Having worked as a PA to CEO’s for more than 7 years, there are always two periods in every year which were dedicated to sitting down to plan the year ahead – January and September! This time was spent setting objectives for staff, organising appraisal reviews and to plan SMT/Directors’ meetings. Now as a self-employed sole trader my objectives are slightly different and it’s myself I have to plan for the year ahead.

I was recently at the excellent Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council workshop delivered by Digital DNA (part of the optimise 2.0 programme) about writing web /article content and the speakers suggested always writing about topics that you have a certain amount of expertise in, so I’m writing this article on Top 10 places to meet for business outside the office. This is written from several perspectives:

What does it take to make the leap to self-employment?

This is the question on the lips of anyone who’s ever thought about leaving the security of a full time job to go it alone. Making the decision is the first step, but how to turn that into a reality and stick at it is not always as clear cut.

Three years ago, I was working as a Personal Assistant (PA) to a senior Director in the headquarters of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where I’d gone to work 9yrs previously as a bi-lingual Project Administrator. I’d got to the stage in my career where I could go as far as I wanted in my grade and had already taken a sideways step to get more experience. I knew I wanted to use the skills I already had developed in 14yrs of varied administrative posts: customer –orientated , knowledge sharing, adapting to different personalities , evolving with new technologies and working with a high level of autonomy but I wasn’t quite sure which way to turn as I couldn’t find a role which was demanding and interesting enough.