I made £30,000 last month and this is what I did. I have always wanted to write this but I know I couldn’t. 😂 And it isn’t true. I am not at that scale.
Running a small sustainable business in London isn’t easy. There is so much pressure for you to raise investment, grow bigger and show an upward rising graph all the time.
I could scale my business. People tell me I should:
- Get a team. 🧑🤝🧑
- Hire facilitators
- License my workshops
- The money is there
- The market is hungry.
Maybe. But not yet is what I tell them.
And people think I am scared. I don’t get growth.
Yes, its true. I am scared, but not for the reasons most people think.
As I love writing lists, here are 3 reasons why I like the way my business works currently.
3 reasons why my small sustainable business is small
1 Undelivered promises
I can’t deliver what I promise if I’m not in the room.
When someone books a workshop with me, they’re not booking a off-the-shelf product. They’re booking me.
My attention. My presence.
My ability to see when someone is nervous and needs encouragement.
My hands showing how to do a technique.
There is just one ME. Thank God for that too!
When someone else delivers it, it’s something different.
And I feel that betrays the promise. My students & mentees don’t get what I promised. And that’s not okay.
2 Extraction and expansion
My South Asian values teach me that infinitely expanding is impossible and there is joy in enjoying standing still without asking for more. I don’t want to extract every ounce out of every proposition and keep expanding.
Building isifiso isn’t about becoming the biggest. It’s not about the £££ but the impact.
My aim is to get more people sewing and mending. But this doesn’t mean rolling out an online course and saying that’s it, done! I want to make sure they really learn and use it everyday. Its about making this an intentional practice.
3 Neurodivergent friendly
I don’t want just to be neurodivergent inclusive, but I want to be make all my workshops to suit neurodivergent folks and neurotypicals equally. I want neurodivergent participants feel like they belong in the room.
I built isifiso for people
- Who need quiet
- Space to move
- Permission to stim
- Dyslexic
- who have different learning styles
- don’t want to make eye contact
- with motor coordination
I have learnt how to hold that space through sheer determination to do better. I don’t know if I can teach it to anyone else. I am sure someone can learn how to, but I haven’t got the words to teach this. But I don’t have the words to teach this.
This not a nice to have, but a necessary for me.
“Diversity is having a seat at the table. Inclusion is having a voice, and Belonging is having that voice heard” – Liz Fosslien
Final thoughts
Here’s the uncomfortable truth. The pressure to scale is everywhere. If you are not growing, you’re failing. Your worth is your net worth.
I measure differently. I want to measure
- How many people learned to mend this month?
- How many felt comfortable being there?
- How many eyes lit up when they got what I taught?
- Did I stay sane?
- Did the facilitator (me) go home feeling alive or drained?
Those are my metrics. And right now, it feels being intentional & small is what makes sense to me.
I’d rather make £1,000 doing what I love, than £10,000 building something because everyone said I should scale.
Some of you reading this might be building empires or work in a large multinational. That’s real work. And it’s fantastic it works for you.
This is just mine. And I’m not apologising for it.
If you would like to know more about the kind of workshops I run for corporate teams or if you want to learn to sew or mend privately, send me a message – Contact Me
