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Networks to Net Worth: Fiona Ibbetson's Formula for Business Success · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
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  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, the mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
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• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like a Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:17
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• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Work it Like a Mum podcast.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is Fiona Ibbotson, who is the regional director for Leeds, york and Harrogate with Get Ahead.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Get Ahead is an organisation that specialises in providing support services to small local businesses.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: With over 20 years of senior management experience in a fast-paced sector of fresh supply chain, fiona has a wealth of knowledge in custom service, stakeholder management and process optimisation.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: She joined Get Ahead in 2018 with the desire to help small businesses flourish and provide them with the support and expertise they need to succeed, as well as providing her a better work-life balance and more time with her family.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So in today's episode, I'm going to be diving in to learn more about Fiona's journey, her passion for customer service and how she's helping small businesses get ahead.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, fiona, for joining me today.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's such a pleasure to tap with you and learn more about you and Get Ahead.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: No, it's an absolute pleasure.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So can you talk us through, I suppose, the process really of moving from a corporate role into running your own franchise, and what were some of the decisions around that and what did that look like?
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So it started in 2017 and I'd got a memory sent by Facebook, as it does, and the memory was a photo of my daughter the year before, so a photo of her in 2016 and the photo.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: In the photo she looked like a little girl and in reality she was growing up, she was going to be going up to secondary school soon and I really felt like I was missing out.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I only worked four days a week, but I worked long hours doing those four days and really felt that I wanted to be around more for my children.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So that was the instigator, I suppose, in terms of there's all something, isn't it, that kind of makes you realise that life's maybe not quite got the right work life balance, that you need it to, and that was the catalyst, really, for that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: So I handed my noticing at Morrison's and my friends asked me what I was going to do and I said I don't know.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And they were what do you mean?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: You don't know what you're going to do because I am the person that always knows what she's doing.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: So one of my friends actually put me in touch with a life coach and had a few sessions with the life coach, and that really helped me to reframe.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It wasn't.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what I was going to be doing once I left my career.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: It was going to be about exploration phase in terms of what I did want to do.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I'd really fallen into my career.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I just start at Tamping after university and just ended up being there 20 years.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It was never the plan to work in that industry, that sector.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So I looked at what my transferable skills were, what I enjoyed doing, and I went to an exhibition in Birmingham in the October of 2017 and that's where I met get ahead and I really like it was a franchise exhibition, was it or?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It was a flexible working exhibition, so there were some franchises.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, amazing, what a great story.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And so you hadn't actually thought you wanted to do a franchise at that point.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: You were just interested in finding a new, flexible job.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I was looking at lots of different options.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: But then, once I've then met Rebecca we met in the November just really liked what they had to offer, really like Rebecca, and felt that she would really support me in making my business, my franchise, a success and I think, having the fact that it's such a good brand and such a good business model, that it made it so much easier to start a successful business with the franchise, with get ahead.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, obviously I speak about get ahead to a lot of people and I think it's great and I think it you know we'll get on to this talking about what it's like being a you know, only get ahead franchise.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people is the financials that you know find a little bit scary.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So was did that ever crush your mind?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Was that something that you considered?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: In terms of the actual purchase of the franchise and I actually think that, on reflection, I would have spent more money actually trying to set my own business up, because people don't Think about everything that they need to do to set a business up and essentially I was buying a business that was already set up for me.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and in terms of the value that I still get from the team get ahead with content, you know, for social media, with the newsletter I still get constant value from having the franchise.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: So the cost of it, I think, is far outweighed by the benefits.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely see you exploring the job exploring and the other franchises, always just that you really like to beck, when you thought you'd work well with her and fell in love with the get ahead brand.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Initially I was looking other options.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I think it was as soon as I met Rebecca that was it kind of knew that's what I was going to, that's what I was going to do.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: She sent me all the documentation across so just reviewed all that, made sure I was happy with everything that she'd outlined when we'd had our talk and then, yeah, signed.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I said I don't want to start until January because, having worked 20 years in retail, I'd like my Christmas off.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: So started in January and I went down to 30 to meet the team and did three days of training with Rebecca and some of the specialists in the team as well, and then came back and started.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Did you ever think you'd own your own business at any point in your career?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Always wanted to own my own business and my own business.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I just didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: I've got a really strong work ethic and whilst I enjoyed my time in my career, I always thought I could be working this hard for myself, not for somebody else, and see the rewards.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And I think, working with small businesses especially, you can make decisions a lot faster.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I think one of the frustrations I had with corporate was that there was a lot of red tape to go through in terms of you know, I just like to get on and get things done and often I was held back a little bit because of sort of decision-making processes within the corporate where a small business, you can make those decisions really quickly and it's a lot more adaptable, I think, to that scenario.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So talk to you the earlier.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So you obviously wanted to run a business and then now you're running it and you know you're working from home and so talk to you what the early days look like then of starting your franchise and launching that franchise or what you know, that first three to six months look like.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: So the core thing that I remember Rebecca saying to me about was about going networking.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: So I kind of did a lot of research and was absolutely amazed by how many networking events the were to choose from.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Couldn't believe how many meetings there were happening every single hour of every single day.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: So the first decision I had to make was which one was it going to try and see which ones would work?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I remember standing up and doing my elevator pitch for the first time and, having come from a corporate senior management, I'm very used to standing up in front of a room of people and doing a presentation.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: But I was so nervous I was thinking these are really established business owners.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: They're going to see that I'm new to this.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: How do I come across really credible?
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: So I was really nervous about standing up and doing that pitch.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't think I'd like networking.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I got a misconception about what networking was and I thought it was about selling.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm not a sales person, never have been, never would want to be, and because of that I was a bit I didn't really understand what it was that I needed to do.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: So for the first three months I would say I didn't really get it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: And then I was at a meeting and somebody asked for something specific and I was like oh.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I actually know somebody who can help them and I think once I realized it was more around helping other people and actually building relationships, my mind shifted then to a.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I actually really like networking because actually helping people and building relationships is one of my key strengths.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: That's what I've always done.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Working in supply chain, You're at the sort of central point of every department within a corporate and you need to have people that are on your side because something will always go wrong and need people to be there.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So I'd always naturally built relationships with people.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: So now I love my networking and that's where the majority of my business comes from is referrals from people that I've met through networking who know about get ahead, know about how we help people, and they're happy to refer business to us because they know that we do a good job.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of cold calling then.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: No, no, I don't do any cold calling.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I would say 75% of my business comes through referrals from networking and then the other percentage from the website and social media.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: That's not.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: We've glossed over a bit about get ahead, so tell people what get ahead does and who you help and how you help them.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've got a team of over 70 virtual experts and we offer a wide range of services.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So, yes, we do the standard what people would?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Classes of PA, doing email, diary management, organizing somebody's work?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: But we do so much more and my role is to understand what a client is looking for, what support they need, what they're looking to achieve, and then matching them with the best expert in the team that I can that's got the right experience, the right skills and, if we can set knowledge as well, so that he just makes that transition from something handing something over as straightforward as possible.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Because as business owners, you know, a lot of people are rightly, not scared but cautious, I suppose, in terms of, you know, handing over something that they've built themselves and handing over that to somebody else.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: So it's about building that trust and making sure that the personalities match really well.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: So usually I will put two of the team forward for a client to have a call with, because then they can make a decision based on personality who they think is a better fit.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: They will both be capable of doing the tasks required, but it's just who do they get a better feel, have a better rapport with on the call.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: So we've been looking to work with some new clients recently who run some events.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: So we're helping them to look at booking system for the events and they've got a lot of admin backlog that they need support with.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: So we're updating some of their systems that they've already got in place as well for them and I've matched two people from the team to work with that particular person and those two people have worked together before so they work really well together, really compliment each other really well.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I really love the variety of the work that we do with our clients variety of clients, a variety of work.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I love working with lots of different people in the team.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I really like helping people and just seeing businesses to grow and thrive.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And how can you trust that those experts do a good job?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So I always speak to whoever I'm going to put forward, first just to make sure the briefs right for them.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: On paper it looks right, but is it right fit for them?
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I think there's a balance to be had between what is time sensitive work for a client and what's project based.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And what we want to make sure is that we don't give a client to a VA who's got too many time sensitive clients already, because if that's the case, one of them will end up being bottom of the pile at some point.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So we need to make sure that it's balanced with the project work which can be delivered at any point during the week.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if it moves.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: You know if you plan to do it on the Monday but then something more time sensitive comes up, you can then move it to the Wednesday.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So there's a balance there.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: So I always speak to the team, make sure that they're happy, get them to give me examples of where they've done that kind of work in the past.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: If I haven't worked with them.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: A lot of the team I've worked with now and know confidently what people are good at and where they might need somebody else in the team to support because it's not their strength.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: So once I've spoken to them, matched them with the client.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: The client makes the decision.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I very much hand hold the process for the first few weeks, making sure that the client's happy, making sure the team's happy as well and that things are going right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: So and I think you know we've got a good, robust, central process for onboarding new people into the team anyway.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So I'm confident that we haven't got anybody in the team that we wouldn't want to be working for a client, because that's managed centrally and there's a strong processing place there as well.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So you've obviously the early days.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of networking, which I'm assuming you still do.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: What's your day look like now?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And then talk to you a typical day running a get-ahead franchise.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so I don't have to do the school run anymore.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So my kids leave the house relatively early, go out the house by half past seven, so I usually make an early start.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we'll do some exercise, depending on where my first meeting is, and I do like to try not have my first meetings until after 10 o'clock so I can do some exercise.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's important for me from a balanced perspective as well, and then we'll just be responding to emails.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Initially I normally plan what I'm going to do the night before.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: So yesterday I planned this week what it looked like, made a list of what I know I need to do, so I've got a few prospects that I need to get meetings in with this week.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: I've got a planning meeting straight after this call with a new client and the two people I mentioned earlier about the events, so we've got a copy booked in for that.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Got a few other meetings planning meetings booked in with other clients this week and I've got three networking events that I'm planning on going to two in Leeds on Wednesday, our morning, wakefield, actually at the Sculpture Park.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: So that's in Wakefield on the Friday Today.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I'll be going to pick my son up from school about half past three because he does rugby on a on a Monday and it's his birthday, so I can't make him walk home.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Then I will put a finish actually to date at that time because we'll have family coming around to see him.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I just love the fact that I can be flexible and work around things that I need to do for the family and whilst I'm not doing the school run anymore, my daughter comes home.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: She wants to live to the gym, so I'm there they need me to do and it's changed what they need me to do, but I'm happy to be there to do what they need me.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: How has it transformed your well-being as well?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I guess not having to ask anyone.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, can I leave at three thirty today to pick up my son from rugby because it's his birthday, you know, you don't have to ask anyone to do that now.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: How has that transformed your well-being?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Massively.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I always, I always felt guilty.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I always had flexibility in my position.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I was seeing you enough that I did have flexibility and it would be more a case of I am leaving today at three thirty because of this reason and but they knew that I would be working later on would be that expectation that you would be making up for that time, whereas I think that's the big change is that it's completely up to me.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: If I want to work after you know, later on tonight I won't do.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I started early this morning and I didn't do exercise today because I wanted to be finishing early.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: So it's just those decisions that you know you can make yourself.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: You don't have that guilt of, oh, I'm not being good enough at work and I'm not being good enough at home.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: You make it work for you.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: So that's, that sense of guilt, just completely isn't there anymore and she's a massive, massive thing actually yeah it is.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's huge because, I mean, the guilt does weigh you down.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: You know, subconsciously, I think it does weigh you down.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So you obviously spoke a bit.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You know you were.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You got basically a business in a box.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You've got, you know, and you bought the get ahead franchise.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: You've got a proven business that works, all the marketing's done.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: You've got a page on the website.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Talk us through now the ongoing support you get from Rebecca and the get ahead team and what it's like.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So be your own boss but then be part of a bigger, wider team yeah, and I think that that is actually one of the key reasons that I chose get ahead, because of that support and collaboration that we have, and it was clear that there was that in place.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Having spoken to you know, once I've spoken to Rebecca, I spoke to a few other people on the team before making my decision and I I speak to other people now that are interested in the franchise.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: It's about my experience because if it's the right fit for you, then this is a perfect option.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So and I really want to tell the people about it because it has made such a difference to me in my life.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: So ongoing support looks like.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: We have a monthly team meeting where we review the previous months marketing.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: You know what the stats are, what we focused on this coming months, and we have a hot topic each month that we have a.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: We can put forward something.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: If you know, there's something specific that we want to talk about and last month it was about curiosity.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So that was a really interesting hot topic and Brooke, who does some of our marketing, she did a lot of research ahead of it to make us understand why we're having that conversation around curiosity, and it's really nice to see all the other franchises on that call just hear about.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You know how they're getting on as well.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Then we have a monthly one to one with Rebecca so we can just go through again.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: You know what's been the focus for the past month, what the successes of we had, where we're focused on the month going forward.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: We've got a business plan that we sort of review and go through and excessive it's still working.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Everything's going okay, if anything at all.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: She's always on the other end of the phone, so if there's any, today is a good example.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I've decided to do a new hyperflinting post today and I just wanted to run it past Rebecca to get her feedback on it, and so I just sent her the quick email yesterday and she replied to it just said love it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And she's so supportive in everything, every decision that you make.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I think one of the big, big differences for me and obviously I've never run another franchise, but from what I understand about most franchise is that you know there is a process in place and you follow that process very, very strictly and you do everything exactly the same as the front.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You know every other franchise yeah, like McDonald's, I guess.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I know McDonald's is the famous franchise, but they're all the same, aren't they?
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: exactly no matter where you go, it's always going to be exactly the same.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: You're always going to, you know, get asked do you want anything else after you've, you know, finish your order, whereas I think with this, yes, it is a franchise, yes, it is a business in a box, but I get to run it how I want to run it and Rebecca's very supportive of that and she will always make recommendations and suggestions, but ultimately I make the decisions within the business and that's what I think is really different about, about get ahead.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: We have some software called Circle.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: We've got a new Facebook group for all the teams so that we can share and ask for help if we need anything.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: We've got a sort of a regional directors what's that group?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: So, again, if somebody needs some help with something, they'll just pop a message on there and everybody's usually kind of really helpful and supportive on there.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: We do monthly lunch and learns for the team as well.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: So we get, you know, topics that people are interested in.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: We did.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I think the most well attended one is about menopause and and doing that.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So I think it's all about you know, adding extra value to into the team and that support and it just I always tell people when, if I'm talking to them, it really feels like a family to me, not just a franchise.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It really just feel like my family, my work, family is work.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And if you know how your business has grown, can you lean on the team right, the internal, I don't know head off his team for support of you, of you hired your own BA.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: You know how does that work as your business.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the teams does actually manage my social media for me, predominantly the content that is provided by get ahead to the blogs that get provided in the graphics that are amazing.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: I also get such good feedback on our infographics that somebody in the team does.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: So somebody manages that side of my social media for me.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I've got a meeting with them tomorrow to look at the plan for the rest of the year.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Probably not been doing as much as I should have been doing on social media, so looking to try and step up a little bit.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Hence why I did the new style post this morning, just to get people a little bit to the personal side of me as well as the work side.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And then the Jenny does the newsletter for us and then, if I need anybody, like when I'm on holiday, for example, somebody can look after my inbox for me while I'm on holiday, so I can completely switch off.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I don't need to worry about anything getting missed whilst whilst I'm away.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: If I've got a presentation to do, I could do a decent PowerPoint presentation, but I know somebody in the team can do it so much better than I can and I think if I'm going to be doing a presentation, I should be really showing off the skills the team has to offer.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So I will get somebody on the team to do the PowerPoint for me.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I will give them the content and they'll do the design and branding for me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I definitely do use the team, which is, yeah, it's really nice, you're not in business on your own.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: It sounds like you've got the best of both worlds, really, because it actually sounds like, in a way, you own your own business, but without that stress, because you've got that support network all around you when you send your gun on holiday and switch off because I suppose whoever is covering you they know get ahead probably as well as you do.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: How long did it take for you to make back your investment?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Within the year I'd made back the investment I'd put in to get ahead.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: So that was the plan.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I'd set out a plan to do it within the first year, so yeah, I know it's obviously all you know, not even the bits, but like profit and stuff like that and yeah, we launched a second franchise as well in 2021.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So initially it was just leads that I had, and then in 2021, I thought because of the pandemic, people's perceptions would shift quite a lot around remote working and it became a lot more acceptable to work remotely for some people who might have been not happy about doing it before.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So I decided to extend, and that's when I bought York and Harrogate as well Do you think you'll get another one?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Would you go like in Hordesfield?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, and I have said to Rebecca that if she ever gets anybody interested in that area, please let me have first dibs on it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it would probably be in my plan.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It would be 2025 when I would look to do it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I'm still looking at growing York and Harrogate, so yeah, it's all a network.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, just building new relationships and new networks in those areas.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, but definitely the woodluck to move across the Hordesfield and Halifax, that those areas, how?
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: exciting.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I mean it's nice to know that you can grow that franchise as well.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: And it is, and I think, one of the things that really appealed to me.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: You know, even if I've just got the leads franchise, that I can grow it because I'm not restricted by my time or my skills as to how I can help business.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: So that's really nice.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: The team are helping the clients and I'm there making sure that everything's running smoothly in the background.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: But I think that that works really well for the clients because they're getting the specialist expert that they want to work with, absolutely.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: It's such a brilliant conversation.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Fiona, how can people contact?
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: You Can follow your new link style of LinkedIn posts and obviously learn more about Get Ahead.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yep, so please connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's Fiona Ibbison On Instagram as well.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Get Ahead VA leads and Get Ahead VA York and Harrogate Facebook pages as well.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: For both those and my email is Fiona at GetAheadVAcom.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Brilliant Well thank you so much for chatting with me today.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure to learn.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: What about you and the Get Ahead franchise?
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's been lovely.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mom podcast.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dream.