Episode Details

So today it feels appropriate that I write you a letter, from my kitchen table to yours…

If I had your addresses, I would have written you an ‘in-real-life’ letter that would have plopped onto your doormat and delighted you as you flipped through your post and realised it wasn’t a bill and that someone had taken the time to write your name and address by hand.

Because that’s what Countrywoman’s Guide feels like to me - a reminder that considered moments are important and need to be honoured.

So, my dear reader, let’s begin…

I know that to honour the rites of “launching” a membership, we should have been jumping up and down in your inbox and reminding you constantly that it’s happening - and I do truly believe that there is a time and place for that for the right reason.

But I also believe that there’s room for us all to do things in the way that suits us, and CWG is a slow burn project. We’re very happy to start and let people see what’s happening and for people to make their way into the paid community when they’re ready. We will put some emails together explaining more of the detail, but if you have any questions before that, please do just message us and ask - please don’t be nervous to do so.

Firstly, let me start off by saying that what we are currently doing (our podcast interviews and posts) will remain free. We started CWG because we believe passionately that hearing other people’s stories is one of the best learning tools and confidence builders there is, and many people have fed back to us that a guest has inspired them to do something.

We also know that we have listeners who don’t run a business, but do enjoy hearing the founder stories from the brands they love, in fact some of our non-business readers have pledged a monthly subscription to help us continue sharing stories - which we are very grateful for.

Secondly, let’s explain why that paid community is aimed at people who are running businesses.

I (Emma) am absolutely passionate about being an entrepreneur, and over the past few years I have helped many people with advice about their business. I’m lucky enough that Rachel Collins and Charlotte Hurst who are also part of CWG are just as passionate about creating something that helps people move their business forward.

The three of us are also great believers in work/life integration - I say integration because hand on heart, none of us can say that we don’t have days when work is all-encompassing and there’s not much room for anything else.

I just mean that we don’t look at work as being something that happens in isolation - it’s part of our lives, but we make a conscious effort to ensure that it doesn’t come at the cost of our families or ourselves.

That’s why our content pillars cover Work, Life and You - because you are the one that often gets overlooked, that never has a moment - and that needs to change. You are the foundation and without you being strong, everything else feels really hard.

So within the Community we’ll be running monthly sessions which cover our three content pillars - sharing with you about how to do business better and live life well.

We’ll be showing you: how to ensure that you harvest the profits from the ideas that you have, practical sessions on legals, understanding your figures and trademarks, better ways to manage all the things you do, as well as guest speakers and time for you to spend working on, rather than in, your business. You’ll also get first access to our CWG lunches and events, because in our humble opinion getting together around a table is a great way to build a community.

But most importantly, slowly and surely you’ll get to know each other and in time you will have built a support network of your own that you can r