Curious to know how other women run their businesses and their top tips to thrive in business? Each month, I catch up with one of our wonderful Thrive Collective Members to find out more about them and their business and share their top 5 tips to creating success in business.
First off, let me introduce Nicky. Nicky’s a Mindset and Confidence Coach at www.nickykentisbeer.com and has a background of working with CEO/Founders and start-ups as well as having been a small business owner herself. Prior to having her daughter, she worked in the corporate world for 20 years. Her love of all things business and people ultimately led her to coaching.
Tell us Nicky, what do you do?
I support women to work on their mindset so that they can move away from what is keeping them stuck, towards a place that they would much rather be. Irrespective of who they are or what they do.
We often think we have to have ‘big’ reasons to be coached. We don’t. The big things are generally made up of many ‘smaller things’. We often don’t address the smaller things, because we feel embarrassed by, or afraid of them.
It is these small things that we carry around with us. They become bigger and they affect the different areas of our lives and stop us from doing the things that we want to.
Coaching challenges these thoughts by inviting us to question their provenance and whether they are serving us. If we are conscious of what we want in our lives, it is our thoughts, feelings and choices that can be shifted through coaching. This has a knock-on effect on all areas of our lives and not just the one we have chosen to be coached in.
Why do you do it?
I believe that we all have within us the most incredible ability to find our own solutions, irrespective of our background and starting point. During my working life, I often found myself being asked to coach colleagues and other small business owners. I started my formal coaching journey whilst working, with a view to gradually moving towards my own business. Redundancy forced my arm, and I was able to immerse myself in my coaching studies full time. I had every intention of returning to the safety of employment but getting back into the workplace part-time as an ‘older’ candidate became a full-time, thankless task.
So, I decided to do things differently! I took a chance on me a couple of months prior to lockdown. I did a big gulp back in March (like everyone else) but then I realised that I had come too far to go back. I’ve used the time to build on what I have and I’ve made it better.
What practical advice would you give to anyone about to start, or in the early stages of owning a business?
Stay in your own lane!
When we start out, there can be many calls to do this that and the other. It becomes incredibly confusing (and expensive). We can often find ourselves following someone else’s path and agenda. And it’s not ours. A good measure of this is that if something doesn’t feel right, it generally isn’t. I often describe this as a ‘jarring’ feeling. We feel it in our bodies as well as in our thoughts.
This is also incredibly important right now in our personal, as well as our business lives. There’s a lot of judgement and shaming around that can make us feel pressurised to act in a particular way. It’s causing a lot of turmoil. Shame and judgement can hit us square on when we are feeling vulnerable.
So, if you have to put a protective bubble around yourself in order to keep moving forward, being visible and showing up – then that you must do. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship in your life. You owe it to yourself to do what you do best whilst staying true to your values. No one can argue with that!
What or who has been your greatest influence in business and why?
I take great inspiration from ordinary people. By ‘ordinary’, I mean the people that inspire me daily by showing up and doing their thing. I am genuinely interested in what people do and how they do it. I am particularly inspired by small business owners because they do this day in and day out – even on the days that they aren’t feeling particularly brave. On their own. And I am inspired by everyone that stands up and chooses to do the thing that they fear most. Personally, or professionally.
What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve been given in business?
Don’t hide your lights. The bit that you hold back is the bit that will take you one step closer to where you want to be.
What one thing have you learned as a small business owner that has served you well over the years?
That we don’t always get it right the first time. Nor the second. My dad always used to say ‘there is always room in the world for a trier’. I laugh and cry at this in equal measure!
What has been the most effective marketing initiatives or programs you have used to promote your business?
Gosh, early days for me this time – I’ve always adored Networking. The right kind of networking. My blog is a big driver of traffic and I’m about to change up my Social Media strategy. I’m also upping my email marketing game, having just done the Master Your Email course with Sam. In fact, upping my marketing in general is the focus right now. I am brilliant at doing it for others – not so good at doing my own!
Thanks so much for sharing your top tips Nicky. Any new projects coming up?
I’m also about to do a ‘Red Carpet’ series of the lesser talked about thoughts, labels and emotions that reside within us. We don’t always talk about them because we may feel that there is shame associated with doing so. I’ve had some huge revelations through doing this work myself and also with clients. There really is nothing like holding a mirror up and shining a light on what is actually going inside of us. It’s incredibly insightful work and I want to share this because when we start to understand ourselves, and aren’t afraid of our thoughts, it’s incredibly freeing and empowering.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, your tips and insights Nicky. We absolutely love having you in the membership and bring such a wonderful calming and positive personality to our thriving community.
You can check out more about Nicky here www.nickykentisbeer.com and give her a follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nickykentisbeercoaching/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NickyKentisbeerCoaching/
Thrive is a community of business women supporting each other to connect, collaborate, learn and thrive together in business.We’re women who are energised by other women’s successes and equally motivated by our own.Thrive Collective is the combination of both the Thrive Collective Meet Ups and Thrive Collective Online Membership, whatever help you need, we’ve got you covered!