Working Mum Returns To Business…

Working Mum returns to business & saves a day a week…

Sales and profit also up by over 50%…

After having her fourth child, Louise Findlay-Wilson as a ‘working mum returns to business’. Anyone would be forgiven to think that she would have had her ‘hands full’, however working with a Business Coach as she came back to her business has saved her over a day a week in productivity!

In addition to returning from a paternity break, you would think that PR firms would be particularly hard hit by the recession – after all marketing is often one of the first budgets to be cut when times get tough. However during this time, Louise Findlay-Wilson’s firm, Energy PR, has not only gone from strength to strength, but she has also launched a new business called PrPro™.

So what’s the secret behind this success? According to the entrepreneur it’s down to lots of drive, a fantastic team, a really strong business idea plus great support from a Business Coach.

When Louise was approached by her Business Coach, she was at a crossroads in her business. Energy PR had been successfully trading since 1995 and it had a good roster of clients. But during this time Louise had also had four children, so she had been balancing the business with her family commitments.

“I’d never really had the time to explore new business ideas or actively push the agency forwards,” explains Louise.

However there was a breakthrough moment for Louise. Her youngest child started at school full-time, so there was nothing to stop her taking the business to the next level. “When her Business Coach walked through the door it was the perfect moment, I was ready to really put my foot on the gas but I wasn’t quite sure what to do first.” says Louise.

If Louise was going to successfully grow the agency, and launch a new business idea she needed to put some fundamental things in place. The first thing was freeing up some of her time.

“I was already working at full stretch, I couldn’t work longer hours. If I was going to find time to develop and launch a new business and grow my current agency I needed to work smarter” she explains.

Her Business Coach really helped with this. First he got Louise managing her time far more effectively. He instilled the discipline of managing her diary, blocking out thinking time and sticking to it, delegating the tasks that shouldn’t be on her desk and systemising the routine things.

“This has probably been the biggest benefit for me” says Louise. “Most entrepreneurs I meet say they haven’t got enough hours in the day and I was one of them. Time is your most precious commodity and having a business coach has probably unlocked an extra day a week for me – which is a huge amount. Especially for me as a working mum returns to business”

Louise’s Business Coach also got her acting as a leader in her business, this means delegating far more effectively. Now her team are more empowered and motivated. Also he helped her reassess areas such as new business targeting, developing multiple marketing strategies, identifying the agency’s USPs and testing and measuring everything.

“Thanks to my Business Coach I not only have about 10 marketing strategies in place I also measure everything – absolutely everything. I know where my leads come from, the return on investment that I get from different techniques and therefore what to modify and what to do more of,” says Louise.

Louise worked with her Business Coach and this was an investment and time really well spent. During this period her business turnover and profitability grew by over 50%, without her having to work any harder.

She can now routinely take off all of August to be with her family. Furthermore, during this period, with her Business Coach’s help, Louise developed the time management skills and tools which have enabled her to
create and launch her new business PrPro™ – a completely new service which equips businesses to handle their own PR.

The unique PrPro concept has quickly attracted a raft of customers, she is running promotional events and Louise is already planning to expand the PrPro offer and to take the service into America.

Louise Findlay-Wilson concludes: “A few years ago PrPro was an idea in my head and without coaching that’s where it would have stayed. I would never have found the time or headspace to actually put the idea into action – to say the experience has been invaluable would be an absolute understatement.”