Louisa

…I'm one of those who always knew they wanted to work for themselves, even when I was only just into double digits on the age front. That all fell into place pretty easily after I spent several years studying the intriguing language that is German, and set up as a freelance translator. Itchy feet in the late 90s caused me to set up and run an online shop selling vegetarian, cruelty-free bodycare products; a not unsuccessful little cottage enterprise that taught me a lot about the online world and web promotion.

Skip forward a few years and I've become an avid student of marketing…based on the premise that for anyone who wants to be permanently and successfully self-employed, it's successful marketing that is going to get you there.
I've since trained with, and have studied the works of, some of the greatest marketing minds around. For example, I qualified with the UK's leading business growth expert, Peter Thomson, as a business growth coach, and am one of just a handful of certified Master Practitioners of Guerrilla Marketing in the UK. That last one is rather a clumsy title, but what it means is that I know my way around low-cost and no-cost marketing techniques that are designed to allow small businesses compete with the biggest and the best…low-cost renegade marketing tactics, if you like!

I could go on…but suffice to say I started focussing my efforts on bringing non-traditional, practical marketing approaches to the fellow ranks of the self-employed. These days I share my passion for self-employment and entrepreneurial spirit by helping other women business-owners attain business success…on their own terms. We women often want different things from a business than our masculine friends, and face slightly different challenges.
Having witnessed first hand the frustrations of women small business owners everywhere in finding the time and the resources to work out how best to market themselves, then to implement their marketing efforts (usually on a very small budget) I decided something needed to be done.

And that's exactly why I founded the Women's Marketing Forum in Autumn 2005. The Women's Marketing Forum is a virtual community of busy women entrepreneurs who gain support, advice and practical ideas on how to get more clients, more easily. In early 2010 I handed the reins of WMF over to Joycellyn, who will be taking the site forward with her expertise in journalism as well as internet marketing.

And now for the personal bit…
Mostly I spend my 'relax' time hanging out with the lovely Jason, partner and web/graphic designer extraordinaire, German Shepherd Jessie, scruffy rescue dog called Henry, and rescue cats Susie, Miko and Fluffy.

Every few weeks or so we hang out in our apartment in the wonderful city of Berlin. I spent a year working in Berlin and never quite got it out of my system. When I took Jason there some years later he fell for the place, too, so now it's a second home. If you've never been, do visit this completely unique place.

Other main interests include gig-going, cinema (more on the arthouse side), eating out (especially Thai and Italian) and chilling out in green in the odd forest or botanical garden.