I made it to 5 years!! whoop!!
I remember when I launched my business – after much deliberation about whether I even wanted to be self employed – I was told 42% of new businesses failed in the first 5 years – so I beat that…
In the beginning there was Castography
After a decade and a half of working in the Financial Services sector and 2 redundancies I decided something had to change. I’d suffered from burnout during my redundancy notice period and even then, I only allowed myself to take 3 weeks off to recover!
To say the past 5 years have been plain sailing and massively successful would be a significant fib! It’s been a challenge. In 2018 I launched my business as Castography. The Business case specified that Body Casting would be my main income stream with Photography in second place and therapy coming in as the smallest aspect of what I do. While I enjoy the casting, my body didn’t – I won’t go in to details about the reaction my system had to plaster dust…
So Photography and Kinesiology it was then. I found that I enjoyed the Kinesiology aspect far more and so that’s the business I pitched the most when networking. I learned early on that apparently people don’t like it when you pitch more than one business at a time – even though I had a show stopping tagline… “Let me fix your head before I shoot it!”
The World Slowed Down – A Global Pandemic Requires a Tweak to the Norm
One month after my 2nd Anniversary the world changed. Doors were closed and stay at home orders where put in place with ne real idea of when things would ‘get back to normal. Which made headshot and brand photography a bit tricky. As for working with clients face to face with Kinesiology, that was now a no go. I called my mentor and very quickly got all the info needed to be able to deliver what I do on zoom. (phew).
Time to Learn
I signed up for a ‘Business of Brand Photography’ programme with Gillian Devine – I figured if I can’t go out I might as well learn more and be ready to go with much better defined packages when we are allowed out again! Oh and I even got an app that allows me to do virtual photo shoots through a client’s phone!!!
Also at the start of 2020 I had enrolled on a Transformational Coaching and Hypnotherapy diploma – 10 months of in person training in Edinburgh… well, that became 2 month’s in person training and the rest online on zoom…
The Post-Pandemic World
While 2020 and 2021 held much craziness and a touch of me being anti social and loving it, they were actually quite good from a business perspective and things were looking up. Then came 2022 – that was hard! We had a threat of a 3rd world war, energy bills soaring and a cost of living crisis looming. Not to mention what on earth was going on politically in the UK!!
He here we are in 2023. I’ve decided it will be better than 2022! Just because!
Services – Some old, some new
I am continuing to offer Kinesiology, Hypnotherapy and Coaching both online and in person. I plan to re-launch the photography side of my business – it’s been hibernating. And my latest endeavour is to offer basic website building and IT Support – I’ve heard so many horror stories about people spending a small fortune on a website for it to disappear along with the website designer/builder, sometimes with the e-mail and domain disappearing too! So I am now offering a basic 4ish page website for people who don’t know where to start but know that they need something… there will be the option to be trained to then update and build themselves or to have monthly support. The brand photography training comes in really handy here too as I can help get the basics together for the brand for the website to ensure the look and feel fits the client.
So, here’s hoping I make it from the 58% of businesses who survive the first 5 years to being one of the 33% who make it to 10 😊
And my 5th year felt like as good a time as any to get this blog thing up and running!
Angela Daye 