Five lessons I learnt in my first five days as a business owner
When I first explored the idea of freelance life, I remember reading lots of blogs, articles and talking to people about their experiences. But I didn’t find many talking about their early days, so I wanted to document my first few weeks in the hope it helps someone, somewhere. Accept the silence On my first […]
End of an era…
Today is my last day in an in-house role and it feels really strange not to have another role to go straight into. This is because in the new year I will be officially launching my comms consultancy business Comms Rebel! I’ve never hidden the fact I’d love to work for myself one day. However, […]
The power of ‘why?’
I hate delivering tasks if I don’t know the ‘why’ behind them. I talk a lot about comms bringing value to an organisation and delivering work that is meaningful. So, when somebody wants me to do something that I don’t understand the rationale behind, I have to ask them the question of “why?” It’s a […]
Three key tips to earn trust from your leadership team…
Over the past few weeks I’ve met quite a few comms pros at various events and via The Comms Hive dinners. One topic that kept coming up was how to gain trust from the leadership team. This is an area that has been discussed across the communication circuit for a long time. It’s an area that really intrigues me so for the past few years I’ve been researching the […]
Do you need to be an IC pro to deliver IC tasks?
I’ve not written a blog for a few weeks as I’ve been all over the place recently, all good stuff which I will share soon. But first I want to write about something I read a couple of days ago that’s been niggling me. On LinkedIn I came across a post from a HR Officer. […]
Embracing your inner imposter….
Over the years I’ve lost count of conversations I’ve held with people about how to deal with imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome was first discovered by psychologists Suzanna Imes and Pauline Rose Clance in the 70s. At that time they thought Imposter syndrome only impacted successful women. But since then, it’s been widely recognised that more […]
My thoughts on CIPR State of the Profession report…
The State of Profession was published this morning and it was a mixed bag of emotions for me. It was great to read that we are seeing some things move in a positive direction such as salary and investment in teams. I was also chuffed to read that if you’re chartered and have a qualification, […]
Five top tips to get ‘walk the floors’ embedded into your organisation
Last week I presented at the National Housing Federation conference in Manchester. The presentation was about innovative internal communication tools but the one thing that really resonated with the people in the room (and on twitter), was my comment about walking the floor. It’s something I truly believe makes a massive difference in an organisation. […]
A letter to all the women in my life…
In celebration of International Women’s Day, I wanted to write a blog dedicated to all the fabulous women who have come into my life, some I’m still friends with and others have moved on. But whether we’ve known each other for life or 20 minutes, this is for you. You know you’re pretty special right? […]
Continuing your professional development with limited budget….
At the last Power and Influence chat with Darren Caveney the subject of CPD was discussed and what to do if you have no budget. For the first seven years of my IC career I worked in teams where the training budget was minimal which meant I had to get fairly creative with my professional development. Before I go into […]