You can use what you have and make it a strength – you can flip it around .”
FEATURE
Pioneer – Being a woman in a male-dominated industry can be turned to your advantage , says Cathi .
As it happened , Cathi ’ s first client , from Cumbria , called her . Eventually , that client told someone else about Cathi and through word of mouth , the business grew .
“ I also kept forcing myself to do 10 cold calls a day ,” Cathi says . “ It wasn ’ t very sophisticated in the beginning .
“ It was just me sitting there doing the work and sending it , but it got to the stage when there weren ’ t enough hours in the day .”
Eventually , Cathi faced the choice of employing someone else or closing to new clients .
“ I knew Jo , who wanted to be a paraplanner and was in administration at a firm ,” she says .
“ I said , ‘ Come and join me and I will train you in paraplanning .’
“ I then had to take on a little office so she wasn ’ t working in my bedroom with me !
“ It was tiny , with two desks and one telephone that we passed backwards and forwards between us .”
But from small acorns , mighty oak trees grow . By 2016 , when Cathi was on maternity leave , Para-Sols was flying . When her little boy slept , she checked in with work , feeling “ unable to give up her business baby !”
“ The two things , motherhood and running a business , have gone alongside each other from day one ,” Cathi says . “ I can do the school run and work on a night if I need to .”
You can use what you have and make it a strength – you can flip it around .”
In fact , Cathi ’ s business has evolved magnificently in the years since she became a mum .
Over time , she recognised several gaps in the market for more outsourced services and second , third and fourth businesses followed .
Technical feedback would come back to Para-Sols and have to go out to a firm that dealt with compliance , so the firm developed a financial compliance company called Apricity .
Cathi then started training paraplanners for a firm that didn ’ t want to outsource them – and this became another string to her business bow .
24 | Tees Business