So then...my first real blog post as Director of 'The Intelligent VA Company'. I feel, for my first post it should be something special, insightful...profound even. Unfortunately I feel this piece might fail miserably on all of the above.
My first post is going to talk about my day, my business and how I got to this point tonight, sitting here at 19.26 in my new home office while my daughter is in the bath with my husband.
Three and just over a half years ago my little girl Ella came into my world. She has been everything from a royal pain in the rear to the sunshine in my life (mostly the latter of course) and she was the catalyst behind this move to begin the business.
For 9 years I worked for the Coventry Blaze Ice Hockey Team. A hugely successful ice hockey franchise in the Midlands. When I began with the club they had a relatively small fanbase, little previous activity in terms of marketing, crm, communication and a small but passionate group of directors.
I worked with the Directors to help build the club. I helped devise systems, helped drive marketing and promotions, helped to grow commercial revenue, helped to put systems in for our customers to use as methods of communication, looked after the squad, helped to build a community foundation and tried to make the off-ice product as professional as possible. We did incredibly well.
We built crowds, reputation, commercial revenue and, importantly, trophies on and off the ice. We won the Elite League four times, the Challenge Cup twice, Play-Offs once and Knock-Out Cup once in just 7 years. We also won awards for 'Contribution to the Community' as well as 'Best Business' at the prestigious local Godiva Awards. These two awards are extremely special for me as, for the first time, we were also being recognised for our hard work off the ice.
Fast forward a few years and many, many hours later. Combine those hours with an energetic toddler and you get to the place i'm in today.
Its taken two years for this tiny bean of thought about a potential, viable business proposition to come to fruition, yet here we are, on day one, having spent a full day having fun (randomly including a trip to Ikea) with my daughter. Which was part of the point in the first place.
I am full of everything. Full of love and fulfilment for a full day a week plus my weekends back with my daughter & husband. Full of excitement, energy and pride for my fledgling business but mostly contentment and happiness for having the conviction and guts to go for my dream and make it something which will work for my family.
From now on this blog will be mostly business and industry related with a bit of me and my life (which makes my business real) thrown in for good measure. Hopefully it will always be interesting, relevant and (relatively) well followed but all great things grow from small seeds so we shall see
For the very few reading at this stage...thank you for taking five minutes out of your life, and I hope this post may inspire others to go for everything they've always wanted to achive.
And, for the record, I hope you all win.
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