We know to invest in training our bodies but we don’t tend to focus on training our minds. Yet when we do, the positive impact on our lives can be phenomenal.
Kindness Gurus, Kelly and Harriet, are on a mission to inspire positive change to people’s lives throughout the world.
If you’re stuck in a rut, can’t achieve that promotion or dreaming of starting a business, take action today and book a virtual 1-2-1 meeting for advice and inspiration to help you live a happy life and have a successful career.
Each meeting will be 1 hour in duration and will be led by you and your goals as an individual. Prices are on an individual basis only and start at £249.
Are you a corporate looking to inspire positive change in your teams and impact profitability in your business? Click here to view our range of Corporate Workshops.
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Having built a Multi-Million pound business from scratch, Kelly Allison and Harriet Gisbourne have incredible determination, resilience and a desire to help others around them succeed in what makes them happy in their careers.
Kelly started KVA whilst on maternity leave with her first daughter. ‘I knew I’d always wanted to build a business but kept finding reasons not to start.’ After battling several health challenges, Kelly pushed through and KVA was born in her spare room with £200 in the bank. Fast forward a couple of years later and Harriet arrives for an interview – the only applicant without a degree. But Harriet’s energy and positive attitude led to her being hired and regularly promoted, enabling her to be made Managing Director by the age of 26.
With a recent offer to purchase their agency for tens of millions, the ladies declined. ‘We want to keep going until we have fulfilled our purpose; to positively impact people. We still have a long way to go as KVA and we’re not in this to just make some money and retire. We genuinely care about the people we employ and being able to give back to them.’
‘After 5 years in business, we had a record year and decided to give back to the team, taking them on an all expenses paid holiday to St Lucia, closing the office down for a week!’
A few years after starting the business, they came close to losing it all after walking away from their largest client representing millions of pounds of income to the agency. ‘We watched our happy, motivated team slowly being negatively impacted by a client who abused them and treated them like rubbish.’ Taking a stand, the ladies put their ‘People before Profits’ mentality into action and fired them and that’s when things changed for the better. Everyone in the agency sprung into action and the team, inspired by their leaders, went all out on new business. ‘That’s when we realised the collective power of human drive’, says Kelly. Most companies still don’t harness this and when they reach challenging times, employees will turn their backs.
But they kept focused on their purpose and bravely pushed through to have seven figures of cash behind them. As serial entrepreneurs, Kelly and Harriet are also co-owners of a Pilates & Fitness Brand, Live Brave, with Louse Buttler and Golddust the app with DJ Fresh – a new safe and inclusive social media platform.
Kelly was inspired to start the business after working for a large corporate in London and seeing how badly managers were treating their teams. ‘People lacked any motivation and didn’t really care about or understand their role within the organisation. They felt like a cog in a big machine. I knew that I could build something whereby people loved coming to work, they understood how they can help the company to achieve its mission and most importantly, their job positively impacts on every area of their lives.’ There is often a disconnect between a companies values on paper versus what employees live and breathe everyday.
This experience led to Kelly and Harriet founding the initiative Corporate Kindness, working with companies of all sizes to encourage empathy and compassion within leadership teams and a mindset focused on empowering people. “Employment norms are archaic and the reason why so many people want to be self-employed is to have the freedom and flexibility. But what if we can build companies where you have the security of being employed, without these old fashioned restraints.’ As an example, KVA now offer all employees Unlimited Paid Holiday with the idea that, as adults, we are all able to decide for ourselves when and how we take time out. As long as customers aren’t affected, everyone is free to make their own choices.
‘Offering Unlimited Paid Holiday has had a transformative effect on the growth of the business, the quality of client work and the happiness of employees. As an owner, we don’t track our holiday, so why should anyone else?’
Harriet has spent years feeling like she has to prove herself, battling stereotypes on her age and her glam appearance. This has been a driver for her to help people to overcome whatever personal battles they face that ultimately hold us back from fulfilling our dreams. ‘So many of us have dreams, yet so often that small voice inside our heads tells us all the reasons why we can’t achieve them; that we’re not good enough, we’re too young, too old, don’t have enough experience… Sometimes you just need to take action and believe in yourself.’
Over the years, Kelly and Harriet have been contacted by thousands of people telling their stories of being unhappy at work, being bullied, under paid, overlooked for that promotion… the list is endless. ‘We realised that people don’t feel comfortable discussing their challenges openly on LinkedIn so we devised a new platform whereby people can seek advice from their peers (anonymously if they wish).’ The power is within all of us to make these positive changes and we hope we can continue to inspire people all over the world.
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