Yesterday I got to celebrate the most unhinged, outrageous thing I've ever done in the name of my small business, and it all sounds utterly bonkers!
I got to walk out on stage, dressed like a wizard, to collect a chocolate coin from the total legend that is Dawn French. Told you it was weird.
A bit of a personal one from me this week, but it's been a big deal for me and I wanted to share.
It all started when I accidentally signed up for a master's degree...
About 3 years ago, the business was in struggle-town. We had just come out of the whole lockdown, pandemic thing, and the cost of everything had soared. Bills were up, orders were down. Weddings had been cancelled, postponed or downsized. Parties were off and many people simply didn't have the money to spend on luxury greeting cards. It was a scary time.
In a desperate bid to survive I decided I needed to learn marketing, so I got hunting. Initially I thought I would find a little online short course, or perhaps a helpful book; I just wanted to learn the basics. I had absolutely no intention of diving head first into a 2-year long, £12k degree course...
But, it turned out, the universe had other ideas; I spotted an ad for a Masters Degree in Marketing and digital Communications, and found myself signing up for it without a second thought (hello, ADHD!)
And I do think it's important to add here- my undergraduate degree was:
1- over 20 years ago, and 2- in surface pattern design.
So the sum total of my previous marketing experience was limited, to say the least.
So here we are, just under 3 years later, and I finally got to graduate!
What has all this got to do with Dawn French and a chocolate coin?!
Well, I did my Masters through Falmouth University and Dawn French is the official chancellor. The graduation ceremonies consist of graduands walking across the stage to Dawn, who hands out a specially minted chocolate coin known as a 'Dawn Doubloon'.
And can I just say, the lady is a total hero.
She must have greeted hundreds of people on stage this week, yet still she made the effort to make each one feel seen and special, taking the time to welcome many by name and offer her congratulations. There wasn't a hint of boredom on her face, despite working her way through a whole week's worth of ceremonies.
And her speech was chef's kisses- just the right amount of her brilliant humour mixed with Cornwall appreciation and her very obvious love of the arts. It left me feeling so proud to be a creative business owner in Cornwall.
Master of Arts- My Takeaways
It was a long and rocky path, with many sleepless nights, a whole load of reading and so many essays. I can safely say that I now know way more about Global Media Planning and creating Pitch Decks that I will ever possibly need. Ok, some of the course was aimed at marketing bigwigs for global companies with boards and men in suits. There were a fair few people on my course who had ambitions of joining huge corporations, and then there was little old me- a Cornish small business owner with dreams of making enough to cover her bills so she could keep on making her little greeting cards!
But the MA wasn't all about big budgets and fancy technology. It also taught me a lot of stuff that I have found invaluable for our little company. It taught me that the biggest superpower any small business can have is authenticity, and the best thing I can do as a real human running a greeting card and stationery brand is to show up authentically and share my story.
Of course, it taught me a lot more than that- it would be a pretty sucky ending to a story if I'd spent 2 years and £12k learning that the answer was in me all along and I just have to be myself - this is definitely not an after-school special. I did also learn lots of boring but useful stuff like SEO and psychology, but nobody really wants to hear about that.
It's way more exciting to tell you about my wizard robes and a national treasure giving me a chocolate coin, so we'll stick with that.
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