Julie Stanford - 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 become director of a manufacturing company, exporting giftware to America and headed up the sales and marketing team. 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.
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 nine years ago, Julie decided to co-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 stylish, user friendly and practical guide to business. Now in its 4th edition, with thousands of copies sold, the book has gone from strength to strength. Julie's company expanded its range and now also provides business start-up training materials across the UK and is partnered with two leading business support organisations.
Building on her reputation as a voice for independent business, Julie recently started Essential Business Radio and interviews business owners and experts alike on all aspects of running a successful enterprise.
“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.”
