I’ve been a Sage Business Expert for a while so I was excited when they announced a planned meet up in Newcastle. Travelling to Newcastle in a day required a flight from Southampton leaving at 7am! Anyone who knows me knows I don’t do mornings! I’ve also not flown by myself in a very long time! AND to top it off none of the Sage Business Experts attending was any I knew other than a few ad-hoc tweets! So feeling totally out of my comfort zone, then fighting with a ticket machine at Southampton and then hearing my name being called over the tannoy I was really starting to feel sick!
However, I needn’t have worried. I arrived at Newcastle airport pretty unscathed after my first FlyBe experience and greeted by the wonderful experts from Ireland. There is something really special about people who run their own service-based business; they are always super friendly, interested and willing to help. I immediately forgot all my nerves as we chatted in the taxi like we’d known each other for years.
The Sage building is pretty impressive we were greeted by the most magnificent Christmas Tree in the foyer and a day full of delicious food and learning. I’m not going to bore you with all the details but here are three key facts I took from the day. How epic technology is and how underused by me it is! We had a live Q&A with CEO Stephen Kelly from the Shard. This is something we mums in business can easily replicate on a daily basis and frankly, most of us don’t! The amazing people I met during the day and how impressive the Sage network is in terms of both the social media reach Sage has and the awesome collections of Sage Business Experts on board. Again I underuse this resource and will in the future make more of an effort to delve into. How much I actually do know and how now Olive is at school full time I really need to make a plan for 2016 instead of hopping about from task to task, blog to blog etc .. I also did a short 30-second video about what motivates me in business as part of the #SmallBizSatUK campaign. Regular readers will know that my 3 children are my main motivation, being a full-time mum but yet being able to build a business I’m proud of and hoping maybe a little that they are proud of me.
How does @charliemoos stay motivated? #SageAdvice #SmallBizSatUK pic.twitter.com/oP7USdfIdt — Sage UK (@sageuk) December 1, 2015
It’s really important in life as well as business to step away from your comfort zone and do something different. Still feeling pumped by my experience at #SageBizMeetUp I have decided to spend 2016 investing in both the look (new website on the horizon!) and feel of the business, writing that difficult second book and more importantly investing in myself.
I have a feeling 2016 is going to be pretty special.
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