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Founder@ Interview
Interview with Sarah Burden
“Research, get advice from friends and family who have been there. Look at the HMRC website which has some great advice on starting your own business. Don’t be scared to do it and follow your dreams – you only have one life! ” – Sarah Burden
Today we feature Sarah Burden, the founder at Sarah Burden Media. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Hi, I’m Sarah Burden, 52 of Exeter in Devon. I launched Sarah Burden Media in early May 2021 I don’t have a website yet – should really get on to that, but have hit the ground running working for clients and helping them with theirs too. I am an all-rounder in relation to marketing and communications. I’m a doer and love the creative side of what I do especially.
This is understandable really, as in my spare time, which isn’t as much due to being self-employed I’m never happier than when I am creating something, whether that’s jewellery using silver or genuine gemstones, or knitting and crocheting.
My partner of 12 years David (more about him later) moved in at the start of the pandemic and hasn’t gone home yet so there’s the three of us, including Patch the cat in the house. I love where I live, Exeter born and bred, because I’m very near the airport so get to see all of the planes from my bedroom window, including the Red Arrows when they are down here. I also love Harry Potter esp Dobby!
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
From the time you have to choose your options at high school, I knew that I wanted to work in the media in some shape or form. At school, I did work experience at both the local daily newspaper and the county wide BBC radio station.
That was so much fun but like many 18-year-olds just out of college I didn’t know what to do next or have the confidence to follow my dreams. As well as an O level (showing my age now) in communications, I also did a secretarial certificate, typing, audio typing, and starting my working career as a receptionist, and then a legal secretary. But I still really wanted to be doing something else.
Then as they say fate happened. I had been out for the day with my now ex-husband (let’s park that one there!), but on the way home, we were involved in a car accident, caused by someone else. As the passenger in the car, I had been hit side-on at 40 miles an hour by a VW camper van. I would say ouch but to be honest I remember very little thankfully, except the next six months recovering from 5 fractures to my pelvis. When you have been through a life-changing experience like this it changes your perspective. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing.
Going back to the accident, I was flown to hospital by the local Air Ambulance. Again I don’t remember it, which is so annoying as had always wanted to go in a helicopter. A year after my sister and I raised some money for them, and after presenting it to them, meeting the crew who looked after me, (the crew Stuart, Paul, and Richard will forever have a piece of my heart – they have seen me at my worse and still talk to me!)
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I learnt that there was a job going, administration, reception and secretarial type work and I jumped at the chance. That was the start of my 23 years with the charity, seeing it grow from a team of 3, to now a team of approximately 160 (including the medical team).
As the charity grew, I moved into a pr role, and then latterly as Marketing & Communications Manager, having worked full time whilst studying for a communications and then marketing degree.
But the last couple of years have been tough. I was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2019, then major surgery, and all the aftermath that comes with that. No chemo or radiation was needed but having gone through another traumatic episode brought back the previous one. Again I realised that I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore, then with a huge restructure at the charity, my role was deemed redundant, so I was made redundant.
But it gave me the means to take some time off, get better, build my confidence, but not as much as I was thinking about.
I had been keeping my eye out on vacancies because although I didn’t want to work just yet, I also didn’t want to miss a job I may have loved, to give me back my confidence. Then out of the blue, I got a LinkedIn message from Sarah Hamilton-Gill of GlobusHR Consulting and Leap into HR Consulting. She was looking for someone to help with marketing and communications but because all of her team are freelance, she asked if I would consider being self-employed.
To be honest it had never crossed my mind. It was a scary thought. I have a mortgage and bills to pay, what if I didn’t earn enough to cover it? But within 2 weeks there I was registered with HMRC, with a business bank account, accounting software and a box room office at home, which I had been using for work anyway.
Sarah has opened so many doors for me, and this is my opportunity to publicly thank her for bringing back ‘me’. I still have bouts of imposter syndrome but I feel like me again, who has been lost for quite a while.
Sarah has introduced me to her clients, a few of which have become my clients. I now have 3! One of those is my partner David who has just launched his own business Moors & More Tours Dartmoor, where he offers bespoke tours of up to 5 people across Dartmoor, dressed as a storyteller, talking about the myths and legends the area has to offer. He hasn’t paid me yet for my work, although he does throw in the odd takeaway!
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
My business is based in my spare room in Pinhoe, which is part of Exeter in Devon. I work in marketing and communications. I do a lot more marketing than comms which is a huge learning curve because although I did my Chartered Institute of Marketing diploma, I never used it in my previous role but I am really enjoying it. It’s a very varied workload as one day I could be creating a new website page, writing a newsletter, and the next minute I’m writing an editorial or designing a poster or flyer but that’s what I love. No two days are the same and I have the best clients!
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
I can cover this again, but I have included this in the second section which I have probably answered all of the questions. My aha moment was when I first spoke to Sarah Hamilton-Gill and she wanted me to work for her company. I thought she meant as an employee first of all, not as a buy-in.
I did quite a lot of research and talked to friends who were self-employed and they gave me the confidence to go for it! It helped that I had statutory redundancy from my previous role sat in the bank which would last a few months if I needed it to. Otherwise, I’m not sure if I would have taken the same decision. My family and friends have all been really supportive especially as just a few weeks ago my partner David also set up his own business, and then moved in!
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
I’m really early on in my journey, just 9 weeks, so it’s difficult to talk about many ups and downs. I suppose the one thing that you really have to remember if you are considering going self-employed is (1) you have to make sure you put aside money for tax and national insurance (2) if you’re sick you don’t get paid and (3) if you take a day off or decide to take holiday, you don’t get paid!
There’s no different approach you can take to that except make sure you take out insurance to cover you if you were ill and couldn’t work, keep paying into your pension, and look after yourself, treat yourself kindly, take breaks, try and get into a work pattern so you aren’t working all evening, and that you can close the door and walk away from your office.
It’s a hard thing to do. I know that as it’s 5.50 pm and I’m still at my desk.
I wish I had known years ago that I could do it. I wish that I had had the confidence to reach for my dreams earlier and know that actually, I’m good enough to do it.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
People use the word entrepreneur a lot. I don’t think I am one. I’m just doing what I used to do, but for different people and still being paid for it. But actually, it is different. I’m in charge of myself. I manage my own time.
I decide when I’m taking a break, I don’t have to ask for permission or sign off to do so. I can also follow my own path. I’m lucky that no one has said to my face that they doubted me or that I could do it, in fact, I probably did that to myself, but my friends and family all said that I could do it!
To my younger self, I think I would have said have more confidence. Follow your dreams, but looking back too I don’t think my confidence came until I was 30, after that car accident, where I suddenly said, ‘no’ and that if I didn’t want to do something I wouldn’t, I started sticking up for myself. You only have one life and it’s far too short to not do what you truly want to do. I secretly dreamt of going into journalism or radio and changing the world and how the media worked. No one has done that yet – perhaps one day?
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
My business is just me. I have a laptop, a phone, and wifi. That’s about it. My brain needs to be firing to work as well, think of ideas, write and create!
But that’s not to say that I feel like a one-man (or woman) band. I feel very much part of the team at GlobusHR/Leap into HR Consulting with Sarah, Aaron, Jo, and Helen. We chat regularly on Microsoft teams (which I would be lost without) and I’m part of the weekly team meeting, plus much more. It feels like I am an employee, without the restrictions employment brings with it.
I also have regular meetings with my two other clients, so I get the best of both worlds, with a mixture of teams.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
I wish I had known years ago that I could do it. I wish that I had had the confidence to reach for my dreams earlier and know that actually, I’m good enough to do it.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Financially it was creating and sending my first invoice and then seeing it be paid. It was being able to draw down the first monies to pay my bills. But aside from money, it’s having clients that appreciate me, that tells me I’m doing a good job, the recommendations from them to other businesses to say ‘hey Sarah will do a good job for you’, that’s just the best and really helps build my confidence. Sometimes I don’t believe it, but that’s the imposter syndrome sneaking in.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
My first goal is to put enough money in my bank so that I can take two weeks off next March. Hopefully, I will get some time off before then, but my best friend and I have booked a Caribbean cruise, which is the one thing I have bought myself out of my redundancy monies.
That’s a personal goal but professionally I just want my clients to be pleased with the work that I do for them, as that means so much. Whether that’s a future life goal I don’t know, but personally to maybe move house more into the country or onto Dartmoor would be great. Working through a pandemic and for yourself, you realise that actually you can work from anywhere. My house was good as it was near my previous office, but now the office is inside the house, so as long as it has good wifi it doesn’t matter where it is.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Research, get advice from friends and family who have been there. Look at the HMRC website which has some great advice on starting your own business. Don’t be scared to do it and follow your dreams – you only have one life! Also Nat West Small Business Builder is a fantastic resource that takes you step by step through some great learning.
Also whether you will share or not but I went to Nat West for my business account and business reserves account because you get free Free Agent accounting software. It’s fab! I’m not a finance person but it’s keeping everything neat in one place, linked to my bank account, so very little time is needed to make sure your accounts are up to date.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Sarah Burden Media”
To learn more about Sarah Burden Media Visit https://twitter.com/sarahburden
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