By now I’m sure you will all have at least heard about if not seen the #IrelandInspires video uploaded to YouTube by Failte Ireland (if you haven’t seen it check it out here ). I watched it earlier and got that familiar goose bumpy, hair standing on end rush of pride and belonging. I don’t know what it is or why it is but I am so fiercely proud of my roots and absolutely love being Irish. I realise this may sound silly to some but I can’t help it – its just the way I am.  Now don’t get me wrong – I’ve been let down, many times, by our fair island and the people who run it but no matter how hard I try and how angry I want to get I just can’t stop loving my roots. In that spirit and the spirit of #IrelandInspire I thought I would share my story to date…

In 2008 I left my Marketing & Sales Manager role in DCU Sports Complex and started to work for a large English software company looking after their Irish division. I was actually offered the job on St Patricks day after a round of interviews by phone and then in head office in the UK, thankfully the phone call came at about 10am in the morning so I hadn’t yet begun to drink! The job, while challenging was great as I got to drive around Ireland every day to visit clients, to sell to them and see how they ran their leisure clubs and to try to offer help, support and assistance. My background in managing clubs helped greatly here. I had over 250 clients across the island of Ireland and have seen some of the most beautiful spaces and stayed in amazing hotels as well as of course seeing some of the less functional parts of Irish life – one example that comes to mind is the day I was run off the “road” (also know as a dirt track  about the width of an average car with grass growing up the middle where perhaps you would expect to see a white line or cats eyes). The owner of the offending vehicle who caused me to swerve  and capsize into the “grassy verge” (aka a ditch)  jumped out of his jeep profusely apologetic, and helped lift me out of my car. He immediately got on the phone to his friends and within minutes there was an army of locals on hand to eventually pull my car out of the ditch via a chain attached to a tractor. I mean – who can’t love a story like that?!

However, I digress, the job was wonderful  but I was a small cog in a large corporate wheel and asking for features and functionality for a “handful” of clients was an ongoing struggle. I was amazed at the ignorance amongst some people with England often being referred to as “the mainland” and even people not understanding why we couldn’t accept sterling! I became a piggy in the middle of unhappy clients looking for more and a company unable to provide this for a small segment of their customer base. I was vocal about the issues, perhaps too vocal and the issues finally came to a head when my employers were acquired by a large Canadian company in 2010. Ireland was deemed unviable to trade in and myself and the other remaining member of staff were to be made redundant. I was gutted.

To put this into context I should explain that  I am an absolute workaholic who only ever wanted to be hugely successful in business. In school when asked what I wanted to be I always said an entrepreneur but never knew doing what exactly. In 2007, having worked incredibly hard and saved a lot of money I bought my first (and now likely to be last) property as part of my “5 year Plan”. I bought a 3 bedroomed apartment for €330,000 as part of the Ballymun Regeneration scheme. Needless to say my property will probably never sell let alone for anything close to my mortgage and don’t get me started on the failings of the regeneration project! When I lost my job I lost my sense of self, my confidence and my purpose in life. Thankfully I had an amazing man by my side to help keep me upbeat.

So newly redundant in October 2010 I began to explore self employment opportunities and even retrained completely as a nail technician using my small annual leave allowance that I was given at redundancy for unused holidays. However 8 weeks in I got a phone call from Total Fitness and after another round of intensive interviewing was offered the job of General Manager in their Castleknock club – I was over the moon. I love all things health and fitness related and managing clubs and the business behind it is where I excel. I lived and breathed the job and put in a lot of hours work to turn it around from an under-performing club to one that began hitting and exceeding targets. However, March 16th 2011 I got a phone call late at night and had to drive to the building hand over my keys and the building to a locksmiths and security company. It was surreal and sickening but not unexpected. It was impossible to operate viably when rents were so off kilter with current market rates. I was there at the club for hours and when I got home I  slept fitfully until 7am when I got up to ring each of my team one by one telling them the news in person. We were all redundant as another english company withdrew from the Irish market.

While management at Total Fitness were truly amazing to the team and even offered me a job in the UK my home is Ireland and was now the home to my English boyfriend who relocated to be with me only months earlier. So after much deliberation I turned down their offer gratefully and slightly deflated signed on once again. I decided enough was enough after a few weeks on the dole – the walk of shame to the post office only being outdone by the queue of shame each month on the Ballymun road waiting for the social welfare office to open so I could sign on for another month. So, undefeated I set about getting a short term enterprise allowance and set up a mobile beauty business furthering my training in this area along the way. After 4 months at this I realised the hefty competition from daily deal pages meant this was going to be a difficult area to make a living on, especially for someone newly trained and skilled like me. Time to rethink and revisit…

I went back to my passion and in July 2011 began  exploring my idea of a consultancy business for the leisure industry which I had briefly explored after my first redundancy. I completed a lot of market research and being on my 2nd start-up had already learnt a lot of what not to do. I created Emerald Chrysalis. The emerald to reflect  both my own and the businesses Irish roots and the chrysalis, which is by definition a sheltered stage of development in the caterpillars transformation to butterfly.  That was my plan to transform and improve businesses across Ireland. I began trading in January 2012 and enjoyed a positive start. Having a significant mortgage to pay my initial primary goal was to create enough work to pay myself the equivalent of monthly mortgage repayments. While this was often topped up with savings initially after they depleted I had to review and revise again and added on a training arm to my business.  Now I offer pretty much any kind of training that a leisure facility needs from CPR and Manual Handling to membership and retail sales and even social media marketing.

What annoys me most is people thinking starting a business  can be an overnight success and if it is not that you are clearly destined to fail. It is hard. I’ve had a lot of knocks, I’ve invested money in many aspects of the business, often without the desired outcome, I’ve had my ideas knocked, my ideas stolen and copied, family and friends telling me to just give up and that is not to mention cash flow which is an ongoing battle for any small business I know. Thankfully though, I have also experienced a lot of goodwill across my network of contacts. I have given my time and my experience freely to many and have found some others willing to do the same. I have found a network of like minded individuals in #IrishBizParty on Twitter where each week we all come together to chat, rant, support or even better share our little victories.

As with most self employed people I have had to become quite accomplished in many areas and based on this have had an idea niggling away at the back of my mind for over 12 months now. I believe we are experiencing the rise of the corner shop gym where people are flocking to their local fitness businesses and away from larger and more traditional gyms. I love my industry and having taught fitness instructors across Ireland with many schools I know there are fantastic people out there with brilliant skills, qualifications and ideas. I want to help put the business frame behind that and put a structure on it for them so it can be safe and sustainable and so came Susan McEntegart entrepreneurship mark 3. Corner Shop Gym launched in February at the Sports & Fitness Show in the RDS.

I have that feeling, similar to the one I had when I watched the video above when I talk about Corner Shop Gym. I feel there is a real need for my training courses and believe I am on the cusp of success. I have no illusions about the long road ahead and the many hours I will need to pour into to this training school to get it up and running but I am excited about it. I am proud of how far I have come and while I am not setting the world on fire just yet I am still making a difference. I have created work and from that paid myself a regular income and supported myself through a recession. I have had many knocks but keep coming back for more – to me that is what #PositiveIreland is and what #IrelandInspires me to do. A little drop of resilience and a large dose of Irish pride and humour and anything is possible!

Let me know your #IrelandInspires stories below…

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