Sonia Blizzard - An IT Wizard!
Beaming Ltd is a successful small business with a turnover approaching £2 million and employing 9 people – that may not sound particularly unique you may think - but it’s testimony to the dedication and drive of Sonia Blizzard, an IT professional by trade and a mother of a child with special needs.
Before Sonia set up her business seven years ago, she had been working for a global telecoms company. However, managing a full-time employed position around her son’s disability needs proved difficult. Initially, she changed from employee to contractor to work flexible hours, but eventually decided she needed to be her own boss.
Getting Started
Sonia set up Beaming, a niche ISP (Internet Service Provider) which provides high-quality broadband and telephony products to business customers nationally.
Sonia explains, “I was inspired to set up the company because I would be selling technology that I believed in”. “When I first started, I wrote a business plan and raised money from family, friends and acquaintances,” reveals Sonia. In the first year, Sonia received input from a business mentor. Then, when the business outgrew her original premises (the garden shed!), she obtained an office in the Creative Media Centre in Hastings.
Giving a Balance to Life
Sonia’s aim in becoming self employed, was to set up a successful business, working around the constraints of her son’s needs.
To help her do that, she uses the technology she sells, enabling her to work from home when her son is not at school, with hours that fit with her family life. “I communicate mainly by email, meaning I can work from home while my son plays noisily in the background,” she says. “Using a laptop, and having access to systems via broadband when at home means there is no real difference between working at home and working in the office”.
The Rewards of Success
Beaming has now featured in the Deloitte Fast 50 for technology companies two years in a row. Running her own business has been very hard work, but Sonia says that was no more than she expected.
"Sometimes I have had to make hard compromises,” she admits. “But the growth in self-belief, the places I have been and the people I have met have been unexpectedly rewarding.” Sonia is living proof that it is possible for a determined woman to run a business successfully around difficult personal circumstance and find valuable family time.
