“Signs” of a Successful Business
Katie Mayne founded an international franchise business providing sign language and early communication classes for babies and young children, which she continues to manage. She currently has 120 franchisees across the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Australia. Katie started her company after maternity leave from her teaching career had given her an opportunity for her to fully contemplate her future.
“Maternity leave is a chance to put everything into perspective and weigh up your life’s priorities,” explains Katie. “My background is teaching, so when I took my first-born, Harry, to baby groups, I found myself thinking I could do that and do it better!”
Katie had experience teaching sign language to children with hearing difficulties and had witnessed firsthand the benefits to their communication skills. She started teaching her son to sign and realised that baby signing need not only be for deaf children, but could assist the communication skills of every child. Thus, the idea for “TinyTalk” was born.
“Before starting the first baby signing classes, I created a syllabus comprising singing and signing for the first half of the class, followed by coffee for the mums and playtime for the little ones in the second half,” says Katie. “It was really important to me that we were offering value for money and exceeding expectations and, because of this, we grew quickly through word of mouth recommendation.”
At first, Katie’s baby signing company, TinyTalk, was only her and she kept up her teaching through a part time position. However, following a spate of media coverage, which started in the Surrey Advertiser and was picked up nationally by Bella magazine, she was approached by “This Morning” to appear with Philip Schofield and Fern Britton to talk about the future of TinyTalk.
“I realised that this was our chance to take the
company national, so scheduled our appearance for two months down the line,”
remembers Katie. “In the meantime, I
consulted business advisers and franchise experts to work out a model that
would enable the company to go national, whilst keeping its family friendly
format.”
Katie’s eight-minute live television appearance prompted a burst of enquiries and May 2003 saw the first training day in Guildford for new franchisees. “It was like throwing a stone into a pond and watching the ripples expand outwards,” says Katie. However, quality has always been of the utmost importance to her and she says: “We are as strong as our weakest link, so I am very choosy about who joins the network.”
Motivated to establish her own business and utilize her skills while still being there for her own children, Katie feels she has succeeded in her aims. “I know that I’ve achieved a healthy work-life balance, even though the first few years were hard work,” admits Katie. “I now have lots of work flexibility, which I know would be difficult in another job. I love being the boss and still get a kick out of it all, even seven years down the line!”
Katie’s advice to aspiring ‘Mumpreneurs’ looking to run a business and raise a family is to compartmentalise work and life: “Have your work in one room and don’t let it spill out. At the beginning, it is difficult to keep it separate, but the children will miss out if you are half concentrating on work and work suffers if you are half concentrating on the children.”
TinyTalk’s success is a testament to Katie’s hard work and she is proud of her achievement. “When I established 100 teachers, I rewarded myself with a convertible sports car,” says Katie. “I am very proud of buying myself a car and feel that I really deserve it. The children love it too!”
Katie’s Franchise Pack and DVD received Silver medals in the Practical Pre-School Awards as did TinyTalk in the “What’s On For Little Ones” Awards. Katie was also named “Mumpreneur of the Month” in Mother and Baby magazine.
“Running your own business is exciting, with thrills and spills in equal measure, but that’s the fun of it.” Katie also sees the value of being self-employed during the economic downturn: “You can’t make yourself redundant in a recession – instead, it’s up to you to think laterally and maybe run your business a different way.
The most important things are to make sure that you have enough passion to get you through the difficult times and enough support to make sure that you can juggle your priorities!”
