Monday 18th May to Sunday 24th May 2020
Previous instalments
Monday 18th May – 34796 deaths – finance
Finance in business can be a big problem area for many people. Often they don’t know what they don’t know.
I did my claim for Self Employed Income Support Scheme today, but I won’t get much because my copywriting business is very new (September 2019). The other business (childbirth education) was never really about the money; it was about the support of pregnant women and their partners. I did consider not applying because we are in the extremely fortunate position of not requiring the money to buy food or keep the roof over our heads. On the other hand, my income has dropped to zero from my first aid business – it’s pretty darn impossible to teach first aid properly without being face to face.
So I thought I would claim the grant and I could invest that money to grow the new business – perhaps in some training or outsource some activities to free up more time for writing. So I went for it.
So many other businesses are in a very difficult place right now. If you know a business owner who needs sound advice on all the finance options available at the moment, I am doing a shout-out for Priti Shah at Lightside Financial. Priti can help with all sorts of debt management issues from personal to business loans and can offer solutions ranging from re-mortgaging to debt consolidation to filing for bankruptcy. Get in touch with her on priti@lightsidefinancial.com.
Sleep tight.
Tuesday 19th May – 35341 deaths – finance clients
Today was my 19th wedding anniversary – hard to believe that I once looked like this…
2 children in quick succession definitely took its toll – lol!
We had a very tasty “lockdown” Thai meal to celebrate and then I did the shopping online – who says romance is dead?!
I have had a lot of new enquiries for writing work in the past 2 weeks which is brilliant. All my networking is coming to fruition; very exciting.
One of my fairly early clients was a lovely financial adviser called Naomi Haynes and I’m hopeful that we will be working together again shortly. It’s always gratifying when a client comes back for more services.
Looking forward to a Yoga Nidra session with Sajni Shah of Calmer Chameleon tonight. If you don’t know what Yoga Nidra is, it’s also known as yogic sleep, a form of guided meditation. Last week I was so zonked that I heard the first five minutes and that was it!
Wednesday 20th May – 35704 deaths
An amazing day for the weather today – I made sure I had 20 minutes sitting in the garden after my last meeting finished because I didn’t get out there until 6.30pm last night.
Another busy day of writing:
the 6th story in the children’s picture book which the client loved
a blog about finance ( I won’t go into details as I don’t have client permission)
a proposal for a new client for writing a customer success story (aka case study)
a proposal for a client for an overhaul of web copy to make it more SEO friendly
a terms of engagement letter for a new monthly retainer client
a number of LinkedIn posts for LMW
this blog, lol!
I LOVE WRITING!
Did I mention that before?
I also had a visit at my doorstep (yes, socially distanced) from an antenatal client with her oh-so-cute baby daughter. She came to bring me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, some chocs and a lovely thank you card. Apparently, they were all super grateful for my help with preparing for birth and early parenting.
It’s so gratifying when a client shows you that your service made a real difference.
How lovely is that?
Thursday 21st May – 36042 deaths
Today was one of my favourite days of the month – the Athena Enfield networking meeting. If you’ve read any of the previous week’s blogs or this blog about structured business networking in particular, you will already know about my networking group, and that they are becoming like an extended family to me.
Today’s meeting was vibrant and energetic as ever and the online format, enabled us to meet more new people which is always great. The best thing about the meeting is when you can summarise at the end how you have helped others. It’s always lovely when people mention you at this point because you have helped them too.
I’ve stopped watching the daily briefings (quite a while ago actually) because I was getting the feeling that I’d become an unwilling extra in “Groundhog Day” PLUS what is it about the Tory ministers – they are all so creepy – urgh!
I made soda bread for the first time this afternoon – it was pretty easy and actually it tastes pretty good toasted with lemon curd on the top.
Am taking the opportunity at the moment to do various trainings in LinkedIn, Instagram, copywriting etc. Learning never stops.
Friday 22nd May – 36393 deaths – finance and debt solutions
A quick update today. A finance and debt solutions specialist and I have created a group with the aim of helping each other grow our audience on LinkedIn. My average views per post without putting much thought or effort into them have been around 100. It is already interesting to see that posts that get even a few comments do much better.
Slowly, slowly I am building my network and gradually more people are getting to know what I do. It’s the long game – how many people do you know that have overnight success – it really doesn’t happen.
So, another bank holiday weekend -I wonder how many people will continue to socially distance – I think we are all a little fatigued now.
Saturday 23rd May – 36675 deaths
At last, the number of people dying from CV seems to be consistently slowing down. Many parents I know are still so torn over whether or not to send their children into school after half term. The pictures I’ve seen about how schools are setting up the learning environment make me very concerned about the mental health impact to kids of all of this additional health and safety.
I had a lovely postnatal session with a group I taught in January. They all had their babies immediately prior to or during lockdown so it was very interesting to hear all the different birth stories and find out what was going on in the maternity units at that time – late March/early April. They are all coping pretty well considering – there are some advantages to lockdown with a newborn. Midwives report that more babies are regaining their birth weight by day 5 than ever before as women have no pressure to “get back to normal” in the early postpartum period and aren’t having to deal with hordes of visitors in the early days, so they can focus on resting and feeding their babies – long live the babymoon.
Sunday 24th May – 36793 deaths
Another week gone – 2020 will be over before it’s really begun.
Went for a drive to go for a walk – I think I’ve been in my car 3 times since 12 March! In fact, I haven’t put any petrol in the car since the beginning of March.
Today was a pretty quiet day, which was good. We all need to kick back sometimes. We are planning to renovate our raised decking at the back of our house. The woodwork needs a lot of TLC and we are going to put up a pergola with removable shade and get some new furniture to brighten it all up and make it a pleasant place to sit. Let’s face it, we won’t be spending any money on a holiday this year, so we figured we should spend it doing up the garden (or at least a part of it).