Female Boss
Week 1 Introduction
Out first session! Before starting the call, I was nervous about what we would be doing and meeting new people. Though I have come to realise, it is normal to feel this way when starting something new. I was worried about having to have like a full business plan prepared for when going in, but this is something that is not needed currently. This is great for me as I have no clue what I want to do with my business yet, but I am hoping over the next several weeks that I will start my journey into becoming a #FemaleBoss. One thing that surprised me when I joined the call was that there were so many people on it. We had up to 150 attendees on the call which was amazing. So many people who like me, are wanting to learn about business and develop their ideas. It was also great to have the opportunity to now network with everyone and get to know so many women from various backgrounds and get to learn and see things from their perspective.
We had 3 guest speakers all from different backgrounds. The first being Mandy Baily who is the Local Enterprise Manager for Royal Bank of Scotland. I was shocked that someone so high up from RBS would be speaking to us on the first session, it really reassured me that this program is about inspiring women to be entrepreneurs. Mandy has been a speaker at various sessions for the female boss program over the last 4 years, as RBS run this programme in partnership with Bridge 2 Business. She first spoke to us about the aims of this program and what they had to offer. Their main goal is imploring to inspire as many women as possible to get into business and enterprise, they do this by offering weekly workshops that cover various skills and knowledge that we will need. As well as matching us with mentors and teaching us how to produce a business model canvas. When she said this, I felt a bit better about if I was going to be able to do anything. There is always that self-doubt in the back of your mind saying, “I can't do it, what is the point?” Looking back to previous experiences there has been times I have let this thought catch on and pull me in. And then I just learned nothing and felt sad that I had missed out of a new opportunity. Right now, and for any future endeavours I hope to overcome this closed, fixed mindset and moving forward, to have a more open mindset where I can grow and learn new things. Mandy came across as deeply passionate about the female boss program and helping us to be the best versions of ourselves, I felt really excited about doing the program and the sessions that we would be doing over the following weeks.
Our second speaker was Ciara Bows, who runs the company Glenfield Distillery. Her business was first inspired by her grandmother Marjorie, who started an at home distillery, making spirits with local produce, this was closed though as it was illegal at the time. Now though Ciara has been developing this business for the last 2 years with the hope to carry on her grandmother's dream. She has just found premises to open her distillery and is awaiting from permission from the council to start building. She is currently working with a chef to help her develop her products and is using Scottish Botanics to produce various spirits that will have a taste of Scotland. When it came to funding her business, she started crowdfunding last year and managed to raise over £11,000. In addition to this she applied to Scotland Edge, where at first, she was rejected, but rather than letting this set her back, she took on the judge's feedback, made some changes, applied again, and won! As well as winning the award she won £10,000 to put towards her business. Now that she had the funds though, does not mean all the work was then done. No in fact it has only just began. Over the next few years, she hopes to have 2 buildings up and running, one being the distillery and the other being a visitor's space where people of the community can come together and learn about the world of distilling. She has done various programs herself to learn about being an entrepreneur such as Impact 30 and a marketing project at Stirling University. When listening to her speak it was so fascinating to hear about her journey and the difficulties of being a business entrepreneur within this current climate. A few things she said really struck a chord with me, the first being that “you should be prepared for plans to change.” I am not someone that typically likes change especially when I already feel like I have a solid plan in place. It causes me anxiety and honestly, I feel a bit of failure when something does not go to plan. This leads me on to the second thing she said which I really took to heart was “failure is the opportunity to learn and grow.” This is something I have never thought about before. I love to learn but in the past when faced with failure it has upset me. I remember last year when doing my graded unit, I had handed in my planning stage and got an 8/15 which was the lowest pass mark you could get. I was devastated especially because I got the full 15 marks for the planning stage the previous year. I cried and stormed out the room, I even slammed a door which when looking back was childish of me. From there though I was determined to do better and prove that I can still get the A grade despite me only sitting a C at the time. Once I had calmed down, I realised that was not the way to behave so when Ciara said that today that memory of what I considered a big failure at the time popped into my head and I thought that was a learning experience. Life is not about what you failed at; it is about overcoming those small failures. Learning from them and moving on. In the future when faced with a situation like this again I will remember what Ciara said and implement it into my life.
Our third and final speaker was Jordyn Stewart who is an Alumni of this program and runs her own reiki and massage business. When she first started this program last year, like us she was nervous and shy. Over the weeks and the various sessions, she was able to build her confidence and come out her shell. The program taught her that her passion was not just a hobby but could be developed onto a business. By doing the sessions she was able to develop the skills and knowledge needed to start her own business. She was able to grow the services that she could offer and is now qualified up to the highest form of reiki and can teach it also. She also offers Indian head massage, full body massage and sound healing. Jordyn was able to study these additional courses with financial support from her family and has a spare bedroom in which she can work from. She also works with a men's mental health charity once a week offering sound healing. Something that really helped her with her business was winning the pitch competition, which is a part of the female boss program, this won her a cash prize to put towards her business and a mentor who she is still in contact will. Something that stood out to me when she was speaking was that she clearly had really enjoyed doing the program and learned a lot from it. It was great hearing from someone that had started off like me and thinking that her goal was just a dream and would not become a reality. By doing female boss she learnt that networking is key when developing a business as helps to build your confidence and show people what your business is about. Another thing she said that made me sit back and think was that “you are the expert in what you are doing, believe in yourself.” She really drew me in with her talk and her story was really inspiring.
The chat throughout the session was continually active, with everyone introducing themselves and sharing what they do. It was so cool that we all just began to network with each other, following each other on social media. It was just such a great vibe and atmosphere. We all where complete strangers to each other but we all have the same goal that that is to be a #FemaleBoss.
Overall, I feel like the first session went amazingly well. I was so impressed with the speakers and their stories. It just felt so empowering and inspirational to be able to sit with all these women and know that we would all be on this journey together learning to develop and grow out skills and knowledge to become entrepreneurs. I am really looking forward to all the other sessions and cannot wait to learn as well as getting to know new people and make some new connections. Session 2 is next week and will be based on The Why behind Femal Boss. It will be great to learn more about the program and hear from more guest speakers. With that being said, I shall be back next week to update this blog on everything we did and what I have learned.
Week 2 – The Why behind Female Boss
This week we were looking at the values behind the Female Boss programme and the values we have as individuals. I was really looking forward to doing the class as last week when the workshop had finished, I left feeling really empowered and inspired. Today we would have 2 speakers called Baylie and Viane. Both are female entrepreneurs and are very successful with in their respective fields. We would also be working in small groups at some point during the call where we would discuss and answer a question given to us by Lynne the head of the programme.
Before beginning the interviews with our guests' speakers, Lynne spoke to us about last week and how it went. It was great to see us all instantly start to network with each other and interact with each. I have gained a quite a bit of new followers on social media which has been great. It's also been interesting to see what everyone specialises in. It is such a diverse group of people with everyone keen to support each other and offer advice. She then went on to speak about the values of the Female Boss programme, their core one being to inspire and share knowledge with females who want to become entrepreneurs. Something that she said that really stood out to me and why it is important that as a business we have values is that “if you focus on your values and passions, you will achieve your goals.” I found this to be so inspiring as it gave me a new perspective as what I personally want to bring to my business. I think at times in life we get caught up in trying to please others and thinking how we can live up to their values and help them achieve their passions, I think in Scotland particularly we love to support others but often at the expense of ourselves. It's a mindset that a lot of us seem to share. But what about our passions? Our values? Our goals? They are just as important and we should live by them as this is what will make us the happiest in life, and when this need is met, we in turn can achieve all our goals in life.
We then went onto the interview with Baylie and Viana. Shauna would be asking them about their values, what has their business journeys been like? and what pitfalls and challenges they have had to overcome? Baylie is CEO of her company Dechomai – which in Greek means to accept someone wholeheartedly. She was first introduced to the idea to being an entrepreneur at the age of 15 when she took part in Young Enterprise Scotland when in school. She felt really inspired and wanted to study business but was told no, by her father. So, at 16 she dropped out of schooling and went to work full time at McDonalds, and this is where she first learnt about business values. From here she then went to work in various sectors of the fashion and hospitality sectors. Something that she noticed though was the lack of diversity and people from an ethnic background within the hospitality sector and in managerial roles. This is something she wanted to change. Feeling inspired she started a business that focused getting people from ethnic backgrounds in to job roles within the hospitality industry. When the pandemic struck though she had to adapt like many others and change the direction of the business. Still with the focus of getting people from an ethnic background into more job roles, she was also now offering various workshops that help people to grow and develop their own business. With an array of services available, so that there is something for everyone. She as a business values being authentic to oneself and sticking to what's important to you. A challenge that she faced was in 2021 her mother passed away which cause her a lot of grief that took her away from the business. She said that what helped her get through this incredibly difficult time of her life, was that she had surround herself with people that supported her. People offered to take over role briefly, took her on days out to smell the roses and helped her through this tough time and provided her a distraction when needed. I thought to share such a vulnerable story with us all took such courage and had really inspired me in the sense that everyone even though different all go through the same struggles in life. She said to consider when building your business, who you surround yourself with as these people will become your tribe, and that when doing so you can create a supportive eco system. to end of her interview with us she gave us a Mark Twain quote which I have place down below. I had never really thought about the best days if me. And I have never really considered that the day I was born as one of them. I think this because I have struggles with my mental health so much and questioning why I was here at times. To hear this quote and absorbed it in has defiantly helped my mindset a little bit. I am waiting for that day I realise why? I think it is something that a young age we are pressured to discover and that we have this time limit on, though as I grow older I have come to realise that everyone is on different journeys and it's not about when your hit those milestones, it's about how you got there, what your learned and then being happy with where you are at. Don't compare where you are at currently to other people's lives as this will just stress you out. Focus on you and what you want as an individual. You are never behind or ahead just going at your own pace.
The first thing that stood out to me with Viana is the way in which she spoke. She was so confident and came across very wise and knowledgeable. Her business pRespect which is aimed at unlocking the full potential of individuals and organisations. their core values are to help empower, encourage and bring equality to those that face discrimination due to their backgrounds and ethnicity. She was inspired at a young age by her family who bestowed on her a big work ethic and who themslevs where hard working entrepreneurs. She too like Baylie started off at McDonalds at the age of 16 and soon discovered that she loved working with others and helping them to grow and develop. A challenge that she shared with us that she has faced is that one point in her business she took on too much and she burnt out. From this she learned that you need to give yourself a break/holiday, make time for yourself. She tapped in to having more patience with herself and her business. You don't need to achieve everything all at once. You should also not feel guilty for taking a break, your business will still be there when you get back. A value that she really stands by herself, and she included in the name of her business is respect. Respecting yourself, others and cultures. Something that she said to us in terms of developing our own business is that we should be bold in taking risks, try new things, connect with others and connect with community. What I took away from her interview was that I shouldn't be afraid to take risks and that without risk there is no reward. It's not how you start out; it's how you finish.
We then where split into small groups where we discussed out answer to the question - “What is the biggest positive change you have seen in female entrepreneurship? How can we develop this for the future?” - something that I have noticed is that over the years women have been much more open to supporting other women in business as well as in life. This has then had the knock-on effect of more women developing and starting their own business and programmes like Female Boss. When speaking to the other people in my group it was nice to hear what they thought and learn from them things that I hadn't really considered. Anna spoke about how she has seen that women are now more confident in taking risks in terms of business which then allows them to grow. She also noted that women from all backgrounds are now being encouraged and inspired to be entrepreneurs. Something that Amanda noted is that more and more female influencers are now more open and share their journeys and advice with others so that they can also achieve the same success that they have. When looking to the future something that I think would be a good area for women to develop in is politics. Right now, there is not many women in the political world and those that are treated as less and discriminated against because of their gender. This is something that needs to change and I think over the next few years and looking at the progress we have made so far, this goal is looking to be more and more achievable.
We then concluded this session with talking about looking into the mentorship program and answering the questions that others had. I have still to look at the mentorship programme as I am unsure if I am ready just now. I will look over it in the next week and see how I am feeling about it. Right now, I am working on the business model canvas, I am doing 2 of them though as I have 2 ideas, but I am unsure which one to go with the now. I have time though to decided and develop my idea and I am not going to rush myself, or stress out about having a definitive plan. Next week we are going to be doing a workshop on Confidence Building, which I am looking forward to doing as the last 2 workshops have been fantastic and I have left both feeling really inspired and full of motivation. Until next week, have a good one.
Week 3 – Confidence Building - “Building form the inside out”
This week we looked at confidence building and how to deal with imposter syndrome. We had another lovely speaker this week called Jayne Ruff, who is an Educational Phycologist. She runs 2 business called Changing Point and Parenting Point. Today she shared tips on how to avoid imposter syndrome.
At first, I wondered what is imposter syndrome? Jayne went on to explain that it is feeling or thinking we are frauds, that our wins are just down to sheer luck and a fear of being outed. These negative thoughts are common, and everyone feels them at various stages within their lives. You are not alone. 70% of people feel fraudulent and most of these people are high level performers. It can also affect all level of any organisation. When she was going into detail about what imposter syndrome is, I found myself identifying times I had felt like this, so I was looking forward to hearing what tips she had to share with us, to help us overcome these feelings.
Tip 1 was to tune into our negative thoughts. At first, I was confused by this advice as my own therapist has always told me that we must work on NOT hooking into the negative thoughts. Especially as someone with such a creative and vivid mind, hooking into the negative can be dangerous for my health. Jayne went on to explain that we could train our brains to manage our negative thoughts and we could do this using 3 steps. First to recognise your Activating Events aka trigger moments. What causes these feeling? By identifying them we can then recognise when we start to doubt ourselves. In an academic or business setting I would say that one of my trigger points is meeting new people. I always put these expectations on myself to come across as kind, helpful and a little bit funny, I find myself thinking that everyone will hate me? or what if we don't get along? Do I look bad? Am I coming across to strong? I find that being neurodivergent plays a lot into this also. I am nervous in case I say the wrong this as I have a habit of just blurting out my intrusive thoughts. Though I know that it's not something that I can control, it is something that stresses me out when I meet new people. I also have this mindset that I am currently trying to work on, which is to stop seeking other people's reassurance and approval when I am having negative thoughts, as this can lead to a full melt down for me. For some reason I hate the idea of someone not liking me. Something that I am slowly coming to terms with, is that you're not going to like and get along with every single person in your life, and this is NOT a bad thing. Rather just something that happens as we all have different life experiences, meaning that we all have different priorities, values and opinions. Right now, I am working on accepting this idea, even though it can be difficult to overcome that fixed mindset, having a growth mindset, especially as a creative entrepreneur is how you're constantly going to be able to grow as a business, develop new ideas and love what you do on a day-to-day basis. Once we have recognised these triggers though we can then look at the Beliefs we are feeling to these negative thoughts. Such as thinking you're not an expert, or you're not interesting enough. Take these thoughts and spin them. Yeah, you might not be an expert, but you have passion and that's what is driving you to do what you do. This is one that I can relate to, as I do find myself at times thinking this exact same thought, but while yes, I am not an expert, I am passionate, hardworking, driven and empowered to learn and grow. We then looked at what choices this thought could lead you to make. If you just listened to the negative, are you going to let it stop you from taking on that opportunity or are you going to spin it around as say no, I am doing this, it's going to be amazing, and I will learn and grow from this experience. I think that for me I always do something even if I am scared. In life there is no reward without any risks. I actually think that fear pushes me to do better in academic and business setting. I think what have I got to lose?
Tip 2 was to recalibrate success. We so often put so much pressure on ourselves to be constantly perfect and live up to all these high expectations that we set for ourselves. I am really guilty of this. I set the bar to high and then when I miss it, I am so hard on myself. And then I think of myself as a failure. But am I though? Does not living up to these high expectations really need to affect us so much? Something that Jayne also said was that we need to look at how we see failure? In the past I have always seen it as a negative, I think “why am I not perfect?”. Something that I am coming to realise that as I get older, is that no one is perfect, not even Beyonce. Everyone has flaws and failures, but it's how we navigate through, taking these flaws and failures on as lessons. Going on to learn and grow from them. I think in the future I will work on being not so hard on myself and reevaluating what I want from an experience and what I am going to learn from it. To look at myself as a work in progress, as it's about the journey not the destination.
The third tip was to celebrate your small wins. This is something that I already do and implement into my life. Every week I set myself small goals and task for the week and then when I achieve them I either, go the arcade, get some nice food, or sit and read for a while. A good way that I keep track of these is by reflecting. I keep a few blogs now including this one where I write on each week and reflect on what I am doing, learning and what my next steps are. I also make weekly to do lists that consist of small tasks that I want to get done that week. Even if I do miss a small task, I do not stress about it as think about everything else I have managed to achieve that week. For example, this past week I have done a photoshoot, that other members of my group project and I put a lot of time and effort into. I told myself at the start of the week that as a reward for doing the photoshoot I would go for Tacos this weekend with some friends. I found this motivated me to turn up and do the best that I could do. Everything went amazing and now I get to have Tacos. Something else that Jayne said when explaining this tip was that we should digest the praise we get from others, as it allows you to take on board how you have positively affected someone. I think that as human beings we tend to focus on the negative comments but what about the people that all nothing but nice things to say? Why are we so quick to dismiss them and focus on that one negative comment? All that you gain from that is having negative thoughts that you don't need. If you have walked away from a situation, having given a positive impression to someone, focus on that.
We then went on to do a Q&A with Jayne. The people in the chat always come up with some great questions I find. Something that I'm not particularly great at. I always find I think of a good question after the situation is done with. Someone asked her how we not take on other people's negativity? I thought this a big question and knew that this question is one that people are still looking for the answer for. Me included. Jayne said that you should think about what's important to you? What are your values? What life do you want to lead? I am someone that likes to live by my morals and values not that talk about them. Though this is easier said than done. Jayne went on to say we should look to these values as a compass that will help guide us through rough seas. We can choose how we interact with people; we can choose to react to the negativity. For me its acknowledging when to let the negative comments slip away. Sometime other people may even not mean to come across as negative. Everyone is going through different things and it's important to remember that not everything is about you, that a person just may be having a rough day. Another person then asked about a method we could use to help us positively envision our futures. It was suggested that we could make vision boards as this help to inspire and empower us to achieve our goals. I think for next week I will make one and post it to my blogs, as I think this would be a great idea for me to visualise my goals.
Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop. I learnt new things about myself. Like the fact that I am not alone in having these negative feelings. Its normal and everyone gets them. It's not about the result, it's about how you got there. Next week we are doing “Idea Generation and exploring ideas”. I am hoping this workshop helps me to develop some of my business idea. I am going to be applying for the funding from the Female Boss program, but I am unsure what business to pitch as I have a few ideas, and all are very different from each other. So, it will be interesting to see what happens. Until next week, ciao for now.
Week 4 - Idea Generation and Development
This week I was really looking forward to the session that we would be doing, as we were going to be looking at idea generation and development. As someone with a very creative brain I am always coming up with business ideas, where I struggle though is then developing those ideas and making them into a business. I think especially as women we are discouraged a lot when it comes to business. We have been taught that business is a man's world and women don't belong in it. However, this workshop teaches us the opposite, we can all have that entrepreneurial mindset, it's just a case of learning what you need to. I would say in Scotland particularly we are lucky to all have access to a free education and can study any subject that we want, without too many restrictions. This week we will have 2 speakers, the first being Nicole McGeehan who works for Bridge 2 Business, she will be talking us through a PowerPoint on idea development techniques. The second speaker would be Amee from S’wheat, in which she is an owner and co-creator.
Nicole started the presentation by looking at what is idea generation? Where do these ideas come from? When it comes to products and services there are many reasons and methods that businesses and entrepreneurs use to come up with new ideas. Some may just have that lightbulb moment, something just clicks in their head, and they have this great new idea that they can develop to either create something completely new or to develop an already existing product or service. Some may find inadequacy- a gap in the market – and want to come up with an idea to make up for that inadequacy. Nicole went on to explain that we could break the reasons down into 3 categories;
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Something New – brand new idea, never been done before.
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Different Uses – enhancing and changing something to suit another need.
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Improving – example used was how Amazon expanded into Amazon Prime, Kindle, Video and Music
There are also many methods one can use to come up with these ideas. My personal favourite is using mind maps, this is a method that I have always used when developing ideas for academics and business I feel that they allow you to be creative and have a great flow, they are also very visual, and you can look back on them and use them as inspiration and help you to focus on your end goal. The standard techniques that most use the problem-based solutions technique, you would first identify the problem and then come up with various solutions, refine them, test them all out and then choose one solution that you think is best for solving the problem at hand. Another technique that Nicole spoke to us about was SCAMPER created by Bob Eberle and is used to solve creative thinking problems. Broken down it means Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse. The idea is that you use 7 different thinking techniques to help solve a problem rather than just one. This helps to brainstorm and develop creative ideas and allows you to think outside the box. Not all ideas are sheer luck, people don’t always have these business ideas fall into their laps, they need to innovate, create and develop them to be successful.
Our next speaker was Amee from S’wheat, a company from Scotland that has created and developed a sustainable water bottle that is made from a plant-based material (recycled wheat straw). Amee and her co-founder came up with the idea in 2018 when both were still at university. They saw a gap in the market and wanted to create something that was more sustainable and easier to clean, as plastic bottles would begin to smell after time and grow black mould. This was something they wanted to solve and bring a new product to the market. They tried both metallic bottles and glass bottles at first but found the metallic one changed the taste of the water and the glass one could be unsafe. They found a material that was plant based and did not affect the smell or taste of the water as well as not going mouldy. From here they went on to developing the bottle itself. It was a long process as they wanted to get it right, they developed over 50 prototypes until they settled on one that they loved and where happy to sell to the public. As they were just students at the time, they started with nothing and neither where studying business either, so they went to Bridge 2 Business for help with developing their business and getting funding. They decided to launch a pre-sale crowdfund campaign, in which they set a goal for £10,000 in sales in the next 30 days, if they reached this goal customers would get their bottle in a couple of months, if not they would be refunded. Over the next 30 days though they completely smashed their goal out of the park raising over £22,000 in sales. This caused them to then have a lot of media attention and they had several news articles wrote about them and this led to a producer from Channel 4 reaching out to them. They agreed to be on the show Buy it Now for Christmas, the show showed them in a good light and aired before Christmas. Within an hour of the show airing, they had over £20,000 in sales. Due to this success they had to go back to the drawing board as they were still a start up at this point and needed more funding to meet the demand of the customers. They applied to Creative Scotland, Young Scottish Edge, Princess Trust etc. They won £15,000 off Young Scottish Edge and from this they were able to get their first office space and storage units for their products. They were determined to be a success and were looking for ways to grow and develop the brand. They did face several setbacks t though, having a fire and break ins luckily, they did not affect the company that much, and this led them to move to a bigger office space. They have then gone on to launch a corporate site where they work with brands and business in collaboration, and they can customise the bottles and buy them in bulk for their staff. They have worked with a variety of big brands such as Google, Formula 1 and Aston Martin just to name a few.
I found that both speakers came across as very passionate and knowledgeable. What I took away from Nicole was new techniques and methods that I could use when it comes to my own business. I liked that she gave us a method that was aimed at creative entrepreneurs. I find that creatives often have too many ideas all at once and can try to focus on too many things all at once. I also tend to do this, but by using the SCAMPER method, it will allow me to focus on the one idea and then from there, develop it into something that is tangible. When Amee was telling us about the journey she went through as an entrepreneur, I just felt so inspired by her and her story. She started off so young and with no knowledge on how to run a business, but she did not let this stop her. She believed in herself and the product they were going to make. Though she did not have that knowledge at first, she went out and sought that information. I think at times we don't like to ever ask for help, I don't, I am stubborn, but this can lead to dead ends and not really getting anywhere, so if the help is there, take it.
We then went into breakout rooms on the call to discuss new ideas that we could use to develop or replace the toothbrush. A bit of an odd choice, but a simple product that people use every day, so it was something that we all had firsthand knowledge of. I was put into group 2, this week though I was going to make sure that I spoke out more and was more confident in sharing my ideas and thoughts, as opposed to last time where I got to nervous and never spoke at all. We had to come up with something for each idea category. We all seemed to mesh well together in my group which was good, everyone was very open to listening to other people's ideas and then as the conversation went on, we were able to develop those ideas a little bit. For the Something New I suggested doing a chewable toothpaste, like a sweet almost, something that dissolves so there is no waste of water or plastic. It would also be more fun for kids to use, who are often reluctant to brush their teeth. For the different use we all thought about how we all use a toothbrush to help us clean. We came up with the idea to make the toothbrush into a tool, which you use to clean and it could have interchangeable heads that were made from various materials; so that you could then clean all sorts of surfaces, we then even spoke about adding in a part that would allow you to put in the cleaning product that you would be using and it would dispense it onto the surface that you were cleaning. We all really liked this idea and felt it was something that a lot of people would use. Once the time was up, we all came together again to discuss our ideas. I felt it was a good exercise, it allowed us to network with one another, to think creatively and to some of the methods we had learned about into use. I always find that when I have an idea, I do like to bounce it off other people to help develop it, it allows me to take in other people's views and perspectives.
At the end of the session as always, we had a Q&A with the speakers from that week. Amee was asked how they were able to market their business so well in the early stages of developing the brand? She said that there was a lot of trial and error, and different customers could be targeted through various streams. They used a lot of Facebook and word of mouth at the time of starting their business. She said when it came to the news articles and being approached/approaching journalists, it is best to have a press kit put together about your business as this then makes it easier for the journalist to write up a piece on what your business is about, and you can control the narrative. This is something that I will be looking into as I have never heard of a press kit before and want to learn about it so that I can use it in the future regarding my own business. Someone then asked about having any tips on how to confidently pitch for funding? Amee gave some very good advice, no one knows your idea better than you do, if you slip and say the wrong thing at the wrong time, they don't know that, keep going on as best as you can. Confidence is something that will grow over time, practice your presentation as many times as you need to. If you want to there are also workshops that you can take to help you build your skills and confidence within this area. Don't overthink it.
Overall, this week has been my favourite so far. I feel like I learnt a lot about different methods and techniques that I can now use when developing ideas. I found Amee and her story to be fascinating and inspiring. I always leave these workshops feeling so empowered and that I can take on the world. I always like to leave in some quotes as well within my blogs that just give me that motivation to push myself and always look for new ways to improve and grow as a creative entrepreneur. Next week we will be looking at building your personal brand and online presence, which I am looking forward to as this is something that I currently working on, so any ideas, advice and inside information would be greatly appreciated, as I really want to grow my social media presence right now before advertising my business. So, until next week, au revoir.
Bibliography
Haydy et al. (2022) A guide to the SCAMPER technique for creative thinking, Designorate. Available at: https://www.designorate.com/a-guide-to-the-scamper-technique-for-creative-thinking/ (Accessed: 19 February 2024).
Bottle, S., Wheat (2023) S’wheat on Instagram: ‘🎁✨last-minute gifting made easy! The perfect sustainable surprise for everyone on your list 🌲💚 hurry, Tomorrow’s the last day for standard UK shipping before Christmas! order before 2pm 🚚 #lastminutegifts #sustainablesuprise #swheat’, Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/swheatbottle/p/C1CEsefqef1/ (Accessed: 19 February 2024).
Bottle, S. (2024) S’wheat bottle, S’wheat. Available at: https://www.swheatbottle.com/products/swheat-reusable-bottle (Accessed: 19 February 2024).
Week 5 - Building Your Online Presence
This week I was really looking forward to the workshop that we would be doing. As a makeup artist, one of our key marketing strategies is using social media to promote our skills as a makeup artist and attract new customers. We had 2 speakers this week, Elery from Wix and Niki Hutchison who is a branding strategist and co-owner of Adventures in Marketing. I was excited to hear what they had to say and learn from them as they were both experts in their fields.
Elery was the first speaker of the workshop, she works for Wix which is a company where you can create your own website. You can do it for free and they also have plans that you could pay for, and they vary in price. I have a Wix account and it’s currently what I am, using as my website for this blog post and for my university course. At the start of the year when we all first started, we were informed that we would all have to create a website and separate blog for all our classes. I panicked!!! I am a makeup artist, give me a blending brush and some eyeshadow and I know I can do whatever you ask me to do. Website design, however, was a whole other playing field. I had no clue where to start. I tried various sites such as Google Sites and Square Space, but I hated them, and I thought they looked rather dull. So, I tried Wix, and I loved it. It was something I needed to learn how to use fast but is very user-friendly, there are guides you can read and there are tutorials that you can watch also. What I liked the most was that I could make it more fun-looking. I had so many options to choose from and even then, if you don't feel as confident in creating your pages, there are 100s of templates to choose from. Elery's talk was about what Wix was and how to use it. Me and another girl were the only people in the group that had Wix accounts, so we already knew about everything she was talking about. This then allowed me to help answer questions in the chat about Wix from a user's perspective though, as some people were apprehensive about using it. I really enjoyed Elery’s talk. One thing I would say is that they didn't give her a lot of time, so it did all feel rather rushed a bit.
We then had a talk and presentation from Niki. Off the bat she was energetic, and you could tell that she was passionate about her job and what she does. She was going to be speaking to us about personal branding. I have studied a bit about branding in my course, but I was intrigued to learn more about it, especially from someone who has worked with big companies such as Google, Play Station, and Land Rover. Currently, I am developing a brand logo, but I am not 100% happy with it. I feel like I haven't really developed my brand as such just a logo, so I was keen to know what steps I could take to develop my own brand further. Niki first spoke about knowing the different branding jargon words, what they mean, and how we then develop each section.
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Brand – how people perceive you.
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Identity – what your business looks and feels like – the vide.
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Branding – bringing it to life and consistently promoting it.
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Niki told us that's important to develop these just right and keep in mind that branding goes hand in hand with reputation. It is the starting point of marketing communication. She told us to make sure that we are 100% happy with our branding before we launched it. When it comes to creating logos, you are best going to a professional graphic designer. This sway you can own the copyright and it will look like a professional logo. Ones done on Canva belong to them and you can use on your website. I currently have a logo, but I made in collaboration with a graphic design student. I think they rushed it though, which on one had I understand as they have a lot on their plate with all their course work, but on the other you can tell its rushed. It looks a bit rough around the edges if I am honest and I am not sure what my next step would be. I think I might try and fix it myself on Ibis Paint as I use that app to create all my digital face charts. If that does not turn out the way I want, I will then approach a professional and pay them to come up with a completely new design.
Niki then went on to explain that developing our branding was so important because it is the glue that holds together, you're marketing. Make sure that it all aligns with your values, as this is the reason that you will be remembered. Branding is key to communicating to your customers and making them realise what they love about your brand and what they have been looking for. But how do we develop our branding? Niki introduced us to the Brand Wheel.
Insert Photo of Branding wheel.
“What is a Brand Wheel?
A brand wheel is a brand strategy model used to create a strong, consistent brand. It has the Brand Essence is at the epicentre and shows that all brand elements are encompassed by the Values and Personality.
This circular model includes:
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Brand Personality
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Brand values
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Communication Proposition
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Benefits
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Substantiations
Similarly, it is often also known as a brand essence wheel, a brand strategy wheel or a branding wheel. All these terms can be used interchangeably.” (Bale, 2023)
She then went on to explain each section is and how we would fill it in. I had never heard of it before, so i was keen to learn all that I could about. The talk was short though so I made sure to take note to research it further in my free time and that I could also add it to my branding page for one of my classes. I am currently developing 2 business idea one is my actual business as a freelance makeup artist and the other is a prototype for my Professional Practice Portfolio class. So, I can use this model to help be develop both ideas even further and ass it as additional evidence which is great.
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Brand Values – defining what you you want your values to be, what do you want to achieve? What do you want to represent to your audience? Listen to your community, look for gaps in the market.
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Brand Personality – Where do you fit in? What do you want to communicate with your branding? Are you sincere like Disney? Or sophisticated like Rolex?
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Benefits – what do you do better? Back it up with data and proof. What do your customers want?
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Brand Essence – the core of your business. What you are about? What are your long term and short-term goals? Your companies manifesto.
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Substantiations – Evidence!! Client results, testimonials, reviews, your experience and qualifications.
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Communication Proposition – a slogan that communicates to your audience is a few words what your brand is about. For example, Nike has “Just Do It”
Overall, I really enjoyed this session. Though the first presentation was not that helpful to me as I already know about Wix and use it, I was glad I was able to speak to others in the group and share my experience with it. I thoroughly enjoyed Niki’s presentation and learned so much about personal branding and development that I didn't know before. I am looking forward to using this new knowledge and applying it to own business ideas. Next week we will be looking at “How to network effectively and make contacts”, which I am looking forward to as I don't really know what Networking means fully in a business sense. So, it will be interesting to learn about it and apply it to everything else that I have been doing so far in developing as a creative entrepreneur. Until next week, Adiós.
References: Bale, S. (2023) Brand wheel: The definitive guide, Lane Agency. Available at: https://www.thelaneagency.com/blog/brand-wheel/ (Accessed: 25 February 2024).
Week 6: Networking and Making Contacts
This week we looked at networking. What does it mean? What does it look like? And how do we use it effectively in business?
We had 2 speakers this week Lynne Kelly and Emma Ives who both work at Bridge 2 Business. I was looking forward to the session as I didn't really know much about networking in a business sense. I know that I had contacts just not how to utilise those contacts. So, I was looking forward to learning about what it is. I have done some additional research this weeks to add to the blog as I felt that it needed it.
Lynne was the first speaker today. Compared to others she had a much more laid-back approach to presenting. She did not have a PowerPoint and was just speaking from her own knowledge and experiences. She first explained that networking is making connections with other people who shares the same values as you. When networking you should be yourself and let you passion about what you do come out. It's about being able to communicate with others and learn from them, as everyone as different life experiences, so there is always something new you could learn from them, as they see things differently from you.
Emma was the second speaker today and like Lynne she was also just speaking form her own experience with networking. He background was in the arts, festivals, research consultant and working with start-up companies in collaboration with Edinburgh University. She was telling us about attending events in your area. You can find use the meetup app or look them up for your industry and then attend them. They did say to consider if going to an actual networking event would benefit you. Is that event relevant your business? Or for finding out the information you are wanting to gain. Netwoking looks different to everyone. Find the method that suits you and will meet your business needs. A key skill though to work on is having the confidence to speak to others, asking questions and getting their opinions about your ideas. Through doing doing this and networking with others you will build your confidence, find your purpose and may even find an accidental mentor. Emma went on to say the networking gives you a group of people you can trust, learn from and develop as a business. At times you will need to meet people and make connection to gain specific information.
We then looked what skills you would need to network. You first need he ability to hook people in. Get them interested in what you are doing. Are you both working on something similar? Or can you both mutually benefit from the information that you can share with one another. Having the confidence to ask questions and reach out to people. You may get turned down or they may just be busy, but people like to talk about themselves and what they do, so they will eventually get back to you. Not now doesn't mean never.
We then looked at networking mind map. I decided to do one and add it to my work for class as well as below. I found that when I created this that I had way more connections than I had initially thought. I have always seen myself as chatty when I get to know people, but I have a difficult time in various social setting. I do not like being in big crowds or using apps. I find communication at times in a social way to be very mentally draining. When crating the mind map though I did not consider that I did inface know all these people from various aspects of my life. People that know me say that I am great and talking with others and I am quite sociable. Which is the complete opposite as to how I see myself. Perhaps it is that pesky imposter syndrome sneaking in and making me feel that way.
Overall, I did not find that I really enjoyed this week's workshop. It did not feel very informative as others. There was a lot of talking but without context or actual substantial information about how to do networking. I feel like this is definitely a workshop that they could work on. While hearing of other people's experiences was insightful it did not help me to develop my own skills and knowledge on networking. Compared to the other workshops it just felt bland and not that informative. When someone asked about looking in your current network, it was myself that researched and shared the networking mind map with the group. I felt that this was a resource that they should have provided or known about rather than little old me going on to google and then supplying to everyone.
Week 7 – Basic Business Finance – Top Tips and Tools
This week we would be looking at business finance. I have done a class in finance and fundraising on my BA course, so I was looking forward to adding to that knowledge and seeing how we could apply it to real-world businesses. Our speaker this week would be Carla Buchanan, from the Royal Bank of Scotland, and is an Enterprise Manager. She would be going over why it is so important to know about how business finance works and understand the jargon that we should know, and how it is used.
Carla started off her presentation by going over various jargon words with us all. I luckily knew most of them already which filled me some confidence. I shall put a list below and what they all mean. Who does not love a list to be honest.
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Cash Flow – typically a spreadsheet that that depicts the overall costing of your business, the ins and outs.
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Revenue – the money that coming in form sales.
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Costs – the outs of the business such as rent, utilities, tax.
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Cost of goods sold – how much is costs to make the products, materials, transportation.
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Gross Profit – the total revenue minus the cost of goods and services.
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Net Profit – the overall profit after you can deduct all your costs from your gross profit.
Carla then went on to speak to us about fixed costs and variable costs. So far, I liked how confident she was, and she did not mind answering questions then and there from the rest of the people in the workshop as opposed to others who just wanted to take questions at the end. I felt this was better as sometimes people questions can get lost in the conversation and that can leave people feeling ignored.
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Fixed Costs – these are costs that stay consistently the same.
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Variable Costs – these are costs that change regularly such as cost of goods as they will vary from month to month.
As a makeup artist I would say we have more variable costs than fixed costs, as your number clients will vary week to week. Sometimes you may be booked up from dusk to dawn, whereas other weeks you may only have one job. This means that the number of products we go through will be different. You are also more likely to use up liquid products compared to your powder products as they usually come in smaller quantities, and you use more of them in each makeup application. So, for example 1 eyeshadow pallet could last you an entire year, compared to a foundation could last only a month. Though there is fixed cost such as insurance and tax, depending on what area the makeup artist works in they won't pay for rent and utilities as they will not be working from the one place all the time.
We then looked at the importance of bookkeeping and what it is. Understanding this will help you to see where you are making money and where you are losing it within your business. From this and having this financial information at hand you can then make budgeting decisions that best suit your plans. When it comes to paying your taxes also you will already have all the information readily available to hand over. Most businesses use cash flow spreadsheets to keep their books nowadays as opposed to an actual book. This way you can easily keep track and its more sustainable. In class I have learned how to produce a cash flow, at first as it was something new, I was nervous about doing them as I had never done them before, and they involved a lot of details and maths. I did not think maths was my strong suit, but it turned out I was someone within my class that was really good at them. I think this is because they need to have a lot of planning and involved understanding the ins and outs of your business. I am someone who loves to plan things in detail and I always keep lists and notes of absolutely everything – which some people have made fun of me for - and this has turned out be very beneficial to my learning and applying the information to real life.
After this Carla then went on to tell us more about other jargon words that we would need to know. I honestly didn't think there would be that much. In makeup artistry a brush is a brush, a blush is a blush whereas in finance everything has a fancy name that could just be explained in much more simpler terms, but I guess people just like to complicate things. When I was thinking about why they have all these fancy words – most of which we had never heard of – it came to me that finance is typically male dominated industry. I find that when people want to oppress others, they will withhold information so that others lack that understanding and just come across as dumb. This is not the case! Women are more than capable and just as smart.
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Start-up Expenses – expenses that have incurred during the process of you setting upyour business, i.e. equipment, materials, loans.
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Bills and Operating Costs – the on-going costs for the day to day running of the business.
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Out of Pocket Expenses – payments that you make using your own money (even if you get reimbursed) such as travel, food, accommodation.
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Income – the total income that you generate from sales and services.
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Other Income – revenue from other sources such as grants, account intrest, selling of equipment and excess materials.
Carla then went other what we should be doing weekly as a business. A checklist that would keep us on top of everything so that you do not get snowed under with all the paperwork at the last minute. The first thing would be to keep up with your invoices weekly so that that they don't take up too much of your time later on. You then want to manage your bills and keep a record of any outstanding bills to suppliers, this way you will always know how much you owe, to who and when you need to pay. Carala then explained that it's good to keep an eye on your transactions, you can do this easily through a banking app. By doing this you can then always keep your cash flow updated and accurate. Each week you should review your pricing, is it at a sutible proce point? Are you making enough profit? Also look at the timing of everything, can you make some things faster without affecting the quality? Where can you improve to make the business better for you and your customers.
Overall, I found this session to be okay. I already knew about everything that she was talking about due to me doing a class in the subject. I do feel that it could have been more in-depth for the others in the workshop. For example, they explained what a cash flow was, but they did not explain how to create one or offer any resources that we could look at and use to help develop our knowledge and understanding even further on how to create one. I though this odd as we are all developing out business and they the whole point of this program is help us but when looking back we have not been offered much in the sense of physical resources to help us such as books, apps, documents. I find myself every week sending stuff in the chat to help everyone, ill either already have the resources on hand or ill google while on the workshop. I feel at times when people ask a question the speakers can be rather vague in their response almost as if they don't want to give away the information. Which goes against the whole purpose of the Female Boss Program. Next week is the last workshop and will be about how to pitch your business ideas. Something I am looking forward to as I have a dragon's den presentation coming up and I can apply this information to my presentation. Until next week, antio sas.
Week 8: Pitch Present – Our Final Workshop
Wow! 8 weeks have gone by so fast. It feels like I started this program just the other day. They say time flies when you're having fun. For out fin al session we would be looking at pitch presenting and there would be 2 speakers this week which was exciting. The first one being Mairi Ann from Royal Bank of Scotland and is a Young Enterprise Manager. The second speaker would be Kevin Walls, chief of Scottish Edge. I was really looking forward to what they had to say the advice they had to give as both have seen hundreds of business pitches.
Mairi was out first speakers. She was very clear and confident in her delivery. She first spoke about how we should structure our presentation. You want to take in to consideration what type pf business you have and then what you are presenting for. Why are you doing this pitch in the first place? Are you applying for funding? Networking? Looking for investors? These are all key points to consider when putting together your structure. Do you want in to be punch and to the point or more in depth. Then you would then go on to look at what content you would be adding once you have decided the structure. It is mostly facts and figures or is it all images that and you will develop a script for each slide. Mairi then gave us some advice on delivery. You want to practice before hand to help build confidence in what you are saying. Do not worry about messing up on the day, the panel won't know that you have, so just go with it. No one knows your business better than you do. Be confident in that facts. So, the 3 main components are Structure, Content and Delivery.
Mairi then went on to explain things that we should keep in mind when putting together our pitch and then presenting it.
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Content rules
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Keep it simple
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No acronyms
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No abbreviations
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No jargon
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No advertising speak
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Language is important
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Be confident in what you are saying.
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Don't use NO – hopefully, maybe, almost – keep is positive.
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You know the most about your project
Now when putting it together you want to first think about the message that you want to get across. What is the best way to deliver that message? Do you have a slogan? Keep in mind your branding, is it a true representation of your business? You want to start any pitch by hooking in your audience. Grab their attention, something shocking or interesting statistics. Define the problem next and what you are hoping with their help you can solve. Paint a picture for the audience. You then want to show them how your business is different from others? Where is the innovation? What makes your business that one worth choosing? Are you filling a gap in the market, is your business quite niche to a certain target audience. These are things to consider. You then can go on to speak about who is your audience and what they look like. What is the feedback that you have received so far from them and how do you plan to implement that feedback. You would then go on to explain who your team is, what are their job roles and do they bring to the business. Perhaps you want to expand your team? And you are looking for new employees. Throughout the entire presentation you want to make it clear exactly what you are asking for from the panel. Advise, funding, customers.
A lot of this information was really helpful for in regard to future presentations that I would be putting together. I will be predominantly looking for funding so will make presentations that focus on that. Though I am still developing my business I feel a bit more confident in regard of pitching my business to a panel for money. I also have a dragon's den presentation coming up for one of my university classes and even though the presentation is more focused on development, I can still apply some most of the advice given to my presentation, especially when it comes to structure and delivery.
Next to speak was Kevin. I was rather excited about our talk with him as his job is to watch people present and then then choose which business would receive funding. Scottish Edge is a company that looks to fund Scottish businesses. With the smallest amount being £10,000 and the highest being £100,000.
Keven spoke about what to include and what not to include. He should us a video of a successful applicant and who had received £100,000. I really loved what he showed us. I was a cuticle oil pen business ran by a nail technician. The video was 3 minuets long and when watching the videos you could tell the women speaking was very confident and passionate. She explained clearly what the brand was, what the ingredients where and the benefits of the product. She made it clear that they wear asking for funding so that they could expand their operation in terms of production as they were growing a good pace and where in nail shops across the UK and wanted to expand abroad. Rather than a PowerPoint presentation it was a visual video with a lot of behind the scenes, good quality videos and clips of her speaking to the audience. Keving went on to explain why she one and what we should include in our own pitches in order to be successful. He said his main piece of advice is remember to breath. People often get nervous and then spit out their entire 10-minute presentation in 5 minutes, meaning that they are left just standing there for an awkward amount of time. He said that the pace you should be going at is 150 per minute. You should be clear and concise. This is your story tell it with some passion. Every pitch is an opportunity so even though you may not get the funding you were looking for, someone in the audience may be interested in networking you, buying your product or becoming an investor.
Overall, this was one of my favourite workshops as I felt they were really helpful and went in depth with the information they were giving. I know that going forward I will be able to apply all this advice to my own business. This is me know signing off, Namaste, everyone.
References: Bishop, C. (2019). 10 sales pitch examples that work (+ tips for writing your own). [online] Zendesk. Available at: https://www.zendesk.co.uk/blog/sales-pitch-examples/# [Accessed 15 Apr. 2024].
Edge, S. (2024). The UK’s Biggest Business Funding Competition. [online] www.scottishedge.com. Available at: https://www.scottishedge.com/.
Reflection
It is so strange that this is the last workshop that I will be doing with them. Looking back, I would say there was positive and negatives to the Female Boss Program. I will start with the negatives so we can leave everything on a happy note. The thing that stands out the most in terms of a negative is the fact that the workshops are 1 hour long. This is not a lot of time to learn in my opinion. Most weeks everything felt very rushed, you could tell from some of the speaker also that they felt under pressure to deliver this presentation and interview in less than an hour was stressful. I think especially because there was so much information the organisers wanted to cram in. Some even where quite flustered that they had to give what was usually a 4-hour seminar in 50 minutes. Then there was the lack of resources. Everything was more based on interviewing business owners and while inspiring a lot of them were reluctant to talk about what resources they had used to get to where they are. Books, apps, websites, suppliers etc. How would we apply the information given in a practical way. With the Q&A sections they were rushed as we usually had like 5 minutes of asking people questions. It got to a point that I started googling things and sending it to people or I already knew the information, so I sent it over to them as a lot of people questions where getting missed or the organiser just did not know how to answer the question, this came across is a bit unprofessional honestly. I would also say it's not a good thing to sit there and know more about what is being taught than the providers of the program.
To leave things on a positive note, some of the speakers were amazing and clearly wanted to help us grow and develop as entrepreneurs. My favourite workshops being the idea generation and pitch presenting. I felt these workshops where the best as they gave the most in-depth information as well as resources, we could use in regards to our own business. My favourite part was connection with all the other people taking part in the program. We all networked with each other, followed each other on social media and supported each other through the 8-week program. I did enjoy the program despite some area needing improved. I think in the future if I was to doing like this again I would sign up for something that was more in-depth and focused on the practical side of running a business not just learning about other businesses, while a little bit helpful and inspiring some of the speakers where speaking about stuff that was completely irrelevant to the subject the workshop was about.
Reference: Bassot, B. (2020). The reflective journal. 3rd ed. London: Red Globe Press.