Oh, London, I was a well-travelled person by this stage, something bout London city had drawn me to want to live there.
I knew I had to make ends meet; there was no way I would live off my savings in the most expensive city in the world. So I resorted to Fashion styling, TV presenting and presenter work for Marks and Spencer, Nike & Roland Mouret, a french designer. Celebrity styling for events and styling with Hello & Asiana magazine.
Great, my bread and butter sorted so I could explore “what do I want.”
By this time, I read the rich dad’s poor dad book and explored the exiting self-employed quadrant to build a big business. I meet a team of 5 at a startup technology conference. We were all eager to team up and create VITTIT, a virtual reality software system that virtually fits customers whilst providing in-store purchase recommendations; after months of working on this project, it FAILED didn’t even make it to launch!
After speaking to Nike marketing staff about VITTIT, they grew curious and excited, for my skills. I was offered my first people branding contract to launch the “stronger than you campaign” at the London Nike Store, which involved training their team to deliver a personalised shopping experience with sales skills. Then this contract extended to organisational culture training for NIKE London & Harrods staff.
Success! A lightbulb went off, and I thought, I am a trainer to help brands build there people brands?
Excited about the new direction, working with companies to increase employee engagement and improve organisational culture.
With Nike being my first customer, I made my portfolio, build a new website and decided to get my self published in relevant media to showcase my knowledge (intellectual property), WIN!
(Alongside an endless amount of sales calls) I had a list of HR directors, brand & marketing departments from universities to hotel chains inviting me to give a presentation; all I had to do was close the deal.
Finally, I’ve exited the Fashion industry and doing something I felt had a lot more substance.
At this stage, it becomes clear that I’m good at gaining visibility for my brand, building brands, and closing deals.
I started to attract attention quickly and was invited to speak at events alongside influential people, business conferences & universities; my corporate training books were full. I had built a known brand for myself.
I started getting business owners come to me to help build their brands. Slowing this evolved into accepting brand and marketing work for business owners, building websites, and launching brands into new markets like this one XIP Beauty into Ireland.
I became the branding girl; fast forward a few years of having my finger in every piece of the pie; I realised I had become the YES Girl!
I was endlessly trading my limited time for money; I was overworked, some days working all day and night, surviving off 4-5 hours sleep with little to no downtime. My body started suffering. I reached burnout and hit plateau. My health, was declining fast, and I felt like I had failed myself.