Be Green Cleaning

In 2019, Shaun Brogan left his job with a cleaning firm after 25 years to be his own boss and offer a different, much greener solution. He felt that many cleaning companies used too many chemicals that are harmful for the environment. 

Looking around for support to start his own business he was put in touch with the Inspiring Enterprise project @ the University of Winchester. Within weeks he was on his way with support from mentor Jane Buswell. Shaun says: “Jane was great, creative, knowledgeable, and the perfect sounding board. She really gave me the confidence to start and carry on.”

Shaun now runs the Be Green Cleaning business aimed at small to medium sized businesses. He won’t use products with volatile organics compounds (VOC’s) in them, as they negatively affect the spaces we live and work in. They have developed cleaning practices that virtually eliminate the use of chemicals in daily cleaning. They utilise recycled paper products and when they do need to use cleaning products they are environmentally sound.

The business is doing well. Their main base is in Winchester but now they are cleaning premises as far away as Derby.

Shaun can recommend people starting their own business…and his main tip to budding entrepreneurs is: Don’t be frightened to ask for help!

https://begreencleaning.co.uk/

Chloe grew up on a council estate in Southampton, she describes her childhood as being lovely with a big family surrounding her. Her love of acting and singing first developed in primary school where she started taking part in school plays and drama clubs. At secondary school she toured professional venues with a 5 piece band as a lead singer. She went on to study performing arts and musical theatre at college and university.

Having been interested in accents and voices for a few years and being a fan of animation and video games she developed an interest in voice acting. At university Chloe studied the creation and manipulation of the voice, she found this fascinating and combining this with her love of animation she decided to pursue a career in voice acting.

After finishing university she felt a bit lost and felt she hadn’t been taught the skills needed to become a freelance actor, look after her finances and function as a self-employed professional. She had all the performance skills but needed the business knowledge. She was introduced to Inspiring Enterprise by the careers team at the University of Winchester after she graduated. Chloe says of the support she received from Inspiring Enterprise:

“When I met Donna, my mentor, I suddenly found that I was becoming a lot more comfortable with how I work as a professional and where I need to go for information. Donna was amazing at introducing me to the right people to help me understand the skills I needed to be a professional actor; she introduced me to an agent which is great. The most important thing that Donna has helped me with is accepting how I work as a person and making me feel comfortable with my work process, teaching me that it is important to give myself a break. Discussing in our meetings what I had been doing in the time between our last meet up, helped me see that I had actually been quite productive even if it had felt that I hadn’t done anything. She was really helpful at making me understand how to look after myself as well as my business. Working with Inspiring Enterprise has really helped me out”

Chloe is now working as a freelance voice actor and has a just completed a contract over the festive performing the voice of a reindeer. She has also just produced a successful charity event raising money for Children with Cancer UK, which was live streamed on social media.

We can’t wait to see what she does next!

It’s an exciting opportunity if you want to continue your professional career, from the comfort of your own home.  No long commute, a flexible schedule that fits around your children or other commitments… and super interesting work.

What does a VA do exactly ?

Well, it’s not exactly clear cut. The term ‘Virtual Assistant’ is an incredibly broad one – someone that assists someone else, virtually (aka remotely).

Let’s break it down:

• A Virtual Assistant provides a professional service, usually as an independent contractor.
• Unlike a freelancer or employee, they always do this remotely or virtually. It’s rare for a VA to meet face-to-face with their clients.
• The role of a VA focuses on providing assistance or support to their client, rather than leading from the front. This isn’t always the case, but most Virtual Assistants focus on the day-to-day ‘doing’ and not on consulting or providing strategic advice.

Some VAs choose to specialise in specific areas; whether that is financial administration, payroll and bookkeeping, or digital marketing. Yet others support their clients with a broad range of tasks.

Ultimately, it all depends on your own unique skills and experience, as well as what you actually enjoy doing. One of the key benefits of working as a Virtual Assistant is that you have complete control over the services you offer.

To give you a clearer starting point, however, 80% of the work VAs do for clients is essentially Executive Assistant support. That could be:

• Doing general day-to-day admin.
• Keeping on top of a client’s diary/schedule.
• Managing their inbox.
• Making travel arrangements – booking flights, hotels, etc.
• Helping with personal or ‘lifestyle’ tasks (e.g. buying gifts).
• Organising events.
• Researching something – exploring a new business idea or finding useful data for a report, for example.
• Light financial admin – raising invoices, filing expenses and so on.

VAs with a broader background could also find themselves helping clients with:

• Customer service tasks – answering emails or support tickets, as well as processing refunds, for example.
• Project management – this usually focuses on organising other contractors in the team and ensuring they deliver on time.
• Recruitment – this could involve advertising for a role and then shortlisting candidates for a client to interview.
• HR support – for a larger team, this could involve co-ordinating staff holidays, for example.
• Sales support – working with a client’s sales team. This could be following up on meetings they’ve had, sending our sales literature, updating a CRM, or a long list of other similar tasks.

Outside of the above, we then have a third and final category: virtual marketing support. Again, this reflects another area that many Virtual Assistants could typically offer their support.

This could include:

• Email marketing – sending a regular email newsletter or setting up email campaigns.
• Market research – this could be anything from looking at industry trends to Google search volumes.
• Social media management – whether that’s as simple as posting the occasional Tweet or creating a more in-depth social media marketing plan, depending on your level of experience in this area.
• Content and blog writing. Many clients also appreciate it if you can make simple changes to a website, particularly if it is an easy-to-use interface such as Wix or a templated WordPress website (using something like Visual Composer).

So, the first step is to define what services you’re going to offer – whether that’s very specialised or a much broader range of tasks. Again, decide your service list based on what you feel you’re good at and what you’re passionate about.

Avoid the mentality that you will ‘have a go’ at something you’ve not built up some experience in doing before. It’s also recommended to not prioritise money above your happiness! Long-term, spending hours of your time every week working on tasks you either feel uncomfortable doing or simply don’t enjoy doing, isn’t sustainable

With thanks to Virtalent

Billy Stevenson, 43 is the founder of Film Crew 4u whose aim is to make film-making accessible to people who are experiencing difficulties in life, like mental health issues,  physical disabilities or recovering from addiction. Based in Portsmouth, Film Crew 4u wants to give people within the community a chance to learn the various aspects of film and media production as well have the opportunity to be involved in film making from beginning to end using basic and accessible equipment.

Billy’s journey with Film Crew 4u began back in 2016 after he relocated to Portsmouth while recovering from alcohol dependency. Billy saw this as an opportunity to make a fresh start and try and do something different. Exploring various volunteer positions, Billy was given the chance to do some hours with the Portsmouth Film Society. Having never worked in the film industry Billy quickly became involved with the Portsmouth Film Society and enrolled on their film production course. Having found something he was passionate about Billy made the decision to pursue this as a career.

Using some basic equipment and some free software Billy began to make short films. Initially with family members and then producing short promotional business videos for people within the recovery community. From this that he discovered that maybe he could start his own small project or business.

On benefits and unsure where to look with starting a small business Billy was encouraged by a friend and previous Inspiring Enterprise participant to enrol on some upcoming workshops in Winchester. Billy attended the three workshops and engaged with mentoring where he learnt all aspects of setting up a social enterprise, how to best structure his business. Learning more about Community Interest Company’s made him believe that this was the best way he could give back and building his skills and confidence helped him find the courage to transition off benefits.

“I loved the course, loved hearing others ideas and sharing this journey with them.  I feel I am on the path I’m meant to be on” said Billy. He goes onto say that he found the mentoring really valuable especially the Virtual Coffee Meeting during lockdown, being part of the Inspiring Enterprise programme has filled him with confidence, knowing that the has the right support behind him to help support him in his own business as well as encourage other participants to continue on their social enterprise journey.

Having successfully launched his CIC with a business partner, a volunteer he met at the Portmouth Film Society, he has secured funding, generated income and been accepted on to this years School of Social Entrepreneurs. Billy is really excited about his future and the opportunities that lay ahead and has an increased confidence in himself and his abilities to continue and develop a sustainable social enterprise. He hopes to continue to grow the company so that he can increase the capacity to employ more people and support others through film.