Local Women in Business: Part Three
We have a lot of local business owners who happen to be female and purchase eyewear from ourselves. These talented women work in a wide range of industries, including hospitality, marketing, and recruitment. To celebrate International Women’s Day earlier this month, we reached out to a few customers to ask if we could interview them for a series of blogs.
We have already introduced you to restauranteur Sarah and recruitment specialist Sarah. This week we want you to meet writer and social media specialist Kate Anderson. Throughout her career, Kate has written copy for newspapers and magazines. She also writes web and SEO content and has managed our social media platforms for almost five years. In that time, she’s become an integral part of the Respectacle Company team.
For most businesses, it is essential to have an online presence. But social media it’s also very time consuming, and you need to be knowledgeable about how and what content to produce. It just shows what a good job Kate does for us because we have customers who travel a long way to visit our store and view our spectacle collections. We have customers from as far afield as Oxfordshire, Suffolk, and Derbyshire. We’ve even sold and sent a French-made frame to a customer in France!
Read on to discover a bit more about Kate. And if you want to find out more about her services, check out her website kateeanderson.com.
Kate is wearing sunglasses by L.G.R, model Norton.
Favourite place in the world
Australia. If I had to narrow it down, I would say Perth in Western Australia. I’ve lived there and visited on numerous occasions. So, it will always be home to me. I was hoping to go back for a visit, but then Covid happened. Hopefully I’ll get back out there this year.
Favourite film
I always find this question hard to answer because I’ve watched so many great films. But I’m going to say probably The Notebook or Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Favourite food
Another hard question! Part of me wants to say cake. But that doesn’t sound like a very grown-up answer. So, either steak and chips or a proper Sunday roast.
Favourite colour
Blue
Favourite famous person who wears glasses
Kamie Crawford from MTV’s Catfish
Famous person you would invite to a dinner party
Paloma Faith. She’s funny, intelligent and I love her voice. She might also provide some entertainment by giving an impromptu performance.
How did the pandemic affect your business?
Certainly not as much as some people, that’s for sure. I initially lost some business at the start of the pandemic because clients had to temporarily close their businesses. One of my clients also had plans to expand, which would have provided me with additional work. But unfortunately, those plans fell through. Overall though I’d say I’ve been lucky in so much as I have continued to work, and things are now looking a lot brighter.
How did you adapt your business to cope with the covid restrictions?
I work from home. So, I didn’t have to adapt too much. The main change was conducting meetings over Zoom rather than in person and face to face. It’s so much easier to meet clients in person. But aside from a few technical difficulties every now and then, it worked out okay.
Did the restrictions affect you personally?
Yes, they did. Like most people, I couldn’t see friends, and I couldn’t travel. It certainly felt isolating and lonely at times.
Has the effect of the last 2 years made you think differently about how you balance work/personal time?
Not really. I’ve always been rather mindful of the importance of balancing work life and personal time. Which is also one of the reasons why I started my own business. Working for myself has required me to make some sacrifices. But it means I enjoy much greater flexibility for a better work/life balance in my opinion. I also get to pick and choose my working hours. It means I don’t have to start work at 9am and finish at 5pm. I can start later and work into the evening. Much of my work involves being creative, and that doesn’t always fit into the 9-5. I often feel at my most creative in the evenings.
Thank you, Kate, for making the time to answer our questions. Looking at Kate’s working life, although she was affected financially by Covid, it didn’t affect her working pattern, given that she was already working from home. But as with the rest of us, the restrictions about travel and meeting friends were isolating and difficult at times. Let’s hope the easing of restrictions will be permanent and we can start to venture out and about again.
Head to Kate’s Facebook @kateandersoncopywriting or her LinkedIn profile to find out more about her copywriting and social media management services. You can also follow Kate on Instagram @whatkateedid.
In our next Women in Business blog, we’ll be chatting to former ballerina and local Pilates instructor Jane Fletcher. Look out for that next week.
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