Today we’d like to introduce you to Teresa Heath-Wareing.
Hi Teresa, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I have been in marketing for about 18 years now. I did a degree in it and started my career. I was always happy being an employee and never dreamed about having my own business. However, after 10 years in various marketing roles, I became a single parent of a 4-year-old. I was head of marketing for a local agency, and after coming through a separation I thought I needed a change. I joke I must have gone through an early midlife crisis because without getting another job, I handed my boss 8 weeks’ notice; thinking I am good at my career, I am sure I will get another.
3 weeks into my notice and no job offers, I started looking at other options, including starting my own business. One thing I overlooked was that I was on a good salary and lived in a small town and jobs like that weren’t often available. My boss found out this might be the case and understandably asked me to leave! Within one week, I had started my new marketing business!
Within one week, I had a business name, a very simple website, and the all-important (back then) business cards! I did it so fast and made mistakes. I called it THW Marketing, which meant every time you searched it on Google, it thought you had misspelled it and corrected it to The Marketing. Not great!
So, I was the proud owner of a tiny business with no customers and income.
Fast forward 7 years, I am now an online business & marketing expert who works with business owners worldwide, helping them build a business and life they love.
My online membership and innovative Dream Business Growth Path enable overwhelmed business owners to balance their lives while building a business they love.
As well as inspiring members to dream big and set ambitious long-term business goals, I equip them with practical, actionable steps to get them closer to their goals. My holistic emphasis on the whole business, and the business owner’s mindset, enables my members to navigate the world of running a business with me as their biggest cheerleader.
An award-winning international speaker, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and podcaster, I am recognized alongside some of the world’s digital marketing thought leaders and am widely regarded as one of the UK’s leading marketing influencers.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Well, I made all the mistakes. No plan, no idea what I wanted to offer, and naming my business after my ex-husband’s name, and now I am remarried. You can only imagine how that goes down when we go somewhere, and people call my husband Mr. Heath-Wareing (my ex-husband’s name!) Also, when I started my business, I set it up as an agency and called it THW Marketing (THW, my initials); however, when you type that into google, it thinks you have made a mistake and auto-corrects it to The Marketing! I told you I made all the mistakes.
It was a big risk when I transitioned my business from an agency to an online business! I got rid of paying clients, knowing it would take me a while to build up my income again, and the only thing that kept me going was the faith I had in knowing it would work out. I couldn’t ever see myself doing anything else!
When I started my business, I remember thinking – how hard can this be? I have worked in Marketing for a decade and am good at it. Oh, how wrong could I be! I had no idea how my mindset could affect what I do every day! I soon realized that having a successful business would take more than just having the right tools, systems, and strategies! Because I had all of them, I didn’t launch my online business for a year because I was scared! I was worried about everything. What if no one bought. What if people do buy and hate it. What if the information I put in there is wrong. What if they disagree? What if people who don’t like me say something. What if people think, “Who does she think she is?”
Honestly, I had every bit of fear, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome going that you could imagine. I was stuck. Too scared to do anything. I had built a course and sat on it, too scared to share it with the world! This was when I knew how important mindset was in business!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Teresa Heath-Wareing Limited?
I run an online business, which means I can work with businesses from all around the globe. I have a membership called The Dream Business Club, where amazing business owners come to learn how to market themselves and their businesses better. They learn how to manage and run a business and work on their mindset, so they have the resistance to keep going in this bumpy world of entrepreneurship. Each month we have different activities such as coaching calls, mindset sessions, and Q&As. content hours to support them and ask for expert training around all aspects of marketing and business. What sets me apart is that I am not teaching people to have a business-like min (unless they want it). I am supporting business owners to be empowered to create a business and life that they love and one that matters to them, doing what they love! For those who want to grow faster, I offer a high-touch 1-2-1 program where I work closely with them to achieve their business goals.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting?
#1 You have to learn stuff fast – Most people go into business because they are good at something, usually the service or product they sell. However, I completely underestimated how much other stuff I needed to know. I didn’t even think about systems, finance, managing people, or selling! It was all the other stuff that was challenging. Doing my actual job was the easy bit.
#2 You may lose friends – Having a business changed me, and I found that some things I had in common with some of my friends changed. We found ourselves not knowing what to talk about. And some of them didn’t like the new Teresa, that was running her own business and reaching for the stars, and that was ok. People change and move on; I noticed this happened because of the business. However, I would also like to add that you can’t do it alone – Running a small business can be tough, and you need people around you to help. These may not be currently friends and family, and you may have to look for new groups to support you, but you need those people.
#3 Your brain never turns off ever – I never stop thinking about my business and everything surrounding it. I mean all the time in the shower, falling asleep, cooking dinner, on the school run, doing the food shopping! You have to find some way to have downtime – Gin helps, lol! And this can be hard to manage; switching off has been very difficult for me mainly because I love what I do.
#4 You need to have a good mindset – You must gather good tools, tactics, and strategies to use when your mind doesn’t want to. So many things in business can make us stumble and hinder us from success. So mindset work is the key! And as part of this, you should learn to embrace failing – My resilience has improved as time has passed. The more things went wrong or didn’t go as I had hoped. Or the times that it straight up failed! In business, you turn each failure into an opportunity to learn.
#5 You need systems and processes – Over the first 2/3 years of my business, I must have wasted so much time and so many opportunities through being unorganized and not having the right systems in place. ⠀If you do something more than once in your business, it can be a system; when you grow, someone else can do that. I know techniques and processes don’t feel very exciting, but honestly, I could not run my business without them.
Pricing:
- The Club starts from $19 a month
- The 1-2-1 program is $6970 for 90 days
- Small Group program is $197 a month
Contact Info:
- Website: teresaheathwareing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teresa_heathwareing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeresaHeathWareingUK
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/theathwareing
- Other: https://teresaheathwareing.com/dream-business-podcast/
Image Credits
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