WE’RE HERE TO HELP
This time last year I was on Necker Island at a leadership gathering hosted by Richard Branson. During the discussions, the inspiring Halla Tomasdottir – CEO of The B Team – said:
“There will come a time when you need to lend the world your shoulders.”
We are in that time now. And one of the things that has inspired me over the weeks since the coronavirus crisis began is how many people are stepping up to help others – to lend them their shoulders.
The Actually Partners are no exception. If you need help working out your sales and marketing strategy; if you are trying to make sense of what financial support is available; if you are desperate to find some peace in meditation, need some 121 coaching, want to write a will, need online tech support or need advice on your personal finances…and much more besides…there is an Actually Partner on this who has something that will help.
So in this blog I am highlighting some of the amazing services they are offering that might be of interest and use to you in the coming weeks and months…this is a long list but it’s worth reading all the way through.
FROM ME TO YOU
At Actually, I am running a series of FREE Masterclasses: the ‘Thriving in a Time of Chaos’ series.
The next Masterclass is on Thursday 2 April at 7pm and we’ll be looking at MONEY. I’ve invited Actually Partner Nicola Deverson of the Envision Partnership to join me to discuss how we master the essentials of business finances at this critical time.
To register for the Masterclass: Thriving in a Time of Chaos -Finance, please visit:
https://actually.world/masterclass-finance/
I’m also offering free 30 minute ‘Clarity & Connection’ calls to those in my community who need a sounding board, want to get clarity about their messaging or strategy right now – or just someone to rant at!
To book a Clarity & Connection call, please visit: https://calendly.com/actuallyworld/clarity-call
And finally, I’ll shortly be opening the doors for the next cohort for my LIVE online training in communications, Actually How to Spread the Word. In this 8 week course I take you through the fundamentals of good communications strategy and help you develop a programme to get your message out into the world. I’ll be offering a 33% discount on the standard price for this course to make it as accessible as possible.
Please make sure you’re on my mailing list if you want to receive advance notice and access to this special offer: https://actually.world//join-us/
ONE OF MANY
I am a woman with many hats! As well as running Actually and working as a Founding Partiner in my communications agency, Pagefield, I am an in-house trainer and coach for One of Many.
One of Many has so many useful resources and amazing trainings that I would recommend a visit to their website for every woman!
Specific to the current situation, I recommend:
This free training on coping with fear, anxiety and uncertainty: https://oneofmany.co.uk/finding-a-way-through-fear/
This process and guidance on handling overwhelm – the Overwhelm First Aid Kit – once described by a client of mine as ‘pure magic’: https://oneofmany.co.uk/mini-ofa/
And, for setting graceful boundaries with your virtual work colleagues, partners, children and others: https://oneofmany.co.uk/enough-is-enough/
SALES, MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA
Catherine Watkins (Selling from the Heart): Sales & Marketing
One of the questions that I am hearing a lot from the entrepreneurs and business people within my community is how to sell in a way that feels congruent, authentic and not exploitative in these challenging times. To help with this exact issue Catherine has put together a couple of really useful videos:
To Sell or Not to Sell?: https://www.facebook.com/sellingfromtheheart/videos/509729912930520/
On not making assumptions about people’s financial and emotional situation right now:
https://www.facebook.com/sellingfromtheheart/videos/651159405718492/
Catherine and I will be doing a Masterclass on this very soon. Join my mailing list for more information about forthcoming classes: https://actually.world//join-us/
Sophie Jane Mortimer: Social Media & Marketing
I am advising all of my clients that now is NOT the time to cancel all of your marketing activity – but it does require adaptation. Sophie is my ‘go to’ person on social media and content strategy. She is offering “pay-what-you-can” marketing strategy sessions (normally £149) for anyone in the Actually community. During this session, you’ll be able to focus on developing new responsive and responsible plans for the coming months; including sharing new, inspiring forms of messaging and seeing where the new needs driven by Covid-19 meet your gifts.
To book a session with Sophie please email: sophie@sophiejanemortimer.com
Oh….and Sophie is going to be helping me out with one of my Masterclasses – she’ll be joining me to chat all things social media in these chaotic times. To make sure you get advanced notice, join my list here: https://actually.world//join-us/
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Aaron Eriskin (Serenity): Independent Financial Advisor
Many of us are dealing with huge uncertainty around money – are our pensions OK; should we be cashing in any investments / paying off debt / asking for a payment holiday on mortgages etc. Aaron is a great financial advisor offering a free 45 minute 121 “financial counselling” call to help you to work out ‘What is critical for you to resolve right now’ and provide you with some guidance on the options available to you.
If you’d like to book a call with Aaron: https://calendly.com/aaroneriskin/one-to-one-financial-counselling
Nicola Deverson (Envision Partnership): Accountancy & Small Business Advice
Nicola is a brilliant accountant and advisor – in fact she is MY brilliant accountant and advisor! She is co-hosting a free Actually Masterclasses: Thriving in a Time of Chaos – focussing on all things finance on Thursday 2 April at 7pm.
To register for the Masterclass please visit: https://actually.world/masterclass-finance/
In the meantime, Nicola and her team have put together really useful information about the help and support available to small businesses during this crisis. You can find out more on their blog:
https://www.envision-uk.com/blog
Debbie Nieteler (Austin & Carnley Solicitors): Legal Advice
We may not want to think about it but having a proper will in place is a necessary piece of life ‘housekeeping’. And once it’s done you can relax knowing that your wishes are clear and everything will be taken care of. Debbie is a wonderful lawyer offering a free call for people considering how to go about drafting a will and what should be in it.
To book a call with Debbie, please email: debbien@austinandcarnley.co.uk
LEADERSHIP SKILLS & TEAM BUILDING
Julia Carter (ZestFor): Leadership Training & Team Development
Julia is offering a FREE LIVE one hour webinar on “Surviving Working From Home” for you and your team. This is a limited offer – first come, first served. In addition, she has a whole suite of two hour workshops for virtual teams to help them work together more productively and effectively – and she is offering a 50% discount on these workshops.
To book a webinar or a team development session, please email: julia@zestfor.com
Nik Davis (Nik Davis): Leadership & Transformation Coaching
Nik is offering free ‘Discovery Calls’ of up to 90 minutes. These are confidential, one-to-one discussions: a psychologically safe place to explore ideas, share fears, understand constraints, find inspiration and access an objective view to help make sense of what the future might look like.
If that sounds like it might be helpful to you, you can find out more here: https://nikdavis.com/individual-transformation
ONLINE MARKETiNG TECH SUPPORT
Jason Kruger (Kruger Media): Marketing Tech Support
Jason is the tech genius behind all of my online marketing work. He is putting together a package of resources with advice for help people working from home and getting started with their online business / marketing. He’s also offering a 20% discount on his Online Marketing Support packages during the crisis.
For more information about Jason’s offer: https://jasonkruger.com/resources
COACHING
Cath Daley: Coaching
Cath is a great leadership coach and is offering free 90 minute one-off coaching sessions to help you explore what it is you need most right now to get grounded and get the clarity to find a way through. Cath will share tools to help you get rid of anxiety and fear and develop resilience so that you have what you need to navigate the weeks and months ahead.
If you’d like to book a coaching call with Cath: https://cathdaleyappointmentschedule.as.me/coachingconversation
Claire Whatley: Coaching & Meditation
Claire is offering free coaching sessions – limited spaces, first come / first served – for those who are choosing to embrace this current crisis as a massive opportunity and wish to make small changes to their approach in order to maximize their potential impact in the world. Anyone interested in applying for a place should email claire@resourceful-coaching.co.uk with answers to the following questions:
- What’s going on in your life and / or business right now which has you interested in these coaching sessions?
- What specifically would you like to accomplish by participating in these sessions?
- What have you done to accomplish the above in the past?
Claire is also running an online meditation group with 3 live meditation workshops per week. Claire offers a very specific type of meditation called Prime Light meditation which is ridiculously easy to learn and practice.
To join Claire’s free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PLMwithClaireWhatley/
Sharon Strickland-Clark (BraveTart): Coaching
Sharon is a brilliant lifestyle and leadership coach offering ‘Coaching for Women with Potential’. She is offering a 2 hour introductory coaching session FREE and if, at the end of that, you choose to continue working with Sharon, she is offering 50% off coaching packages until the end of July.
To find out more and book a call with Sharon, please visit: https://bravetart.co.uk/
WELLBEING
Laura Coleman (Be.Modern Meditation): Meditation & Mindfulness
Laura is a brilliant meditation coach and expert. Meditation is scientifically proven to improve focus and resilience, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as getting you back in touch with what’s important to you in your life. Seems like it might be useful right now huh? Laura is hosting live free meditations in her Facebook Community. You can join her group here:
www.facebook.com/groups/bemeditationcommunity
And you can see the recordings on her YouTube channel here:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCyPTibXmuavzKXdh8OCEbIw
Ordinarily, Laura’s programmes are several weeks long and cost several hundred pounds. But during this crisis she is also offering 1 hour 121 “Calm the Storm” sessions via Zoom. These sessions will set you up with the knowledge and tools to develop a meditation practice that will work in your life and is personalised to you. This invaluable session costs just £95.
If you’d like to book one of these 121 sessions, please email Laura: laura@bemodernmeditation.com
Nicki Williams (Happy Hormones): Nutritionist & Hormone specialist
It has never been more important to optimise your health and bolster your immune system. And in my opinion, there is nobody better to help you understand and take charge of your nutrition, your hormones and your health than Nicki Williams. Nicki has a special offer on HER Health Optimiser package which includes:
- A 60 minute online consultation with one of Nicki’s expert nutritionists
- A personalised programme to achieve your goals, including diet, lifestyle and supplements
- A review of any recent test results that you’ve had done (either with your Dr or other health practitioner)
- 10% discount on all supplements (it’s all helpful!)
- Recommendations for resources that would be appropriate for you (saving you precious time on Google!)
This package was £195 but you can get it for £145. You can also choose to add the Comprehensive Blood Test Panel which was £495 and is now £395 as part of this offer.
To get more information and take advantage of this offer: https://happyhormonesforlife.com/health-optimiser/
OK…that’s a lot of shoulders standing at the ready to help you…
So…get the support you need and let’s ACTUALLY make a difference!
Sara Price
Founder, Actually
March 2020
YOU HAVE MARKETING SUPERPOWERS®
You’re not bad at promoting your business, you’re just trying to do it in a way that doesn’t work for you.
Find out what your MARKETING SUPERPOWERS ® are and start communicating with your audience in a way that resonates with them & feels comfortable, authentic and natural for YOU.
Phew! Doesn’t that sounds awesome?
week I wrote a newsletter that caused more people to unsubscribe from my list than almost anything I have ever written before. I'm not concerned - clearly they are not my people - but I thought I'd share it here so you can tell me: would this cause YOU to unsubscribe?
______
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels."
I remember the first time I heard that quote.
I was in my teens. I laughed.
Then as I began to think seriously about my career, my Mum explained to me that to be a successful career woman meant working twice as hard as a man to be considered half as good (and paid half as much).
I was in my early twenties. I thought she was exaggerating.
After I burnt out for the second time, I went to a conference and listened to a passionate and eloquent woman - who has subsequently become a great friend - explain something that should have been utterly obvious to me: that our entire cultural paradigm is based on structures set up by men and for men.
I was in my forties. And I cried.
Because it is exhausting having to don your Superwoman cape every day to ‘compete’ in the workplace.
As a single woman, I didn’t have to juggle work with family.
As a white, middle-class, cis-gendered, heterosexual and mainly able-bodied woman, I wasn’t dealing with the raft of intersectional prejudices beyond your average, everyday sexism.
But I was still exhausted.
And it wasn’t just because the systems that we work within weren’t designed for women but for men who had stay-at-home wives doing all of the work in the home.
It’s because for me - as for so many women - every day was and is a balancing act.
Every day is a tightrope walk between safety and danger; between being listened to and dismissed; between familiarity and harassment; between authenticity and playing the game.
Every day is a fight to be seen, to be heard, to be respected, to be autonomous, to be considered, to be valued, to be safe.
Every day.
In the workplace, in our social spaces, in our homes, in our politics, in our media.
Everywhere.
This week my friend and client Harriet Waley-Cohen shared a post about this on LinkedIn. I’m going to share a section of her post here because she has put this so much more eloquently than I could:
"Sometimes it amazes me that there isn't a massive uprising.
Women are fed up of being objectified and judged on our looks, and only respected by how fu*&able we are deemed to be.
We are exhausted by feeling unsafe everywhere we go and watching our backs.
We are exasperated with not being paid the same, of our careers, choices and finances being marginalised because of caring expectations.
We are in despair about our allegations against powerful men being ignored because these men are too valuable to be held to account.
We are done with being told our tone of voice is the bloody problem, that we are too emotional.
We have had enough of not being able to trust the police or the legal system, and of people saying 'innocent until proven guilty' when the stats for prosecutions are laughably low and we all know most rapists never face any real consequences.
We are fed up of being told that it's not all men, because we never said it was, and it hurts to see so few men actively working towards making things better."
There has been an outpouring of grief, support and righteous anger in the comments on Harriet’s post. Of course there has. Because this is nearly every woman’s lived experience. And it is not OK.
I have written about these issues before in this newsletter. In the wake of the Sarah Everard murder and after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade. And there’s a part of me that didn’t want to write about this again. A part of me was concerned that you - my wonderful community - would grow bored of me ‘ranting on’ about this issue. A part of me that feared being judged or dismissed.
And that’s exhausting too, right?
The constant self-censorship. The constant voice in my head telling me that I can’t say this, shouldn’t write about that, mustn’t be too emotional, too strident, too ‘shouty’.
Well, in the nicest possible sense: f*&k that.
I am in my fifties now and as tired as some people may be of hearing me talk about these things, trust me I am WAY more tired of still having to talk about them. But until there is equity, it is up to every one of us to keep ‘banging on’.
And we need to do more than rant, we need to ACT.
Because here’s the thing, whatever your gender, you can either be an ally or you can be complicit in the problem. Please choose to be an ally. Here are three things you can do:
- Support people like Harriet when they share publicly about these issues. This kind of content often attracts trolls and the ‘not all men’ brigade - and it can be overwhelming to have to do all the rebuttal yourself. Another friend and client - the fabulous Stephanie Aitken, also did a post this week on a related topic and spent many hours having to deal with trolls in the comments. Help them.
- Call out misogyny, sexism, harassment, prejudice and bigotry when you see it - and when you feel safe to do so. I’m not advocating that you intervene when doing so would put you in real physical danger. But if a colleague makes an off-colour remark; if a family member behaves in a way that is inappropriate; if a friend displays ignorance, aggression or bias: name it. Don’t just smile and secretly roll your eyes. Don’t dismiss it. Don’t be afraid to be ‘awkward’. Have the conversation.
- Engage the next generation. Several of the commenters on Harriet’s post talked about children watching violent porn. They shared stories of how boys’ attitudes to girls are in some cases worse now than they were when I was a teen. The murder of Elianne Andam this week makes it clear just how important it is to speak to our children about these issues. Talk to the young people in your life. Find out about their experiences. Give them a safe space to explore these issues. And educate them about respect and equity. If we are going to break this cycle, this is VITAL work. Don’t shy away from it.
There is so much more that we could all be doing but this would be an amazing start!
OK. Rant over, for today.
I’m not promising I won’t come back to this again.
My most fervent wish is that there will come a day when it won’t be necessary.
I hope to see that day in my lifetime.
My biggest fear is that I will not.
______
I think that will do for now - I do hope it has been helpful!
Big love
Sara
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