Warda Farah is a speech and language therapist. Her company, Language Waves, has a particular interest in providing a fully-accessible and culturally diverse speech therapy service. She has recently taken part in the Start-ups in London Libraries programme in Greenwich. 

Warda had done the research, confirmed her business idea (speech therapy that was accessible to everyone who needed it and, most importantly, took into account culture and family background) was solid and sought-after and registered her business. The next step was to tie the various ideas she had for Language Waves together to form a future-proof plan and ensure she could achieve her ambitious vision. And so she participated in the Start-ups in London Libraries programme to help her get her business idea off the ground: ‘It helped me to develop my scattered ideas into a coherent business plan. I was able to figure out how I could package my approach, get a better understanding of my target audience and most importantly how I could monetize my idea.' 

The Start-ups in London Libraries programme is comprised of workshops which guide participants through the complexities of starting up a business, registering your company, protecting your intellectual property and conducting research. Off the back of these, Warda and her business partner, Joan-Ann were able to trademark their training manual. SiLL participants can also get one-to-ones with their local borough Champions who can offer specific advice. Warda said her one-to-ones with Greenwich Champion, Loretta, were among the most eye-opening experiences on her business journey: ‘I see her when I’m at different stages of the business. Her feedback helps me plan, focus and set realistic expectations for myself. Also, her belief in my business has motivated me as she has brought out the best in me.’

Warda with the SiLL Greenwich Champion, Loretta

As part of Start-ups in London Libraries, Greenwich have developed a strong business community, with a network that meet once a month to brainstorm and share knowledge. Warda says: ‘I think it’s a really exciting time, I meet lots of people who want to start their own business and I always refer them to the SILL programme and Loretta. This is because it’s so accessible well set up and you know that you are getting advice and support from people who know what they are doing.'

'A lot of people do not know where to start but the Start-ups in London Libraries programme is very clear, you just need to put the work in. You have to be strategic, specific and focused and not give up. The people that I have met at the Greenwich Network so far all seem very motivated and it’s great to be around this energy. I’m excited to see how everybody’s business does.’

And so are we!

Q&A with Warda:

Can you tell us a bit about how your business started? What inspired you? 

I won a Lord Mayor Scholarship and studied Speech and Language therapy at City University. It was during this time that I noticed the lack of diversity in the profession. 95% of speech and language therapists are from white middle-class backgrounds which raises the issue of therapy not being tailored to take culture and background into account. This is a profession that has to represent the diverse population it serves in order to be effective and, from what I could see, this wasn’t happening. I was extremely surprised that there was no discussion of how to make speech and language therapy services accessible and culturally diverse, so I began my research.

It is clear and evident that there is a cultural mismatch between therapists and BAME clients and instead of labelling parents and children as hard to engage we should be reaching out them and being innovative with how we deliver our interventions.

We have three key aims that we are working towards:

1. A world where a child’s ethnicity, socioeconomic status and parental background is not a barrier to receiving quality speech and language therapy assessment and intervention.
2. We want the wider public to have a better understanding of what a communication difficulty is and the long-term consequences this can have on the child, family and their community.
3. We would like the speech and language therapy workforce to represent the diverse population it serves.

You are a young entrepreneur - what have been the benefits of this and what are the challenges?

As a young person, this is probably one of the best times to start a business - there are so many pots of funding and support that is available to young entrepreneurs. You have to be willing to look around, go to events and find out what support is available to you.

In addition to this if you are lucky enough to still live at home and not have any dependents you can focus solely on your business with fewer distractions. 

However, the downside to being a young entrepreneur is that I think Millennials like myself are so used to instant gratification that we may be impatient with how long it can actually take to get a business off the ground and making money. This is why realistic expectations are so important and reviewing of your business plans and goals should be a regular occurrence. 

In my own personal experience being a young black woman in business has at times been incredibly tough, I feel like I have to really sell and prove myself to show that 1) despite my age I have the experience , 2) despite my gender I can be just as tough as the men if not tougher, 3) despite the fact I may face bias based on my ethnicity I do not let it stop me. 

You have to learn how to use people's assumptions and negative stereotypes of you to be your USP.

What advice would you give anyone looking to start up a business?

Start now. I know a lot of people who feel that all of the conditions need to be right before they begin their business but I believe an entrepreneur is a person who sees an opportunity and goes for it. Time waits for no man and there is no such thing as perfection. When we began Language Waves we made lots of errors which helped us fine-tune our processes, better understand our audience and even developed our thinking. We are still making errors but we see them as learning opportunities.

I would also say don’t start a business because your main aim in life is to be a millionaire. There is a long and arduous period when you are working hard e.g. going to meetings, negotiating contracts, networking, creating content and you are not financially compensated, in fact, you can be worse off than when you had a 9-5.

During this period remember that you are setting the foundation and groundwork for your business. Many people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they would’ve achieved in 3 years, this is the long game so be patient and continue to work through the pain.

What would you say to anyone thinking about starting up a business?

Join the SiLL programme - it's what made me feel like I could really start and run a business

What are the key things you have learnt while starting up your business?

A couple of my most valuable lessons have been:

• Your customer and ideal client is key, you need to know the needs, likes, dislikes and habits of this group to ensure you target your product at them.
• Know your value and do not be ashamed to talk about money. Your specialized knowledge is what people will pay for.
• Make decisions quickly and be slow to change them. Joan-Ann and I have the saying “lets sleep on it and discuss in the morning”.
• Quantum leaps exists, do not be scared of them. Sometimes opportunities will arise which you feel you are not ready for, just do it you will surprise yourself.

To find out more about Language Waves visit https://www.languagewaves.com/

For more information on Start-ups in London Libraries, visit bl.uk/SiLL

The Start-ups in London Libraries project is generously supported by the European Regional Development Fund, J.P. Morgan and Arts Council England.

 

After giving up his day job as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Rupert Holloway, decided to set out on a new career path which he was passionate about, after some good, bad and ugly ideas, Conker Spirit was born.

What is the day in the life of an ‘entrepreneur’? for want of a better word – and I wish there was. Well, I can tell you he's restless, feverously ambitious and has a sense of entitlement to anything he puts his mind to. It begs the question, then, as to how this is balanced with life outside the business, namely (in my case) a happy wife and kids…

Despite this sometimes overbearing drive for achievement, I’ve somehow managed to shun the stereotype of working every waking hour of the day – being the part-time father, the absent husband…I hope this opinion is shared by my wife! I do have my weekends and the majority of my evenings are spent chilling with my wife, Emily, on the sofa.

I’ve mused over how I’ve managed to pull off this magic trick, and I think I can put it down to two main factors: by building a great team at Conker so that the fundamental functions of the business don’t solely rely on me; and by building my life and work around each other – they are not at odds, and most of the time not at war.

This work-life balance stuff really fascinates me. After all, it was one of the main drivers for ditching my day job to build my own business. Back then, six years ago, I wanted to even-up the stakes.

Today there is a less brutal split between my two worlds of ‘work’ and ‘life’, and also in the person I am in the office and at home. I’m no longer ‘bipolar’ in my persona. When I was a Quantity Surveyor, I remember the feeling of literally switching to 'Surveyor' Rupert as the lift doors opened on the sixth floor of that Southampton office building. Now, because I do what I genuinely love and nothing is forced, work and life seem less at odds with each other.

What’s more, my work life and home life feel like one and the same. Emily works part-time in the busiess and has quickly become integral to every decision and problem we solve. As a result, Conker is our (4th) baby. It really is a wonderful thing and I feel very lucky. I know that having ‘the wife’ in the office would fill some with wide-eyed dread, but for me, I miss her the days she's not there.

While my work-life balance is perhaps more even-keeled than the archetypal entrepreneur life might suggest, the real battle comes with being ‘present’ in the now. My mind is often full of the next Conker conundrum I’ve got to solve, rather than living what is going on in the room. It’s a challenge sometimes to remain 'present' and focused on the moment with the family, rather than deliberating the next major decision to be made.

Having made some drastic decisions six years ago to follow my heart in my career, I’ve realised that life is as complicated as you make it. There are days that can be very complicated indeed – more complicated, I think, than we are biologically and mentally designed to cope with.

A couple of years ago we bought a house a one-minute walk from the Distillery and the local school, further aligning and synchronising my work-life dance. With three kids to distribute Monday to Friday, our mornings are completely car-free. The school run I had always feared is now a complete doddle.

But the real gem is that picking the kids up from school is just a 20-minute chunk out of my day. I know that many people don’t have the same luxury, and I try and take it whenever I can.

While this makes me feel pretty lucky, I don’t actually believe in ‘luck’, or rather that’s not what I’d call it. I believe ‘lucky’ people are simply more ‘available’ to take up new opportunities and exploit them. It’s not a divine intervention, rather a flexibility built into your life and mindset that allows you to make the most of the best option that presents itself to you.

We hang an awful lot of meaning, guilt and obligation to what has been, honouring past decisions and investments, rather than seeing each new opportunity or challenge objectively. Shunning these shackles of the past is the real skill of the entrepreneur, and of anyone choosing their next subject at school or changing their career path. The key is being free to adapt and evolve to a new situation, and not making life so complicated that you are not ‘available’ to grasp it.

You can hear more from Rupert from the Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Leaders in Luxe event recording on our YouTube channel, along with the founders and co-founders of Jennifer Chamandi, House of Hackney, The Jackal and ME+EM.

 

Anis Qizilbash runs workshops on sales and mindfulness at the BIPC, to help entrepreneurs manage their mindset, a critical ingredient for successful selling and business growth.

What’s covered in the How to Sell Without Being Salesy (even if you’re scared of selling) session?

The workshop covers how to engage and sell to people in face-to-face sales situations, selling your products or services to big or small companies, selling to individuals on a one-to-one basis, or selling to people at a market-stand, all without being pushy or salesy. And most of importantly, by being yourself. So you’ll learn how to talk about you in a powerfully persuasive way, how to overcome self-doubt or fear of selling, all the way to how to get that magic YES.

Who is this workshop for?

The session is aimed at people who’ve left a job to start their own self-employed business or start their own company or people who’ve been running their own business but never had to sell, before and don’t know how to. This session is also for people who are scared of selling, they hate selling and perhaps don’t believe they have the right persona to sell. It’s definitely not for experienced salespeople.

What to expect

The session is fun and interactive, where you’re given exercises to craft your own messaging, so your potential customers understand why they really need you and want to pay you. You’ll learn and practice sales conversations, in safe role-play scenarios - this is hugely confidence boosting - where previous participants have lightbulb moments about where they’ve gone wrong in the past and how to win moving forward.

Who runs it?

I’m using my 20 years of sales experience, across 20 countries, in corporates and start-ups, multiple industries, selling a variety of products, generated multi-million in sales, to create Mindful Sales Training helping startups and self-employed, non-sales people, learn how to get people to buy from them over and over again. I’m passionate about helping people grow their sales so they can do what they love. Through my books (Grow Your Sales, Do What You Love), courses, coaching and keynotes, I’ve helped 1000s of people sell for the first time, when they didn’t believe it was in them.

You can subscribe to Anis' Coffee & Wisdom Show serving weekly wellbeing snacks to help you win your week.

Visit the BIPC's workshops and events page to view all upcoming workshops, webinars and events.