Food for Thought

We helped Tonbridge Mum, Caroline realise her love of writing and passion for food could be turned into a flexible business to fit in around her family. Read her story here.

“It is nearly three years since I attended my first Successful Mums Taster Session in Bromley.  I have two little boys and a career in finance behind me but I had always wanted to start my own business.

I came away from the taster session  buzzing and immediately signed up to meet with Jane for one-to-one business coaching. 

I took along my pink note book of scribbled business ideas that had been building over the months and also news of my food blog that I’d had the courage to start in between our meetings.

My food blog, Eat Around Tonbridge, was my way of dipping a toe into the waters of doing something on my own.  I started it as a hobby to encourage people to support local when eating out and didn’t expect to earn any money from it.  But by the time I met Jane, I was astonished and thrilled to be amassing followers and I needed Jane’s help on next steps.

Jane expertly pinpointed where my passion lies and that is in writing.  After going through all my business ideas with her, she cut to the chase and suggested I start writing for small businesses.  I was dumbfounded – I had never thought of that – but excited too.  And so my journey began.

I stayed in touch with Jane and she really helped me to find my feet, allowing me to write for her so that I could experience the relationship with potential clients, receiving feedback on pieces and we discussed pricing.

However, I then interviewed a Tonbridge coffee house owner for my blog.  I had wanted to interview him for ages as he was one of the first to open somewhere new in Tonbridge so it was great that I could finally hear his views.  I was really proud of the finished blog – I invested a great deal of time and effort into it to pay homage to him and what he was achieving.  He loved it and asked if I would write some web copy for him.

At that point I realised that people might be willing to pay for my writing and that’s when I turned the hobby into a business.  I have been a freelance writer now for about two years and I absolutely love it.  Mostly I do ghost writing whereby I write blogs as someone else, as a business owner because they don’t like writing or simply don’t have the time but I also write web copy, press releases, newsletters…you name it and I’ll write it!  I love the diversity of it – I have clients from so many different industries – and it fits brilliantly around my children.  I can schedule my day around them easily for drop off, pick up, sports days and nativity.

The blog is still thriving too.  It isn’t an income stream for me but I do occasionally receive the odd free meal and it definitely opens doors.  Over the last few months I have been involved in creating a beautiful charity cook book for Tree of Hope alongside a great team, local chefs, food producers and café owners.  The Cook Book Sevenoaks – Tonbridge – Tunbridge Wells even has a chapter on Kent produce written by me!  Finally, my words are in a book!  (Even has a foreword by Michel Roux Jr!)

I am a huge fan of Jane and Successful Mums – Jane really inspired me in that first session and then guided me to where I am now.  We are still very much in touch and I love that even some of my clients and network are Successful Mums’ graduates!”

If like Caroline, you have a business idea that you want to turn into a reality, take that first step and join us for our Business Start-up Course. Register HERE.