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Amethyst Training

Michelle Doherty

Michelle initially worked for Bass Brewing Company where she did an 18 month graduate training programme. This gave her insight and experience into accounts, personnel, recruitment, training and retail. It gave her lots of skills that would later come in very useful and also an insight into what she didn’t want to do, namely working in a ‘retail outlet’. That’s a pub to you and me! It was a very male dominated workplace and Michelle felt that she would either have to become ‘one of the boys’ or jump ship. Well, if you have ever met Michelle, you would know that she could no more be one of the boys than fly in the air!

So she took a health promotion post in the NHS looking at policies and systems and supporting the HR department. This eventually took her to The West Midlands and Birmingham where she worked in some very difficult communities. At this time, she was recently married to Neil, a professional footballer and had a young baby. She became very homesick for Barrow where she had an excellent support network, friends, family and a friendly Northern Community. She stressed how lucky she feels to live in the area where she is so close to the Lakes and the Sea and is part of a great community.

However, she put her homesickness to good use and used the opportunity to go back to uni to obtain a training qualification that has since been very useful in her career. She also learned how to work with communities to teach them how to access health education. For instance she introduced trainings with a crèche attached to them so that young mothers could attend.

On return to the area, she took on a very different and difficult job and rose to the occasion. She started working at the Lakeside YMCA helping them to develop a new identity. They moved from just delivering outdoor education to children to also delivering and catering for corporate trainings. Changing an established organisation’s identity was not easy but if you know the YMCA now, you will know that it has happened!

From there she had her second child and was juggling this with a part time job with Cumbria County Council coordinating Early Years Services in the education department. At this time, she started doing some free-lance training and there were too many plates spinning for comfort. Managing such a big project with part-time hours at the same time as dealing with more free-lance work than she expected made her start to realise that she was in danger of spreading herself too thin. It also made her realise that she had what it took to run her own business.

With the help of Furness Enterprise and the start up course she launched Amethyst Training. She got big contracts with Furness Enterprise, Cumbria County Council, Poole Townsend, Cumbria Volunteer Services and a variety of one-off organisations.

Most of her work came through word-of-mouth and her excellent reputation meant that she secured repeat work. She has never had to advertise and in fact does not even have a website at the moment. She has enough work to keep her busy for the foreseeable future, so she is in a good strong position.

Michelle gives great customer service and always delivers a little bit more than her clients expect. She builds good relationships easily and has the flexibility to work with people from all walks of life. She has a willingness to see things from different angles and as objectively as she can. Her passion and enthusiasm are evident in everything she does. She takes time to give people what they need and to take time to ensure that they are really clear about exactly what is required. She trains people to find their own solutions rather than providing solutions for them.

Her advice to other entrepreneurs in the area?

• Believe in yourself.
• Be prepared to work extremely hard. (Michelle says that she was nowhere near prepared for the extent of the work that it took her to get up and running.)
• Use your mistakes as learning experiences not as opportunities to beat yourself up!
• Understand where your project is financially at all times.
• Take time to reflect and change.
• Have planning meetings and clear goals of what you want your business to look like.
• Know the area and network.

Posted by Kay Hebbourn on 5th November.