Two years in business for Mrs Mummypenny

Two years in business for Mrs Mummypenny

The end of August saw me hit a major milestone. Mrs Mummypenny has been trading for two years. This is a major achievement in the world of small business as unfortunately most businesses do fail in that first two years. People lose inspiration and motivation, and let’s be honest, don’t make enough money. Cash flow is king in the first two years.

My first year

My first year financially was a bit of a non-event. I made a loss of £5,500. Expenses far exceeded turnover, but I always knew year one would be terribly financially. I was working hard to establish myself in the personal finance writing world. I was building up my social media numbers, attending events. Doing all I could to set myself up and for people to remember the name Mrs Mummypenny. And I wasn’t working on many paid campaigns or the ones I did were low paying or I didn’t ask for enough money! Pulling a salary wasn’t an option as I wasn’t making any money! We were still living off the redundancy package I took from my previous job. But you know what, I learnt a lot.

Then it started to happen, the hard work started to pay off and work started to come my way. Mrs Mummypenny was becoming a recognised name and my style of genuine, honesty and simplistic way of writing about personal finance was shining through. At the beginning of year two I agreed to co-write a book, Blogging Your Way To Riches, with Emma Bradley and it all started to snowball from there. A tipping point had been hit after doing the following: –

• Recognised brand names and campaigns on my blog (by then I had been or was working with Aldi, Standard Life and Compare the Market)
• My social media had reached 10k in total.
• I had made friends with some amazing giving bloggers (blog advice, technical advice and passing on of jobs)

Year Two started off well but….

Year two started off well, but then Dec/Jan hit. I remember having a conversation with my friend Heather who was practising hypnotherapy life coaching on me. The redundancy money was soon to run out and I was panicking. I hadn’t had enough months of consistent good income. It went one good month, one bad month, one good month, it was so frustrating. And I knew that I had some expensive months coming up. We had a holiday to Las Vegas to pay for and my 40^th Birthday party to pay for. I couldn’t bear to let my 40^th pass as a no spend non-event so it all went onto a credit card. This has since given me a bit of a debt headache.

There was a decision that needed to be made, persevere and keep going or find a job. I persevered, I kept the faith and I kept going with the Mrs Mummypenny mission. I started to see some consistency in my numbers. As in my turnover was consistently more than I needed to survive! And then it started to grow even more, March, April, May, June 2017 were amazing months. There were a couple of campaigns where I earned my monthly target with just one client!  The business was working and I could see clear growth. My average monthly turnover for Jun/Jul/Aug 2016 versus Jun/Jul/Aug 2017 shows a 650% increase!

You’ve gotta have Faith

When your faith is faltering talk to someone in the same business as you who can offer guidance and advice. Choose someone more successful than you, but also someone whom you can give something to in return. The best business relationships are two-way. Also talk to a trusted friend that will give you objective non-emotional advice.

If your job is your passion and you know in your heart that your will business has a future then you should follow that dream. I am so proud of my success in this blogging world and love the freedom and flexibility it gives me.

If you want to chat about your business or blog or marketing strategy feel free to reach out. I am a proven success in the world of blogging and digital marketing and can offer real life advice that will help you achieve business success. Drop me an email at lynn@mrsmummypenny.co.uk to enquire about packages I offer to help you out, be that a one-off chat or a more regular consultation.