Going smaller to get bigger 🇫🇷
Reflections on my career pivot and some of the juicy stats
Hiya 🌊! I’m Lucy from Hype Yourself. This week, I’m sharing my journey from a PR agency owner in London to a part-time writer in France. I’ll dive into what I’ve learned about motherhood, solopreneurship, and growing a paid Substack. Plus, my plans for 2025!
Quick Back Story
I worked for some of London’s Top PR agencies and have done everything from celebrity red-carpet events to experiential brand activations, global press offices, crisis PR, and corporate profiles.
In 2014, I left because I wanted to set up my own thing.I didn’t intentionally mean to set up an agency, but I had a team and office at the end of my first year.
I started with the traditional agency model of retained clients and employees. Then, I switched to higher fee-paying project work with a freelance team.
Later, an education arm evolved to support those who couldn’t afford agency fees.
Starting in France
Three years ago, I did a three-month trial of living in France, and I started to get brands looking to work with me.
I was already growing my roster of teaching opportunities, and it felt like going all in on the education side could be an option. Once here, on my third maternity leave, I realised I was done with clients. (Never say never; I may return, but it does not feel right now).
Honestly, my leadership skills were not tip-top either, and I found managing staff and recruiting great freelancers hard.
On the DIY side, my biggest challenge was identifying the right product I should be selling.
Most advice is selling a high-ticket item, getting a team, scaling, etc. I was told I had a money mindset problem if I ever questioned this model.
In that instance, I don't.
I want to help people who don’t have the budgets to promote themselves because that's precisely the audience I want to see succeed.
Small business owners and solopreneurs will leave the world a better place.
Return of the mat
Every maternity leave has been transformative in my business in different ways. With a third child in France, I needed a new working method.
My priorities are different.
I need to learn French. I need to get confident and comfortable in exploring my new environment.
I don’t think you can overestimate how much unlearning of your habits you have to do when you go from a busy agency life in a hectic bubble like London to a rural life where you can’t speak the language.
Stumbling onto this platform and finding it a good fit happened by chance when I wanted to reduce my MailChimp and Thinkific costs.
Watching an introduction to
talk where said “Turn on paid immediately” became my new work mantra.Instantly, I started to see my paid readers secure press coverage and profile-raising opportunities for themselves from a quick DM chat with me or a nugget from one of our monthly lives.
I never found online courses to have such an immediate transformative effect.
This newsletter community felt great because it became a live and ever-evolving way for me to learn, and I could see the results!
I’d found a winner.
How I Made It Happen
I became a bestseller in just over a month.
I will not sell you a course on ‘how to become a bestseller’, because I want to give you the honest truth behind that…