Inspire Inclusion on International Women’s Day 2024
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Inspire Inclusion’, looking at how we can collectively create a more inclusive world for women, celebrating diversity and empowerment, breaking down barriers and recognising the value brought by women from all walks of life.
GrowBiz supported 356 new women clients last year and 393 women attended our events in 2023. Our CEO, Jackie, says:
“Scotland’s rural economy needs more female entrepreneurs, and GrowBiz is proud to support women-led enterprises in a diverse range of sectors across a number of regions.
“They are critical to growing the rural economy, often bringing an additional layer of innovation, creativity and collaboration. But more work is needed to address some of the obstacles which still exist – including access to finance, childcare provision, rural transport and digital connectivity.”
Be inspired by the stories of a few of our female clients today:
Alisha Murray
Alisha is one of our SEED participants, which offers tailored support for young people in Perth & Kinross to explore self employment, start or grow a business. She runs AM Equine Services, which she started after being made redundant. She says: “I was toying with the idea of starting up myself but didn’t know whether it could work—my old boss was really encouraging so I put the feelers out, contacted the local riding clubs, got some good feedback so went ahead and did it! Its all stemmed from there.”
Alisha has mainly grown her business through word of mouth, which she says has gone really well. She has also found posting on Facebook to be helpful in spreading the word through friends of friends and building a local network.
She has some great advice for any young people considering setting up their own business: “Definitely put the feelers out first, do market research, see if there's a gap for the business that you want to do. I'm glad that I did that, I just didn't just jump into it with both feet, and then realise that actually, there's nobody there, or there's lots of other people doing the same thing.
“And I’d advise people to get organised. I'm naturally quite organised—early on my business was set up through, like, HMRC etc, and I knew what I was doing, I felt I had a solid base by doing these things so I’d definitely suggest that.”
Read Alisha’s story here.
Cornelia MacWilliam
Cornelia MacWilliam came to her entrepreneurial journey with a background in food production and starting a business had always been a dream. She had been fortunate enough to travel to Papua New Guinea, where there was access to a lot of amazing coffee beans which were perfect for roasting on the stovetop. She was fascinated by the process. Coffee of that quality is not easily available in Scotland, so Little Birdie Coffee was born.
Cornelia sources the best coffee from around the world and hand roasts them in small batches, paying close attention to all aspects of the roasting process, highlighting the uniqueness of each bean, and thereby ensuring the highest quality and flavour. In addition, Little Birdie Coffee has a range of fine loose leaf teas and luxury hot chocolate flakes.
Cornelia says: “I am so proud of where Little Birdie Coffee has come in such a short time. I always strive to give my customers the best quality products that I possibly can, and it always brings me great joy when a customer makes a repeat purchase – they have tried my product and they love it!”
She also has some great advice for wannabe entrepreneurs: “Start. Do your planning and if your idea makes financial sense and you have the passion to make it work, do it. Everything does not have to be absolutely perfect from day one, but nothing will happen unless you make a start.”
Read Cornelia’s story here.
Paula Anderson
Paula Anderson is an artist who recently opened Hatton House Art & Design gallery in Dunkeld. Opening up her own gallery had been a life-long dream of Paula’s and, when the pandemic hit, this was brought into sharp focus due to receiving no financial support during lockdown and her husband being unable to work.
Initially this impacted on their wellbeing as a family, but Paula says that in the end, it was a blessing in disguise for her. “When the space became available, I decided to just go for it,” she says. “My gut feeling was that it was perfect timing.”
All businesses involve some learning and Paula believes her biggest mistake to be purchasing large amounts of small item stock, which took away attention from the exhibiting art. But in the end she also knows what contributed to her success: “Years of self development, confidence building, learning new skills, building a brand, never taking my eye off the goal — all mixed in with a little luck and perfect timing.”
Paula considers making a success of Hatton House Art & Design as being one of her greatest achievements, along with her two children! She advises: “Learn anything you can about running a business before setting up and just go for it. With each failure, you have learned a lesson which brings you one step closer to success.”
Read Paula’s full story here.
Zoey McClellan
Zoey owns and runs the Cabins at the Roost in Blairgowrie along with her husband, Steve, whom she met in 2019, just before the pandemic hit and she was made redundant. They decided to build a house and apply for planning for some cabins at the same time on their 14 acre small holding. She says: “The cabin idea was something I had always wanted to do. We married in December 2020. Four months later we had sold up, and were living in a caravan on site and managing both builds.”
Zoey and Steve got help early on, particularly with things they knew they’d struggle with themselves. “A planning specialist told us the project would never happen but our house architect thought otherwise and helped us with the successful planning application. Claire Fleming from Peel Farm was a great adviser at this stage, she has been through it all before.”
Zoey also spoke to GrowBiz for support with social media, web design, marketing and the accounts. She says: “"I approached GrowBiz early on, they quickly helped me find social media and accountancy support, which I believe is a huge part of our success.”
Her piece of advice is: “Do what you love and it doesn’t feel like work, just keep going.”
Read Zoey’s story here.
Nicky Credland
Based in Dollar, South Perthshire, Nicky is a retired nurse who now runs her own First Aid training business, React Fast First Aid. She says: “Due to my nursing background in trauma and my love of outdoor activities, I tend to specialise in outdoor First Aid courses, such as cycling, sport, equestrian, forestry and other outdoor pursuits. However, I can run many other types of first aid training too.”
Newly qualified First Aid trainers can also work with Nicky to get the experience they need to also run their own business.
The support she received from GrowBiz has been crucial for Nicky. She says: “I am extremely grateful for all the support GrowBiz have given me over the last 2 years. Their support has been invaluable. Just knowing someone was there to point me in the right direction was a great help.”
“From someone who has been employed all their life, switching to being self-employed is hard, but if I can do it, anyone can. Cement as many skills as you can, such as marketing and IT, before you embark on your own business. I strongly recommend people to make use of GrowBiz, as they can help with all of this.”
Read Nicky’s story here.
