ISSUE 6 • NOVEMBER 2019
IN CONVERSATION WITH
Shannon Reed
HANDMADE ARTIST
Tips on coping with Christmas as a single parent in business
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Why do we need PR when we have social media
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5 Creative Businesses
CONTRIBUTORS
SARA BUSSANDRI , WRITER, AUTHOR & MENTOR Sara is a Digital Content Writer who specialises in helping small business owners and podcasters with blogging and repurposing 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
NELLA FOULDS, CONSULTANT NUTRITIONIST, MNU CERTIFIED The founder of The Lean Cook and Nella Nutrition as well as co-founder of Pace To Race app. Originally from Surrey, Nella lives in Leicestershire with her husband and twin sons who’ve just started school. She is a qualified MNU Certified Nutritionist. www.nellanutrition.com JULIE HAWKINS, FOUNDER OF SINGLE MUMS BUSINESS NETWORK Julie is Director of KIH Products Ltd and Founder of the Single Mums Business Network. Julie has been a single parent since her pregnancy, and she and her daughter live in the Wye Valley with their dog Tara and cat Pip. www.singlemumsbusinessnetwork.com COLETTE MACHADO, PR AND CONTENT Colette Machado is a former BBC journalist and ex-newspaper editor who now helps business owners to get featured in traditional and online media by positioning themselves as an expert in their field or through their brand story. She has successfully secured media coverage for clients in the UK and internationally in media outlets such as BBC TV Radio, BBC Radio, GMTV (former ITV breakfast television programme), Telegraph Online, Soul & Spirit magazine, Women in Business Radio Show, Huffington Post, Talented Ladies Club, and many local newspapers, blogs and online sites. www.colettemachado.co.uk LEANNE PERRY, PERSONALISED PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Leanne Parry created Werk Lifestyle Management she recognised the fine line between business and personal needs, so she formulated a service that can seamlessly transition across both areas, allowing you to have all your requirements met by one person, in one place. A service for businesses, entrepreneurs or anyone who finds themselves needing business support. www.work-werk.com 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 LOUISE WORSLEY, FIRST AID TRAINER Worsley Training is owned and run by Louise Worsley, a professional teacher with an instinctive ability to make learning First Aid enjoyable. Louise Worsley is an ex-geography teacher who has been delivering First Aid courses since 2007. She is qualified through and regulated by Remote Emergency Care and Nuco Training and is, therefore, part of a global network of professional first aid trainers. www.worsleytraining.co.uk 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
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 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 6th issue of the Parents in Business magazine. The festive season is upon us, and many of us are looking forward to magical family fun, friendly frolics, lots of great food and hopefully some presents! This issue shines the spotlight on parents who are creatives on page 10 we interview Shannon Reed Handmade Artist at Mockingbird Makes we have a special feature on page 26 featuring 5 parents with creatives businesses. We also interviewed Serena Nalty-Coombs Project Management Consultant, who sparked her daughter's entrepreneurial flair. And Cynthia Lawrence-John and Rae Sims who own WerkHaus Margate. In this bumper issue, we have two business spotlights Peter Ibbetson, Co-Founder and Director of JournoLink, shares why he and his daughter set up JournoLink and the service they provide to small business owners. And Keisha Ehigie who founded Imagine Me Stories addressing the gap in representation in children’s books for black children. And continuing with a Christmas theme - would you know what to do if you were faced with a common festive period first aid problem Louise Worsley a first aid trainer covers what to do if an emergency happens. If you’re a single parent, Julie shares tips on coping with Christmas as a single parent in business on page 40. And looking to 2020 Sara Bussandri, a digital content writer explores what 2020 holds for written content. Colette Machado, a former BBC journalist and ex-newspaper editor, writes why do we need PR when we have social media?
www.parentsinbiz.co.uk
Bridget
Bridget Daley Editor
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How outsourcing at Christmas can help both your family and Business It can be tough as both a parent and an entrepreneur at the best of times, but add to that, your little darlings being at home and the busiest seasonal time of the year and this can send many of us into overwhelm.
Christmas brings a whole new set of demands on your time as a business owner and parent. For many businesses this can mean an increase in demand for your products and services, but along with that comes the extra need for resources and time. Having to make those choices between ensuring your business is running smoothly and preparing everything needed for your family to enjoy the festive season is not easy. What should be a joyful time can quickly turn into a nightmare without the correct resources or time. This is where outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant (VA) can become invaluable to you and your business. A VA can assist with an endless list of business support tasks to assist you in
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meeting that increased demand by acting as an extra pair of hands. A Lifestyle VA can even assist with your Christmas home tasks such as purchasing gifts, ordering food deliveries or
helping with accommodation logistics for visiting family. Often Business owners are put off by outsourcing due to cost assumptions, but the advantage of hiring a VA is that you can use
their services ad-hoc. This means that when you are experiencing busy periods such as Christmas, you can choose to pass tasks over to them without the commitment of hiring them full time like an employee. This means no holiday or sickness pay, no pension or NI commitments and because they work virtually there is no need to have a physical space for them in your business. Outsourcing allows you to meet client/customer demand and increase or maintain your operational efficiencies, in turn giving you back more time to deal with the demands of Christmas at home.
• Event & Meeting Support
Here are some of the services which you can pass to a Virtual Assistant:
Leanne Perry Personalised Professional Services
• Diary Management
• Contact Management • Data Entry • Stock Control Many parents choose to start their own business for the increased flexibility it can bring around their family but often forget this along their entrepreneurial journey, as the demand on their time and business increases. Outsourcing can allow you to enjoy a stress-free time with your family, especially during holiday periods without sacrificing the continuity of your business.
www.work-werk.com
• Inbox Management • Travel Booking • Expenses • Administrative Support • Credit Control /Accounting • Sales & Marketing Support • Project Management • Proof Reading • Online Research • Design Services • Recruitment Administration
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In Conversation with Shannon Reed Handmade Artist Shannon Reed is the founder of Mockingbird Makes, a business she created to support her mental health and the mental health of others through creativity. Shannon mindfully makes knitted, crocheted or embroidered handcrafts (and zillions of pompoms!) based on her customer's designs, she teaches her customers to Make for themselves, and she speaks on ‘Creativity for Wellness’ to inspire people to reclaim their often outsourced creativity in order to support their well-being. Shannon is married with two boys who are 12 and 8 years old (and is expert pompom makers BTW!).
When did you get the idea for your business? I was looking for ways to support myself between my therapy sessions for depression and anxiety and started to knit and
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cross-stitch. It was such a calming activity for me, giving me the peace I was desperately craving. I began gifting my Makes to friends and family as a way to allow myself to keep creating.
What’s interesting is, I never had believed 1) that I was creative, and 2) that this type of creativity was a valid use of my time. I just knew it made me feel better.
How did you move from idea to actual business? My work was noticed by friends, and I was encouraged to start taking commissions. I did this quietly and with long deadlines to be as gentle on myself as possible. It was very important that I grew at my own pace and not compare myself to others. This has always been a heartled business with the intention of building strong steady foundations for me to grow out of. Self-compassion is one of the key drivers and continues to be so. Working in this way also meant I didn’t need to make a huge financial investment or do lots of upfront research, I could learn on the job all about what people want and how to make that available to them. Still on the job by the way – always learning!
I asked her what she thought I could offer. It was a perfect suggestion. I looked back to my BC (Before Children) life, where I was an innovation consultant helping organisations harness their creativity to grow their businesses, and found some perfect material to share in my talk. It was then that I discovered how I am still facilitating other’s creativity, only now I get to take part as well! Since then I have had many opportunities to speak on both ‘Creativity for Wellness’
and ‘Creativity for Business’ helping people tap into their innate source of inspiration and create safe spaces to take the risks that are needed to be taken in order to innovate.
You also do public speaking we would love you to share with us the topics you speak about? As I went along on this intuitive journey, I really began to understand how much my craft work had helped (and continues to) heal my heart. And so I began speaking about that on my social media accounts as Mindful Making and how it was helping me and sharing the love with others. I was invited one day by Shona Chambers of Space at 61 to speak at an upcoming monthly networking event called First Fridays. She suggested the topic of ‘Creativity for Wellness’ when
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SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT Keisha Ehigie is a 36-year-old Nigerian mum from Essex. She has a threeyear-old daughter and a little one on the way. Keisha is a Corporate Governance consultant by profession but has always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and she set up her first formal business when she was 25. In November last year she left her job in the city to focus solely on business so she could spend more time at home with her family. Imagine Me Stories is her third business venture but by far the one she is most passionate about! 38
What inspired you to start your business? I started Imagine Me Stories as a way of addressing the gap in representation in children’s books for black children. I first noticed the lack of representation in children's books when my daughter turned two and started asking questions about her hair and skin colour. She's always loved books, and we already had a large collection of very interesting stories. I noticed she was observing physical differences between her and her friends and decided to get her some books which had characters that looked like her. However, I soon realised that it was a struggle to find such books in traditional bookshops and retailers. I started to do some research and discovered that children's books are far
more likely to feature an animal character than a person of colour. I spoke to other parents of black or mixed-race children and realised that they were also struggling to find adequate representation for their children in books. While diverse books do exist, they make up only 4% of the market ( a recently published UK study funded by the Arts Council showed that only 4% of children’s books published in 2018 featured a BAME main character. BAME pupils make up 33.1% of the school population in England. Representation is so important to ensure that children see positive views of themselves and what they can achieve in society and every child should be able to see themselves reflected in the books they read. I decided to start a subscription box to make it easy for parents to source
representative books and also to demonstrate the need for such books so more can be published. In addition to the books, children are provided with activities that teach them about inspirational black trailblazers, history and culture, which helps boost their self-esteem. I’ve got previous experience of running a subscription box business within the pet industry, so I already have an understanding of how subscription boxes work. I’m also a member of the Subscription School which is an online community for subscription box owners, and this has provided much-needed support in dealing with inevitable business challenges!
How does collaboration feature in your process? How do you work with the authors of the books? I work closely with UK, USA and African publishers to source representative books that I believe my subscribers will love. They provide information on suitable books which are either currently released or in planned production, and this helps Imagine Me Stories to build a database of books which provide representation. We also accept submissions from self-published authors and have received some amazing books this way! The study by the Arts Council has brought a lot of awareness to the issue and inspired a lot of authors and illustrators to start producing more diverse content. I have also started to receive quite a few requests from schools who need
assistance with building more diverse libraries for their students which is absolutely wonderful. You can find out more about Imagine me stories www.imaginemestories.com
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