Your Name and Age: Louise Prunty Aged 30

Tell us about your family

I am married to Richard, we have a lovely boy of 2 years old called Kirk. He was born 8 weeks early but is now a healthy very active toddler.

We have recently moved to Largs in Ayrshire by the Sea from Glasgow to have a more relaxing lifestyle.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea (previous career, stay at home mum etc) and how was it making the transition?

I worked in IT as a trainer, I didn’t like it very much due to travelling. I was very stressed and my friend treated me to some holistic treatments. Afterwards I was very relaxed and decided I wanted to learn more about it.

I studied part time while I worked and when I qualified I started my own therapy business. While doing this I discovered a gap in the market for therapy training and partnered up with some experienced therapists to offer training. We then branched out to offer Beauty therapy training and more recently hairdressing courses.

When did you launch?

2004 as a sole trader Louise’s Therapy then 2006 changed to Caledonian Therapy Academy to reflect the main training side.

How did you get started?

I had a £1000 grant and alot of determination. You don’t need huge amounts of money to make things work.

We now turnover in excess of £150,000 per year and aim this to double by 2011.

What research did you do before launching?

Not enough. I jumped in at the deep end and wouldn’t advise it to anyone. I ended up going for cheap premises but they were in quite a bad area.

I found my feet after around 6 months and things started to take off. Research is very important.

How have you funded the business?

After the £1000 grant the business has been self funding, it has not needed anymore funding.

However we are due to expand the business soon and will need to apply for funding for a little cash boost.

How do you promote your business? What has worked best?

PR has worked well. We have won a few awards and the coverage we have got from that has been great. We also do alot of charity work which results in great coverage.

Word of mouth, we have an excellent reputation which has spread by person to person. We also use online pay per click advertising.

We have recently joined mums club, bebo and twitter which we have had some success with.

What has worked well about your business?

Our customer service and support for our students is excellent. This is what our business is built on.

Happy students means repeat business.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How have you dealt with it?

The biggest challenge has been answering the volume of calls we get.

I already have a full time receptionist and didn’t want to have another so started using a call answering service. They take messages when the lines are busy or if it rings out and we call customers back as soon as we are free.

How do you fit in work with the family?

My husband has Kirk when I need to go into my work place.

When I have Kirk, I tackle my emails and calls from my home office when he is napping or when he goes to bed.

He also goes to nursery 1 day a week which means I get loads done that day.

My workload has been greatly reduced now that I have more staff which means we can spend more time outdoors with Kirk.

What advice would you give to someone else wanting to work in this area?

Make sure you check out your competition. Look for central premises.

If possible have some cash behind you (makes life easier). Advertise long before you are due to launch so that you already have bookings and hit the ground running. 

If you have a flexible working business opportunity, please explain briefly what you offer and how people find out more.

We have franchises in the Caledonian Therapy Academy, some of the owners think small and run only a few courses per month and rent a salon to do this. Some have their own premises and run courses every day.

You can be completely flexible to fit in with your lifestyle. You either need to be a therapist already or willing to train or employ a therapist to run the courses.

 Your website link: www.ctacademy.co.uk

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