Pat Duckworth is the Founder of Smarter Menopause. After over 30 years working in the public sector as a senior manager, Pat discovered her entrepreneurial mojo and retrained as a therapist. She has published four books including #1 International Bestseller ‘Hot Women Rock; How to discover your midlife entrepreneurial mojo’.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“I had spent over 30 years investing in my career as a civil servant… and to do what I do know was like 180° handbrake turn. So firstly I need to retrain and get professional skills as a hypnotherapist and I had to learn how to run a business. Anyone moving from corporate to entrepreneur there’s lots of practical skills to learn such as bookkeeping, IT, marketing, sales, branding, doing your tax return… when you are working corporately or in the civil service you have people who do those things you don’t have to do it and suddenly you have that massive support system behind you” (4 Lines minimum) …[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
The Millionaire Master Plan: Your Personalized Path to Financial Success Book by Roger James HamiltonFavourite Quote:
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” Maya Angelou
Recommended Online Resources:
Bizzi helps your small business survive and grow On bizzi you can ask for feedback, source products and services, collaborate and team up with other small businesses
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“Network, network, network. I think when you are starting out go to as many different networking events as you can. There is a lot of them that you don’t need to join up or subscribe to until you have been to them to 3 times so you can get a taste of whether this is the right group for you, whether it’s likely to work for you. Networking is not just about making contacts, you get a chance to stand up and talk about your business so you can really hone your elevator pitch to see what works and what doesn’t. Often in networking you get sessions of advice, people talking about how they develop their businesses. So get a round their do some networking and see what you can learn from it”…[Listen for More]
More About Pat Duckworth:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.” Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon
Other Quotes From the Chat with Pat Duckworth:
- “I didn’t join a mastermind group until three years into my business… once I was with like-minded entrepreneurs, I was able to test out ideas and just bounce things around and get some support. I think if I had been in that kind of the group earlier, I could have made progress quicker.”
- “if you haven’t run your own business before there is so much to learn”
- “it’s okay not to be perfect your business will evolve, entrepreneurs are evolving all the time and they are responding to different situations, to different contexts. So you are never going to be perfect and that’s okay”
- “having a coach means that you can sound ideas off of somebody else who has no vested interest in your business…. Having a coach means that you can have somebody who is independent of you and can help you to develop your ideas and get clear about what success looks like for you and then to guide your business in that direction”
- “when members of the family give you advice go thank you that was really helpful and then walk away. And if you have got a coach you can sound out with them.”
- “we can’t be superheroes in all areas of our business. We need to understand where our superpowers are strongest and exploit them in those areas and then find other people in the areas where we are not so strong”
- “the difference between a £10,000 business and a £100,000 business is one zero”
- “collaborating is a really useful way of growing your business”
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