ABOUT BRASS BEE
re-discover your creativity and generate more income online
We love our clients - scroll along to see some of the brands we've worked with below:
how we
came
to bee...
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from coffee and commutes in Essex to freelancing in Sussex.
Catherine Hills - owner & founder. HSP, Virgo, Stepmom. Loves period dramas & colourful interiors,
I approached my boss feeling bold as brass - either he let me work from home, or he'd lose me. After a week of anxious waiting, he called me into a meeting and told me that regrettably, letting me work from home wasn't going to happen. 'Once I let one person work from home, then I have to let everyone work from home,' he said. For a moment, I was devastated. But then, I heard him say something that would change everything. 'If you wanted to go freelance, we'd be very interested.'
Now, I'm not gonna lie and claim going freelance was easy. I had to find more clients and find them fast. Everything I knew about in-house marketing didn't equip me for running a successful business, so I had to become competitive and adapt. For the first time, I had to promote myself. Let me tell you, it's a million times harder to promote yourself than promote a company you work for.
It was never my intention to start a business at 29. My ideas didn't come from an engaging workshop at a business coaching retreat; they came from necessity. At the time, I was working as an Executive Content Creator for a high-end design company in Essex. I loved the job, but being far away from my hometown in Sussex was a real struggle.
I would commute for two hours on a Monday morning, stay in a little houseshare flat in the evenings, and travel back on a Friday. I missed my friends and family back home and was on the verge of burning out. I drank A LOT of coffee and felt like I was always living out of my Cath Kidston weekend bag. I had to figure out how I could carry on doing the job I was so good at without the distance, or I would have to hand in my notice, and that was not an option!
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Blogging about Horatio’s Garden - a charity garden designed by Joe Swift at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital
It wasn't long before I started to understand how difficult it was for smaller business owners to promote their own work. I didn't feel like I was putting my business out there properly. Everywhere I looked, there was a new rule to learn or an algorithm change to master. I felt envious of other people who seemed to do their marketing so damn well. There was so much information out there and I lacked the confidence to make sense of it all. My passion started to spread a little thin, and I thought about throwing in the towel plenty of times.
But there was one thing that pulled me through it all - my creativity. I stopped thinking of by business as a direct reflection of me as a person, and I focused on sharing fun, creative campaigns that my followers engaged with. I used my creativity to think of new ideas, and finally enjoyed doing what I do best.
Enjoying the swing at the RHS Gold-winning Zoflora & Caudwell Children's Wild Garden
