Publishing Business Essentials
Julie Stanford is an inspiring example of someone who still retains an entrepreneurial drive and desire for success, despite having experienced the highs and lows of running a business for 25 years.
However, Julie does not fit the general stereotype of a female business owner as her motivation for running a business combines her sense of independence and risk taking. “I like working for myself, making the decisions and setting myself goals which stretch me,” Julie admits. “I am very comfortable taking calculated risks and above all, I am brave,” she says.
Having left school at 15, Julie learnt every aspect of running a business from accounting to marketing. She used this experience to establish her first business, a graphic design agency, which ran for 18 years. Towards the end of this period, Julie also took up an opportunity to manage the sales and marketing operation of a manufacturing company, exporting giftware to America. However, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, the giftware market collapsed and so Julie decided to step down from the export business.
“Working with the Americans had been such an invigorating experience,” she remembers. “However it was very hard to deal with the loss of a dream. People always talk about the loss of the money when a business fails, but I personally felt more struck by the regret that it hadn’t had a chance to reach its full potential.”
Following the closure of the export business, Julie refocused her attentions on the design agency, but shortly after faced another challenge. “Within days, a client that I’d worked with for 16 years cancelled its business with us as they too had been affected by the World Trade Centre attacks.” Julie then took the difficult decision to close the design company.
The sudden closure of her businesses left Julie with confused emotions, “On the one hand, I felt liberated. Running the design agency hadn’t suited me for a while and I was relieved to be able to start again. However, on the other hand, my confidence was knocked. It was a conversation with a fantastic business advisor that turned everything around. She said, ‘You didn’t fail, you did brilliantly. It was the business that failed.’” It was these words that prompted Julie to take a chance with a new venture.
So five years ago, Julie decided to write and publish ‘The Essential Business Guide’. Drawing on her vast and varied experience of the challenges of managing a business, the end result is a user friendly and practical guide to business.
Like any business, the Essential Business Guide company has fluctuated and new e-books have been published following the success of the initial edition. At one stage, a cancelled order worth £250,000 reduced Julie back to being a sole trader, but new contracts now mean that Julie employs a full-time business development manager alongside a network of freelancers for production.
“I have very healthy profit margins now as we spent two years developing the book, and can now reap the rewards,” she says. “That’s not always the case with a service and although I now have lower turnover than when running the design agency, I actually have more profit.”
Julie’s passion for providing business with clear, useful information has paid off and the ‘Essential Business Guide’ is the only business book to be awarded a Plain English Award for its jargon-free advice. It has also been named ‘Business Book of the Year’ by Start Your Business magazine.
Today, Julie also enjoys her role as President of the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce. She has also been a mentor for the Prince’s Trust and for EDEAL, an enterprise agency supporting businesses in Sussex and Kent. Earlier this year, Julie was also appointed as a SEEDA Women’s Enterprise Advocate, acting as a role model for women considering self employment.
Julie’s commitment to business support has also been
recognised by the local media and she now presents her own radio show,
‘Business as Usual’ on Brighton’s Community
Radio Station, Radio Reverb 97.2FM.
“Women are a force to be reckoned with,” she concludes. “We add so much to the economy and are extraordinarily capable. Women entrepreneurs represent an untapped phenomenal force. We have challenges that are unique to us, but these are communal rather than gender-based, and we can overcome them.”
