I’m a mum-of-four & started my beauty business with £199 while heavily pregnant – I now turnover £80k per year
A MUM-OF-FOUR who launched her business with £199 while on maternity leave has told how she now rakes in a whopping £80k a year.
Lisa Prescott, 37, from Manchester, who shares three children - Evie, 12, Stanley, 9 and twins Harvey and Grayson, both five, with husband Steve, joined the police when she was 18-years-old.
But the reality for the hard-working couple, who both worked in the police force, was that they'd be on opposite shifts to accommodate childcare, had over £30k of debt and lived in their overdraft.
So Lisa found herself desperately looking for ways to bring in an extra income to ease the financial strain.
When she was 31 weeks pregnant with her second baby and due to go on maternity leave, she decided to launch her own Forever Living business selling wellness and beauty products - from lip balms to Marine Collagen Supplements.
She spent just £199 on a starter kit of Aloe Vera products and was gobsmacked after replacing her full-time detective salary in just eight weeks.
READ MORE ON BOSSING IT
Lisa has since waved goodbye to her ten-year career in the police and now earns an impressive £80k per annum working part time - having built up her business during her children's nap times.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous for its Mother's Day Bossing It special, Lisa, who also has two step children George, 25 and Emily, 22, explains: "I knew that if I didn’t start something to earn an extra income I'd have to cut my maternity leave short.
"We couldn’t afford to live just on statutory maternity pay.
FABULOUS BINGO: Get a £20 bonus & 30 free spins when you spend £10 today
"I had no idea how we'd afford nursery fees, we didn’t want or expect grandparents to have to look after our children while we worked, and I desperately wanted to enjoy watching our son grow."
Most read in Fabulous
But Lisa fortunately came across an opportunity which would allow her to work from home in her spare time using social media.
"I was approached by a friend at the time who was also pregnant in the police," the former police officer explains.
"She'd come across Forever Living years before through a lady that she used to dance with.
"She told me she'd found 'our ticket' out of the police and although I didn’t believe her, I was definitely open to earning an extra income - especially with my maternity leave fast approaching."
Lisa's top five business tips
- Be yourself; you are more than enough. Don’t compare yourself to anyone because it will only hold you back. Take inspiration from others but work hard to be the best version of you.
- Don’t chase happiness it’s not a destination. I spent years saying “I'll be happy when…” and I realised that I was chasing something that didn’t exist. Be happy with where you are, understand it’s a journey and happiness comes from within.
- Be consistent in anything that you do. There is no such thing as overnight success, results take time, effort and doing small actions daily lead to results.
- Don’t listen to other people's negative opinions, they don’t pay your bills. People will always want to tell you that things won’t work or last. It’s important to surround yourself with people who cheer you on, pick you up and encourage you to dream. Don’t settle just because someone doesn’t believe in you.
- Don’t wait to be confident to start. There will never be the right time nor will you ever feel really confident or comfortable. Great things happen outside your comfort zone and the more you do something the more your confidence grows. You just have to take the first step and start.
In December 2013, while she was 31 weeks pregnant with her second son, Stanley, Lisa decided to start her own business.
She explains: "Forever Living is a 45-year-old global direct sales company which retails its products through a network of independent business owners.
"Everyone has their own personal goals for starting their own business.
"For some this may mean simply using and retailing the products to generate a few hundred pounds of income per month.
"For others like myself who want to build a career-style income again from using and retailing the award-winning products, but also from coaching and supporting others in building their business."
Lisa's investment to get her business up and running cost £199.75 and simply involved purchasing a selection of top-selling products to use and evaluate herself.
"I'd never come across the company or product range before starting so absolutely wanted to use them myself before sharing them with others," she says.
"It gave me an entire business for less than £200.
"A website, all of the literature and everything that I needed."
The former detective, who posts under the Instagram handle , continues: "What I loved was that I could trial the products for 14 days and if I didn’t like them, could return them and get a full refund.
"So there was zero risk and no hidden fees.
"What actually happened was that I loved them and made my money back in less than 14 days."
Lisa says she simply did what she was shown and hoped to generate £400 extra each month - but it wasn't long before her financial expectations were blown out of the water.
I can work as much or as little as I choose and have built the majority of my business during nap times for my children and evenings when they're asleep
Lisa Prescott
"I earned that in my first few weeks," she reveals.
"I then found myself looking at other people’s success stories wondering if it was possible to replace my police wage and not have to go back to work, so that very quickly became my focus."
To Lisa's astonishment, she replaced her full-time detective salary in just eight weeks and never returned to her decade-long career in the police when her maternity ended.
Speaking of her favourite beauty products in the Forever Living range, Lisa says: "I'm obsessed with our lip balm and so is everyone I know.
"It's our cheapest product at just £3.
"That said I'm insanely passionate about skin confidence.
"Raising a 12-year-old girl, I want her to have confidence in a makeup/filter-free world and skin confidence is everything.
"My absolute must-have is our award winning Marine Collagen Supplement which is £85 for a 30 day supply."
Now, it's been nine years since the savvy mum-of-four took a chance on starting her Forever Living business, and she earns around £80,000 a year working flexibly and part-time from her home.
"The last nine years have been nothing but life changing and I completely get how cliché that sounds," she explains.
"My business eased the financial pressure and gave us more choices than ever before.
"Having the flexibility and no financial worries meant that we could try for a third baby and that baby ended up being our twin boys."
She continues: "I can work as much or as little as I choose and have built the majority of my business during nap times for my children and evenings when they're asleep.
"Working from home has enabled me to take and pick my children up daily and never miss a single thing.
Working from home has enabled me to take and pick my children up daily and never miss a single thing
Lisa Prescott
"I’ve been at every school event, I've not had to worry about childcare when they have missed school if they're sick and I get to enjoy every school holiday watching my family grow."
Along with the flexibility, another huge perk for Lisa is that she's been able to help hundreds of other women.
"It's amazing helping women change their circumstances a lot or a little bit, holding their hand and cheering them on every step of the way," she enthuses.
"You don’t have to be great to start something new, I know I certainly wasn't.
"What you do need is a desire to make some positive changes and know that you have to at least start to be great."
Lisa goes on to say how she's proud of how far she's come and the woman she's "grown into."
"I'd never heard of or even considered personal development before starting my business and that has been the biggest transformation," she says.
"The woman that I have become, the things that I have learnt and my new outlook on life.
"I'm raising my children in a positive environment where they understand the power of setting goals and I'm teaching them that you can achieve anything in life if you believe in yourself and work hard to make it happen."
READ MORE SUN STORIES
She concludes: "My business has given my family a lifestyle I never imagined possible.
"We live in a beautiful home, we go on holidays more than once a year and don’t have the same stresses that we had when I worked full time in the police."
