“I realised that to fully maximise the potential of my business, I had to harness the features that the partnership had to offer in order to reap the benefits.”

I was first attracted to the SmartPA business opportunity for the flexibility and scalability it offered.

Before becoming a SmartPA partner, I’d had a successful career in the marcomms industry with a comfortable salary increasing year on year. But the hours were long and the work was stressful. As a new mum to a young toddler, finding a better work life balance without sacrificing financial independence or contribution to the family income became the driving force behind my decision to invest in SmartPA.

It was essential therefore that flexibility and scalability were at the core of my business model when I launched in March 2016. I wanted to work 3-4 days per week and was initially concerned that this would restrict the opportunities for support that I could offer clients and hinder the potential growth of my business. It felt like flexibility and scalability were incompatible, like I could have one or the other, not both.

But then after a couple of post-launch ‘check-in’ sessions with Head Office, something clicked and my mindset changed. SmartPA is a partnership. It seems obvious now looking back; the words had been there all along but their full meaning and relevance just hadn’t registered. I realised that to fully maximise the potential of my business, I had to harness the features that the partnership had to offer in order to reap the benefits.

The SmartPA partnership enables me to offer full time admin support and an extensive portfolio of skills, services and expertise to business owners, regardless of the actual hours that I choose to work each month or the skills and knowledge that I personally bring to the table. Today, everybody I meet is a business opportunity. It’s empowering to know that I never have to say ‘no, sorry…’

When I don’t have the capacity or skillset to deliver support, I call upon the support from our network of amazing partners. The Head Office team are always super helpful and efficient, even when my requests for support are at short notice (which unfortunately for them is often). The right support has always been made available on time which means happy clients and continued business growth.

Initially, I only used the partner support on an adhoc basis around my part-time hours. However, the service really demonstrated its value to my business recently when I took five days leave to move house. Using a combination of re-scheduling work around my leave and employing partner support to deliver essential daily support tasks and any urgent requests, I was able to focus on the house move, settle my daughter into a new nursery and be without internet for a few days, confident that my clients were being looked after and my business wasn’t at risk. In fact, I even landed a new client the day before the move and with the help of the client support team, had a partner lined up to conduct an on-boarding session and deliver an urgent support task for the client without delay in my absence.

Future development plans for my business include continued growth of my SME client portfolio and hopefully a move into the SmartPA Corporate World. I’m confident that with this business model of support I can successfully achieve both.