Kate Butcher
Right, good morning. Just wanted to welcome our guest today to the podcast which is Claire Gilliland-Rawlings? I have got that right haven’t I?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yes.

Kate Butcher
So Today Claire is going to talk to us about her experience of running a business and juggling it with being a mum, and tell us a little bit more about some of her insights into that. So thank you very much for joining us, Claire. Can we start off by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and how that all fits in in terms of you know, family life and all of that kind of thing.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m a mum of three young children. And we are a very sort of outdoorsy, nature loving family. So we’re always out and about we live in gorgeous part of the world. We’re in rural Northumberland. So there’s so much beautiful space and beaches to explore, and as a family we’re really passionate about your environment and sustainability, which was one of the reasons I chose to work from home rather than commute into offices, and my business is fairly new. I only launched last summer, but ever since it’s just gone from strength to strength. I feel really proud of how much it’s grown and expanded. And it’s been really liberating to be in charge of my own business and fit in perfectly around family life.

Kate Butcher
Fabulous and what is your business? What do you do?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
So I’m a virtual assistant and I sort of offer services from admin, all the way through to content creation, social media management, and anything really in between. I do a lot of project research for clients, invoicing, emails, so really a bit of anything. I tend to work with small businesses who is just need to outsource some of their work. And yeah, I take on for tasks that they just really don’t have time for. They’re struggling to keep on top of.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic. Yeah, and I don’t know. I mean, as you know, I’m also a virtual assistant and actually, we met through a virtual assistants group, but I don’t know whether you find, and it certainly sounds like it fits with the ethos of your your business and your sustainability, being a virtual assistant is pretty much a paperless business. I think my first client I sent a contract out to and then since then, I was like, why am I doing this? It doesn’t need to be paper. It can all be digital, everything can be digital can’t it?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah. And it’s amazing and I do think, you know, maybe one, if you want to call it positive, out of the COVID 19 pandemic, is people are really realising how much work we can do remotely and how we can, can do everything online. We don’t have to have these paper systems or be travelling into offices every day. Working from home works really well. And I think it’s a really positive thing for you know, mums that are struggling to fit, work life in with their children, but people are realising we can move to be working from home and working in these more modern paperless systems. Yeah.

Kate Butcher
Absolutely, fantastic. How does your business and your work fit in around family life How did, how have you made that work for you?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
I’ve had to be quite strict with my boundaries. I found when I first started, I was sort of getting emails through to my phone when I was out at the park with the kids, and I would be replying and then I had to talk to myself and say, “this isn’t why you’ve started a business you’ve started your own business so you can be present for the children” and my husband works quite an intensive job where he has very, very long hours so he isn’t around much, which was also one of the reasons I really felt important for me to be in charge of my own work. But now I set my boundaries and I am strict with myself and my clients about when I’m available and when I’m not. It fits in really well. I spend a lot of my evenings working, which I’m quite happy doing once the kids are in bed and on a Friday. I’m really lucky. My mum has my youngest daughter and the other two are at school. So Fridays are a very good day for me to get stuff done. And yeah, I really enjoy just that whole flexibility. And if I do have a client that needs to have a meeting or a call, I am lucky that I can, sort of squeeze it in when I need to. So yeah, it’s working really well just choosing my own hours, not feeling guilty that I can’t fit hours in standard office hours and I suppose yeah.

Kate Butcher
Absolutely. That sounds fabulous. And you’ve got little ones who are at home. Is that right as well as school aged children?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, my youngest child has just turned one, so she is very small. So when I started the business, she was about well six months, five, six months old. And so it was, it has always fitted in really well around the kids because I was able to start from all of being quite small. And I’m lucky you know, my mum’s just 10 minutes down the road and she works, she doesn’t work Thursdays or Fridays, she was really good. She likes having a bit of time with all that. And that’s why kind of utilise work in the evenings as well because then once the kids are in bed, it’s quiet time for me to get some work done. Yes.

Kate Butcher
Yeah, I certainly relate to the husband with long hours, my husband’s a chef so he’s out evenings, weekends, are the busy times for him at work. So yes, often those those times when everyone else is being social and I’m at home and looking after the children and often it does feel very much like you’re taking a lot of the responsibility and doing a lot when you know, there isn’t necessarily, when dad can’t necessarily be present as much as we would like him to be. So yeah, I can certainly relate to the long hours and the struggle that that can cause without doubt. Fantastic. Lovely. So you’ve mentioned the sustainability as a reason for the bit, certainly an ethos behind the business and why you chose a role where you could work from home. And you’ve mentioned sort of starting to, or wanting to start up the business so that you can have more flexibility around the children and work when you wanted to around them. What, what did you do out of interest before you you had your own business?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
So I’ve always just supported people with the admin on social media and so I’ve always worked for sort of smaller companies, doing admin essentially, I have trained as a teaching assistant as well. Because I’ve always been very passionate about education. And that was sort of, I think, in the future, something I was looking to do. But since starting this business, I really don’t think I could go back to working for anyone else in that respect, because I’m just loving this flexibility. But yeah, I’ve always worked in sort of the admin sector for other businesses, so once I had all I really, I felt with three children, it was just too much going going to the office and so yeah, that was really why I come back to working from home.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic. Thank you. So what would you say the best bit of advice that you have been given is around running your own business, or since you started in business?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Well, that’s a tricky one. I’m not so sure. I think it would be from my mom’s partner John, he basically, when I first had this idea, I was gonna start my business, like I went to mum and John and I said, “What do you think of this idea?” And I think they’re both relieved that it wouldn’t require them doing school runs five days. They were like, “Yeah, go for it. We don’t have to do anything.” John basically said that I need to remember that it’s all about balance, having business working. It’s all about a work life balance and not to let either side takeover, always sort of stay quite neutral, be open to each side and just not let myself be overwhelmed with home life or work life, but he also said that I should make sure I put myself in the client’s perspective every time I speak to them, and see things from their point of view and really take the time to listen to them. Let them tell me what they need the support with especially because I tend to get small businesses outsource them to me when they’re quite overwhelmed with that level of work. So it’s really important to just sit down with them and really get their perspective of what they need the most support with, which I think is what enables me to offer really bespoke sort of tailored services to them. So two bits of advice from John, which were quite useful.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic it sounds like you’ve got a lot of good insights from him, which sounds like a good person to have in your life offering you advice on business.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah. He’s a good business head.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic. And actually, I think that one is so true about balance. I agree. It’s really important to try and get the balance right. And actually, balance is something I think it’s almost I think it’s really hard to get the balance, right.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah.

Kate Butcher
I’m not sure balance is something that’s ever totally achievable, as a mum with a business, is always going to be something which feels, for me anyway, there’s always going to be something which feels like it’s throwing other things out of balance. And just when you think you’ve got the balance about right, something changes and kind of, you know, children’s sleep patterns or whatever it might be, will suddenly change. But yeah, I think you are quite right, having that, trying to sort of make sure you have both things in there because I think, I don’t know about you, but a lot of mums are really guilty of feeling that mum guilt when they’re spending time on the business you feel guilt around not being with your children. And when you’re with your children, you’re feeling guilt about the fact that you’re not working on your business, and it’s a constant battle between those two. So if you can find some kind of balance, I think that’s fabulous. Definitely.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely the mum guilts always there and that’s, that’s a real, that’s a real killer really, when you’re trying to do stuff, isn’t it? You know, even even this morning when my mum was taking Orla that I was like, “oh sorry”, because she got a bit teary and I was like, “sorry, Mummy’s got to just work” but you still feel like, yeah, it’s never, it’s never easy prioritising one or the other. But it’s practice I think, and I think as mums in business, it’s something you need to be proud of yourself that was showing up and running a business and looking after your kids and, you know, he came to me and said, “Gosh, I’m feeling so guilty. I can’t find the balance”. I would always say “you mustn’t, you know you’re doing really well”. But as then when you think about it yourself, you’re really hard on yourself about it aren’t you, so it’s definitely a real juggle.

Kate Butcher
Absolutely. Yeah, you’re exactly right with that, I’ve had a number of people say that it’s so true, when you do beat yourself up about things. It’s maybe worth thinking what would you say to a friend in that situation? You wouldn’t judge them in the same way that you judge yourself? I think, we can be really hard on ourselves sometimes. And really beat ourselves up about, about it. And in fact, I did a little live on my social media earlier today talking about super-mum complex and how we all sometimes try to do it all and we can’t always do it all. Sometimes we need to ask for help from those around us, or outsource stuff, or whatever it may be. And sometimes we just need to not worry about what other people expect from us as well. So yeah, that that guilt side of it and the balance, is hard. Definitely. And equally I do love that other piece of advice as well about listening to what your clients really want really taking the time to listen and understand. And I think yeah, as VAs I think that’s really really important because I think some, I don’t about you, I sometimes find that clients don’t always know what they want, they know they need help, but they don’t necessarily know what the most effective thing is to outsource, especially as you say when when they get really overwhelmed. So, yeah, I think it can be really valuable to really take some time to listen to what they’re really struggling with and see where we can offer the help the most which is true, and that can be turned around the other way from the point of view of mums in business who need to outsource and need to get things off their plates, but actually, you know, talk to somebody and see what they can help with as well and let other people take the reins on some things. Yeah.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Definitely. I think it’s, you know, when you’re running a business, whatever your business is, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of work there is to do. So it’s always important, I think just to reach out to other business owners and it’s lovely you know, since becoming a VA. I’ve connected with other VAs and it’s lovely to have that sort of, but there’s a really nice community I think, and especially mums who are running their businesses from home, there’s always really supportive community behind it. And I think it’s really important to know when you need a bit of support, and even if it’s not outsourcing work to just message another mum who’s running a business so “I’ve got so much to do”, and they can offer a few words of advice and it’s nice and that’s the beauty of social media as well. That’s a really positive part of it. There’s always someone you can offload to whether it’s physical work, or just to let a bit of it out of frustration or stress. Yeah.

Kate Butcher
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that. There’s so many places online and offline. And there’s, I don’t know whether you go to any networking at all, but I started attending some networking groups, pre COVID. And actually through COVID, we moved some of those networking groups online and now we can get back to face to face meeting, it’s lovely, then having a network of other mums in business locally, women in business locally, and there’s a group of us now who, who socialise together, and it’s really nice we have a networking meet up and we have a social meet up every month. And it’s really nice to have that common ground and that solidarity with women who were in a similar position to share some of those struggles with so yeah, absolutely. It is really important to be able to reach out definitely, yeah. Thank you for your insights on your bits of advice you’ve had that’s really good. So could you also tell us a little bit about a tool that you use in your business that is a favourite tool that you use something you find really useful, something you could recommend for other mums in business to potentially use?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, this is a bit of a rubbish one, but I was thinking about this. I’m not sure about like my favourite tool, but I was really thinking, my, Orla was actually in hospital over the weekend, which is fine now but, so I was in hospital for a couple of nights. I’ve got emails and stuff to do, but obviously I’m here with my baby in hospital, that’s the priority. And I thought without my iPhone, I would be absolutely lost. I don’t know what we did before smartphones, but I was so thankful that I had an iPhone then because when she was napping, I could do the emails, I can manage, you know, managing three social media accounts, I can do it all from my phone and that sort of thing. So I honestly think, you know, an iPhone, is my best business tool.

Kate Butcher
It’s a great tool. I agree.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
And I just thought, you know, the weekend when we were there, I would have been absolutely, well very stressed without it because it meant that I couldn’t just keep on top of these little things I was meant to be doing. So yeah, I find the iPhone’s an absolute gem. And of course, you know, I have a laptop and desktop setup when I’m home, it’s really, really helpful when you just got those little bits you need to do and something else has come up as well. I suppose it gives you a massive amount of flexibility that you need in your business. Really.

Kate Butcher
I totally agree with you. I find my iPhone really useful. I mean, even if it’s just a case of you know, on the school run, I can just I get there five minutes early to get a good parking spot. And then I can just go through and check if there’s any emails that need a quick response to or quickly create a social media post that I know needs doing, or as a VA, you probably use some time tracking software as well, I use Toggl to track the hours that I’m doing for my clients. And sometimes you’re sort of working away trying to get a task finished before you dash out for the school run, it’s all based around the school run isn’t it, all the stuff I do on my iPhone, but you dash out of the house and quite often I’ll dash out and I’ll get in the car and think “Oh, I forgot to switch the timer off”.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah.

Kate Butcher
But on the iPhone. Oh, there we go. I’ve got Toggl on my iPhone I can go-

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
It’s amazing isn’t it.

Kate Butcher
Straight on and switch it off in the car and I don’t need to sort of worry about having to go back into the house and switch it off again. And that kind of thing. So yeah, it’s really useful just to the fact that everything integrates so seamlessly is really, really useful. I mean, yeah, I use Xero for my accounting. I have that on my iPhone. So if I’m out and about and, I don’t know I’m at a networking meeting, and having a, buy a coffee I just put the receipt straight into Xero then in there it’s done. It’s, It’s amazing having a tool that has so many features on and integrates seamlessly with everything else that you have. So yeah, no, I absolutely think that’s a fantastic recommendation.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
I think it really opens up sort of, the possibilities for business as well, some people you know, if you’re launching a business you might not have a huge amount of money to be investing in lots of software or a brand new computer or something and knowing that you can do a lot of it on your smartphone. I mean, obviously you do need a laptop or a computer some things and it’s a lot easier to do some things on the laptop, but I think it’s nice to know that someone can start up their business without having to invest a huge amount of money and things because you really can do a lot on your phone. And that that I think opens up possibilities for a lot of people that want to start a business, which is nice.

Kate Butcher
I know someone who does exactly that. Recently, I was talking to a mum and I said “oh can I have your work email address so I can send you some information” and she said I don’t have a work email address. Just send me a message on Instagram. All of my business is conducted through Facebook Messenger or Instagram messenger and everything’s on there. And you know, she doesn’t have a work email. She doesn’t have a website. She doesn’t have any of the things that you need a laptop for. It’s all done from her mobile phone, which is yeah, like you say you can run an entire business from your phone, it’s an incredible piece of equipment. So yeah, that’s a really good, good recommendation of a good business tool. And likewise, I don’t know about you I’m a bit of a book addict. I love reading. I actually prefer listening to audiobooks but books and audiobooks. Do you have a particular favourite book or audiobook that you would recommend to other mums in business?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, I’m a bit of a pants businesswoman. I don’t really read anything business-y so I’m a bit rubbish in that respect, because for me reading is something I’ve always absolutely adored. And it’s something I do to switch off I suppose. So I’ve always been quite strict on myself and thought I spend a lot of my life stuck in a business, when I want to read, when I finally have time to read, I’m doing it to clear my head and forget that I’ve got a busy business or three children to look after. And that yeah, I’ve just always had this huge passion for literature and it is quite funny because someone that I do VA work for is my old literature teacher from school and she has a copywriting and tutoring business now called The Absolute Word, and I do quite a lot of work for her, which is quite nice to sort of keep that connection going. But yeah, I’m rubbish because yeah, my reading doesn’t centre normally around business. It’s going back to that thing about balance, I suppose. And I think as a mum running a business my life was always so hectic when I can read, I like to do it to forget about everything else and just let myself get lost in a book for, for fun.

Kate Butcher
Yeah.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah.

Kate Butcher
It sounds like it’s very much your, your personal time, your self care time.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, it absolutely is.

Kate Butcher
Yeah. Do you have a recommendation of a book that you have enjoyed personally, that’s not necessarily business related that we might enjoy?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
I’ve just read over Christmas. I was reading the Second Edition of the Thursday Murder Club, they’re by Richard Osman. And I’ve read both of them now, and they’re very good sort of slightly silly, easy to read, funny books. Both of them are very, very good. So I would recommend the Thursday Murder Club to anyone that’s, that’s wanting to sort of immerse themselves in a good, good light hearted story. They are funny. They’re very good reads.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic. Yeah. I can see that Richard Osman has released a couple of books. Okay, that’s a good recommendation. I’m the other way around. I love to read, I love, well like I say I prefer audiobooks, just because I’m an auditory learner, and that’s part of the reason that I’ve chosen to do a podcast is because I prefer, I love listening to podcasts, I love listening to audiobooks and I absorb things much better in an auditory way. But, but no, I do totally agree there are definitely, there’s definitely a time and a place I think for listening to personal books and I love listening to books rather than reading I do from time to time just like to intersperse something that’s just some light reading or, not even light reading, I’ve listened to a couple of really sort of heavy ones over the last couple of years. But yeah, for me, it’s a few business books and then something that’s fiction, or a bit more lighthearted. So yeah.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
I have been listening to the podcast by Victoria Tetris?

Kate Butcher
Tretis? Yeah.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Tretis?

Kate Butcher
Tretis I think.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, that’s quite a good sort of VA podcast. And they’re quite nice short episodes, so you can you know, our school’s only 10 minutes away so I can sort of squeeze two in on the way to pick the kids up and another, you know, one while I’m waiting for them to get in the car and stuff. So they’re quite, they’re quite nice, sort of short and easy listening ones. Yeah.

Kate Butcher
Absolutely. I agree. And I think I, a lot of the time when I listen to podcasts and audiobooks is in the car, and likewise, it’s a 10 minute drive. So that includes sort of sitting in the car for a couple of minutes when I get there. So yes, it’s nice to have something that’s shortened, bite sized, isn’t it to absorb in that time? I totally agree. and I think as mums we do sort of have those little tiny pockets of time where we can squeeze things in. Absolutely. That’s definitely a key part. Fantastic. So is there anything going on for you in business at the moment that you want to tell us about? Do you have anything in the pipeline that you’re really excited about, do you have space for new clients at the moment? Any particular tasks that you’re really loving and would like to do more of?

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah, I’ve got, I’m sort of working with a woman at the moment who has a lovely little holiday let, and we’re rebranding and recreating her website. So that’s something that’s coming in, in a month or so, that I’m really enjoying doing and it’s been something a little bit different for me, sort of, I’ve always offered website support to clients, but this is sort of taking the next step into designing a website and stuff. So that’s been really fun. And it’s been nice to use the sort of creative part of my brain to really style out this website. So that will be coming soon. Which is exciting because I’ve been working on it for a few months now. And I’ve always said I’m a bit of a bit of a nerd and my favourite service, I think is proofreading because I really love words and-

Kate Butcher
Lovely, Yes.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
So if anyone has proofreading, they can chuck it over to me and I’ll happily help them with it. And I love getting sort of stuck into quite a big, big document and just going through and checking it all out.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic and I, yeah, I’m with you on that. I do like a bit of proofreading. Or actually one of the things that I do for one of my clients is go through contracts for her and just highlight key points into a document so that she doesn’t have to go through every single bit and think about the legal jargon and so on, and just sort of go through about the key points, which I think is, yeah, reading documents is something I always find absolutely fascinating. So yeah, proof reading is a fabulous one.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah and you learn some really random facts don’t you when you’re proofreading. you’re like “Oh, I never knew that” “I didn’t know what that meant”. It’s quite funny reading, because I have a few different clients in different sectors. So yeah, send me these things to proofread. I do, I do learn some strange things.

Kate Butcher
Yeah, absolutely.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
New work is always good fun.

Kate Butcher
Yeah. And I think actually proofreading, I think any opportunity to read something that you may not necessarily have chosen to read yourself.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah.

Kate Butcher
Is always a really interesting opportunity to as you say, learn something new or, I was fun things like, I used to love going to book clubs back in the day before children when I had time to go to a book club, because somebody else would choose a book and it wouldn’t be something you would pick up and it can often be quite surprising that you really enjoy something that you wouldn’t necessarily have realised that you’ve really, that you would really enjoy.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Yeah.

Kate Butcher
Fantastic. That’s amazing. Thank you very much for coming on today and telling us about your business, and your family life and how you juggle business and motherhood. There’s been some really good insights there and particularly about sort of the balance and the strict boundaries you set for yourself around your family time. There’s a really sort of key takeaways for me of things that I think are certainly things that I probably need to think about in terms of myself as well. So thank you very much for spending some time with us and good luck with your business going forward.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great fun. Thank you.

Kate Butcher
Thank you. Take care.

Claire Gilliland-Rawlings
Thank you.

Find shownotes, and Listen to the episode here

Or watch on YouTube