This isn’t a topic I ever saw myself talking about, to be honest. It risks making me sound a bit mad. Or a lot mad. But I think there’s an important point to be found here, so I’m risking my public-facing sanity for it. Last year I was going through a really difficult time, personally. During this, I had to go to London for a couple of days to deliver a presentation to a client I was trying to win. I really, really wasn’t in the mindset for it. The day before my presentation

I’m going to start this with a disclaimer that should be able to go unsaid, but I know that it can’t, so here it is: This article is not describing every male and female. It is not describing every family. I acknowledge that equal schemes including Shared Parental Leave exist. What I’m going to talk about here is partly a representation of the majority of UK society, but mostly my own experience. OK? Cool. Right now, the global economy is in shreds. Oil is being sold in minus

It’s a problem more common than you’d think (probably). Your partner comes home from work and casually drops in that they were talking about

If you missed the memo, I recently took a trip to Thailand (it was amazing, check out my Instagram if you fancy). But while it was a purely indulgent holiday, I knew I wouldn't be able to make a complete break from work. I updated my social media, albeit far less often than usual without the pressure of a work environment driving me online all day, and I kept up with industry news and developments, again, less often but they were still on the periphery. The most obvious diffe

This blog post comes from a place of mixed messages, but hopefully with a bit of this, and a bit of that, it’s where balance comes in. Let me explain. Recently I saw an Instagram post (by @kickstartsophie) about the discovery of being an introvert, and how freeing and wonderful it was to realise wanting to work from home, alone, is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s far better for some personality types. My fingers couldn’t type ‘I agree!’ fast enough. I loved my last stint of wo

Wow. Five. That’s a bit mad. I never imagined how long I’d freelance for, or where it might take me, but here I am, celebrating (what is now) Ella St Communications being five years old the only way you can celebrate anything in January – with leftover Quality Street. My freelance business couldn’t be more different than when I started out in 2015. I can’t get my head around how much more I know now, and how I ever really began without that knowledge that exists today. Here a

2019 has been…weird. Some bad, plenty of good, and definitely full of changes and decisions I’m glad I made. I started the year by deciding that working for one company wasn't the right thing to support my future. I wanted to put family first, and that meant changing things up, a LOT. Fast forward a little while, I packed up our little family nest and said goodbye to London to head back to Yorkshire, where my heart feels at home, and ultimately, where I want to raise my famil

If you’re new to freelancing, or setting up a business for the first time, choosing your prices can be a minefield. Equally, if you’ve been

Most of my clients are women that have started their own business to assert some control over their lives. They understand that launching a new brand takes time and effort, but they’re doing it on their terms. Ultimately, the payoff will be a work-life balance that leaves them feeling healthy and successful, with time to spend with their young families. My clients come to me because they see themselves in my ethos. A 4-day working week isn’t just a buzz term to generate engag

Ever thought of starting your own business? Read these top 10 tips from an experienced freelancer

I listened to a podcast recently, which explored the question of turning down short term work in order to work on longer term gains from marketing your own business. For me though, the question isn’t if you should do this, but when. When do we say enough is enough? Because for me, it wasn’t when my daughter was six weeks old, and I was making myself go to meetings that could easily have been on the phone, leaving me doubled over with c-section recovery pain, and worrying abou