VA4Biz

30/01/2024

Got any top tips?? Comment below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

09/01/2024

1st day back after a lovely Xmas and new year break - can’t wait to see birthday girl 🎉🎂🧁🍰and start hatching plans for world domination 🙏

If you haven’t been on Sarah’s website recently take a look 👀 lots of changes and improvements and a huge amount of work going on in the background to streamline and simplify (which coincidentally are my words for 2024) ❤️ and improver the user experience.

https://sjbfineart.com/

Contemporary landscape artist Sarah Jane Brown lives in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in West Wales. Her emotive, expressive paintings are inspired by the Welsh coastal landscape and attract collectors from across the world. Buy original oil paintings, prints and art gifts on the website, or...

01/08/2023

I rarely use this platform but there are millions of people who do so it will be interesting to hear how they react to this recent re-brand of such an iconic symbol…this article by the BBC suggests it will all blow over - what do you think?!

“There's a lot of discussion in the beginning of such changes – which might not necessarily be a bad thing – but customers eventually move on. The upside is that brand changes may be necessary, and the negative responses will subside over time.”

So long Twitter, hello X. The change doesn't sit right with many of its devoted users, and there may be reasons why.

25/07/2023

Last Friday was the last day of the school term here in Pembrokeshire so the school and commercial teams at Really Pro were treated to a celebration dinner at Forbidden Florist. ❤️ We were very well looked after and I highly recommend going for food & cocktails with your friends or family if you haven’t already. 🎉 Huge thanks to Kelly & David for a great night out 😁 xx

,

25/07/2023

The method by which you keep control of and manage your day to day business finances is an extremely important decision for any business owner as I’m sure you know!

In my experience there are several choices - give everything to an accountant, outsource to a virtual assistant, trusted person or business, do everything yourself, or a combination of all or any of the above!

I do everything myself using You Need A Budget YNAB including my self-assessment tax return every year. What do you do?

Cloud based tools like QuickBooks, Xero, Sage and YNAB (my personal favourite) are great - Excel spreadsheets are still popular. These tools are all useful and can help save time and money but unless you know what you’re doing, you are prepared to learn or pay someone who knows what they’re doing, they can be expensive toys!

If you are struggling with organising your day to day business finances, and you need help, support or advice please get in touch. If you are a member of Farming Connect fully funded help is available now via my client Really Pro. Experts in person if you are based in West Wales or online. 🙏

19/07/2023

Story time.

I have had such a productive and enjoyable day at my clients office, that I’ve come home reflecting on my previous roles and how different things are since becoming a freelancer in 2018.

Prior to that I was an employee for 30 years and worked across 8 different industries in London, Wetherby, Wrexham, Bridgend and various parts of Pembrokeshire. Some of the crazy stuff that went down during that time includes (but is not limited to);

driving to Wrexham and back to Pembs every single week for a year to provide maternity cover when I was working for the NHS (bonkers😳)

driving to Bridgend daily for 6 months before eventually moving up there then driving back to Pembs every weekend for 6 months (crazy🥹)

I was bullied relentlessly when I was 19 by my female housemates at a professional racing yard (because I was from Wales, when I was in fact born in London 😵‍💫) so my dad drove from London to Wetherby one day to get me out of there thank god!Shortly after I landed a job in the MOD and met my son’s dad, so everything happens for a reason 😁

I’m a former member of the campaign when I was in a senior management position 😳 That’s all I can say about that! 😎

I have experienced job loss 3 times (due to redundancy) and this is also the reason why I decided to go freelance 🙏

Apart from that everything was wonderful 😂 Can you remember the tipping point which forced you to change direction in your career? Maybe you also went from being an employee to starting your own business. Or you changed paths completely! If so, I’d love to hear your story below, warts and all 🎉 ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

18/07/2023

Storytime.

This is my cat Duke, isn’t he gorgeous!! I adopted him from a local animal rescue shelter 2 years ago ❤️

I remember the day that we met, he meowed loudly as I walked across the yard and within 10 seconds of meeting, I knew he was the one 🙏 after a few minutes of purring and cuddles I held his gorgeous little face and promised that I would be back to pick him up. Decision made!

A few days later, I bought him home, 24hrs hiding under my bed he knew he was safe and that was it hasn’t left my side since and I can’t imagine life without him now ❤️

I believe that it was fate because minutes before I met Duke, I had been sitting in my car crying with my sister and was just about to give up my search (I had to walk away from three cats that were absolutely traumatised hiding in the corner of their shelter broke my heart) 😭 She told me to get back out there and keep looking and that’s when I heard him meowing and saw him looking at me through the window of his little home 💔

Can you remember a time when you were just about to give up, but you kept going and in the end, everything turned out great and that decision changed your life for the better? Let me know in the comments below ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

’tGiveUp

17/07/2023

Sunday I went for a lovely sea swim with my friend and client Kelly, Owner/Director of Really Pro. The water was so lovely and warm and we were blessed with evening sunshine so we sat and soaked it up after our dip. 😎 As you can see from the pictures, the beach is small but beautiful and there wasn’t another soul around 😚 it was truly magical and we gazed in absolute awe at the beauty around us (whilst we put the world to rights of course) ❤️

Today I worked with my friend and client Sarah, owner/director of Sarah Jane Brown - Fine Art at her beautiful studio in Brawdy. 🥰 The majority of the day catching up on finance and course administration, but we also planned out some marketing campaigns with her social media guru, Taylor Badham for the next two workshops which are coming up fast 🙏 the key areas we looked at included Facebook and Instagram ads, Google ads, Google business profile, email marketing, blog content, local event promotion, Facebook groups and leaflet distribution 🥳

Sarah has now completed her one-day workshop programme and will shortly be starting her three-day workshops programme during the summer holidays. Check out her website for more info and to book a place. The next one is already half full and don’t forget all equipment is provided, you also get exclusive access to a students only Facebook group within which Sarah is very active, lunch and refreshments are also included and you get to spend three days with Sarah, surrounded by her beautiful art in a huge bright space with stunning views of the mountains in St Davids ❤️ Winner winner, plant-based dinner 💪

https://sjbfineart.com/collections/workshops-and-classes

17/07/2023

Social media marketing is a very broad and exciting topic and in my opinion should be only implemented when a business plan with a brand strategy, marketing plan and cash flow forecast is in place so that the business owner has a very clear idea of who they are, what the market looks like, who their audience is, what they are offering, the customer journey has been outlined, systems and processes implemented to manage those customers and of course appropriate pricing to ensure a profit is achievable.

Don’t get me wrong, It is absolutely possible to launch straight onto social media without any of those things in place, but in an ideal world that’s what we would all be doing, right?!

WRONG…I didn’t do any of this ⬆️ when I first launched my business online I did a pages likes ad campaign and effectively ‘bought’ the majority of my 4000 followers for £100 🥹 ouch that really hurt, saying that out loud!! 🥹

I remember thinking that the campaign was a huge success and being really chuffed and excited at the time! 🎉 On reflection and with the benefit of experience, most of those extra followers are completely disengaged on my page, they are the completely wrong audience and made little or no difference to the number of likes I received on my posts (remember when that was a thing) and of course zero ROI. So I’ve learnt my lesson and I will probably lose followers for saying out loud as well but hey Ho, that’s the nature of the beast!! 😎

So my question for you is this, have you got a business plan? If not, why not? Let me know in the comments below. I would also be really interested to hear if you’ve launched straight to social media (without a business plan). Please share your experience below (not trying to sell you anything at all just wanted to share stories and maybe we will all learn something from our shared experiences)
⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

!!

15/07/2023

Yesterday I returned to Sarah Jane Brown - Fine Art's beautiful studio to continue catching-up in the office while she delivered a 'sensational sunsets' 1 day painting workshop to 8 students - all of whom produced some absolutely beautiful work (see her page for pics) Click the link for info on the last few workshops taking place this year https://sjbfineart.com/collections/workshops-and-classes 👩‍🎨

It was an absolute blessing to spend some quality time with Sarah's team, shadowing each other so that we can all provide holiday cover when any of us are away. I truly believe that gatekeeping information or things that we know to be true isn't helpful to anyone, particularly if you work in the same industry or with the same clients, so I really appreciate your openness, top tips and insights that we all shared today ladies thank you so much ❤️

Following a great conversation with Taylor Badham yesterday, I took a big leap of faith leaving behind the accounts platform that I've used since January 2018 to move my operations over to Square. I absolutely love it and in the last 2 hours I have set-up my invoice template, added my first customer (me), created an invoice, sent an electronic invoice, paid an invoice electronically (no more BACS transfers) and added a tip. I've also received email confirmations throughout the process from my system to theirs and it has all worked perfectly. There are no monthly expenses (you only pay a small fee for each transaction) so I'm already saving money!

Later on in the evening I switched hats and travelled across the county to see a close family friend who owns a farm in Camrose to register him and his son for Farming Connect. He needs to be registered with them before I can apply for his funding via the Menter a Busnes 121 digital surgeries scheme on behalf of Really Pro. I provisionally booked 3 appointment slots starting in August to give him 5 hours of free support with myself and the commercial team at Really Pro to discuss the potentially lucrative opportunity which is right on his doorstep! 😎

Another busy but brilliant week completely devoid of any self care or exercise but I did manage to go to band practice and clean my entire home from top to bottom so all is not lost on the personal front either! ❤️

Pic Credit - AdobeStock