice search is going to be increasingly popular as more and more users find this method quicker than typing on a keyboard. And if you want to hit the mark with zero-click search results, aim for short, concise, and to-the-point answers.Â

So which marketing tactics will you choose to promote your business in 2020 and beyond?

Sara Bussandri Digital Content www.sarabussandri.com

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How to overcome any challenge and thrive in 2020 As a new year and a new decade starts, we are constantly bombarded with people’s ideas as about what we should or shouldn't be doing during this year. People make their resolutions, and many often break them within the first three weeks.

But what good is all that if we are still entering with the same negative mindset that has been holding us back year after year? We are wonderful beings of habit, and it is the habits that sometimes are our downfall. We have learnt so much in our life but still, end up doing things just because we've always done them. How many times have you decided to start something new and never finished?... I know I'm not the only one who has. So what questions should we be asking ourselves?

The first one is quite simply are there any outstanding things I need to deal with this year? For example, if I kept on running out of time last year, then maybe something you need to look at is a schedule of what you want your day to look like. It's so easy to become so busy, not because we’re unproductive but because of personal/family commitments take over more than our business commitments and for some bizarre reason as parents, we seem to leave those commitments off of our diary for the day I know I was doing that myself.

Another idea is to look at anything that you have started and haven't finished. Make a list of the things that you want to finish, and the things that you can no longer finish because of deadlines or you're no longer interested in completing that. The ones that you are interested in finishing think about the task that you need and write down anything else that may get in the way of completing

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that. Remember, even when we have our challenges once we find our happy place, meditate, sleep more, write, express gratitude, it is easier to overcome. The stuff you haven't completed have a think about why that is. Why did you start that in the first place?

What could you do differently in the future? And what did you learn from this?

Finally, think about all of the fun things you want to do this year that is not work-related.

These fun experiences may not necessarily be goals. How can you plan those in? What would you need to do? Do you need to get childcare for this? What you need to work on personally as an individual to overcome any challenges that come your way.

I teach women the EMPOWER 7 © method. Embrace (the challenge), Motivate (yourself), Power (choice), Overcome (past examples), Wellness (mind, body, spirit), Emotional intelligence (being in control) and Resilience (celebrate your victories).

You are in control of your life so live it unapologetically.

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Remember your story is unique and every step matters!

“We don’t have to be Victims of our Circumstances, We can be Soul Conscious Creators of our Future” (Hyacinth J Myers, 2017)

Hyacinth J Myers Founder/Managing Director of Soul Conscious Creations www.soulconsciouscreations.com

10 Things To Help Improve Your Website One of the biggest issues with attempting to improve your own website is that you often won’t see that improvements need to be made! You are so wrapped up in it, and you’ve seen it a thousand times, that you’ve forgotten to try and look at it through a new customer or user’s eyes.

Here are 10 essential things you can look at straight away to ensure your website is being as effective as possible at bringing in those orders or leads.

#1

#3

#5

The Seven Second Rule

Call to Actions

Wall to Wall text

Your brand, what you do and who you are should come across and resonate with the user within the first 7-10 seconds of landing on your website. This is all the time you’ve got to capture someone’s attention. Confuse them, and they’re gone!

The Call-To-Action button is used to entice people to take a specific action – this could be Contact, Buy, Book, Go To Checkout. Used in the correct way, a button can be enticing enough to immediately attract your customers and get them to undertake the action you want them to. But to work in the right way, they need to stand out from the rest of the page. They need to be big and eye-catching and copy used on the needs to be short, concise and actionable!

It’s your business, so of course, you have a lot to say – but our customer is busy. Picture them in their “natural habitat” – kids screaming, struggling to use their phone with one hand – they don’t have time to read wall to wall text, and it will likely put them off!

#2

Navigation The navigation of your site should be clear and visible on ALL pages and in the same position. It’s the main way for people to browse your website and get to the page they want to, and we want them to be able to do that in the least number of clicks possible. Ensure you’re using words that your customer would use and avoid any kind of industry jargon – keep it simple.

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#4

Easy Scanning People don’t read, they scan.

No matter how tempting it is to bombard the user with loads of information (this is difficult because in YOUR business all of your information is interesting to YOU), you must keep content clear, concise and compact!

#6

Contrast Don’t make your users guess or struggle with what you’re trying to say – If you’re using words over the top of images, ensure there is enough contrast so the words can actually be seen! YOU can see them as you’ve seen the site over and over again and your brain has “learned” that they are there. New users, with fresh eyes, won’t see it!

#7

#10

Forms

Be responsive

Only show form fields that are relevant and that you truly need – people are lazy and don’t want to fill out long, arduous forms. Keep it simple and ensure you clearly highlight and explain if someone makes a mistake.

Don’t let them guess – or you’ll lose them!

Don’t forget mobile! The majority of people are now using their mobile phones to consume all of their online information and visit your website, so don’t forget to ensure that all of your pages are optimised for a mobile sized screen!

#8

White space There was a time when people were terrified of having anything beneath “the fold” (the bit at the bottom of the page before you start scrolling). But people scroll now, thanks to mobile phones, so don’t pack the top of your pages with information. Spread it out, give it space to breath, and the site will become more manageable.

#9

Lead generators Let your website work for you!

Don’t just let it act as a digital business card and lose people the second they leave your site. Entice them into joining your mailing list or signing up. Give them something of value so that they want to join you.

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Sarah Tjoeng Website Designer and Strategist www.daretodreamdigital.co.uk

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In Conversation with

Niki Hutchison of Nikihutchison.com Niki Hutchison is and an entrepreneur based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Niki is married and a mother of 2.

Niki never imagined that she would become an entrepreneur. To her, entrepreneurship was running a huge, multi-national corporation, something she had neither experienced, nor had any desire to. She studied business and marketing and then worked in advertising agencies for most of my career.

Her entrepreneurial journey began in May 2009 when she suffered an ectopic pregnancy and underwent emergency surgery, losing half of the blood from my body and one fallopian tube during the process. Signed off from work for three months, she slowly regained her strength but simultaneously lost a good deal of confidence.

Can you tell us how you got started in business?

Following a career spent working as a Strategic Planner in UK advertising agencies, I had my second child in 2010 and knew I wanted more flexibility, more freedom and the opportunity to create something from nothing.

Prior to going on maternity leave, my biggest client was the Scottish Government, and I had been involved in large scale campaigns around how to reduce anti-social behaviour in children and young people as well as the introduction of new national curricula to pre-school and school-age children in Scotland.

I was interested in the role that activities and role models played in ensuring that a child would stay on a positive path, making great choices as they grew.

In 2011, as I wondered what business I should launch, I was approached by a friend of my

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husband, who was a Breakdance Teacher. He asked me to help him promote his dance classes to local children, and I did that for a while and really enjoyed it, but after a while, I realised that it was taking up quite a bit of my time for no return. I discussed this with him, and we decided to start it properly, as a business. After the first year, he injured himself then decided to go back to being an employee (thankfully it was all amicable, and we’re still friends today!), and I took the business forward myself after that first year.

Now, I’ve never been a dancer, but what I loved was being creative in business and using my marketing skills to grow something from nothing. I realised in 2016 that I didn’t want to grow my dance business beyond a local business, I didn’t want to franchise or expand regionally, and I kept being asked about how I had built such a strong local brand and how I executed

the marketing of it. So in 2017, I decided to launch my second business, teaching other female founders how to use marketing to grow their businesses.

What are some challenges you faced in your business journey, and how did you overcome them?

With my dance company I was part of a business accelerator programme which was fantastic, I really got a lot from it. The reason I entered the programme was to learn all about the financial side of running a business, how to generate profit (not just turnover), how to manage cashflow and develop pricing strategies.

However, they also really encouraged businesses to scale and I went down several roads that just weren’t right for me. We expanded regionally, which put a huge strain on the team and we began to get ready to turn the business into a franchise. In

fact it is franchise-ready, but by that point I was ready for a new challenge so I won’t ever be the one to develop that franchise. It is a perfect business for franchising, so maybe someone else would like to take that on in the future.

During this time of development, I lost my way a little, took people on to help grow the business who weren’t the right fit and who didn’t have my best interests at heart. It’s hard to find people who love your business as much as you do, but I’m very fortunate to have a number of

employees today who have been with me through all of the ups and downs and who I’m proud to have running that business for me today, while I develop my marketing business.

How do your values show up in the work you do?

I try to stay true to my values in everything I do. I always say honesty is the best policy, so that people know where they stand. Nobody enjoys difficult conversations, but they do crop up if you’re growing a business

and need to be tackled head on.

I try to remove emotion as much as possible and encourage my clients to do so too. Clients also tell me that I’m straight-talking with no BS which I love to hear!

I’m not into ‘woo-woo’ I’m far more practical and action-focused than that, I just love to come up with ideas and make them happen, both in my own business and for my clients.

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How do you manage your time between family and business?

Oh it’s a constantly moving fast isn’t it?! I’m always revisiting my schedule and seeing whether I can tweak anything to be more productive both at home and in my businesses. I’m lucky that my husband is self-employed too, he runs a music blog and DJ’s at weekends so we top and tail the week when it comes to the house and kids. Monday – Wednesday he’s in charge so I get to start early (7.30am is when I like to reach the office) and work pretty long days, then Thursday – Saturday it’s my turn while he’s working. We also have support from my parents at different points and on Sundays we try to chill out or do something low key as a family. My son is 15 and going through exams and all those teenage struggles and my daughter is 9 and a real homebody so we try to keep the house as calm as possible on a Sunday to allow everyone to recharge before starting all over again on Monday morning!

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

How can parent entrepreneurs further support each other?

Client successes are what keep me going. When a client hits a milestone like one year, two years, five years in business or hits an audience or an income goal and I’ve played a part in supporting them to get there, that really makes me happy.

Also when they tell me that I’ve helped them overcome imposter syndrome, or become a much more confident version of themselves which has enabled them to succeed in business that’s just amazing. I think confidence is the biggest thing holding us (particularly women) back from what we could achieve so I’m a huge believer in the need to raise individual confidence levels as much as possible.

I think community is really important, whether that’s online or offline, just knowing that other people are going through similar things to you and that they completely understand is so important. So being honest enough to share the hard times and the struggles with your community will, in my experience, result in people offering up their support. It can be quite overwhelming actually and we all appreciate knowing that there’s help out there if and when we need it.

How do you keep yourself motivated?

Great question, I ask myself this often because it astonishes me just how motivated I do stay for the majority of the time! I’m lucky I have bags of energy so I can cope with the demands of running a business and can put in long hours when I need to. But everyone has dips and when I run out of energy or feel like I’ve lost my motivation I just go with it, take a break, get some early nights and try to look after myself as much as possible until my mojo comes back!

What are your 3 top marketing tips?

My number one tip would be don’t forget that marketing is about more than just social media! Yes the internet is amazing, yes it’s a great tool to use to grow a business but so are the more traditional tactics, the offline methods like flyering, postering, traditional PR and in-person networking, these have all made a huge contribution to the growth of both of my businesses and shouldn’t be forgotten about. I really think that you can make a bigger noise if you have a presence in the offline space as well as the online. For example, I’ve had fantastic results from doing door-to-door flyer drops and from hosting my own networking events. These types of marketing really help to create a

business that will sustain you for the long term.

Number two would be to make sure that you’re creating a strategic plan. That probably sounds more scary than it is, quite simpy it means that you need to ask yourself why you’re doing something before scheduling it in to your marketing plan. What results are you aiming for, is it really the best use of your budget and the most likely way to attract your ideal customers? If yes, then great, make sure it’s part of your plan and then execute.

My third and final tip would be to make sure you’re being consistent. Whatever it is you decide to do, whether it’s doing a facebook live every week, hosting a monthly business event, a podcast, putting posters out round your customers’ neighbourhood – whatever you decide to do, show up consistently and keep doing it for

as long as it’s working for you.

That’s the only way to build that Know, Like and Trust factor that you need in order for people to trust you enough to become your customer. Think about it, if somebody is very sporadic in their marketing, you see them pop up now and then but not regularly and they don’t follow through on their promises, are you likely to do spend your money with them?

Probably not.

Who or what inspires you?

Other women who are genuinely supporting each other is hugely inspiring. I have clients who are both interior designers, both in the same city and who could so easily have fallen into the trap of thinking that they should keep their distance from each other. Instead, they’ve struck up a fabulous friendship, are collaborating and send each other clients who they think are a

better fit for the other – that’s true support. It really bothers me when I hear women talking the talk and saying that they support all mums in business, women in business etc. but behind the scenes they’re doing things like deleting posts from their competition in groups that they host, deleting recommendations for their competition and generally acting out their fears about not being good enough – we’re all unique!

Clients will choose the person who they have the connection with, regardless of how many posts they see in facebook groups! It all comes down to being you, being real and making connections, that’s how (in my view) you grow a business that makes you and your customers happy.

Niki Hutchison www.nikihutchison.com

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Attract customers to your business with content marketing As a small service-based business, two of my main challenges when it comes to marketing are time and money. This is a common problem and is where content marketing can be a valuable approach, particularly when planned out in advance and executed strategically. Content marketing is an organic marketing approach that can help act as a magnet to raise awareness of your brand with your target audience.

What is content marketing?

“Content builds relationships.

Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis Content or inbound marketing can come in many different formats; blogs, infographics, podcasts, white-papers, eBooks, guides, case studies and even to an extent, social media.

6 benefits of using content marketing

4. A key element of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

By posting regularly, you can be seen as a domain authority for your subject area.

5. By talking about key business issues in your content using keywords for your industry, you help your ideal customers find you when they are searching for your type of business online.

6. Builds the all-important “know-like-trust” cycle “Actually talk to your

By creating and consistently sharing good quality content, you can really start to reap the benefits of raising awareness of your brand:

customers. Use the language

1. Cost-effective way of getting your message across to your customers.

lion.” – Jay Acunzo

2. An opportunity to demonstrate how your business can solve pain points for your ideal client.

3. You can create content that provides a fantastic behind the scenes look at how your business operates and its ethos.

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that they use. Talk about the things they talk about.

Never feed salad to a

To plan out a content strategy for your business, start with the basics of your business differentiators and your ideal customer types. You can then build a map of different topics which might help an existing customer or future lead. As an example, this could be a frequently asked question, a

common problem that your product or service solves or a new trend that your business aligns with. In order to effectively use content marketing as a tool, the key is to add value for your potential customers.

Remember that you don’t need to keep re-creating brand new

messages if you spend the time at the planning phase developing strong messages and themes you will be able to re-purpose this content across different channels.

The fantastic thing about digital marketing is that there are a wide variety of analytics tools so once you start publishing new content, measure what works and resonates and then look to use similar messages on different platforms such as your email marketing or different social media channels.

Content Marketing is like any relationship approach, it takes time to build and be effective, but if you can get the foundations right, it will prove to be an effective tool for attracting new customers to your business and maintaining a dialogue with them. ways to get your audience to engage with you. And of course, if you realise things aren't working for you and your business, be ready to change things up or move your focus elsewhere!

Ruth Buckingham Freelance Marketing Consultant www.kandumarketing.co.uk

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In Conversation with

Melanie Hunter Yell Founder of Huff Equestrian Melanie Hunter Yell, mother and entrepreneur, is on a mission to redefine the equestrian’s wardrobe. Based in Wiltshire with her husband, son Otto, 2, four horses, two dogs and a cat.

Melanie grew up in an equestrian family and lived a very active lifestyle, so it’s in her blood.

She did most sports and competed with their horses until she moved to London at age 20 to pursue a career in Marketing and Advertising. As much as she loved London, Melanie missed country life, her dogs, horses and riding. So in 2012 she moved to the countryside, rescued her terrier Myrtle from the pound and bought her horse, Flo. Melanie hadn't ridden properly in years, so needed new everything, but was horrified to find equestrian wear had not moved on since the 1980s! So Mel embarked on a mission to create stylish, equestrian sportswear to empower equestrians to look and feel great, whatever your shape age or ability.

We call this Equi-leisure. ​ ith 20 years working with global brands on their brand W and marketing strategy, an aptly timed redundancy from her corporate job offered Melanie the opportunity to embark on her mission and Huff Equestrian was born in 2017.

Melanie still runs her own Marketing Consultancy business Hunter and Hound.

When did you get the idea for your business?

In 2012 I moved to the countryside, rescued my terrier Myrtle from the pound and bought my horse of a lifetime, Flo. I hadn't ridden properly in years, so needed new everything, but I was horrified to find equestrian wear had not moved on since the 1980s! It was so uninspiring, old fashioned and unflattering.

The fit and form of the breeches weren’t designed for the modern, sporty woman and were so uncomfortable. Fabrics weren’t fit for purpose, and they weren’t sweat-wicking, or offered 4-way

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stretch, moving with your body as you rode. I couldn’t understand it. As an equestrian, we're athletes, so why are we only being offered polo shirts with no sportswear qualities at all.

So I embarked on a mission to create stylish, equestrian sportswear to empower equestrians to look and feel great, whatever your shape age or ability. We call this Equi-leisure.

How did you move from idea to actual business?

I was nervous about moving into the rag trade, to be honest, as you need to put a lot of trust into

suppliers, and you also require significant investment to start a collection. I looked at so many other business models that would allow me to do something I loved but kept coming back to this. Working in marketing, I knew I needed a strong business plan, research into the market and a strong brand.

A strong positioning the brand, from a price point of view and also from a customer point of view. There were a few players doing really well shaking up the Equestrian leisurewear

market, but they were very much targetting the younger market (14-24 year olds). I realised there was an opportunity to style and design for the slightly older market, who wasn’t so keen on wearing matchty matchy outfits.

I had a collection in mind and had done all of the supplier research, business plan, costings, margins etc. and then I needed money.

Although I had just been made redundant and had a bit of cash, I also needed to free up a couple of years of my time to get the business moving forward, so

needed that cash to allow me to work less in marketing and allocate time to Huff Equestrian. I ended up taking a small business loan with Fashion Angels, which effectively funded the first collection. I have a fabulous french photographer friend, Maxine Gautier, who shot the first collection and a friend who did the initial brand and logo designs. Everything else I did myself, from building the website to designing flyers, building our social media channels, to operationalising the business.

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What’s been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?

What was the last thing you did that made you proud

Managing suppliers! That is definitely the hardest part of the job! And finding people I can trust to work with. It’s unbelievable how many unprofessional professionals there are out there, and it really drains you trying to deal with these people. I’m a pretty straight up and honest person, what you see is what you get, so when I have met some unsavoury people on my journey, it’s had a huge mental impact on me as I simply don’t understand why people are dishonest or try and screw people over.

In all honesty….surviving the last two years! And coming out the other side a better person, with my head held high, knowing that I’ve only ever done the right thing by people, my business and my family. And that, in itself, is tough.

I’m a pretty motivated person naturally, so I don’t find this problematic. I love being busy beyond normality and love new experiences and challenges. I ride my horses every day, which gives me my thinking time and focus as does walking the dogs.

Running a business on your own and being a mother is tough and can be a very lonely journey.

Juggling your responsibilities and time is so hard. After all, they are all your babies, right?

Your real baby, your business is your baby, and in my case, my four horses, dogs and cat!

They all need me, and there is only so much to go around.

I’m also very much an ‘eyes on the prize’ kinda girl. But you have to define your prize! Prize might be money, but for me, it’s also freedom to live my life the way I want to, the freedom to be creative, the freedom to run my own show, the freedom to choose when I work and when I don’t, the freedom to talk about the things I care about and not the

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How do you keep yourself motivated?

things I don’t. Success is different for everyone – you just have to define your own success criteria!

How do you manage your time between family and business?

I honestly don’t know! It changes all the time when you have a baby. When Otto was born ( I had a planned c section so I could go straight back to work), I was working within two hours of him being born! Then in the early days, I just worked whilst he slept, and we had some wonderful support from my mother in law, which allowed me to work a few days a week full time. As he got older, it got harder, and by the time he was

a year we put him in a nursery a few afternoons, and had a part-time au pair and juggled the rest between us. Looking back, we sacrificed a lot as a family, and that has now allowed me to recognise what improvements I need to make, to put family first.

So now I run a strict diary system which is colour coded. Family stuff goes in first, and everything else has to slot around it. My husband and I have a date night once a month, and we plan family holidays and outings in advance (something I had never done before as I was always a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl!).

What advice would you give to a parent starting up a business?

Be clear on what success looks like to you personally and remind yourself of that every day. If that is having the freedom to spend more time with your kids, then remind yourself of that when the chips are down, and you don’t think you are meeting the commercials. Your business will still be there tomorrow!

Sometimes you need to step back and do nothing to allow yourself to move forward.

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Working flat out and into the ground will only leave you resentful of your business and regretful that you didn’t spend more time with your family.

Choose moments when you simply block out of everything and focus on your family. For me, this is the hour or so before Otto goes

to bed and time at the weekend.

Be careful who you work with!

Only work with people you trust and if you don’t know them well, then make sure you have the right legal paperwork to protect yourself going forward.

Take social media breaks! It’s draining!! Remain focused, I know this sounds terrible, but when Otto was born, we were really clear what we needed to do to make our life work. Otto needed to slot in. We all needed to sleep, and we all needed crack on and get stuff done.

So we remained absolutely 100% focused on a routine from day one, and it worked!

I don’t believe it was luck.

Who or what inspires you?

I don’t think there is one person who inspires me to be honest.

And I’m not sure how much of the true person we see now in social media etc. The people who really inspire me are people who are enjoying their life, living their life, living their values, accepting their failures and driving on beyond them.

Melanie Hunter Yell Founder of Huff Equestrian www.huffequestrian.co.uk

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Don’t fall out of love with your business!

I decided to set up my own business after the birth of my daughter. I’d had a long and successful career already, built up my skills, and thought ‘wouldn’t it really be great to do this for myself, and be the ‘parentpreneur’ that can have it all’…

I’d always worked in Marketing (save for a random first job buying aircraft parts, but we won’t go into that!). It was an industry I loved and knew well. I had many contacts that I had built good relationships with over the years, and had a good working knowledge of how ‘business’ works – so surely taking the leap and doing it for myself couldn’t be that hard!

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The reality is that although utterly exciting and completely liberating compared to the standard 9-5, running your own business can be tough, it can be lonely, it can be challenging… Add to this the fact that you are also trying to make time to be the best possible parent there is, and there’s one hell of a lot of pressure, which can lead to resentment towards or disillusionment with what you are trying to achieve.

I found quite quickly that when I was working, I’d feel guilty about not spending time with my daughter. And equally, when I was spending time with her, I felt guilty about the proposal I was supposed to be writing, or the social media posts I was supposed to be creating on behalf of my clients.

So, in the spirit of February being the ‘month of love’, I thought I’d share a few tips that have helped me along the way, and made sure I didn’t fall out of love with my business!

Create boundaries – look at your time realistically, and separate home life from business tasks. Sounds simple right?

But all too often, I fell into the trap of trying to reply to emails, or update my website whilst in ‘daughter time’, which left both of us frustrated. You’ll be more productive setting aside

time when you can concentrate properly – obviously, this all depends on factors like the ages of your children, childcare cover, what your business needs are, where you run your business from etc. Mine was from the kitchen table, so I had to set clear parameters for when the laptop was on/off.

Have clear objectives – review the overall goal of where you want to take your business, and try to chunk it down into small manageable pieces. What’s the saying…? ‘How do you eat an elephant… one bite at a time!’.

I know where I’d love to be this time next year, so broke that down into monthly goals, set weekly challenges to help me get there, and put daily practices in place to achieve those challenges. When you look at things one day at a time, it looks far less daunting! And will be much more manageable around your ultimate priority – the family!

Take regular reviews – make some time to regularly assess how things are going. I set aside half a day every month just to look at what went well (or didn’t!) the previous month. Did I achieve everything I needed/wanted to?

If not, why? Did I set unrealistic targets or did life through me a curveball (like an unexpectedly ill child?) How do I get back on

track, or how do I need to tweak my plan for this month to feel fulfilled in my business life?

Assess any frustrations – you’ve obviously set up your business because it’s something you enjoy and are good at, but are there any areas that you find particularly challenging / time consuming (accounting/admin / social media etc.)? Look to outsource these areas… It can be hard when first starting out to find the budget to do this, but the time and energy that you can then put back into your parenting/business and doing the things you love is far more valuable!

Don’t forget, you are not alone – in this day and age, so many parents are embracing the business journey and enjoying a flexible working lifestyle. And there are lots of online and offline business support networks where you can seek support and advice – similarly, there are lots of parent groups too. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of others, and my experience is that all ‘parentpreneurs’ are more than happy to share their experiences and tips.

Jodie Webber The Businesses Community www.thebusinessescommunity.com

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SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT Box of Hugs London There’s three of us.

Anna, Sophie and Lucy. We’re sisters originally from Oxfordshire. Apart from Sophie, we now live in different parts of England.

Anna’s in London and Lucy’s in Cambridge.

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We all have young children ranging from ages 2 to 9.

Sophie and Anna had their youngest after Box of Hugs London launched in 2017. You can imagine the juggle!

However, as there are three of us and we’re a close family, we made it work.

What inspired you to start your business?

A few years ago, our mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

It was a huge shock to us all. We spent a lot of time together while mum was having treatment. One thing we chatted about during this time was how difficult it was to find something appropriate to send to mum. We sadly couldn’t always be by her side.

Our mum thankfully pulled through. Her illness made us all rethink our own lives. Setting up a business together was always a dream.

We started our careers in different industries. Anna was

at Laura Ashley in e-commerce, Sophie was at Trip Advisor in marketing and Lucy was at BGL Group in the commercial team.

We have ‘an entrepreneurial spirit’ in common and always chatted about ambitions and moneymaking ideas.

So, in 2017 we decided to take the plunge. Combining our business and creative skills, we made our dream a reality and launched Box of Hugs London.

Mum was definitely the inspiration behind our business. Not only did her illness help us see a gap in the gifting market, but it made us remember the surprise packages she sent us when we were under the weather too.

Tell us about your niche

Box of Hugs London

The thing that makes us stand out is our aim to help people send ‘a hug’ when they can’t be there in person. Box of Hugs London provides a variety of thoughtful gifts you can send in the post when you can’t be by someone’s side. Whether you want to say happy birthday, happy Mother’s Day, congratulations, get well soon or simply “I’m thinking of you” we’ve created a Box of Hugs for every occasion.

www.boxofhugs.co.uk

Another niche of ours is the ‘Create Your Own’ shop. We launched this element as it was something our customers asked us for. At the time it was a very new offering. Our ‘Create Your Own’ shop allows shoppers to choose any number of items they want to be packaged up in one of our bespoke boxes with a personal message. It’s like choosing items from a variety of shelves in a shop, but doing it from the comfort of your home.

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3 top tips for a Healthy Relationship It’s the season for romance. Just because you are parents in business, doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice your relationship. Here are my three top tips for a healthy relationship.

#1

#2

Self-actualisation

Focus on the good

Self-actualisation is the key to happiness both in life and in relationships, though it may seem counterintuitive. So often we feel pressure to do something we don’t really want to do, just to please the other person. Are your core values healthy eating and early mornings, but your partner prefers late nights and fry ups?

So often we focus on what we don't like about another person.

The result is that the person’s “faults” become magnified. If you are in a long-term relationship, it may be useful to reflect on why you got together in the first place. What was the moment you realised you wanted to make a go of it? What did you love about your partner?

There is always room for compromise, but it’s important to know what your personal standards and boundaries are in a relationship. For example, I don’t like cooking, so it’s futile for me to pretend I’m going to be the kind of partner who will have a home-cooked meal on the table every night.

As Socrates said, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” If you are trying to be someone you are not, it will not serve you or your partner. Be clear about your own standards and discuss them honestly. Lack of clarity and the erosion of boundaries is very damaging in the long run.

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Once you’ve identified these qualities, remind yourself of them often. You may even want to say, “I love your jokes, your cooking, the way you smile at the kids…” It can work wonders. Busy parents still need to feel loved.

#3

Know the other person’s love languages New York Times bestseller Gary Chapman talks about the 5 love languages. These are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch. Which one makes you feel the most loved? Does your partner know this? Which one makes your partner feel good?

Become a keen observer. If the

cracks are beginning to appear in your relationship, likely, you are not even aware of each other’s love language.

If your love language is acts of service, you might be happier when your partner helps in the kitchen. Perhaps you would prefer praise or flowers or a hug!

What makes your partner feel the most loved?

All three of the above tips require awareness. As a busy working parent, the detail can sometimes get lost. It’s important to stop and take stock of your feelings, otherwise it’s easy to get into a cycle of blame. Choose February as your month of reconnection!

Cori Josias Relationship and Divorce Coach Cori can be contacted at cjosias@mac.com

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Market Yourself - the art of self-promotion A fundamental starting point when it comes to exploring the art of self-promotion is that we must have confidence in ourselves, in order for others have confidence in us. As unnatural as it may feel, we must be our own cheerleaders and our own best advocates.

Self-promotion can make many of us feel uncomfortable. It goes against the grain. We can find ourselves asking, ’Is it really necessary for us to be successful in doing what we love?’, to try and avoid dealing with this fear-inducing entity.

Truth be told; Yes, it really is necessary. The root to business success is often in the art of self-promotion. You could be nailing every aspect of business, but if you can’t promote yourself and your business, then you fall short of reaching the scale of audience that you deserve to be in front of. While many of us are innately already tackling an element of this by being present on social media, how many of us can truly say that we have really mastered the art of promoting ourselves and our businesses as effectively as we should be?

For many serviced based entrepreneurs, you are your business and promotion for you and your business is often one and the same. Raising your profile will draw people to your business. Sharing your expertise and knowledge will increase trust in your business.

The first step is becoming comfortable with your offering.

You are your own Unique Selling Point, and this is as a result of your own unique combination of experience, knowledge and

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insight. Avoiding the trap of comparisonitis means accepting what makes up your USP and knowing how to leverage it.

When it comes to leveraging your experience and expertise, there are many ways to master the use of your USP in selfpromotion. When we look at the communication channels that you can explore when it comes to your personal PR, they range from you directly sharing your knowledge through speaking or writing, being interviewed or profiled in various sections of the media, through to in-person networking and digital social media presence.

The most accessible next step in self-promotion is to get your areas of knowledge down on paper, so to speak, from which you will give yourself both an outline of the myriad of topic areas that your expertise covers as well as building a bank of content that you can use for a multitude of opportunities from your blog and social media to guest blogging or article contributions.

Start blogging regularly and start sharing this expert content and

insight on your social media.

When it comes to content, prioritise the value that you are able to give to your audience.

What can they learn from you?

Educating your audience not only allows them to better understand what you do and your value but also that you are THE expert best placed to work with them.

Step this up by approaching independent print and digital magazines as well as like-minded businesses. This will open up opportunities for guest article contributions and reciprocal guest blogging. This allows you to share your knowledge and promote your offering to a new, relevant audience. In turn, sharing these result with the audience, you already have is a way of engendering further trust.

A natural progression from this is in taking some of these areas of expertise and pitching yourself to wider print and digital media as an expert. There is a lot of space in the media world for quotes, comment and expertise to be shared. You can proactively pitch yourself as a candidate for these opportunities that could be relevant for you, but there are other ways to access real-time opportunities that you can respond to, the most accessible being the Twitter hashtag #journorequest. Being in the right place at the right time to be quick enough off the mark to respond to a relevant opportunity plays a big part, but ultimately securing an opportunity like this can provide some high octane results when it comes to self-promotion and positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your field.

One of the most powerful ways to prove your expertise and knowledge is to do so in front of a room full of people. It can sound terrifying, but speaking opportunities can really bridge the gap between your content output and an in-person meet up. You have the opportunity to engage, to teach and to connect with an audience that are often very receptive to what they are being presented. You never know who is going to be in the room and what opportunities can come from these moments.

The beauty of social media also allows your messages to

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travel further than the walls you are physically confined by.

From trade shows, industry conferences, consumer events right through to regional networking events, there is an expansive choice when it comes to determining the speaking options that could be right for you. Start at regional networking events to build up your experience but beyond that, know your value and what you will bring to an event or the transformation that you can enable and don’t hold back on the approaches you make. Reach out with your overview of discussion topics, why you’re a good fit, and what you want to bring to the event. Much of self-promotion is about building a cache of credibility. Much like a ‘nod of approval’ that being placed in the media gives you, a key speaking opportunity will give you innate kudos and respect.

Self-promotion breaks down into two elements. The doing, and the sharing. Taking the action, getting the media results, winning the speaking opportunities,

sharing your knowledge is the first step but how well you leverage all of this activity determines the impact that you can make on the audience you have already worked hard to build and attract to you. Sharing your media wins, sharing your speaking credentials, sharing client results not only shows your audience how credible and determined you are but also turns your social media, website and blog into a comprehensive CV of kudos and credibility to be seen by potential clients, potential collaborators and others that may have opportunity to present to you.

Self-promotion is to be embraced, not feared. It often takes a little tweak to our subconscious programming and mindset, but, you were made to excel and mastering the art of self-promotion will help you on this mission.

Fiona Minett Consumer PR Expert www.bossyourpr.com

Anti-Natal & Postnatal Depression: My Story Life altered for me in my ninth week of pregnancy. I first thought I was having a miscarriage, but GP assured me things were fine. I felt so vulnerable; I wanted a midwife with me 24/7. Scans showed me things were good, but I worried about the slightest differences that occurred. Did I mention it to the GP or midwife? No. Should I have done? Yes. Because of the way I was feeling, I decided to finish working 12 weeks before my due date. On returning home the first day of my last week at work, my waters broke. My husband took me to the hospital where I was kept in on bed rest, contractions started in the middle of the night. By morning a nurse put me on a monitor and called for a Doctor. He, after an internal exploration left my bed at quite a speed, saying something about ‘cord prolapse, get theatre ready!’, within half an hour, my daughter was born by emergency caesarean section.

After waking up from General Anaesthetic, I was given the news that I had a girl weighing 2lb 14oz, she was on a ventilator, but doing ok. I was alone in a side room on the antenatal ward, the lift had broken down after they had taken the baby to the Special Care Baby Unit. That was when my negative feelings went to the next level.

By evening the lift was mended, I was taken in a wheelchair, to see the baby. My husband pushed me to the open incubator, and I saw her for the first time.

I felt absolutely nothing. It was very warm in the unit, and I

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started to feel faint, the nurse noticed I had gone pale and said I needed to go and lie down.

I was so pleased to leave.

depression so understood about negative thoughts, fears and feelings. After a couple of months, the sessions finished.

I went home after 6 days, visiting every day – never wanting to go, but I was the babies mum, it was what I had always wanted, I should feel elated. So why did I keep crying? After only 5 weeks, my baby was healthy enough to come home…WHAT, HELP!

There were still tears, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. After about nine months, I prominently began to enjoy seeing my baby’s progress and looking forward to what would come next.

For over a month, I hardly slept, cried all the time, but somehow managed to care for this very tiny baby. I kept telling people how I was feeling, but because I was doing everything, and our daughter was progressing, they were not concerned.

‘It’s not surprising, you’ve had a traumatic time!’

One afternoon, a lady telling me she was my new health visitor phoned. I had not been to any of the baby sessions, was everything ok? I burst out crying, she immediately got in her car and 15 minutes later knocked on my door. Yay, someone was listening.

It was arranged that a lady should come to the house one day a week for a couple of hours. She had also suffered with postnatal

Kate Stow Freelance Early Years Consultant/Trainer www.nurture-every-step.co.uk

Healthy meal prepping One part of parenting that can be stressful is cooking. Your children are solely dependent on what food you and your partner prepare for them. Quite a responsibility!

Planning what you are going to eat can help. Think about what meals you want to cook for the week. Make a plan and use it to make a shopping list.

Your meals do not have to be gourmet cuisine. You are feeding your family, not trying to win MasterChef. Keep it simple and cook wholesome, healthy dishes. Simple things like a pasta bake or a filled jacket potato are easy to cook and nutritious.

Another way of planning is to have a cupboard full of staples that can be used to make easy meals. Combined with a range of fresh veggies and versatile ingredients such as cheese, milk and eggs, there is a huge range of meals you can make on the spur of the moment.

Some useful staples are pasta, rice, couscous, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, tinned tuna, dried lentils, dried mixed herbs, salt, pepper — also things like custard powder, tinned fruit, rice pudding for desserts.

These will keep in the cupboard until needed with no worries about wastage. In all sorts of different combinations, these can make plenty of emergency meals. For instance, cook pasta in one pan. Tip a tin of tomatoes and a tin of tuna into another pan, mix together, season with salt, pepper and herbs and

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gently heat. When the pasta is ready, mix in the tuna and tomato sauce. Alternatively, serve the sauce on top Bolognese style.

No fresh ingredients needed.

Use a freezer to save time by cooking a batch of meals. Cook twice what you need (which might be no more trouble) then freeze half. Take the frozen meal out in the morning, defrost in the fridge and your dinner just needs re-heating that evening. This is ideal for sauces to go with pasta, stews, casseroles, chilies.

These can be accompanied by an easy-to-prepare helping of pasta, rice or couscous.

Top tip: When preparing meals try to add plenty of vegetables even to dishes that might not traditionally have them. For instance, a Bolognese sauce is all the better for having a leek or a carrot added and much healthier. Chop the veggies up small, so they disappear a bit, especially if you have children who are fussy. Peppers are great for adding to things. The yellow and red ones are sweet, and children love them. The same goes for sweetcorn. Think about having some bags of frozen

veggies, perhaps spinach and frozen roasted veggies. Keep them in the freezer, and they become part of your staples.

Ready-meals are undoubtedly convenient, but they are high in sugar, salt and preservatives.

Plus they can be expensive. As I’ve tried to show, a little bit of planning and preparation can make it just as easy to cook from scratch. This way, you can ensure your family are eating healthy meals - especially if you add plenty of veggies.

Sarah Scotland Community Nutritionist www.wiseaboutfood.co.uk

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Quick, easy, Nowt Poncy® Bolognese Bolognese is a family favourite in our house but it can take a while to make. We use a jar of our sauce which cuts down the ingredient list and prep and reduces time and we make extra so we can freeze it for an even quicker healthy meal in the week!

Ingredients • 500g good quality mince (use the reduced fat type to cut down on calories)

• 300g of pasta of your choice but our Nowt Poncy® Linguine Arcobaleno (Rainbow Linguine) is perfect for this dish.

• 250g mushrooms sliced reasonably thickly

• 30g grated cheese

• A jar of Nowt Poncy® Tomato & Basil Sauce (you can also use the Nowt Poncy® Arrabbiata Sauce if you want to spice it up a bit!)

Method • In a non-stick pan, fry off the mince. Keep it moving so it doesn’t burn and break it up as it’s cooking. Once browned drain in a colander (this helps to keep the fat content down and keeps an eye on calories).

• Return the mince to the pan and add the sliced mushrooms. Fry until the mushrooms are cooked through.

• Stir in the jar of Nowt Poncy® Tomato & Basil Sauce and mix thoroughly. Heat through thoroughly (simmering for about 15 minutes should do the trick!).

•

Whilst the Bolognese is heating through bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the pasta until it’s almost done.

This allows the pasta to take up fluid from the sauce when it’s mixed with the Bolognese sauce – it’s delicious that way!

• Drain the pasta REALLY well.

•

Add the pasta to the Bolognese and stir well to coat the pasta in sauce. Give it a coupe more minutes on the heat to make sure everything is good and hot.

• Serve sprinkled with a little grated cheese.

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If you want to dress it up a bit you can top your Bolognese with cheese sauce – here’s a great recipe for the perfect cheese sauce

Ingredients • 40g butter • 40g of plain flour • 600ml milk warmed in the microwave • 200g of grated extra mature cheddar cheese (if you use extra mature you don’t need quite as much so it cuts down a bit on the calories)

Method • Warm the milk in a microwave for around 3 mins (easiest way and quick too).

• Wipe out the non-stick pan and add the butter. Warm on a low heat until melted.

• Add the flour and blend together well. Keep it moving for a couple of minutes. This helps to get rid of floury taste.

• Add a little of the warmed milk and mix thoroughly until it’s smooth, repeat this until all the milk is blended but remember to add a little bit at a time.

• Once all of the milk is added the sauce will thicken • Take it off the heat and mix in 150g of the cheese. Keep 50g back for later.

To serve Pour the cheese sauce over the Bolognese and pasta. You can put the Bolognese and pasta in an oven dish and cover the whole thing in the cheese sauce and stick it in the oven for 15 minutes to toast of the cheese sauce as an alternative method and hey presto you have a pasta bake!

Another serving suggestion Serve with a fresh salad – of course if you’re feeling hungry a nice wedge of garlic bread (as a bit of a treat!) goes well with it too and it helps to mop up the sauce at the end!!!

The Nowt Poncy Food Company www.nowtponcy.co.uk

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