In the 5 and a bit years since I became a business owner, I’ve learned a lot about mindset and motivation. A fitness coach once told me that you needed to aim for a positive outcome as trying to avoid a negative one didn’t work. I repeated this theory during a writing workshop, run by one of the most insightful and encouraging women I’d ever met. I don’t know what I expected her response to be, but “b***ocks!” certainly wasn’t it! I understand that avoiding the worst can be a powerful motivator, but I’ve seen a trend among some people in my network that focuses on talking about the people who hate you. I don’t get it. Why would you focus on that?
The people
We can all think of people in the public eye (like Katie Hopkins) who seem to thrive on being hated. I get it, up to a point. If you find it easy to make controversial statements and it gets you work and fame, why wouldn’t you? The thing is, I’ve started to see other people doing it, whose businesses aren’t built around writing opinion pieces or turning up on TV as a talking head. I find it harder to understand why someone who runs an ordinary business should be shouting about being hated, yet I see it all the time.
Doubters vs haters
I feel it’s important to distinguish between the people who hate you and ones who are trying to protect you. Starting your own business is risky. You know it and the people who love you do as well. When I started out I was leaving a profession and a steady income behind. I had plenty of people tell me that I could always go back to it if things didn’t work out. I bet you did too. Hearing those kinds of comments could dent your confidence. They motivated me because I knew I didn’t want to go back. There’s a world of difference between that and trolls who send you abuse.
The people who hate you
When I hear most business owners talk about negative comments, they describe it as an annoyance. It’s something that takes time to deal with, often when they don’t have time and mental energy to spare. One business owner said that having haters is a sign you’ve made it, because it means that people are paying attention. There might be something in that, but if you’re talking about the people who hate you, why not mention the ones that love you too? Otherwise, it could just mean that your marketing isn’t reaching the right audience.
The psychology
It’s been a while since I studied psychology, so I did some revision to try and understand what’s going on. For a divisive celebrity, the appeal of being a hero to some could counteract the effect of being hated. It could also be their way of putting two fingers up at anyone who tells them what to think. My favourite approach is in a 2015 study which suggests that knowing who your enemies are makes the world feel safer, so drawing them out might have its benefits. I think we can all understand wanting to find a bit of certainty just now.
I’m not going to start celebrating hate (it still feels like a waste of precious time and energy) but it’s given me some insight into the ones who do. Personally, I’d prefer to focus on the people who like what I do, because they’re the ones I can help.
What do you think?
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There are days when I sit down to write and it all just works. Today isn’t one of them. There are two sets of circumstances that allow me to just open a new document and get going. Firstly, there are the times that I have a plan. I’m either writing something for a client, where we’ve had a chat and I’ve got loads of notes, or it’s something I’ve written into my marketing planner because I think you’ll find it useful. Secondly, there are the days when I’ve got something to get off my chest. This is the stuff that sometimes doesn’t make it into print. It just feels good to write it down. When I’m wearing my fiction writing hat those words sometimes come back to me. They might not go into a finished piece, but it helps me get into the mindset of a character who’s thoroughly hacked off.
What’s the plan?
Today, I sat down with no idea what to write about. I’m a big believer in showing the person behind the business and being honest, but it’s not easy. I get frustrated at the way other people’s social media posts either pretend that everything in their life is perfect or exaggerate the misery. It’s the same in business. We feel as if we have to present a front that pretends business is easy and wonderful 100% of the time. Truth is, it isn’t. It’s frequently tough. It leads to those 3am crises of confidence where we sob and tell ourselves that we’ve made a horrible mistake. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. I’d rather deal with the self-doubt than go back to having a boss. But does reminding you all that there’s a real person behind the business make me look weak?
Why am I telling you this?
You may be reading this (or perhaps you’ve given up) wondering what on earth I’m going on about. What’s the point? The point of the story is that we all struggle to know what to talk about in our marketing. What do we share and what do we leave out? It’s partly for me, to help me work out why I find it difficult to write when I don’t have a plan. I hope that it helps you to know that you’re not the only one who struggles. Most of us don’t tell the truth on social media (I know that isn’t a profound insight, but there you go). A lot of us leave out anything negative. If times are bad we don’t post at all. Some people just lie. Or exaggerate to add some drama.
What next?
If we want to show the person behind the business, where do we start? Do we post warts and all accounts of the doubts and fears along with the wins? Probably not. We all have things we can justifiably keep private. But maybe we can start sharing some of the eye roll moments, or the times when things don’t go to plan. Or when the plan didn’t exist in the first place.
As for me, I’m going to go back to my planner and think of more stories like this one. I might even look at ideas for strategies to use when your mind goes completely blank!
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Once upon time, there was a brave warrior princess who decided to start a business. She told lots of stories in her email marketing so her customers would love her and her business was a great success. The end.
Don’t worry, I haven’t lost the plot. I’m just telling you a story. What sprang to mind when you read ‘once upon a time’? Did it feel familiar and maybe a bit comforting? That’s what stories do. They don’t all have to start like a fairytale though. Telling a story is a really effective way to market your business, especially when you use it in your email marketing. Here’s why it works and how you can use it for yourself.
Why storytelling works
When a story comes in a format you recognise it feels comforting. You know what to expect and feel as if you’re in safe hands. A story doesn’t have to be a fairytale. It could sound like a chat you’d have with a friend. The point is, it doesn’t feel as if you’re being sold something. You’re just listening to someone else’s experience. When you use this in your marketing, it builds trust and helps you to connect with your audience. Simple.
When to use it in your email marketing
Storytelling works particularly well in email marketing. You’ve come straight to your reader’s inbox and now you’re going to share a story with them. There are, as you might expect, a few different ways to do this. You could tell one long story and relate it to your business at the end, or you could drop in snippets of story here and there. Here are a few ways that you can start using storytelling in your email marketing.
Nurture sequences
Nurture sequences are those emails that you send to new subscribers. They let new people know what to expect. It’s also your opportunity to introduce yourself. You can use a sequence to show your subscribers who you are and how you help. Let them see the person behind the business and you’ll build trust. You can also share useful stuff, like links to your best blog posts and handy tips.
Case studies
You might not think of a case study as a story, but it is. It starts out with someone facing a challenge, looking for a solution and ending up in a better place than they were before. It’s the real-life equivalent of a hero going on a quest. The only differences are that there aren’t any dragons and the princess saves herself. Case studies are also brilliant because they show your audience that you know what you’re doing and have got results for other people.
Email marketing introductions
If nurture sequences and case studies sound a bit long winded, don’t panic. There are simpler ways to use storytelling in your emails. You can start with your opening paragraph. That bit where you say hello before you share your latest blog post and current offers. You might decide to share your latest business news, but you can also tell a personal story. I work with lots of business owning mums so will often talk about the school holidays or something funny my kids have said. It’s a small thing that reminds my readers that we’re all dealing with the same stuff.
Do you want to start using storytelling in your marketing? I can help with that. Click here to book a chat with me and find out more about your options.
Husband swimming the Channel – photo courtesy of James Spencer-Matthews
In case you’re reading that question and wondering what the answer is, well, it’s me. I would. You’ll hear lots of business gurus telling you that business success is all about you – how dedicated you are and how far you’re prepared to go outside your comfort zone to reach your goals. The truth is that it’s not always just about you. For me (and I’m guessing most of you) there are competing priorities. The people you love don’t revolve around you. They all have their own needs, ambitions and dreams that need to be recognised and included in your own plans.
Some of them are predictable, others not so much. Sometimes you have to shift things to let someone else live their dream. In my case, it came in the form of a Channel swimming husband.
The dream
My husband has been a swimmer all his life, but when I first met him, he mostly did it in nice warm swimming pools. Pre-kids I’d go along to some of the same training sessions, sticking to the slow lane while he zoomed along with the speedy people in the fast lane. I can’t say for certain when the Channel swimming dream was first mentioned, but his open water career started a long time ago. We used to travel to grand prix swims around the country at weekends. They were mostly good fun, apart from the Scarborough swim where it rained so heavily that the spectators got wetter than the swimmers did.
Somewhere along the way, the Channel started being mentioned. Then it got serious.
Channel swimmer training
It won’t surprise you to learn that Channel swimmers need lots of training, and not just on endurance and technique. You’re not allowed to wear a wetsuit, so you train to withstand the cold. You also need to sort your head out. Most people who pull out will do so because their brain told them they couldn’t do it.
Obviously, there’s lots of swimming in cold water. This is sometimes lovely – there’s a lake up the road from us where the whole family can go along. However, a swimmer’s need to train with other Channel swimmers means living with a man who disappears off to Dover for the weekend, or to a training camp in Croatia. I admire single parents generally, but never more so than during those weeks.
The stress
You might think that most of the stress of being a Channel swimmer’s wife is in the juggling. It isn’t really. He’s training for his third swim at the moment, so I’m mostly used to it. (Oh yes, did I mention that being a Channel swimmer is addictive? He keeps saying things like ‘five is a nice round number’.) The real stress comes when someone you love is swimming through a shipping lane. My logical brain knows that his support boat has a professional crew and two of his friends looking out for him. I reassure myself with the statistic that there have only been ten Channel swimming fatalities since 1926. Yet I still don’t breathe easily until he’s on dry land.
I know that most of you probably don’t have a Channel swimmer in the family. That’s not why I’m telling you this story. It’s because we all have things that we juggle and I wanted to you know that I get that. If you’d like to work with a writer who knows how life works for you and will help you tell that story to your own customers, get in touch and let’s have a chat.
I’m one of those people who always wanted to be a writer, even if it wasn’t always the only thing I did. I’ve shared the story behind leaving my old career and starting a new one before, but I’ve never really talked about the reasons I started writing in the first place. It’s been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. Here’s how it all began.
Surrounded by books
My mum always jokes that I had a library before I was born. It’s pretty close to the truth. My grandpa worked for Brockhampton Press, which was the children’s book division of Hodder and Stoughton at the time. They published classics like Asterix and The Magic Roundabout, with Papa being responsible for book fairs. One of my favourite stories is the one where he got pulled over by the police pulling a Roman chariot up to Harrogate. He wasn’t in trouble, they just wanted to know why. His job meant that I grew up surrounded by books. What’s more, I knew from an early age that being a writer was something you could do for a living. It left a lasting impression.
Creating my own stories
I know that we all have to write stories at school, but I was the kid that just kept going. As a teenager I filled endless notebooks and devoured books to learn more about how to create a good plot. Whenever I had to wait somewhere or spent time on a train my notebook came out as a form of entertainment. I was once on a train, mid-story, when I ran out of paper and ended up finishing my tale on the back of a sandwich bag. Some of the stories were good – I was shortlisted for a prize for young radio playwrights a couple of times. Others were dreadful, simply because they were too simplistic. It was time for a change.
Finding something else to do
The main problem with my teenage writing was the problem every teenager has – I just hadn’t lived long enough. I loved crime fiction and came up with plots that needed to be populated with believable characters. The best crime writing is born out of a solid grasp of human nature and the ways in which relationships can go wrong. I just didn’t have it. I realised that to become a good writer I needed to go out into the world and get some experience. That’s what eventually lead me into a legal career. Ironically, the thing that first attracted me to the law was the fact that there were so many good stories in it. Obviously, there was also crime, although that’s not where I ended up working.
Coming back to writing
As the years passed, I told myself that I wanted to write but I was spending less and less time actually writing. Then I heard an interview with P.D. James, who wrote her books around a full-time job and raising three children alone after her husband’s death. When asked why she had continued with her writing, she replied that if she had found herself telling her that ‘what I always wanted to do was write’, she would have felt that her life had failed in a very important way. Her answer has stayed with me because I feel the same. I realised that if I was going to write I just had to get on and do it. So that’s what I do now.
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Like a lot of you, I’m a Mum who has had her kids at home for the last couple of months. The last period of home school (if you can really call it that) taught me a lot. It meant that I felt a bit more prepared for the day-to-day reality. I’m not going to say that it was easy, because it wasn’t. There were a whole lot of days where the kids cried and I joined in. Sometimes it was even the other way round. Or I cried and they wandered off to play because they hate handwriting practice and geography is some form of torture. We got through it. What’s surprised me is how much I’m struggling with the back to school bit. Not because I don’t think they should be there, I do. It’s just been different and that’s what’s inspired this blog. If any of this resonates (or if you’ve got any advice) please leave a comment and let me know.
The schedule shift
Home learning meant that my working day started at 3.30ish and had shrunk down to a couple of hours. I thought that shifting back to my previous work pattern would be easy. The start of the day was fine. I made a cup of tea and turned on my laptop as I always have. That wasn’t the issue. It was the afternoons. A full working day suddenly felt too much. It was as if my brain had turned into a sulky teenager. I couldn’t work out why it had been easy to readjust last time but not now. Then it clicked.
I’ve been thrown in at the deep end
Last time the kids went back to school it was much more gradual. The phased return that applied to younger kids first meant that my youngest was the only one who went back before the summer holidays. It wasn’t an all or nothing situation where everything had gone back to normal. Then the summer holidays started as usual. By the time that school fully reopened for the Autumn term, it felt more like normal school. Somehow it meant that I could get back to work more easily. It made the difference between then and now so much harder to understand.
Procrastination
The strange this about this return to school is the sense of anticipation that came with it. I kept hearing that this would be it. There was no way they’d close the schools again (although I heard plenty of muttering to the contrary). It was a sign that life was getting back to normal. I don’t know why, but I felt as if I’d be able to leap back into work and everything would be as it was before. It wasn’t. Having shorter day had focused my mind. A full day found me procrastinating, unable to decide what needed to happen first.
How I’m dealing with it
I wish I could tell you that I’m back to full strength and have turned into a goal hitting dynamo. I haven’t. As I write this, I’ve just completed a bit of planning that would normally have taken me an hour. My lack of focus turned it into three afternoons of dragging myself back to my notebook. I’m getting there though. There’s a plan and my priorities are putting themselves into order. I’m gradually building my work muscles back up (just in time for the Easter holidays!). Plus, if I need a break, I take one. Even if it means a two-hour lunch break.
Are you getting back into work mode? How’s it going? Let me know in the comments!
“Yes but I can’t see you, you need to turn your camera on.”
“Diane, you’re on mute.” Emma watched as Chris gesticulated wildly trying to send a signal to Diane.
“Wow, Zoe, is that your new house? It’s lush!”
“Thanks. We’re starting to feel settled now.”
“Well, you’ll certainly have had time to do it up since we’ve all been ‘working from home’.”
Emma sighed and saw Zoe roll her eyes. She had never met anyone who did quote marks with their fingers until she started working for Chris’ team. It was ironic that his hand signals were so irritating, given that he tied himself in linguistic knots trying not to offend anyone. She watched as more of her colleagues appeared on the screen. The wine expert was sitting quietly, looking slightly awkward. He looked younger than she’d expected. Most of the wine buffs she knew were well over 40 with a slightly florid complexion. He wasn’t that much older than her. She looked over her shoulder as Tom appeared from Cara’s bedroom and gave her a thumbs up. That was a relief. If she was sparked out already that meant she wouldn’t appear wanting milk in the background of the Zoom call.
Matt’s face appeared on the screen. “You alright Matt? You look a bit groggy babe.” That was how Sophie talked to everyone. Even the chief executive was ‘babe’.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Had a disco nap on the sofa and woke up with a bit of a headache.”
Sophie screeched with laughter. “You’re a proper party animal, aren’t you?” Matt just smirked. Emma could see that the image was a bit fuzzy, but he did look bad.
“Right then, have we got everyone?” Chris had adopted the manner that he used to bring team meetings to attention. Emma could see Zoe’s eyebrows heading upwards again. “Thank you all for coming tonight. I know that we’d much rather be having a team do in person, but I think a Zoom version will make an excellent substitute. I’m sure we’ll be back to a Christmas party with everyone from the office this time next year. Sorry, did someone say something?”
Emma was fairly sure she’d heard a snort of derision from Diane. She’d be retired this time next year and would be spared the annual meal with interminable speeches from everyone in senior management.
“Anyway,” Chris continued, “I’ll hand you over to Adam, our wine expert.”
“Thank you. As Chris said, I’m Adam. I’m a certified sommelier and in normal times I run parties like these in person. Zoom is a new innovation for us but it’s been great to bring people together. Can I just check that everyone has had their catering box delivered?”
A mixture of nods and thumbs up filled the screen.
“Great. Please open them up if you haven’t already.”
Emma had never been to an organised virtual party before. She didn’t feel that drinking gin with her sister-in-law over FaceTime really counted. Earlier that afternoon a delivery driver had turned up bearing a large cardboard box with a clear window in the top. She’d been able to see a selection of cheeses, but as she opened it up she discovered that there were a series of miniature bottles underneath, each with a different variety of wine. Everything was labelled so they could match up the two. She opened the first bottle and poured it into her glass.
…
Emma was having more fun than she’d expected to. Adam knew his stuff. He was also better at audience participation than his non-COVID job suggested he would be.
“Soph, you’ve frozen again.”
“I don’t think she can hear you Chris.” Sophie was a still image, paused with a glass of wine fixed to her lips.
“You were all statues then” she laughed, “sorry about this, my internet connection’s rubbish.”
“Matt, are you having any crackers with that?” It was the first time Zoe had spoken. Emma thought it was an interesting choice of words to break the silence.
“Nah. Not a fan. No carbs before Marbs and all that.”
“Yeah, because we’ll all be jetting off any time now.”
“Let’s hope, hey?” Emma felt that Zoe’s sarcasm often flew entirely above Chris’ head.
“Right then, let’s move on to the next pairing. This is a Californian Pinot Noir. It’s a lovely light red wine and goes beautifully with – Matt, are you OK?”
Matt was clutching his head. Emma had the distinct impression that he was trying to dig his brain out with his fingers. He groaned, then disappeared as he fell off the sofa.
Sophie made a sound then her camera froze again. Everyone else was silent.
“Matt? Matt, can you hear me?” Chris was trying to sound authoritative but his voice was pure panic.
Zoe spoke next. “Either his screen’s frozen or he’s not moving.”
Emma looked at the faces of her colleagues. Everyone seemed to be frozen and they couldn’t all have a dodgy internet connection. “Well, we need to do something. He lives on his own, doesn’t he? Does anyone live nearby?”
Adam had gone pale but appeared to be taking action. “I’m just trying to get hold of the boss. What if it’s the food?”
“Yes, that’s exactly the response we need.” Zoe was back to her usual self.
“Chris.”
“Yes Diane?”
“Do you have an address for him?”
“There might be one on the system, but am I allowed? I mean – GDPR…”
Emma wanted to throttle him. He’d been obsessing over GDPR for the last two years. “I can’t remember the details but I’m sure getting him medical attention counts as a legitimate reason.”
Sophie’s screen came back to life. “I’ve called an ambulance. I went to his for pre-drinks before the summer party.”
“Do you think that could be the cause?” Diane asked. “Too much to drink beforehand combined with not enough food?”
“If he’d had some crackers it would have soaked it up a bit.” Chris agreed.
“I don’t know,” Emma replied. “He didn’t seem drunk. He seemed drowsy, said he had a headache and it looked like he was sweating. Those symptoms ring a bell but I can’t think why.” She had a dim and distant memory of having read about them somewhere in case she needed to recognise them. Why would she have done that?
Adam had lowered his phone. “Can I just check? Did everyone receive a sealed box?” They all nodded and he lifted the phone again. “Yes, they were.” Down the phone went. “Do we need an address for him or is that sorted?” Emma told him an ambulance was on its’ way and he spoke briefly into the phone before hanging up. “It should be obvious if a box has been tampered with. Apparently the delivery driver couldn’t get an answer at Adam’s so he left it with one of his neighbours. He obviously got it OK though.”
“I’ve got it!” Emma cried as the pieces of her memory organised themselves. She registered a uniform row of startled expressions on the screen. “He’s got the symptoms of hypoglycaemia. My granny had type 2 diabetes. I remember looking up the symptoms in case she ever had an attack when I was with her. Zoe, you’re type 1 aren’t you, do you think it could be that?”
“Well maybe, but he isn’t diabetic. If he was he’d know how important it is to dose his carbs properly, especially when we’re having a drink. And let’s face it, if he was we’d all know about it.”
Something in her voice made Emma look at Zoe more closely. She was always heavy with irony but there was something else. It almost sounded like bitterness. She minimised her Zoom screen and opened Facebook. She was friends with Zoe but had muted her early on in lockdown. Editing whose posts she saw had been an essential tool for managing her mental health. If anyone whinged too much she removed them, at least temporarily. She found Zoe’s account and scrolled through. It was relentless. If a post wasn’t something about the NHS it was a complaint about her neighbour and the incessant noise, the state of his garden or the endless procession of delivery drivers.
Sophie had unfrozen again. “Finally! Can anyone hear sirens? Zoe, you live near him now don’t you? Since you moved? He’s in a terrace on Stubbs Road, one of those ones with the stone fan thingy over the door?”
Emma had expected Zoe to scoff at Sophie’s lack of architectural knowledge, but her face was a mask. It reminded Emma of the scene at the end of Psycho where Norman Bates stares silently at the camera. What had she done? Emma returned to Facebook and carried on scrolling until she found a photo of Zoe with the caption ‘our new home!’ It was a terrace with a fan thingy over the door. Emma could hear the sirens sounding somewhere through the speakers.
“Does he leave the back door unlocked Zoe?”
“What?”
“Matt. He’s your noisy neighbour, isn’t he? They left the box with you and you went round to deliver it. I’d guess that you found him asleep on the sofa and took the opportunity to go and fetch your insulin. Is that how it went?”
Zoe laughed as the sirens got closer and Emma realised she could hear them from two different computers at slightly different times.
Starting out in business is a huge adventure. I was so excited that I’d finally get to work on my own terms and write for a living. After a while I realised that, while things were going well, I felt as if I was wearing a mask that didn’t fit. When I was a lawyer I started working part time after my children were born and I did the same in my business. But somehow, the way I talked about my boundaries had changed. As a paid employee I had no issue with saying “I don’t work on Fridays” but somehow I couldn’t be that honest as a business owner. It was as if I had to deny that my children had any impact on my working life. I felt as if I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I was a part-timer. Here’s what changed things.
Realising that my clients were parents too
When I started my business I expected to work with people who’d appreciate the expertise I’d developed in my legal career. I understood how lawyers and insurers think and knew how to translate that into language their clients would understand. As it turned out, that isn’t what my clients have in common. I certainly work with people who work in insurance and law, as well as loads of other types of business. A lot of them are sole traders. Even more are parents and that’s how the penny dropped. They chose to work with me because I understand the juggle. My client calls typically start with a chat about the family before we get down to business. If a wheel falls off somewhere we both know we can be open and honest about it. It makes for much better relationships all round.
Needing to practice what I preach
The next thing I realised was that I was writing content telling people that they needed to be themselves in their marketing. Sometimes the thing that makes a new client choose you over someone else offering the same thing is, well, you. I once asked a client for some feedback to help me understand what they valued and what they thought my strengths were. In response to the strengths question they put “your personality – show more of it!” That was ages ago but it’s stayed with me. I realised that while I’d relaxed a lot I was still afraid to show my full, slightly geeky, personality. It’s still a work in progress but I think I’m getting there. The main thing I learned was that I couldn’t ask my clients to come out of their shell if I didn’t do it myself.
Making honest connections
One of my favourite things about this job is learning new stuff. I’ve thought about focusing on one sector a few times but it never lasts. If you get a gathering of copywriters the conversation will often turn to the weirdest thing you’ve ever written about, or the most boring, or just the things you never expected to learn about.
Of course, when it comes to finding the right clients, that’s not the only important thing. I’ve wondered whether I needed to actively like my clients, but I don’t think I do. (Although it would be a problem if I really couldn’t stand them.) If I’m going to write in your voice, we need to have a rapport. That’s definitely not going to happen if we can’t be honest with each other about who we are and what’s happening in our lives.
Do you need some help telling an honest story in your marketing? Book a no-obligation call and let’s have a chat. Alternatively, you can sign up to my mailing list for hints and tips to your inbox every month.
Lockdown has brought challenges for all of us. It’s made us more aware of what we actually need in our lives. Everyone’s experience is different. You might have struggled with isolation, or you could have the opposite problem. One of the strangest things for me, as someone who’s used to working at home on my own, was the sudden invasion of the rest of my family. In fact, I’m still sharing the office with my husband. The biggest challenge of all was home schooling. I’m not sure I can actually call it that if I’m being totally honest. I don’t know if my kids learned anything from me. It’s been a tough time and I’m absolutely thrilled that my two have gone back to school. This is why.
Mental health
The thought of schools closing sent me into a blind panic. My work relies on peace and quiet, especially when I’m getting into a new project. I made a plan of things I could do at the kitchen table while the kids got on with some work, thinking I could organise my way out of it.
I couldn’t.
The one thing I didn’t take into account was how much time I would spend supporting my anxious children. Sometimes they’d cry. Other times they’d just hide in their bedrooms or spend an hour and a half procrastinating over a five minute task. The truth is, they were sinking. Home and school don’t normally overlap this much. Home is a safe place where they get to play. It isn’t me handing out handwriting practice. My youngest went back to school for three weeks at the end of term and he was like a different child. Even though school was different, he thrived on regaining some sense of normality.
Mum guilt
Guilt is a familiar concept to pretty much any working mum. Everyone’s coped (or not) in their own way. I’ve spoken to plenty of business owners who have basically ignored their kids. School work generally depends on the child accessing what school have sent without much supervision. I felt as if I was doing a half-arsed job on everything.
Some of my friends talked about what a privilege it was having their children at home so they can teach them. That made me feel even worse. There have been some silver linings, but mainly I just wanted my happy, clever kids back. I couldn’t deal with my own thoughts and stresses about the situation. How do you support the people you love the most if you can’t even function yourself?
A functioning business
I’ve been lucky. We’re a self-employed household but my husband’s work has continued from home. We’ve had to make decisions based on finances but we’ve never been at risk of homelessness. There’s also the fact that lots of my clients went quiet just when I needed them to. The projects that they might have called me about were put on hold. It might have been a struggle financially, but at least it’s given me the time to focus on the things that really needed my attention.
Now the country’s opening up, I’ve started to get busier. There have been a few mornings where I’ve abandoned the kids to the TV. It’s been the only way to keep things going. Cue more mum guilt. Going back to school means that they’re spending the day with people who are there to take care of them. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling massively relieved about that.
I’m telling you this story because I know I’m not alone in having these struggles. My clients have them too. Talking about the things you share with your customers helps you to build trust. If I can help you find the right story, please get in touch. I speak your customers’ language.
I used to follow lots of business gurus who talked about ‘hustle’. They’d mention their families but the main thrust of their advice was that you needed to work, work then work some more until you’d ‘made it’. I never really saw much about what life would look like when you’d made it, or indeed whether there was an actual definition. The overall idea seemed to be that you shouldn’t take a holiday or even a day off until you’d got to the top. Hustle culture was everywhere. Even the people who had kids talked about the importance of balance but seemed to spend their evenings and weekends working. Of course, I don’t know what was happening behind the scenes. Everything I saw about these people was based on what they put on social media. All the same, it played on my mind. Did I really need to subscribe to hustle culture to have a successful business?
What’s my problem?
When I say I’m not buying into the hustle, that doesn’t mean I believe in slacking. Working hard is part of building a successful business. I think my issue is that hustle seems to go beyond that. It’s not just hard work. I’ve seen people talk about not sleeping or never taking a day off. As someone with two small children I know that not getting enough sleep is a form of slow torture. There’s no way I’m doing it voluntarily. There might be times that you need to work silly hours to get something done, but it’s not sustainable long term.
I knew that I needed to create my own definition of success and mark my own boundaries if I was going to get anywhere.
Defining success
I see a lot of people online talking about earning 6 or 7 figures. That might be meaningful to some, but not me. Not that I’m longing to live in a cave or anything. I’d just rather make enough to have a nice life, quality time with the family and a few decent holidays. If that means I don’t get to be a millionaire that’s OK.
When it comes to role models I take social media posts with a pinch of salt and talk to people I actually know. The main thing I discovered is that everyone has different boundaries. The important thing is to look at how you want to spend your time and how that translates to reaching your goals.
Accountability
I sometimes wonder whether ‘hustle’ is some people’s method of keeping themselves accountable. If you haven’t worked an 18 hour day you haven’t done enough. The truth is, you don’t have to hustle to set goals and get results. If I don’t take time off I get exhausted and make bad decisions. My holidays don’t just give me family time, they provide brain space too. Looking at the world from a different angle gives me new ideas for normal life.
I also have an amazing coaching group where we commit to take action and report back. That action can even include identifying times when we need to rest so we live to fight another day. That’s the kind of accountability that gets you where you need to go.
Why am I telling you this? Because I know that a lot of you struggle with it. My business isn’t just about writing. It’s about sharing the stories that mean something to you. If you need help speaking your customers’ language and finding the stories that are important to them, just get in touch.
