I was a corporate hotshot for printing.com, travelling round the country, delivering training, troubleshooting and setting up franchises as Regional Director when I unexpectedly became pregnant. Overnight my priorities shifted, and rather than focusing on climbing the greasy corporate pole, I needed to find something local that would pay the mortgage.

And so Guildford printing.com was born. When I founded my company in June 2005 I had two goals in mind. To deliver creative graphic design and quality print to small businesses in Guildford, and to build a sustainable business that I could fit around my family.

Four years on we’ve stayed true to those guiding principles, but the business has grown and evolved. We’ve developed a reputation as the business branding experts: creating intuitive corporate identities that powerfully represent the businesses we work with and help them become more profitable. And we now work with many companies – large and small, local and international, award-winning and start up: testament to our creativity and talent for creating strong brands.

More recently, we have offered a range of web, marketing and total brand solutions in response to customer demand, which I always think is the best way! Our customers love the fact that they can come to us for the whole communication solution and that they’ll get a service that will really add value to their businesses. And we have an equally important number of clients who just come to us for a simple business card or website. We still love to work on business cards for the micro businesses, because if the last four years has taught us anything, it’s that from tiny acorns…

I’m proud of what we have achieved, and of what we’ve helped our customers achieve. Over the past four years we’ve picked up three Annual Design Awards for our illustration and brochure design; we’ve worked with award-winning companies like Yarwood-White and we’ve been instrumental in the success of local business show, Grow Your Business.

The last four years have been a journey for us. I’ve been able to create a business that fully utilises my talents for branding – from the client experience and marketing through to the visual identity. Caroline has developed from a rookie to an award winning Senior Designer and Studio Manager and between us we’ve developed a sustainable business that has utilised local talent and created a great team of passionate designers and account executives.

And as the business has grown, so too has my family. Ellie, who was just 15 months when I started the business, is now at school. Pete and I married in September 2005, and we have a new addition, Jasper, who was born in September 2008. No business owner would ever claim that running a business is easy, and ask a working mum how she sustains a business in the recession and you might get a slightly emotional answer! And yet, with a lot of support from my husband and the team in the studio I have a thriving business and a family I am immensely proud of. 

I've recently become a published author!  My first book, 'Exhibit Profitably', is an SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) guide to using exhibitions to grow your business.  So, if you're exhibiting soon or thinking about exhibiting in 2010, grab your copy today: either as an eBook or a real book, whichever you prefer.  And do let me know how you get on, I'd love to know!

And to the future? I look forward to the recession being over and being able to claw back a little more 'me time'. I'm really enjoying running my marketing workshops. Perhaps we'll meet at a networking event or one of our workshops soon! I do hope so.