Flora Conway's Story
- Author:
- Flora Conway
- Business:
- Xena Events
- Published:
- 28/01/2010 10:11:00
I worked in the corporate travel industry for thirteen years before starting my business, Xena Events. The push to take the entrepreneurial route came to me when I was working for a company in Newcastle. After the birth of my daughter, I found the commute to and from Newcastle difficult as I was living in Beamish.
It was a personal thing too – I wanted to do something for me. I’d worked extremely hard for everybody else and I thought it was time to channel this into something I had created for me.
I really enjoyed organising other people’s travel when I was employed, and outside of work I helped out two friends with their wedding arrangements. Everybody remarked on how well organised both weddings were, which is when the idea came into my head for an events business. I could do what I loved and get paid for it!
I wanted to take the business to the top and I knew I needed strong points of contact to do this. I started with what I knew best and Business Link were a port of call.
My first event was held on the 20th May, the day I launched Xena Events. We held an investment seminar for Wades at the Beamish Museum and the event was covered by North East time.
Since we launched we have held events for Skandia, Zurich, Pete Cohen from GMTV and we are proud to be hosting an event at the Stadium of Light with legendary 3 star Michelin Chef Marco Pierre White.
In terms of my lifestyle as an entrepreneur, I’ll admit it has been very hard. I have a three year old daughter and a husband who works full time. There are challenges which I have to overcome every day.
My biggest challenge was when my daughter was ill in hospital and I needed to be a full time mum as well as a work full time on my business. All I can say is thank god for blackberries! Thankfully it all turned out well in the end. My daughter got better and I still have the contract I was working on at the time.
If you’re looking to start your own business, do as much research as you can - I still do that every day. If you’re truly serious about it, do it with both your head and your heart. It has to come from within and no one will hand contracts to you on a plate – it really does take a lot of hard work.
Go in with your eyes open and make sure you invest your passion into the business. Believing in yourself and your product or service is crucial, because if you don’t believe, no one else will.
In terms of looking ahead, any support which anyone can offer to me, I will grab it with both hands! I’ll listen to anyone’s offer of help and advice and learn from them.