How many times have you been told to follow your instinct, go with your gut, listen to what your heart’s telling you? 

Maybe you’re the one doing the telling, knowing the value of always giving intuition a chance. Do you take your own advice?

It’s this inner voice we spent years ignoring then working hard to finely tune into hearing loud and clear. This clarity led us to make a huge decision at the end of 2020, which had many questioning our thinking.

So what was all the fuss about? 

In the midst of a global pandemic, we told our biggest, longest running client we wouldn’t be in a position to renew our contract this spring. Foolish? We say we’d have been foolish not to. 

It’s not because we’d had a sudden influx of new work or a falling out, quite the opposite! We worked with the brilliant team at Freedom Festival, Hull's spectacular international arts festival, since 2017. Leading their PR and securing national coverage in the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, i, Metro, Grazia, Woman magazine and various BBC tv and radio programmes in the process. 

During the last two years we even managed the full marketing remit alongside our creative partners Laura Smith, Process Black Design and See Green. From writing, designing and producing the festival programme and new website, city dressing and advertising to working with the BBC on an exciting media partnership and creation of a brand new app, that was us.

It’s been an incredible journey and one we’re so grateful for, especially as the festival’s team put their faith in us just months after we launched our agency. We love the team and what the festival represents, so why did we have to say goodbye? 

Freedom. 

With two young families to care for, entertain and enjoy while school’s out for summer, we’d lost sight of why we started our own business in the first place,  freedom. The thing with a huge end-of-summer-holidays festival is there’s a whole load of work to be done during the summer when school’s out and the kids are eager to get out and explore all the more.

The ideal scenario we’d always talked about was to take the summer off and spend it with the kids. But as client account work picked up pace, summer only got busier. We realised the only way to make it possible was to make a change, a big one. 

We once again considered growing our team so we could take a step back from doing the doing but that isn’t what either of us wanted and knew it would unlikely be the reality. 

We opted instead for massive action. A leap of faith downsizing our retained client list to make time to focus on growing our business in a new way to help even more women write about their business with confidence and clarity while giving us the freedom and space to wear all the hats in a way that suits us both.  

What’s wonderful? The women magnetically drawn to working with us recently have had similar aha! moments, with many making bold decisions to leave their corporate jobs after years working their way up to director level, choosing instead the freedom to be more present, creative and fulfilled. 

Perhaps thoughts of busy commutes, demanding careers and the hustle and bustle of juggling it all is what’s pushing us to make the shift. Whatever it is, there’s something in the air and we’re excited. Our new offers mean we can work with more like minded women, sharing our knowledge and helping them harness the power of their words.

So we’re here with you in the messy middle, we know where we want the next and future chapters of our story to lead and it was this that gave us the courage to be bold. 

If you’re on a journey to find your North star and you need some help getting your new story started, book one of our 90 minute power sessions or our three-month mentoring programme. We’ll help you talk through your idea and start to build the crucial foundations of your story, your audience, your values and your mission.     

Laura & Becca