I Need a Massage!

The mentoring process, for me, has been a very interesting one indeed. I started this competition with a small company offering a simple service. A service I believed in, a service that I was proud of... but also a service I was struggling to persuade people they needed. I had launched amidst an appalling economic climate as budgetary belts tightened all over London. However, I knew my established competitors were working so surely budgets were stretching. I could have continued in the same direction hoping to muscle in on the existing market. Given time and the right PR I probably would have got there. Or... I could take the radical option.

Ready to Leap

What I thought would be a relatively straightforward process of refining and 'relaunching' with renewed vigour -not to mention some great contacts all thanks to a very savvy businesswoman, has turned into Divine taking on a whole new life of its own. I'm now on the egde of an incredibly high diving board (you all know that feeling), about to launch myself and my business head first into a rebrand, reshape and a complete repositioning in the market!! Am I crazy? Probably. Am I enjoying it? YES (after the sheer terror and insecurity subsided that is). Of course a mentor's word is not gospel but I started this business with the feeling that the tide may take me in a very different direction... as long as I was open to it. So open I was -well, maybe not entirely from the beginning but open I sure am now.

The Tide is High...

A rather frustrating month since my last blog: so much hinges on my new website/logo/promotional material. Everybody assures me this process aaalways takes longer than you expect but the weeks are flying by, the competition is almost over and I don't feel like I've even started! I sometimes feel like I've burst out of the blocks and tripped over my own shoelaces, then watched in dismay as everybody else hurtles past me towards the finish line... as far as the competition within the competition goes I definitely feel as though I'm lagging behind. The goals I outlined at the beginning of the competition (what I hoped to acheive at 3months, then at 6) are completely redundant. It's no longer about securing X amount of contracts, having X amounts of weekly engagements; it's something much, much bigger. It has been a massive learning curve and a journey of real self discovery to boot, so I realise this experience in itself has made it all worthwhile. I don't want to give too much away at this point so bare with the vagueness - all will be revealed in good time.

Moving Forward

I met with an utterly delightful business contact of Krista's who will be doing my PR once everything is in order. She waits poised, Blackberry in hand for a concrete date my website will come to life like a beautiful cyber-butterfly emerging from its chrysalis so she can start waving her wand and getting me some press. PR was something I mistakenly overlooked the last time around... it seems so obvious now but I just wasn't thinking in the scale and scope of London terms.

Tomorrow I begin study towards another massage qualification to add to my slowly but steadily expanding repertoire. In refining the copy for the upcoming new and improved Divine website, as well as labouring over press releases I have started to dream in marketing-speak. What better way to get inspired about selling my incredible massage service than to immerse myself in massage itself for a couple of weeks.

'Till next time...