Consulting, Leadership, Modern Career
From headhunting to organic FMCG entrepreneurship. A story of a modern career transition.
Are you thinking about taking on a new direction in life and work ? Looking for an inspiration?
This article is for you. Monika Budzyńska used her extensive headhunting experience to set-up an organic FMCG company. She shares her know-how, mistakes, lessons learnt and rules for success with Coachify.
Monika, please tell us about your career transition and your new business.
I have been working professionally for more than 10 years and it has been mostly in the headhunting industry. However something has changed in my life a lot. I have had some health issues lately and that made me discover the natural medicine and healthy lifestyle. This experience changed my point of view and my life extremely. I started to eat organic, do sports, be with the nature more often and got a dog – a cute Maltese called Lucy. Once I had done it all I felt like I was ready for more changes and I needed to do something professionally connected with health and ecology themselves. This was the time I decided to set up BioInspire, organic FMCG distribution and sales representative company. I haven’t left the headhunting business fully yet however I am strongly focused on developing my company at the moment. There is a great vision behind BioInspire. I would like to inspire people to lead a healthy lifestyle by sharing my knowledge and also delivering the products that I find healthy. And this is actually not that obvious once you go through what is being sold in organic shops. That’s why BioInspire is so unique, we only represent the chosen manufacturers. Following the vision of BioInspire, I am really happy to have such possibility of participating in Coachify’s interview.
We are happy to have you here. Can you tell us how difficult was your career transition?
Actually it was not that hard for me even though my professional experience might sound completely different from what I do now. However I can see many common characteristics. First of all, head-hunters sale their services and candidates to their customers. They have to approach new clients, candidates, set up the relations and maintain them. Head-hunters need to be active on social media just to be recognizable on the market they operates on. This is something I do on a daily basis at BioInspire. I gather information, approach new customers, analyze the market and create the new brand recognition on the Polish market.
Have you ever considered setting up a headhunting business?
Yes, I have always dreamt of having my own business and considered to set up a headhunting agency, which would be much easier for me for sure. However once I became passionate about the healthy lifestyle and ecology, it was clear for me I would like to do something related to that. I wanted to connect my work with my passion and to do something good simultaneously.
What was the most challenging in the new role?
The most challenging within new role of the start-up company owner was finding the balance between my personal life and the professional one. This is the most difficult when your home is becoming your office as well. You need to be really organized and mature just to balance these two. There was one thing that helped me here – it was committing some particular space to be the workplace. So each morning I just go to work, which means, going to that particular place where I have the computer, printer and so on.
Moreover, at the very beginning it was also challenging to treat it seriously as a real company and not some kind of hobby. I mean all the deadlines, targets. You have no boss here to tell you what your target looks like or what exactly you need to do, thus you need to set up some goals to be met in order to be able to organize your time and know what exactly you want to achieve. You need to have a strong self-discipline to manage yourself and not to forget about the goal you planned and what exactly need to be done. It may all look terrifying but believe me, it is worth it.
What do you like the most being your own boss ?
I think the independence is something extremely amazing once you are your own boss. This is something I have always dreamt of. I mean you organize yourself, so if you find the current weather amazing and you would like to go biking – you just do it. After an hour or two you come back to your responsibilities. And this is something I really adore. Moreover, you have no barriers when you work on your own. Everything can be done, no one would tell you that you are not authorized to do something. You are the creator of the vision and its further execution. Last but not least, there is no one to tell you what to do!
Who supported you?
I must admit I have been receiving a lot of help from my partner and my friends. They are extremely helpful as I have started to learn fields I have never had any experience of. I can also count on them within law, logistics, marketing consulting. Once you set up your own business you find a need of becoming a lawyer, IT guy, marketing specialist, sales person, secretary and the accountant. So if you have resources to hire them all – you are really lucky. If not, just look around. There are plenty of people that would help you. Just ask.
Looking back, what are the mistakes you made? What did you learn?
Actually I have made so many mistakes and I am sure I will make some more. I mean all the small things you do on a daily basis while working a new industry. If I could go back to the very beginning, I would have created all the marketing materials, website and Facebook fan page first. And only after that I would have started the proper business. It is just because there is plenty of work to be done at the beginning and it is extremely difficult to do all these things simultaneously with no quality loss for any of them.
Your own “Rules for success”?
I believe the success is yet to come so I will be happy to answer your questions within a year or two! However I am sure that the rules I had in headhunting business would be also suitable for BioInspire. First of all, this is the ambition and faith that you can achieve your goal. If you find it realistic, you will do everything to accomplish that. Of course if you are not taking the risk, the success probably won’t come. Moreover, you should practice your communication skills as those are crucial in each business. What is more, keep on going even though everyone will tell you it does not make any sense. Remember that probably it won’t be easy to set up your business and to build the recognition of your brand in competitive market. However if you continue, be consistent and positive about it as there is a high probability you will achieve the success. I really hope I will!
Good luck to you all with your business!
Thank you for sharing your experience Monika, we wish you a lot of fun and even more successes.
You can contact Monika via her website / Facebook page.
Pictures: Kinga Strzeszewska and Canva
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