Business

  • Reflections and Lessons Learned in 2018

    My words for 2018 were learn, connect and flourish, I feel picking three words complicated matters for me as it pulled me in many different directions with my life and business.

    I’ve done so much inner work especially during the last quarter of 2018 and I feel that I’ve managed to finally feel connected with myself and I’ve started to accept the Universe has my back and everything that happens, happens because it should, even when it’s difficult.

    Highlights of the Year

    • I started 2018 taking a break from my business after a big move and deciding what changes to make in my business.
    • We finally settled into our new home in Southport and spent lots of time exploring the cute little seaside town.
    • Raising my self care standards. At times I worried I was prioritising my self care too much but I got my first massage and it was amazing. I took myself for long lunchtime walks and I took my journaling to a whole new level and really managed to connect with myself on a deeper level.
    • I connected with some truly amazing women on Instagram and they taught me so much. Especially with my self care journey and my business.
    • My story of #whatiwishilearned in school about periods being shared on Endometriosis UK Instagram page and raising awareness for their campaign.
    • Finding my footing with my business it’s been slow going but I’m proud of the direction it’s going now that I’ve been focusing on and building on my foundations.
    • The content I have created. I didn’t create as much as I wanted but I really enjoyed the content I was able to create, whether it was on my blog or Instagram.

    Biggest Lessons

    • Self-belief is important. If you can’t believe in yourself, that you can do the work, then how can you ask people to invest in you? I’ve learnt that once you believe in yourself well that’s half the battle over with.
    • Putting my trust in the universe. That doesn’t mean I’m not making decisions and doing the work. It just means believing and accepting that what does happen happens for a reason and to stop emotionally beating myself up when it’s completely out of my control. It’s already happened so you can’t change anything so accept it, learn from it and move on.
    • Connecting and following my intuition is hard and scary but it’s so rewarding when I do. Mindset work is so important.
    • Embracing minimalism in my life and business. I feel this will always be a work in progress and is at sometimes slow going but for me it’s about removing what doesn’t feel good and doesn’t flow and only having what I truly need. This year alone my husband and I have gotten rid of at least 13 bags of stuff, 2 boxes of books and a few pieces of furniture. And it’s still a work in progress.
    • Making time to spend with my husband. 2018 was the first year my husband managed his own store and juggling his workload, my work and my health hasn’t been easy but when we have managed it, it’s been so rewarding and gratifying.

    What Didn’t Flow

    • Creating content without a plan. Not having a plan during 2018 really throw me for a loop and has really taken me away from where I wanted my business to go and it’s really shown in the content I haven’t created. As I’ve not been sure how to link it all together. Hence so much radio silence.
    • Surface relationships. I’ve connected with some amazing women this year but I’m craving more deep and meaningful connections. It’s time to up-level some relationships.
    • Doubting myself. We are all guilty of this but I feel I took it too extremes during 2018 and purely let it overwhelm me and hold me back. Now I know that I can journal it out and get to the root cause of my self doubt.

    What Do I Want In 2019?

    For my personal life, well I sadly spent part of December in hospital getting diagnosed with two new health issues one which caused an infection and an old original one getting worse so I’d like to get those sorted out this year so my husband and I can get back on track with IVF and hopefully have that done with in 2019.

    I also plan to spend more time with family and my husband and I have to decide what is next for us in where we live and his career as all of that is in flux right now.

    For my biz, I’m working on some old ideas I was too scared to launch or follow through on last year and see if they if I can make them work with my new plan. Which includes my 121 services, a podcast, and a course along with investing in myself and my biz with my own coach, upgrading my website and maybe a group coaching program along with bringing in some help.

    Let’s see what inspired ideas and the Universe unfolds in 2019 though.

    What have been some of your highlights of 2019?

    CONTINUE READING

  • Why Chronic Illness and the Laptop Lifestyle Go Well Together

    I was walking home from an impromptu Dr’s appointment where I felt extremely grateful to be living this self-employed life and I just wanted to share two moment’s in my crazy life that makes running my own business worth it and how extremely grateful I am for the life I’m living and the freedom it gives me to run my business with my chronic illness with just my laptop.

    Related: How I started my own business

    I have two days I want to share two days in the same week that show how amazingly well running my own business works for me and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to own and run a business around my illness and my health-related appointments.

    Tuesday 21st August 2018

    I ended my previous workday by setting up my out of office to say I was AFK and away from emails for the day. My husband and I had an IVF appointment in Liverpool mid-afternoon which was preplanned so I made sure I was all caught up with emails and client work before I finished my day. We left the house at 11am and didn’t return home until 5:30pm. I didn’t do anything work-related because I’ve either automated it or I’m just not doing it that day.

    I don’t touch my laptop for the whole, entire day.

    Thursday 23rd August 2018

    6:50am

    I wake up at 6:50am with stomach pains and I hurt and feel crappy and decide to ring the G.P. when it opens. I’ve been having a few issues over the last month and a half with the new skin that’s healed from the removal of my abscess earlier this year and I just can’t take it anymore so I set my alarm for 7:55am.

    7:30am

    Kiss my husband goodbye as he’s on an early at work and I go to the bathroom.

    7:55am

    In the bathroom, as my alarm goes off. It’s no longer a stomach issue but an intestinal one.

    8:05am

    I’ve booked an appointment for 10am and I don’t have to phone in sick or cancel anything to go to the appointment.

    9:45am

    I’ve spent the remainder of the morning writing a blog post about a call I had the day before from Kat who’s just passed her A-Levels and has suspected Endometriosis and has gotten into her first choice at University and wanted an idea and plan on how to live away from home and manage University with Endometriosis. I save the post and throw on a dress because it’s a take your knickers off kind of appointment and wearing a dress makes it easier. Then leave the house.

    10:30am

    The appointment was short and nothing to worry about, I leave with a prescription for some antibiotics and I have to do a swab and hand it back before 4pm and ring them back in 3 days. I pop into town to tell my husband what the Dr said and what I have to do. I then wander to the supermarket and buy some chocolate.

    11:30am

    I’ve gotten home changed into jeans because I’m now freezing, Britsh summer has definitely arrived, I’ve swabbed the area the Dr wanted me too, quickly posted to Instagram, fed Evie some celery and finally made a cup of lemon and ginger tea in my travel mug to drink while I walk back to the Drs to hand over my swab sample.

    12:15am

    I’m finally back at home! I sit down with my laptop and check my work emails and respond to clients and do some social media work.

    1:05pm

    I break for lunch which I eat standing up in the kitchen, listen to the radio and pre-cook the mincemeat for tonight’s tea of shepherds pie because it’s my turn to cook and I know I won’t have much energy left by then.

    1:37pm

    I sit back down to do some more work and check my emails again. I email 3 clients about their social media. I also message my BFF and see how she is. I research a couple of things for a client too.

    2:30pm

    I take a 15-minute break, get a drink, take my meds and start this blog post.

    2:45pm

    I’m taking on a new client and so I go over their in-take form and see what information they’ve given me and write down some ideas and questions that I have. I send an email. Start roughly taking notes and do some brainstorming.

    3:45pm

    I reply to some emails and then I check my to-do list to see if I missed anything work-related. I have, I need to resend an invoice for a client.

    4pm

    My calendar bings to remind me it’s the end of my day and to GET OUT. I’m meeting my husband at his work. I close down all my open tabs, why do I always have too many tabs open? I pet Evie who is napping at my feet, put my shoes on, grab my jacket, bag and keys and leave. That’s the end of my work day!

    They are both so very different days but both work around my health. That’s the joy and perks of working for myself.

    CONTINUE READING

  • Should You Start A Blog Or An Instagram Account?

    In one of my favourite Facebook groups, someone asked should I start a blog or an Instagram account?
    The simple and short answer is both. Which is the main response the questioner received.

    I, however, asked some questions to dig a little deeper because the questioner didn’t go into much detail and that’s important. You need to know more about the person to be able to provide a better answer.

    Two Different Platforms

    An important thing to know is that they are two completely different platforms and can gain you different results from using them. The only thing a blog and an Instagram account have in common is they are a way for you to give free content and create, connect and grow your audience.

    What’s Your Purpose?

    I asked what the purpose of her creating a blog and/or an Instagram account was and whether she had something to sell. Her answer was, she had nothing to sell and she wanted to share her love of vegan food, exercise and healthy living. She was still at college and didn’t have a real direction she wanted to go in. She was also worried that so many people had said blogging was dead that she didn’t want to start a platform that wouldn’t be of any use or get any attention.

    An Answer

    To me the answer seemed clear, she had no experience on either platform she wanted to connect with like-minded people and share her journey and passion.

    I replied that I personally thought she would be better off creating an Instagram account to start with and do some microblogging (writing longer form captions) with a few of her posts to see:

    a) how she liked writing longer form content and whether that would interest her in starting a blog and

    b) if she wanted to connect more deeply with her audience and they enjoyed the content and captions she was creating.

    I personally don’t think blogging is dead. Although this subject alone could be its own blog post. I think it depends on your focus, your marketing strategy, your time and the content you have to give. Plus I think you’ll find a lot of people who’ve said blogging is dead are:

    a) still blogging, ironic right? or

    b) spending time on another platform microblogging.

    To be honest there isn’t a wrong way or a right way to start. It’s not linear. You could easily start an Instagram and an email newsletter before you start a blog or a business because you don’t know what you want to sell or promote.

    The thing is nothing is ever so simple and there is never a right or wrong way to start posting online. You just need to start and go with your gut.

    Need one to one support, with a question like this, then book a Get Unstuck session with me.

    Should You Start A Blog Or An Instagram Account?

    CONTINUE READING

  • How I Started My Own Business

    I often get asked how I starting my own business, so I thought I would finally write the full story on how I started my own business.

    In 2014 several months after my husband and I moved from Plymouth back to North Yorkshire to be closer to our families I became ill with an intestinal issue and was signed off work for a month. While this would normally be a time to recover the company I worked for made me ring in every day I was meant to work but was unable too even with a Dr’s note to sign me off for the entire month. I found this demoralising and stressful and it didn’t help me get better any quicker. After too many bouts of crying, feeling guilty and feeling awful and the stress just getting to be too much, I quit.

    I spent the next few months job hunting and looking at possibilities of working from home as my husband wanted to work his way up the ladder for the company he worked for and for him to do that would mean that every 18 months to 2 years we would be moving around the country and I didn’t want to be changing jobs that frequently or often and knew it wouldn’t look good on my CV so I gave working from home some serious consideration.

    I looked at the types of jobs other self-employed people were doing and matched my skills set to what they were doing to see if it was possible for me to do that sort of job.

    As a bit of background, if you weren’t aware, I got into blogging way back in 2005 in those lovely LiveJournal days and in 2010 after losing my Dad to cancer started book blogging. I connected with lots of awesome book bloggers, authors and publishers. Figured out everything that came from blogging such as creating a content calendar, SEO, social media etc and had plenty of experience in that direction with guest blogging and doing work for publishers and authors.

    One gloomy day February in 2015 after looking at many different options I decided to become a Virtual Assistant and try offering my skillset on a freelance website at a rather low rate. It worked. I got my first client who recommended me to my second client who recommended me to my third client within two months! I also set up a separate bank account and declared myself self-employed with HMRC in the UK.

    At that point, I realised I had to take this seriously and invest in this if I wanted to go forward and gain more clients so I hired a VA coach who offered one on one coaching and it was amazing. My coach helped me get my website up, work on my services, and gain another three clients in the time I worked with her! It was one of the best investments I made in my business and I’m so glad I did.

    Related: The Best Investments I Made In My First Year In Business

    And that in just over 450 words is how I started my business.

    What Can You Take From This?

    If you are interested in starting your own business, working for your self, becoming self-employed however you want to word it then I highly recommend:

    1. Writing down the type of skills you have
    2. Look up the type of jobs you can do with that skill set
    3. Decide on what services you’ll offer
    4. Figure out a price point
    5. Decide where you’ll offer your services i.e. on a freelance website, Facebook or create your own website
    6. Post about it on your social media, your personal Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc
    7. Hire your own coach

    Related: 9 Business You Can Start When You Have A Chronic Illness

    Starting your own business is big and scary but it doesn’t have to be. Do it in small steps and keep going. I found it much easier once I started working with my own coach to help keep me accountable, moving forward and keeping the overwhelm at bay and you might too.

     

    Do you want one-on-one support to help you build a business of your dreams around your chronic illness?

     

    How I Started My Own Business

    CONTINUE READING

  • If You Don’t Do It Someone Else Will

    If you don’t do it, someone else will. It is a pretty popular saying right? But more than it being popular it’s also fecking true. I learnt this the hard way.

    Back in 2016, I had this amazing idea for a project so I drafted it out, planned it up and then sat on it.

    I did absolutely nothing with this idea once I had it all worked out. I was passionate about it and thought it was amazing and was so proud no one else had thought of it and I had. I was raring to go but, yes the dreaded but, but I was waiting for surgery.

    I waited all year for that surgery to finally arrive and if you gave me a pound everytime I thought about that project and didn’t do anything about it then I would be seriously rich by now.

    I drafted my plan for that project and kept adding to it while I waited so sure I would be getting a letter in the post that finally said the date of my surgery, so when it was over I could start that project and during that time, someone not only thought about that exact same project, she also announced it to her community and then she started that project and went live with it.

    Honestly, it took me a couple of months to get over how annoyed I was at myself. Why I had I waited? Why was I so adamant that I didn’t start my project until after surgery? Why? Why? Why? Why?

    But the thing is this person who created this project very similar to mine, did an amazing job and I think what she’s created is better than what I would have created for many reasons but the main one being that she acted on it quickly. She followed through with her plan and created something awesome.

    Now looking back, nearly two years later, I have no regrets about not starting that project because of how my surgery turned out but I still think my reason for putting it off was stupid and I should have just done it. And that person? She’s still working on that project and turning it something amazing that I happily support.

    And the project that I came up with? Well, I’m currently tweaking parts of it and making some massive changes in others so watch this space as that dream hasn’t died yet.

    But I’ve learned they if I don’t work on my dream project someone else will.

    Do you want to say the same?

    Stop living a passive life and be pro-active. Statt that blog, record that podcast, film that video, create that course.

    Stop waiting for the right time because the time will never be right, you just have to go with your gut and just start.

    So whats stopping you from starting that dream project?

    CONTINUE READING

  • Why You Should Set Boundaries For Your Business

    Setting boundaries for your business are one of the most important things you could do for your business and your sanity.

     

    Why?

    When you start your business you’re most likely to do anything and everything you can to fill your client’s requests. You’ll work weekdays, nights, and weekends, answering emails and messages, not wanting to miss out on any opportunities.

    The trick is to set communication boundaries before you fall into the trap of working until midnight on every night of the week.

    It’s easy to think you should be available twenty-four seven to your clients. Deep down you may fear that if you don’t answer clients or emails straight away, your business will fail. I can promise you now, it won’t!

    Is your bank or GP available twenty-four seven? Hell no they’re not. Not unless they have a dedicated support team. Does this mean you won’t do business with them? No. Why? Because you know exactly when they will be available.

    What are your business hours? How should your clients get in touch with you? Is Whatsapp, Facebook, Slack, or Text really the best way to manage communication? What’s your response time?

    Here are a few things you can do today to set boundaries in your business… and set yourself up for success:

    Schedule Your Time

    You want to batch task your blog posts but don’t know when to squeeze it in. You need to be on social media but once you’re on there you get sucked in and lose hours. You go to add or tweak something on your website and two hours later you’ve redesigned your services page. Yeah, I’ve been there. Open up your calendar and add all your task’s to your calendar and set the time for how long you’ll work on that last. 3 hours for batch writing your blog posts, 30 minutes a day on your social media. 20 minutes for making that tweak to your website, add it all to your calendar so you can see how your day looks and you’ll get a reminder when the task starts and you’ll be more aware of what you’re doing with your day and how you’re using your time.

    Define Your Working Hours

    What are your business hours? Maybe mornings aren’t the best for you so you don’t start work till lunch but then what time are you finishing? Are you up until midnight most nights reply to emails and working? That’s not healthy and before you know it you’ll be suffering from burnout. Figure out your work hours and once you have let your clients know they will only receive a response in these hours and if you want to email them out of hours use Boomerang for Gmail to schedule emails in advance. That way you’re not breaking your own working hours.

    Set Your Terms And Conditions

    You’ve done all that amazing work scheduling your time and defining your work hours but it’s not helpful if you don’t inform your clients of this. The easiest way to do this is to set your terms and conditions (and yes your terms and conditions are different from your contract). You can put these on your website as well as create a simple downloadable PDF that you can send to clients so they are completely aware of your hours. You can also put your payment terms on this as well.

    Set autoresponders

    Robots rule the world!!! Ok, they really don’t but they’re super helpful in running your business. It’s the same principle when setting up an automation system the same way you would when someone signs up to your email list and they get your freebie without you doing anything after that one time of creating it. If you only check your emails at 11am and 4pm then set an automated response to say that you only check your email at those times or if it’s more normal for you to take 24-48 hours to respond to an email then say that or you can stick with the simple, thanks for your email you’ll receive a response within 24-48 hours. You could also include some answers to your most frequently asked questions too. You can do the same thing on Facebook if you get a query through messenger you can easily set up a bot to automatically reply saying the best way to get in touch is via email!

    What boundaries have you set in your own business?

    CONTINUE READING

  • 6 Tips To Beat Loneliness When Running an Online Business with a Chronic Illness

    I came across a tweet by the delightful Holly of abranchofholly and she asked “how do you cope with loneliness when you work from home?” and I replied the best I could in 140 characters. I replied work in a coffee shop, talk to other people and make connections. But it got me thinking, I bet she’s not alone in feeling this way because I’ve felt this way and still do sometimes and so have a bunch of other people who replied to Holly’s tweet.

    The thing is though, my answer was pretty generic, lots of people replied they go to coffee shops and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that but what happens when you can’t get out of the house?

    Because more often than not, that’s my situation.

    To be honest, for 70% of the last two years I’ve been lucky when I’ve been able to drag myself downstairs to our living room never mind the nearest coffee shop.

     

    Have A Support System

    I’m a massive advocate of having a support system, whether it’s for your business or for your chronic illness have a few people you can turn to that will listen. It doesn’t matter who it is, your partner, parents, friends, other business owners etc. So long as you have other people to talk to who will listen to you. I’m really lucky my support system includes my husband, my Mum and Step-Dad and three of my dearest friends. They are all my support system for my chronic illness but only my husband and two of my friends are my support system for my business but that’s what works for me. I speak to them nearly every day about my illness or my business and other not so amazing things and it helps keep me sane!

    Use Social Media

    To stop the loneliness from being too overwhelming I love chatting with other business owners online. I mostly do this via Instagram stories now and Facebook groups but I used to do it on twitter too. Just reply to people’s comments and questions and start a conversation.

    Use A Different Room In Your Home

    Staring at the same four walls can get to be a bit much sometimes and while you might not be well enough to work from a coffee shop working in a different room in your home can make it a bit less boring. When we lived in Hull and had a bigger kitchen I loved switching it up and working in there. I’ve pretty much worked in every room in our house. Bedroom, office, guest room, bathroom (yes I really have! I worked in the bath because it was the only thing that lessened the pain and I needed to get stuff done.) Trying working in different areas of your home and see if it helps.

    Get People To Visit You

    You don’t want to be cut off from everyone when you’re not well but if you’re up to people visiting, then why not let them? Get them to come round when you’d take a break and have a cup of tea and cake to break up your day or have someone come round on your lunch break and have a carpet picnic in your living room. If your not a fan of people visiting during the day then get them round in an evening and order pizza and chat or on a weekend.

    Reply to others newsletters

    Like using social media, email people who inspire you or who you want to connect with and have an email conversation with them. You could simply reply to someone’s newsletter and start a great conversation, I’ve done this one a few times myself and greatly enjoy it.

    Schedule virtual coffee chats!

    I love this one, although I haven’t done it yet but plan too. It’s been really popular this year with plenty of business owners offering virtual coffee chats in their newsletters, blog posts and even in their sidebars and footers. Just let people know you offer them and then set time and dates in your scheduling software and let people book their selves into your calendar for a quick 30-40 minute chat.

    Want to talk about things like this or maybe just how awesome your word of the year is? Click here and schedule a coffee chat, they’re open to everyone (and I’m not going to take you through a sales pitch, promise).

     

    If you have a chronic illness and work from home how do you beat loneliness?

    6 Tips To Beat Loneliness When Running an Online Business with a Chronic Illness

    CONTINUE READING

  • Five Amazing Business YouTubers

    YouTube is such an amazing platform and there are so many different types of videos you can watch, recently the type of content I’ve been consuming on YouTube has changed. I’ve been watching a lot more business oriented videos than before. Therefore I thought I would share five amazing women who have been making videos about their businesses that inspire and motivate me.

    Lauren Frontiera of The Real Female Entrepreneur

    I originally followed one of Lauren’s guest on her podcast back when it was The Grit and Glitter Podcast and really enjoyed what she was doing. Having real honest and authentic conversations with women who run their own businesses and I’ve been following her journey as she rebranded her podcast and website to The Real Female Entrepreneur. Lauren shares her journey on YouTube of how she’s trying to make her living from her podcast.

    Holly Casto of HollyCasto.com

    I actually came across Holly’s videos when I was looking for more information on IVF and the whole IVF process and although Holly is America I loved her honesty and the way she shared her experience with the treatments. After watching a couple of Holly’s other IVF videos I realised she did business and productivity ones too and was instantly hooked!

    Kat Horrocks of KatHorrocks.com

    A bit like Holly I stumbled across Kat’s channel when I looking for some self-care tips and instantly fell in love with her channel while Kat shares tips on self-care, health and wellness, Kat also talks about productivity, goal setting and business. Kat actually runs two businesses as she has two passions and I just love her enthusiasm for everything.

    Amy Schmittauer of Savvy Sexy Social

    I can’t remember how I came across Amy’s channel, maybe YouTube recommended it to me. Honestly, I can’t remember but I don’t really care because I love Amy’s channel so much! The tips she shares, the way she shares what she says with jump cuts and includes her sense of humour and the fact she’s so passionate about what she says just makes her one of my favourite business YouTubers. Ever. She came out with a book at the beginning of this year Vlog Like a Boss, and I’m currently listening to it on Audible and I’m greatly enjoying it!

    Holly Sutton from A Branch of Holly

    It’s not until recently that Holly’s shared more on her YouTube channel but she was originally sharing weekly vlogs on her running her blog and business. Recently Holly became self-employed and has been sharing her journey and I’ve been following along because she’s such a joy to watch and because Holly really does share some great information in these vlogs. Holly has recently changed her strategy and is now doing short informative one topic videos along with her vlogs.

     

    Do you watch any of these ladies videos?
    Do you have a women business YouTuber you’d recommend?

    CONTINUE READING

  • How To Feel Confident And Stop Negativity When Being Your Own Boss

    When you are your own boss or if you’re thinking about becoming your own boss sometimes your ego overwhelms your intuition and feeds you a lot of negativity.

    You think:

    • you’re not good enough.
    • you won’t make enough money.
    • get enough clients.
    • and on and on it goes.

    Fear and self-doubt

    Nibble away at you until you second guess yourself and wonder if you’re doing the right thing.

    That amazing idea you had, that filled you with glee and excitement becomes something you’re no longer sure about. It happens to all of us at some point or another. Myself included.

    That’s why I wrote Shine Bright with Confidence. It covers the seven biggest fears you can have building and running your own business. From thinking you’re not good enough to the fear of being judged. I show you how to quickly overcome those fears so you can step back into shining your brightest and being a confident business owner.

    Each one of the seven confidence fears has space for you to write out your fears and how you feel about them as well as your reasoning behind them and how you can overcome them. While the fears and solutions may feel small and silly they’re not. We all go through moments of self-doubt whether it’s in our personal, romantic or professional life.

    It’s about how we overcome them and move forward

    All the ideas and exercises are strategies that I personally use and adore. You could say this ebook is like a free heartfelt coaching session with me.

     

    How To Feel Confident And Stop Negativity When Being Your Own Boss

    CONTINUE READING

  • The Best Investments I Made For My Business In My First Year

    I started my business one gloomy day in February 2015 and it didn’t take me very long after I started to realise that I needed to invest in my business to be able to make it work for me and for my business to reach its full potential. Everybody has different ideas on what investments you should make and that’s totally fine, you need to work out what you should invest in not follow what everyone else does.

    VA Course

    The very first thing I invested in, only a couple of months after I started was this course with Jo. It was the best investment I made for my business and still is today. I can’t believe at the time I hesitated to sign up with Jo because it was everything I needed. Jo helped me figure out my niche, my rates, prompted me to get my website up and reviewed my site for me and she gave me amazing ideas for the future. On top of all that Jo gave me the confidence, I needed to believe in myself that I could really do this. This course is slightly different from the one I took back in 2015 but it is still just as awesome and filled with even more info than when I signed up with Jo.

    Hosting Domain Name

    I think this is mostly a given. It’s the number one investment you should make when you start a business. Whether it’s WordPress or Squarespace. Both I think are amazing platforms. I think it just really boils down to personal preference and usability. When I created my website, Squarespace wasn’t very popular so I never looked into it and went with WordPress as I already had some knowledge of it and picked Bluehost for my hosting which to be honest I’m not sure if I would recommend and I’ve always used GoDaddy to buy my domain names from.

    Pipdig

    When I first looked into setting up my website, after staring dreamily eyed at all the themes in the Pipdig shop, I email them a bunch of questions I had before I purchased a theme from them and they were awesome and helpful and while I no longer use their theme it was definitely a great investment for my business as their customer support was amazing and so helpful and setting-up the theme was so easy!

    Buffer

    I’m not sure if this is a weird one or not as my husband thought it was. I liked Hootsuite (still do!) but I much preferred Buffer for scheduling my social media and how easy and simple it was and the simple design of the platform. The paid version meant I could schedule till my heart was content and I still prefer it today. Although I’m always tempted by Edger.

    Pinterest Workshop

    I don’t think this workshop exists anymore as I can’t find the link anywhere but it was an amazing two-hour online workshop that really opened up the use of Pinterest for me.

    HMRC Workshop

    Provided free by HMRC. They helped me figure at all the pesky but much-needed tax stuff. I know I could have handed it over to an accountant but I want to at least understand the basics and these two workshops really helped me. Of course, I also invested in Google Apps which is now called G Suite, Email, Drive and Docs and I’ve loved using it.

    Have you invested in any of these things?

    The Best Investments I Made For My Business In My First Year

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