Meet the Team: Kat Whittaker
Kat Whittaker is co-founder of the Isle of Man Women’s Collective and managing director of Peel-based No1. Accounts. Here, Kat, who lives in Sulby with her husband and two daughters, shares an insight into her business journey as well as her hopes for the Collective.
Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be running a business?
I left school at 16 and started working for a high street bank. 15 years later whilst I was pregnant with my second daughter I was sat in a "Born Monday, Die Friday" (if you know, you know) meeting and realised I didn't want to be in the corporate world anymore. I was part of a sales team and just knew I didn't have what it took to be a leader in that environment and knew I wanted something different.
I was incredibly lucky to spend the next 4 years being a stay at home mum to my 2 girls and in the evenings I studied accounting and gained an AAT qualification. When my youngest started school I found a job in an accounts team in what turned out to be one of the most awful toxic environments and I walked out of that job after just 3 months (which incidentally turned out to be the best move I ever made!).
A friend then mentioned she knew someone looking for a bookkeeper and I started working with a couple of clients from a desk in my living room.
Fast forward 4 years and I had just purchased my office building and 3 years later I have a team of 7. It's been one heck of a rollercoaster journey.
What are you most looking forward to about the IoM Women’s Collective?
In July 2021 I started the facebook group IOM Women Entrepreneurs as I wanted to create a space for other people like myself to come together. It can be a lonely place when you run your own business and I felt like a fish out of water on so many occasions! I was hoping to form a group where we would pick each others brains and ask questions in a safe space where you weren't going to be torn to pieces by the good old keyboard warriors.
I was, and still am, blown away at how many people joined and the lovely supportive community we have there. I hope we can take this to another level by providing support, training and events to bring together this lovely community and help others to reach their true potential.
If you could share one top tip with the group about being a woman in business, what would it be?
Put good boundaries in place from the start. I absolutely did not do this and thought I had to help everyone, at any time of day and then felt I couldn't possibly charge for that 8pm email on a Saturday so was doing an awful lot for free. That was doable (although absolutely not advisable) with 10 clients but when you have over 250 that's not achievable any more and leads to burn out and a lot of negative self talk as I felt the service I was providing wasn't as good as it used to be.
I absolutely set myself up for that and it took months of work with an amazing coach to help me put those boundaries in place and the result is my business has flourished even more afterwards. Also not one client has left me or even complained because I answer them on Monday morning now instead!