5 things you might not know about By Kayleigh

Today we getting PERSONAL. But I realised, it’s been a while since I’ve been quite real with you guys. And I think sometimes, there is a lot to be learnt from peoples stories (take it from me, someone who interviews women on their incredible stories for my podcast!). So here are 5 things, you might not know about me or mine!

1) I came from a legal background.

You probably already know this one, I spoke briefly about it in my podcast. Originally, I went from being an arty kid, turning myself into zombies with my mums makeup, to losing my way a bit. When I went to high school, I vividly remember I was an academic kid. I loved to learn and I loved to do well (lol not much has changed there!). I remember, when it came to my GCSE and A levels I wanted to do Health and Social Care (I was really interested in learning how to help people) and art. I loved art. I wasn’t very good at it, but it fuelled me. My teachers vehemently told me, I absolutely could not do art. As a kid who was doing well in school, they told me “only thick people are hairdressers”. I look back and I think, this definitely stuck with me as a defining moment. As a young impressionable high schooler, I took this as gospel, and ended up doing more academic subjects, like business and history. I ended up ultimately doing law, which I can very much say was my teachers dream, NOT mine and at university, was honestly SO depressed. I was miserable, I hated what I was doing, and as a consequence, I sucked at it. As you can tell from the ending of this story, I did not stay with law, but I do credit law for helping me on my journey. From being sued by my old employers (that’s a story for another day!) to starting my etsy shop in 2020, my legal background has definitely played a part in my role.

2) By Kayleigh started as an Etsy shop.

In 2020, we were all stuck at home with an incredible amount of time on our hands. For me, I filtered that into starting something, incredibly scary and that was... this community right here - By Kayleigh. Originally I always posted business content on KayleighKMUA, I would post about rates, and treating your business like a business. But it was a little bit awkward, as that following often contained clients or the subject matter that I wanted to talk about! So I decided to create By Kayleigh, with my business Instagram content on a brand new platform, fit for talking about business but also, with my Etsy shop. In 2020 I squirrelled away, putting my law degree to good use and creating contracts and forms for makeup artists, a pain point I saw frequently with my peers not contracting their brides. I wanted to put that skill to use and help the community, which is what I did over on Etsy. I still have my little Etsy shop, which does get a bit of passive income every now and then, but as tech evolves, there is less use for PDF nowadays. But this small act of branching out led to what you see today!

3) My mentorship programme, originally started because of my ex.

I won’t credit him too much, in fact, not at all really. But he played a small part in my experience as a human. I met my ex in my mid 20’s, both of us working in retail. We moved to London together and each grew in our careers, with his growing a bit faster you could say. He got a considerable promotion when we were together. At the time, I was doing my thing, building my business, but working full time at MAC at the time desperate to drop hours as my business started to get busier. He offered to take full financial responsibility so that I could give up my job at the time. Now don't get me wrong, I've always had a good head on these shoulders. I still paid for what I could, but he paid for more as I built my business, which was still relatively new. I thought that decision came from love, but I realised after, it came from control. And when he cheated on me, inevitably he "paid for everything". Everything was his in his eyes. The house, the dog (that I paid for LOL), everything. I found texts calling me a gold digger to his new woman, completely forgetting the contributions I was making, the furniture I bought, the dog I paid for, the holidays I took us on. I was backed into a corner and face to face with the fact, I wasn't financially independent. I sadly didn’t have savings, as I poured them into my business. I had to go back home, completely unable to afford living in London at that time, effectively loosing my business, my clientele, everything. Or so I thought. After heading back home to my parents, licking my wounds, healing in a forest (true story), I started the build myself back up and this time, with a new attitude. I needed to learn money, I needed to change my mindset with money. I never wanted to be in that position again, where someone takes everything from me, where someone makes me feel so small and so insignificant. So this course, is FUELLED, by that. I never want a woman to feel like that. I want every woman to have freedom, independence and to be able to stand on their own 2 feet. I want women to be able to leave situations which aren’t great, because I’ll be honest, I thought about leaving so many times. But I didn’t, because I couldn’t. That course, COMES from that experience.

4) I didn’t earn a profit last year.

I spoke about this on Instagram, and how I just did my tax return. I didn’t earn a profit last year. I spent more than I made. But here’s the thing.

I also invested into 3 mentors. I paid for 3 huge courses to up level my knowledge.
Upgraded my 10 year old laptop for a fully spec'd up MAC. She’s pink. She’s speedy. She’s everything.
I built and launched a membership site. Not a mean feat. That investment alone was over 9K.
I hired my first staff member. Yay Claire!

Every single investment pays off and I am ready for my business to grow 10 x more in the coming years. I can feel it coming and I am excited! But it did suck at the time. I think people think, just because I sit here and talk about money, I earn loads of it. I do well, but I also am growing and building my own business. I’m certainly not living a lavish lifestyle (maybe this year!) and thats OK. I’m growing with this community and I’ll always be honest about that.

5) I built this entire thing, on a 10 year old MacBook and in my bedroom.

I guess related to my last point, By Kayleigh came from a lot of courage. A bit of risk. A lot of investment. But it also came from working with what I had. No time was perfect. I was building this site, my Etsy and every single product, including the MUA PA - on a 10 year old MacBook. I upgraded this year because for the podcast and the demanding editing requirements for that. If I had waited until I had the budget, until I had the resources to upgrade my computer to build those things, they still wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t be here. No time is perfect, and I realised that in 2020. Sometimes we gotta work with what we have. I live in a teeny 2 bedroom flat, and I do a podcast and operate this very business, my mentorship and everything I have ever built, from the desk at the bottom of my bed. I would LOVE more space, and one day I will have that. Clients come to me, my setup isn’t perfect or aesthetic. But it’s cosy, its’s clean and it works. I guess my final point is, the time is never right. There will always be something better. Someone always has a better setup or a nicer computer, or someone will always just do it better. But that doesn’t mean you CAN’T do it. Use what you have right now.