What is my Why?
In today’s blog I am going to be asking ‘What is my why?’ how does my business relate to my why and how do I keep in touch with my why after 16 years of running my greeting card company.
If you prefer to listen to the audio you can listen to this post here on the podcast.
I am Fay Martin founder of Fay’s Studio. I am going to delve into how I started my greeting card business in the depths of recession in 2009 to today where I am today selling thousands of cards all over the world. Follow my journey one step at a time through the blood, sweat and tears of being an entrepreneur whilst dealing with the challenges of living with 2 chronic auto-immune diseases. Join in the ups and downs of a being solopreneur, and get lots of tips and tricks on how to evolve and pivot your business in an ever-changing and challenging retail landscape.
You might be here to get some info on my brand whether you’re a retailer, a designer, a start-up or you have a chronic illness and need to find something relatable, I hope you’ll find it all here, let’s go!
In the blog notes at the bottom, I’ll leave you some handy links to explore.
I turned 40 in 2023 and it was a milestone for so many reasons, as I got to travel to Japan which had been on my bucket list for 20 years, so much had got in the way of my dream in my 20s and 30s, so it had always been on the backburner because I was never well enough to travel, I couldn’t even walk around the block some days, so a long haul flight was never going to happen so it seemed.
I went to Japan with my best friend in April last year and after the most amazing 11 day trip, and reaching that target I was so proud of myself and just so thankful that I got to do it. When I got to see the views of Mount Fuji and my friend said ‘you did it’ and embraced me, I know what he really meant, so that’s where I’m going to start right at the beginning.
To know where you are now and how for you’ve come you have to look back on what it took to get there, and so just after the holiday I was left feeling kind of empty, like what is my why now. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I’d just lost my mojo. They say when a Birthday celebration ends with a zero, it usually causes some sort of crisis! I was doing the everyday tasks, and fulfilling my orders, illustrating, but I just felt like a robot, and every day was ground hog day and everything was beginning to feel like a thankless task and I was just a slave to paying the mortgage and the food bills and the insurance and keeping a roof over my head. I was honestly feeling really low, I was becoming more and more isolated from my industry friends and customers because for so long I was too unwell to be there in person on my trade show stands, and my Mum or my agent was stepping in to meet and greet buyers and visitors on my behalf all of the time. I realised that I was totally out of touch with everyone. I would get to the exhibition hall and then have to turn right round and go home again because I was just too unwell to work, and this just wasn’t working as I was missing opportunities by not being there to see buyers and strike up conversations about my products. It was really eating into my confidence and my happiness to feel so disconnected and faceless.
Then one day in June, I’m at home in the studio when out of the blue, a little card landed on my doormat, the envelope itself was just big enough for my address and a stamp, it was so cute, and it was addressed, To, Fay’s Studio. I thought what could be so small, it couldn’t be a cheque from a customer that sometimes come, and who writes to me anyway, it’s not my birthday. So I open the card and inside reads ‘ Dear Fay’, so already I am thinking this is someone who wants to show that it is personal, ‘Thank you for the wonderful cards that my lovely husband, Nick purchased from you. They are all outstanding beautiful cards that I will be very proud to send. I very much appreciate good quality cards and designs. I know I will most certainly have some comments from the cards to post. I still like to bless my friends with lovely cards and I enjoy writing to a few people. P.S. Thank you for a hand written note on the invoice. I know where to buy more cards in the future. Best wishes from Jayne’.
Well it hit me that I felt that warm fuzzy feeling as the dopamine hits you, when out of nowhere someone has thought of you. I am in the very industry that prides itself on connecting people. I know all too well that the trade off of covid was that everyone was so isolated.
Do you remember those chain letters back in the 90’s when you had to make 10 copies of the letter and send them to 10 friends otherwise something bad would happen? I used to do those all of the time, and during covid the government constantly writing to me to tell me it’s not safe for me to go out because of my immunosuppression, it was like receiving those dreadful chain letters. The letters of doom.
So this card that landed on my doormat, was the catalyst to this very podcast, and why I felt I had a story to tell now, because don’t we all need a reminder from time to time of our ‘why’ so I need to take you right back to the start of my journey with my health issues to help you understand how I achieved everything I did in spite of illness, and in spite of all the adversity to come in my life. In order to understand my business and my brand you’re going to need to hear this so keep reading.
In 2002 I studied art and design in Falmouth College of Arts, I then specialised in BA Honours Illustration at the arts institute in Bournemouth. During the Christmas break of 2004, I was visiting my family back in Gloucestershire, and it was at this time I discovered I was bleeding from my bowel. I don’t remember too much about that time because the brain has a good way of coping with sudden adversity when you’re young. I remember I was referred to a specialist in Gastroenterology in Bournemouth, had the various tests, colonoscopies, etc, and was told that I had Ulcerative Colitis. Well, they may as well have been talking in Latin, because I’d never heard of it, and at that age, you think, well I just take some pills and it goes way, right? Wrong! They said eventually at this time as we are talking 20 years ago, 70% of people go on to have surgery to remove the bowel to have a stoma fitted, and the doctor showed me an illustration of what that looked like, and keeping in mind I’m an illustrator at this point, I’m looking at this image thinking why is he showing this to me, that’ll never be me. At the same time I was also diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, and this all made sense because I was getting gastro intestinal pain all of the time, and I was catching a cold every 3 months, Mum told me I always looked peaky, that’s her words, as quite often coeliac disease causes anaemia because you are not absorbing vitamins and minerals because of the damage caused in your gut. So 2 autoimmune diseases to worry about, a new strict food plan to adhere to, where at the time I used to get flour, pasta and biscuits on prescription. The sort of bread you could knock a nail in with. I had to have an endoscopy down my throat for these tests too so I was having a bit of a rough time of it, whilst tyring to complete my degree. From 2005 up until 2015, I was back into what is known as remission, as in inflammatory bowel disease you have times of flare and times of remission, so I had a good 10 years with no trouble what so ever I lead a relatively normal life except not being able to order that pizza with friends!
After Uni, I didn’t find work in my industry instantly, I got temp jobs in admin just to pay my bills, cleaning jobs, data entry jobs, anything and everything to clear debt and keep on renting by the sea, but it all got too much for me. I had black mould in my flat, I had a landlord who left me with a gaping hole in the hallway for months with water pouring in and a washing up bowl catching the water I emptied twice a day. The mould gave me sickening migraines and chronic sinus infections so I had to get out, plus at this time on my minimum wage and trying to clear students loans I was priced out of renting and had to move back to Gloucestershire to live with my Mum and Dad. There I got a job with Astra Zeneca where I stayed for a year, where I met my husband to be, and I then moved onto what had become my dream job role of being a visual merchandiser. I had leaned towards this during Uni and I was obsessed with window dressing at this point, I even got some work experience at Lush learning their hand-painted fonts and designing for their windows. So I got a role at the largest of the Debenhams, we had the most windows of any of their stores, and it was a never ending fun and fabulous job and the people were great that I worked with, but my goodness it was such hard work, and it wasn’t that long before I started to notice the effects it was having on me. I was up at 5am and in bed by 8pm every weekday, just trying to make it work. One day I was up a tall ladder painting a column in the store, and I had a sudden wobble and head rush at the top of the ladder, which was weird, and I came down, I’d finished the painting and thought no more of it. Weeks passed and as I was arriving at work one day, I’d entered the pin to get into the back stairwell of the store, signed in to the staff log book and started my climb of the 3 flights of stairs, and to my horror when I got to the third flight I couldn’t breathe, and when I say breathe I mean I was using my lungs but it was like I was suddenly transported to the top of Everest because literally no oxygen was supplying my lungs and it was frightening. I tried to regain some composure and strength sitting on the stairs until things returned to some sort of normal. I walked as far as the homeware section, and the voice in my head said, there’s something really wrong and you need to sign out and you need to call your Mum and go home. I was right, I had some blood tests and I was told that my iron levels were so low that I would need to go to hospital for an iron infusion. This was scheduled within days, so off to Gloucester hospital I went, just this weak little twig. The nurse attempted to get a canula in at my elbow but she was struggling to get a vein and because she was struggling, I got all weird, lights were flashing and my vision tunnelled, and I passed. I woke up on a bed surrounded by nurses and I was on the monitor with all the wires, I passed out again and this time in my out of it dream state, a steam train came right towards me, hit me, and snapped me out of it. I slowly came around to find the canula was in and I gradually woke. My Mum had watched the whole thing unfold, she said I had been having seizures and she thought she was going to lose me.
Anyway 6 hours later and the iron infusion was complete and I left the hospital feeling so much better, but I knew I was never going back to work in visual merchandising. I just knew.
Then of course the recession hit, and although I was trying to find some sort of work, with no driving license in rural countryside it’s pretty hard to find anything I wanted to do. I had to sign on, just to get a bit of pocket money and a reason to leave the house to look for work but there was nothing. So this was a pivotal moment, and I love the term pivot. I will come onto that, but it has become my favourite word in business.
It all started in a box room.
My Mum encouraged me to paint again and I put some of my work up in a local art exhibition. I met a man there, a local artist who asked if he could license my art to use and sell as greeting cards. He already sold cards and thought my designs would do well, so that was it, this was my first licensing deal. Writing the terms and agreement was a bit tricky to begin with but the designs did well and he licensed more, but the as things go, things got a bit weird if you know what I mean, and he was asking me out on dates, and bear in mind he’s nearly as old as my Dad so that business deal quickly bombed, but by this point anyway I was already thinking. If he can sell my designs, why can’t I?! Now I remember being told at Uni, to not go into the greetings industry, it’s too hard, you can’t make good money at it, and of course if anything is difficult in life I’m sure to give it a go and ignore the good advice! So off I went, and I loved it so much! I enrolled onto New Deal which was a government backed scheme to get business start-ups into their business, you got £40 per week, and I attended meetings with my mentor who wasn’t all that punctual and that used to get my goat, because I was so full of ambition at that this point that any time wasted really frustrated me. I really needed more help, and perhaps some further funding to get the products off the ground, and so I visited the Prince’s Trust website, I don’t know who mentioned them, but I registered my interest to join their business enterprise course, and this was the best decision I ever made. Within a few months, I was on their course, building my business plan, meeting like-minded young people and I was matched with a mentor who I am still in contact with to this day. I also applied for their start up grant, and so this helped me to fund my first website and to buy my stock. I started out creating cute valentines day cards and also fashion illustration cards, and with a little sales trolley that my mentor gifted me, I went out on my sales adventure (with no car remember) I took the bus, train and by foot trudged the streets of Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, some of the Cotswolds and surrounding areas, and cold called every shop, I could find, whether it was a card shop, a fashion store, a book shop a florist, a pet shop, you name it, I put on my big girl pants and I drove those sales all the way to the bank, and it wasn’t long at all before I had enough money to exhibit at my first trade exhibition, PG Live in London in 2010, and I will come back to that because I could go further on a tangent here, but I want to come back to how I built the business in the next posts.
So it’s now 2013, I had left my parents house to move in with my boyfriend at the time, he was doing teacher training in the midlands hence the move to Lichfield, we got engaged the next year, and decided to buy a house. Being self-employed I was judged quite harshly by the lenders, I wasn’t a solid contender for a mortgage so back I went into fashion retail, working the same silly hours again, running two jobs, carrying 15kg boxes half a mile to work just to send out my distribution orders and keep my business open, whilst earning a measly £6.50 per hour to make me mortgage worthy, and within 6 months I am a stone lighter, and the symptoms of colitis are coming back. It was such a stressful time, working two jobs, moving house, and fixing up the home, planning a wedding and then my beloved Nan was sick and passed away, and the retail job under today’s standards was horrendous and toxic. I remember scenes of being so dehydrated for going long periods without even a chance to get water, that one day I was so thirsty I got up into the staff area, like a scene from lord of the rings when Frodo and Sam are climbing the volcano with the ring, and they have hardly any water left and end up getting most of it on their face because they are so distressed well it was like that, I nearly drowned myself trying to drink so quickly because I was beyond desperation at this point. I am 5 ft 11 and just over 9 stone at this point, I was always told by my specialist to maintain a healthy weight of between 10 and 10 and a half stone in order to keep well, and always hydrated because of my illness, and this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was getting into designer size 6 dresses and looking in the mirror at a gaunt, unhealthy little twig again. Needless to say, I had to walk out of this job in the middle of the day for my own survival. I knew I was never going back.
So when this bright yellow card with a blue butterfly and golden foiled text reading thank you arrived, I felt instantly connected, seen, and this thank you reminded me that what I do is really important. During covid I felt like what I did was as important as some of the keywork going on because families were so isolated from their loved ones, there was so much confusion, and anger and heartbreak. The greetings industry played a huge role in keeping people connected, and since the high street shops were closed for long periods of time us online sellers had to step in and step up. In January of 2022 my sales turnover, on just 1 of my d2c platforms was £40,000, which was an increase on a like for like year of more than 1500%. I was working 8am to 10pm every day, and nearly having a breakdown, but this was my ‘why’ I had to not complain and just knuckle down, because customers needed me to help. My parents moved in for a week under the guise of being staff just to help me label orders and help with the postal shuttles to the various royal mail boxes around town, and they were always full to brim. It was an exhausting time, but it was a lucky problem, as it really distracted me from the truth that actually I was feeling really lonely because I was shielding, and feeling quite scared by it all, even during clap for carers I would only clap from an upstairs window because I was too scared to get too close to anyone, and it now seems rather preposterous to think of, because when I actually got covid in the end, yes I was poorly, but it had nothing on the years that I had suffered from Colitis and the misery of that battle, but mentally it was more damaging for me and really affected my anxiety which I had been suffering from for years. Colitis has a way of isolating you too, I had to constantly cancel plans with friends and family and I spent almost a decade of missing out. One year I counted 28 doctors appointments not even counting the hospital stays. In 2017 I had the worse flare up of all time and had to be rushed to A&E because I was losing enormous amounts of blood, I had to be kept in for 4 nights to have intravenous steroids, the equivalent of a months worth of steroid in 24 hours. My body had become steroid dependent and no medications were working up to this point. I was put onto a biologic drug then administered by injection which I did bi-weekly at home, and a nurse visited me to show me how to inject. I was married then but now I am not, sometimes disease takes its toll and has an impact greater than you’d expect. In fact if it had not been for my sudden sales surge in 2022 I would not have even been able to pay off the sum of £25,000 required by the mortgage lender to give me a mortgage deal yet again. So covid afforded me the security of my home, and I was able to build my studio and extend my workspace as well which I am so pleased with.
So I come back to my why. I realised recently that I had been for too long attaching my why to paying the bills, attaching my why to the overheads, you might do the same, with your staff and business rates, and buying wholesale products, and paying insurance and utilities and so on, and before you know it you’re not connecting with your community, you’re not reaching out to locals and local groups, and you’ve got your beautiful store but customers aren’t visiting because you’ve lost face and you’ve lost your why, and social media is working for us and against us, but remind yourself of your whys. when you’re not being mum, when you’re not being a carer or the breadwinner, when you are just on autopilot and it’s groundhog day, you are not growing, you are not connecting.
When you separate your why from your responsibilities, that is when you can find true freedom and the real meaning in what you do, and when you reignite that love of what you do, you will find the energy to pivot and regain focus, whether that is in your creative job, or whether you’re a key worker, or whether you work for a charity, or you’re a start up entrepreneur, or a cleaner, or a barista or you are suffering from an illness, I really believe that if you’ve lost your why, it’s still there, we all have a part to play, you just have to rediscover it.
My Why today is being on a one woman mission to help connect hundreds of thousands of people with their family and friends through sending cards with personal heartfelt messages that stand the test of time.
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