How I Went Full-Time Self-Employed in 12 Months: Savings Plan, Pricing Truths + Social Strategy

A real-life, step-by-step plan to go from full-time employed to full-time self-employed in 12 months.

Ready to turn your side hustle into your full-time income? In this solo episode, Amanda Hughes shares the exact, real-life steps she used to leave her 9–5 and become fully self-employed in just 12 months. We dig into the money plan (including how much she saved) the early pricing mistakes, why “post & pray” isn’t a strategy, and how getting clear on your ideal client changes everything. 

If you want a practical roadmap to quit your job without chaos, this is your episode.

In this episode you'll discover:

• The simple savings target that made leaving possible (and how to set yours)
• A starter profit split to cover costs, pay yourself, and reinvest
• Pricing truths: why undercharging hurts growth and how to fix it
• The attract → nurture → convert content mix that builds demand
• The #1 thing Amanda would change to reach her goal faster

Links & resources mentioned:

Amanda's own struggle with ideal client & how she turned it around

Ideal Client eBook

Embracing the pivot: My 10 year journey of business evolution & growth

Special thanks to our sponsor:

 This episode is sponsored by KM Tax Returns. KM tax returns is a unique small business accountant that checks in monthly so you always know your numbers, stay on top of tax, and avoid end-of-year stress. Get more details at kmtaxreturns.co.uk

• Connect with Amanda on Instagram: @amandahughes.uk
• Growth Addicts Show Notes: Read the blog + grab freebies + guest links
• Be Mentored by Amanda: Join Get Seen Get Sales and get the support, strategies & accountability you need to grow your business on social media with confidence. Learn more
• Free Small Business Downloads: Access all of Amanda’s freebies in one place → Get them here
• Exclusive Discounts: Exclusive discounts on Amanda’s favourite small business tools & services → See discounts

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hi, hello, welcome. I'm Amanda Hughes, your host of Small Business Growth Addicts. I escaped the corporate world after 12 months of a side hustle which turned into my full-time income. Fast forward 10 years and I'm running not my first but my second small business, and this time around it's with a passion to share all that I know, all that I've learned and all that I'm still learning with fellow small business owners. As the title of the show suggests, I am addicted to growing my business and I know you are too. Growth means different things to different people though, and that's why we talk about a whole host of subjects in growth addicts. Whether that's in a solo episode, just me or with one of my many autumn guests. Between us we share advice, tips, and real-life entrepreneurial experience. So grab a pen, a cupper, and a biscuit, obviously, and get ready to grow that small business of yours. This is Small Business Growth Addicts. Hello and thank you for joining us for another episode of Growth Addicts. I'm delighted to be here with you today. And today I'm talking about a topic that I know for sure is on the minds of so many listeners. So many small business owners that I work with or connect with online are building a side hustle while still working self, full-time employed with a hope to be full-time self-employed. I know how hard this is, okay? I totally see you, I see where you are, I know the hustle, and I know how hard it is because I did it too. And today I want to completely uncover that journey of going from full-time employed to full-time self-employed. I want to talk about what I did right down to the numbers and everything. So, yeah, let's get into it. Let's pause there for a second to hear a word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

Tired of only hearing from your accountant once a year. Hi, I'm Kirstine at KM Tax Returns. We check in monthly so you always know your numbers, stay on top of tax, and avoid end-of-year stress. Find out more at kmtaxreturns.co.uk.

SPEAKER_01: 2:02

My story at the time now, we're going back, what, 11 years ago now? It was 2014. I was a branch manager for a retail high street bank. I had worked my way right up in the bank from being a cashier to being the branch manager, and quite frankly, I hated it. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I hated the job. I hated the office I had that was stuck through the back. There was no natural light. Some days could go I hadn't seen outside at all since arriving at work. I just hated the full setup. I hated the full thing, hated the job, and I thought this can't be it for me. I cannot do this forever. I'm a very creative person, love being outdoors. So aside from that, it was just other elements of the job that I just couldn't do. I couldn't do anymore. And driving home from work one day is so funny because I remember vividly exactly where I was, where I was driving. I remember the road I was driving on. I was just about to go over a speed bump. I don't know if that's in any way was a sign, this whole bump in the road. And I thought, fuck this. I cannot do this for the rest of my life. I cannot do this for even X amount more years. I cannot do this. I hate this. This cannot be life for me. So I had a complete fuck it moment and I knew I wanted to do something different. Now, well, no, I knew I wanted the work for myself. Rewind a tad, if we go back a few years, I did have a similar moment previously, a good few years before that point in 2014. Um, and of course, when I'm recording this today, this is 2025, so it's been 11 years now. But sorry, digress. Rewind from that fuck it moment. Um, I'm probably going to say that a few times through this episode today, so I hope you're fine with the F-word. There was another time when I was working for the bank and wanted to learn a creative profession, something that I enjoyed that would enable me to do it for myself at some point in life. That was the sort of goal. And at that point, I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do. I would have loved it to have been photography at that point. I've always been a keen photographer, a keen hobby photographer. And so that was the first thing in my mind. But at that point, the job that I was looking for that had, you know, an income from it, but also on the job training and whatever just wasn't there. It wasn't there. I looked high and low, and that opportunity just wasn't there. But one day I had seen an advert in the local newspaper, it's very random, for a trainee florist position, and I just took it. And sometimes you just have to follow your gut in life, don't you? And just go where it takes you. And that's where this took me. So rewind a few years from this fucking moment. I had left bank, had taken a job in a florist shop, and had did a college course alongside it, and I absolutely adored it. I loved it. I wasn't too keen on the day-to-day floristry stuff like bouquets for birthdays and whatnot. I really enjoyed the bigger stuff. So when we were doing weddings, where we really sat down, had a design consultation, and really got into the nitty-gritty of designing something a bit different. I really, really enjoyed that. However, not to focus too much on that part, that could probably be a whole other episode in itself. But I did that. I completed my floristry course, got a qualification in floristry, got so much experience in it. But life at the time, life changed, threw me a bit of a curveball at the time. I needed more money, and I went back to banking. So now, fast forward, so where we are at that point, 2014. So now I'm thinking I cannot do this career in banking for much longer, basically. Like I want out and I want to do something creative and I want to be my own boss. Like I could not have been any clearer on that. But as I say in the introduction to this podcast, I left my corporate career with not much more than a desire to be self-employed. Like that is true. That that was just burning within me, and I couldn't ignore it any longer. And it came to mind, you know, that I had this forestry experience. It was something I enjoyed, it was something creative, it was something I could do that I was good at, and that I could do that for myself. So from that point forward, it's as if I just knew something had to change and I was going to change it. And so I did. Now it was as if like I didn't care what it took, it was happening. I was absolutely doing it. It was probably a very strange but very liberating experience and profound point in my life, to be honest, because it completely changed my career trajectory from that moment onwards. It moved me towards a goal that I've had since I started working. You know, I always had this desire to be self-employed. I just didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know how to execute it. But it was if this point here, I was like, nope, I'm done. I know I'm done, and I know that from this moment onwards I am moving towards this goal. However, here's the thing, and here's the point where I know lots of you listening are at you're working, building a side hustle, but you're feeling like you're never going to be able to leave your nine to five and pursue your side hustle as a business full-time because the money's just not there. That's the most common obstacle I hear from small business owners that I speak with every day through my mentorship, through my community on Instagram, through lots of the various avenues that I communicate with small business owners. A lot of them are building something really awesome, but worrying and wondering if it's ever going to manifest into a full-time career that provides a full-time salary because you know we've all got bills and stuff to pay, which I did at this point in my life in 2014 as well. So I'm just going to get into real how I did it today. It was fantastic reflecting back on this for me for this exercise to talk about it today and really bring into life all the different areas that I completely focused on in order to make the dream work. First off, I should probably say, I'm going to tell you what I did, but then at the end, I'm going to tell you what I would go back and do differently. Okay, so not necessarily everything that I did here. It got me where I wanted to go. Could it have been a bit easier? Yes, there's things I could have done to make it a bit easier, and I'm going to go for that as well. But first off, I got laser focused on what I wanted to do. Wedding floristry. That's it. I did not want to offer bouquets for everyday use for birthdays, for anniversary, that kind of things for two reasons. One, I didn't enjoy it. Secondly, I couldn't commit to it. I was still working full-time in my banking role. I couldn't possibly have taken calls during the day for bouquets and made bouquets and had flowers in to do that and did deliveries and whatever. It wouldn't work. So I got laser focused that wedding floristry was absolutely what I wanted to do. That's it, nothing else. I got really clear on how I wanted to do it. So I had a shed in my garden. Yep, just a simple shed that I was going to work from as a workshop and I had a laptop and that was going to be my communication station. And it did. So yeah, the thing that I would have, I'm going to get into this later. I I wasn't clear my ideal client at this point. I'm going to talk about that in great depth later because this would have made this startup process so much easier. But at this point, that was what I was focused on. If you know me by now, you'll know that I love social media. It's how I've grown my businesses and now I want to help you do the same. That's why I created Get Seen Get Sales, my mentor group for small business owners who want to get seen online and actually attract followers that convert to customers. Inside you'll get weekly content prompts, live workshops, and support on everything you need to grow confidently on social media. If you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just ready to do things differently, I've got you. Head to smallbusinessgrowthaddicts.com to join us. Next thing I looked at, which I thought was really important, I thought you've got to have a logo, right? You've got to have a logo to get out there. Now I actually discussed this in a branding episode with Emily Coulson. When I started up in business, I thought the logo was the be all and end all. Like you didn't even have a real business if you didn't have a logo, which I thought was ridiculous, but that's where my head was at at the time. What I did here, I had to set up my branding and give my business a name, of course. Now, gave my business a name. Very little thought went into this, by the way. I brainstormed a few ideas for the name of my business with friends and family, like literally just two and forth messages back and forth. What do you think of this? What do you think of that? On text and WhatsApp and whatever, and then came up with the name of my business, which was the Florida Design Boutique. Again, would I have changed that? Yes, absolutely. It sounds more like a shop. The Floral Design Boutique sounds like a boutique store that you're going to visit, right? And that wasn't the case. So yes, I'll talk about that later. How I would have changed that. But at that time, gave my business a name, got in touch with a graphic designer friend, Hi Gareth, to design a logo for me. Basically just say make it colourful. That was it. That was as much thought went into the colours and the logo. Colourful, fun. It was not targeted at any particular market or anything at all. Not even at early weddings, to be honest. It was colourful and fun and things that I liked. That was it. Now, yes, I would change that as well. However, I do ultimately still believe that get it out there is good and you can make it perfect later. I was on a mission and I got it out there and I made it perfect later. So again, I'm so can't help myself here because I've got so much advice I want to give you, but I'm going to do a full section on what I would have done differently. Branding wise, gave the business a name, got a logo designed, and next thing for me was social media. So I set up an Instagram and Facebook profile. Now we're going back 11 years here, so it was, you know, same but different. It has evolved a lot, but at the same time, not much at all. I had used social media for years personally to that point. And I thought, you know, how hard could it be to do it for a business as well? You know, like at that time it was a lot of posting pictures of your dinner, your dog. At that time, I didn't even have a dog at that time, actually. Yeah, nights out probably was the biggest thing there. And just random stuff like you just posted on there. There was no plan behind it. Obviously, for your personal socials. In a way, I naively thought I could just continue that into business as well, but that was not the case. So that will certainly be uncovered later. Now, finance is something I know that lots of you want to talk about. It's a whole, a really big crux of this episode is the fact that you would love to leave your 95 and pursue your business full time, but the money is just not there. So I'm going to tell you what I did money-wise, a little bit now and a little bit later. But what I did to start up was I had a£500 overdraft on my personal bank account that I had never used. It was just sitting there, and I just I used that as my start-up capital, if you like. I used it initially to buy stock and so that I could make mock-ups of bouquets and arrangements and whatnot for weddings so that I could photograph them. That was my photography hobby coming in there again, so that I could photograph them to use them as examples of my work on social media. That was the main thing I used that money for at the start was to buy stock to do that. So this£500 overdraft was to be my capital for setting up. Okay, so next thing then was pricing. So when it came to pricing myself, I was full of self-doubt, which I know so many small business owners are at the very beginning as well. You're thinking, are you any good at this? Are you worth it? You've got imposter syndrome. Who does she think she is syndrome creaking in big time? And you don't, you're reluctant to charge what industry says that this is worth because you don't know if you're actually worth it yet. I think that's probably hitting the nail on the head there. So I was very much at that. So I went in really, really low with my prices. You know, some bridal bouquets I was doing for like£50, where they should have been at least three times the price of that. But what I wanted was I wanted experience, I wanted clients, I wanted photographs of the work, I wanted reviews, you know, like this was I wanted to get my name out there, and this is how I wanted to do it. So the pricing at the very start wasn't like making a profit wasn't huge for me, covering costs was enough for me. So that's how I did that at the very start. I priced much lower than I should have done, but my big driver was the experience and getting photos for socials, getting my name out there is given a really great service. So that's how I did that. So I did quote very cheap in the start and did the work for for very, very cheaply at the start. So I started with my branding, social media, finance, sort of capital, pricing. Yeah, I think that's the four main sort of things I focused on at the start. And I cracked on with this strategy for probably around six months or so, and it worked. My name did indeed get out there. Bookings were coming thick and fast. I was busy, I was all over the place delivering weddings. It was hard work, you know. I opened my laptop at 6 a.m. most mornings. I'm not a morning person, so that was not something that I found easy at all. But the motivation kept me going. The motivation made it easy, and no kids back then either, of course. But yes, I would open my laptop before my day job in the morning to answer inquiries and send out quotes, do my social media posts. Same again after work. I would open the laptop after work as well. And of course, during work at my day job, if I would check my emails and see that someone wanted to book, I mean, what an absolute buzz! And that just spurred me on to open the laptop again after work. So there was a huge, huge drive behind this. You know, this was working, it was working, and it was exhausting, but it was working, you know. Like I hear so many people now saying, I feel like we're coming away from it a bit more now, but saying that, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be hard to set up a business. But that wasn't my experience. And although there's a few things I would change to make it easier, I don't know if that actual part could have been easier, especially in wedding floristry. It's a very, very physical job. So my sort of Thursday nights would have been spent conditioning flowers. So that means receiving all your flowers in, stripping every stem, cutting every stem, cleaning buckets, filling buckets, making sure your flowers are all in perfect condition. Then Friday nights after work were spent making up my bridal bookies, my bridesmaid bookies, arrangements for the next day, all the prep. Sometimes early Saturday mornings would have been doing smaller things like buttonholes and corsages and whatnot. Saturdays were spent travelling to destinations all over Scotland, which was a bit I really, really enjoyed. Got to see some amazing wedding destinations, wedding venues. And then honestly, the rest of Saturday and Sunday were just spent panicking, thinking I hadn't done a good job, and just waiting on the bride or groom to come back and say those flowers were awful, like they fell apart, you know. Which never happened. I'm glad to say it never happened. But that's another tip as well. Like, do you know what? Try your best to just enjoy a job well done. If you've just held an event or delivered a service or you know, a session or whatever it might be, and you know it's gone well and you've got good feedback, please just take that and enjoy it. Because, like, see all the time I spent really worrying, like really worrying sleepless nights, thinking, even though I dropped the bridal bookie off to the bride and she like gasped with delight and perhaps cried with delight, I would still spend the rest of that day thinking, what if she secretly hated it? Or the table arrangements, what if they crashed and fell on a table of dinner guests in the evening? It was awful, and there was really no need for it, really no need for it. So if you do that too, I see you, I feel you, but please try not to do it. It's not worth it, it's a total waste of energy. So, yeah, I mean, this was working, like all of those things I was doing was working. Okay, so before I get into the nitty-gritty of the finances and what I did there to be able to leave my job, I'll talk about why I was so busy, like what I was doing with social media. So I only had Instagram and Facebook at the time, but Facebook was a huge driver of clients for me. Whether it was the type of clients I particularly wanted or not, I'll cover it in the what I'll do differently section. But that's what I was doing. I was posting every day. So that was part of my morning routine. I would get up, open the laptop, answer any emails, put out some quotes, and then I would post the socials in the morning. I was only targeting people who were getting married, like there was no other ideal client avatar at this point. I was targeting anyone who was getting married and who wanted flowers for their wedding, like I would do that for you. I was paused to hear from our sponsors today. Not only are our sponsors, awesome businesses themselves, they also enable me to keep providing the podcast with all the incredible information that it comes with for free for all of you.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

Do you only hear from your accountant once a year? We don't think that's enough. At KM Tax Returns, we check in with you every single month. So you always know how your business is doing, what tax you'll owe, and how much to put aside. You've got the right numbers when you need them, which means easier decisions, no end-of-year panic, and more time to focus on running your business. No shock, stress or accounting headache, just clear answers when you need them. So visit kmtaxreturns.co.uk to find out more about how we can help you. That's kmtaxreturns.co.uk.

SPEAKER_01: 19:10

So I was using Instagram and Facebook every single day. Now there wasn't even stories or end at that point, it was just your grids, I'm sure. And we were heavily into filters, everyone, at that point. But as well as Instagram and Facebook, I was putting myself everywhere where brides would be. Online forums were still a thing at that point. There was a lot of bridal forums where you could just go in and have sort of chats. Sometimes it was like a wedding magazine that would run these forums. So I could join there, advertise in there for free. Facebook groups, oh my gosh, so many Facebook groups. There were thousands of Facebook groups for getting married to help you to share tips. We people could advertise, you could like sell off stuff you'd had for your wedding, like Vazzies or whatever it might be. You could do anything in here in relation to your wedding. I was in so many of them, and I don't recall there being any like limits to posting advertising or whatever. So I was just posting them there regularly and got so many inquiries from there. And as time went on, I was able to post client reviews in there, you know, just as a bride had said, Oh, these flowers, the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen, or like Amanda was so easy to deal with, you know, and I started posting stuff like that in Facebook groups as well. So Facebook groups were a huge, huge driver of where I got my clients from there and then and daily posting on Instagram and social media. Now there was no carousels, there was no reels at that point. Like you could just post like photos on Instagram and like multiple photos. We actually, if I remember right, on Facebook used to create albums, and I would create albums for like seasons of weddings or months or something like that. It was so basic. But the main thing here was consistency. I was showing up every single day. No strategy at all. Otherwise, I was just posting something every day, even if it was here's a buttonhole I did for a wedding last week, here's your bridal bouquet, or here's the full wedding that I did last month. Whatever it was, I was posting every single day. I think that's where all of my clientele were coming from. Might have been a little bit of mud word of mouth in that those early days, you know, one or two perhaps, but most of it was coming from there. And I was super, super busy. The next thing to talk about then is money. And this is the thing lots of people don't talk about, don't they? Not they don't talk about the financial side though, but like, okay, that's great, you left your full-time job to go full-time self-employed, but how on earth did you make up that salary? Like, how did it work when just now you might not be earning anything from your business or just like a little side income? Like, how? So, first off, I had to set up my profit structure. Now, I was in a few florist groups, industry-style groups, where you could learn different things. So, I picked up a few tips here and there about how to do stuff like profit structure and whatnot, and how to order flowers and best timings and all that kind of thing, you know. So, and that's definitely something I did. I did get a lot of absorb a lot of free tips and ideas and whatnot from industry groups. And something I learned there was about how to set up a pure best profit structure. So, learning a bit about that, the best profit structure for me at the time was from every booking, 30% of the total cost went on buying stock, 50% went to me as profit, and 20% was reinvested back into the business. Now I didn't put away from for tax at that point. So, again, lesson learned, which we'll talk about later, but ultimately that came out of this 20% and was reinvested back in the business. It's a huge fear to leave your steady income employed job to go self-employed, a huge, huge fear. And it was for me as well. You know, I had rent to pay at that point, I had bills to pay, and needed to know my income, what it was, and that it was steady and secure, which is a huge ass from self-employment. So I knew there was no way that I could just leave my nine to five corporate job where I knew I was getting paid every month and jump into self-employment with it being erratic, you know, which it was at this point. I was very busy and I was bringing in money, but it wasn't enough to cover my salary. I couldn't leave without some sort of, what's a nested, you know, some sort of cushion behind me. So I had did a deal with myself that I would review leaving my job and going full-time self-employed if and when I could save up three months' salary. So three months equivalent of my salary in my corporate job. So what I did was I obviously every booking I get, 50% was going into an account which was pure profit, 30% was spent on expenses to do the job, 20% was being reinvested back in a business. And I didn't spend a penny from the business on anything I didn't to look at. And the profit I was making just saved. You know, I was still in my full-time income. I didn't need this extra income. It was for something in the future. I went purely saving on having three months' salary saved up before I would even consider leaving my nine to five. If I could get three months' salary in the bank and get the business with weddings booked out in advance so that I knew what income to expect to an extent, consistent inquiries and a high conversion rate. If I could meet these goals, I would leave my nine to five. And so that's what I did. So roughly around eight months, I'd say about eight to ten months since I started the business. Kept going exactly as I described. I was working super hard, I was around the clock, you know, weekends were wedding weekends, and yeah, there's a lot of sacrifices to be made. A lot of nights out I couldn't make and whatnot, but I was laser focused that I wanted my life to change. Your work is a huge part of your life, and this was a part that I wanted to change so, so badly. I was completely focused on it. So around eight, ten months later, of doing everything I've described there and not spending a penny from the business, like personally. Only things I bought were things that I absolutely needed. I was able to save up around£10,000. So I had around£10,000 sitting in the business accounts. That's a combination of the profit account I had and the 20% that got reinvested back into the business because you know there wasn't an awful lot to be spending that on at that point, you know. So although I was terrified at this point that I'd actually met this goal and that the prospect of leaving this steady job to go and work for myself was actually within grasp and common reality, I was terrified, but it was so exciting. The goals I'd set myself were there, had the money sitting there, so I had more than three months' salary sitting there in total. I had a weddings booked in for the following year, so I had a rough idea of what I income become. And then I'm also thinking, imagine what else I can do with the business and the time that I'll have from giving up my nine to five job. So, yeah, when it became around just before the 12 month mark of setting up the business, I handed my notice in. I was leaving full-time employment to become full-time self-employed. And you know what? Most of my colleagues didn't even know that I had a Seinthussel business. I'd always been really scared to talk about it in case it got me into any trouble with my employer. But I remember handing my notice in and my boss telling me that he envied me. He was a keen photographer as well, which I didn't know. And of course, at my exit interview, it turned out in me giving him this sort of advice that I'm giving you today, telling him how I did it, and which was maybe unbeknown to me at the time, a premonition of what I would end up doing later on in my business journey today, where I now mentor other small business owners via the podcast, of course, my mentorship group. So that's what happened. I had met all the goals that I'd set for myself. I had no other reason not to leave, and I left. And oh my gosh, I have never looked back. So that was around 11 years ago. I've never been employed since. I've been full-time self-employed since I earn a full-time income. I have learned so much along the way, but as promised, I wanted to go back and touch on what I would do differently. Quick pause from our conversation because I'm wondering how you'd feel if I told you I could give you a free£50 today. Yep, if you've been thinking about moving your business bank account, or perhaps you don't have a business bank account yet, I can highly recommend Monzo. And if you open an account with them via the link in today's show notes, you get a free£50. Monzo are free to bank with, I bank with them personally. It's so easy to use, and also they won Best Business Banking Provider in the UK in 2024. So if you don't have a business bank account yet or you're looking to change from where you are just now to free business banking and£50 in your account, head over to spawbusinessgrowthadicts.com for the link and enjoy. Okay, so when I talked at the start about being really focused on what I wanted to do, what I would also add in there is being really focused on who I wanted to do it for. Now, my ideal client, without knowing I even had an ideal client at the start, like I said, was anyone who was getting married. If you were getting married, no matter your budget, no matter where you were getting married, I would do your flowers, I'm all in, okay? But what that made me was a very busy fool, is the term I've now come to know. And I was attracting lots and lots of budget clients. Whereas I could have done one big wedding for the same equivalent. I was doing two or three smaller weddings at the weekend and travelling all over the place. And it was exhausting, you know. As I say, it was really hard work, it was really exhausting. I could have made that much easier for myself if I'd been really clear on my ideal client at the very start. But in fairness to me, back then I didn't really know, I didn't really know who my ideal client was. So I totally understand when people say that. But I can only share my experience of if I had just even drilled down a little bit. It's fine that your ideal client evolves over the time of your business, as it always does. But even start with somebody in mind. So if I go back to then, how could I have changed that? I would probably have had been a bit more savvy and that I would have had some sort of minimum pricing and to make it completely worthwhile for me to travel wherever I was going. There probably would have been travel fees, you know, I didn't charge anything like that. I've been a bit more savvy about the numbers there to make sure that I was being, you know, properly compensated. But as I say, my goal at the time was to get out there, get known, get reviews, get pictures of my work, and I did that and it worked. But if I was going back, I would be clearer on who I was wanting to attract. I did a whole video about this actually, I'll link to it in the show notes today about how that not knowing my ideal client made me a busy fool. Had I got clearer on who my ideal client was at the start, I would have been still busy, but more profitable and doing less. Doing less work for more money, which would have been lovely. It would have made me get to the goal of going full time self employed quicker, absolutely. So, yes, if I could go back and give anyone any advice listening today, get very clear on your ideal client from the start, even if it's vague, have something and someone in mind. You know, if you could clone a person and do business with them every day, every week. Everyone, who would it be? Who are they? Where do they live? Because when I did get around to this, wow, things got easier and more profitable very, very quickly. So yeah, figure out that ideal client avatar. I've got a video all about it that I will post a link to in the show notes. I also have an ebook about it. If you want some guidance on it, the ebook talks you through it start to finish. I will link that in the show notes as well. You actually get the ebook free within my mentorship. So I have a group mentorship, get can get sales. We do does what it says in the tin, gets and get sales on social media in particular, but you get the ebook free within there. But I'll put all this information in the show notes so that if you are feeling lost in an ideal client, you've got complete guidance in the show notes for you today. Next thing, branding. As I said, I put no thought whatsoever into this. I had a friend who was a graphic designer, so I went to him first, asked him to design me a logo that was nice and colourful and bright and had the floral design boutique on it. He mocked up some ideas. I went with one that's like a wreath around the text and with little birds and flowers and stuff in it. It was really cute, done. Like it was I liked it, end of. If I could go back and change that again, it would be tied into my ideal client. Everything, everything comes back to your ideal client. And now I know like even I've done interviews with Maxine Laceby, who's the co-founder of Absolute Collagen, a multi-million pound business, and Ben Coomer, who's like a 20 times award-winning business owner. They, even at the stage in their business, which is now turning over millions, they still talk about ideal client. That is the driver behind every decision they make. And it should be for us too at any level in business. The good foundation of any business is knowing your ideal client inside out. And so, had I known that at the start, had I had an ideal client profile written out, my branding would have been to attract them. So, whatever type of weddings I wanted to go for at the start, were they small, intimate, were they large, grand, my branding colours, there's certain colour psychology that talks about how to attract certain things, you know, attract trust or attract fun or that kind of thing. Like we actually did a workshop on this recently with a guest expert in my mentorship. It's fascinating stuff. So yes, branding would not have been so random. The business name, the colours, logos, branding on social media that I use, it would all have been completely with my ideal client in mind and no one else, not just what I liked. And yes, it would have made the process a lot easier and faster to get to my goals. Social media. So at the times, I say social media was kind of the same but different. There was no strategy. My strategy, if you like, was showing up every day, posting every single day, no matter what. Like I posted every day. And so it worked, it got me out there. But what I was posting was just like pictures of my work, and usually just saying, you know, like drop my DM to book or whatever. There was no content I was putting out there to attract my ideal clients. There was no content I was putting out there to nurture about, you know, the flowers I was using and the process that I did and how flowers can add to your event and how special they are, how flowers have meanings, all that kind of thing. And there was no specific conversion content. So I was really just posting and praying. Now, did it work? Yes, I got to my goal. Could I have got there a lot faster if I had an actual proper strategy? If I'd gone and got help from a social media expert, a mentor earlier on in my journey. Yes, absolutely. It would have been much easier, it would have been so much clearer, I would have known what to post. I wouldn't have just been posting and praying. My clients would have kept me much faster and I would have met my goals faster, which was the only goal I had. So, yeah, social media was erratic. It was posting and praying. That is not a marketing strategy. If I could go back again, I would have got some help from a mentor, social media mentor, much quicker. The last thing I would go back and change is my pricing. Yep. So I was crazy cheap at the start, and it was probably frowned upon by other florists who've seen me coming into the industry. I know it would have been, definitely would have been, because someone coming into an industry and undercutting prices undermines the full industry. I know that now. I know that now. And it's also so much harder to raise your prices later in the game. As I said, I did what I did because my goals were just getting to my goal faster of full-time self-employment as quickly as possible, but also getting experience of working with flowers, doing different designs, getting reviews, getting clients, getting photos of my work. And I thought at that time, because of my own self-doubts, that the way to do that was to undercut. But now, if I speak to another small business owner, I had one recently who was setting up an event and she was like, you know, well, I'll maybe just do that as a free event or a discounted event. And I'm like, okay, how come? And it was just purely down to her own self-doubt. She didn't think she was worth charging what she knew that event was worth. I can relate. I did it myself. I can completely relate. I completely understand. But there's so many reasons why that's not good. You're undermining your full industry, you're undermining yourself. You know fine well you're worth that full price. You're also setting your stall out as to how your business will operate. You know, if you're charging£20 for something one week, one month, and then the following month it's up to£50 where it should have been at the start, you're probably going to lose those clients that you worked hard to gain at the start. Just start out as you mean to go on. By all means, you can have introductory prices, if founders' fees are whatever, but make it clear that that's what it is and that this is not going to be the price going forward if you decide to do that at the start. Because of the way I started out, very low pricing, not knowing my ideal client. When I did then seek help from a business mentor to try and pull all this together, which wasn't until I had gone full-time self-employed, I realised it all had to change. Yeah. So a lot of the clients I worked with in the early days who maybe would have recommended me to friends and whatnot probably didn't because, you know, in their minds, they might have thought, oh, she's got her own business now. Like she's doing it full-time now. So now she's charging a fortune. But actually, she'd have been charging that from the start. So it is harder. It's harder to change things. So could that have got me to my goal faster? Yes, absolutely. It's all back to that whole ideal client thing. I would have been less busy and more profitable, which would have got me there faster. Absolutely. So there you have it. This is how I went from full-time employment to full-time self-employment in 12 months. And I have never looked back. I'm 11 years on now. My business adventures have changed so much. I did floristry for a long, long time, right up until 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit, and also I was pregnant with my twins. Life changed beyond recognition, and my business had to change as well. By the way, at that point, I was helping a lot of small business owners in their business as well because I've been doing it for quite a while. I'd learned so much along the way, and I shared that a lot. I actually do have another episode all about this. It's called My 10 Year Pivot. And so I'll link to that in the show notes as well. If you'd like to have a listen to that next, I think that'll tie in really nicely actually with this episode. Today, now that I spend my time doing the podcast where I can share all of this experience. I can share what I've learned and what I'm still learning with small business owners in the hope that it gets you to your goals faster and easier than I did. That's always the hope. And of course, I have Get Seen, Get Sales, which is my group mentorship for small business owners. It's the most incredible community I've ever come across. We talk about everything in their marketing. So the main crux of it is to grow on social media. So every week you get a content pack that lands with everything you need to know about posting the next week, right? Individual posts for every single day of the week, hooks, prompts, why they work, caption starters, you and aim at how to use them and a casel or a real, what's the purpose of the post? We talk about ideal client, we talk about strategy for social media, attract nurture convert, got members in there that now sell out within the hour, you know, no big deal because they know exactly what you're doing. It's the support that I would have loved to have had at the very start of my business journey. I would love to know what stage you're at in your journey. Are you just starting out? Are you up and running and you're struggling to grow? Did you have a similar journey to me? Like, I don't know. Tell me, tell me what stage you're at in your journey of setting up your business. Where are you? I would love to know. Come and find me on Instagram, amandahues.uk, drop me a DM. Please do that. I will answer. I would love to hear from listeners of the podcast at what stage you're at in business just now. Come and find me and let me know. Okay, friends, I will leave that with you. This has been a lovely chat with you this morning. I hope it's helped. I hope more than anything it's helped. I hope if there's even one thing you can take away that's going to help you get to your goals of being full-time self-employed faster, then my job is done. Until next time. Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of Small Business Growth Addicts. I hope today's episode has given you inspiration and tangible tips that you can use to grow your small business in a way that feels right for you. If you love today's episode, please head over to smallbusinessgrowthaddicts.com and check out today's show notes where you can find details of our wonderful guests, sponsors, discounts, freebies, and so much more. Please also don't forget to leave a review today. Reviews are invaluable to us to help us get the show out there. Every single one is read and very much appreciated. Until next time.