https://www.wearemavenly.co.uk/blog daily 0.75 2026-08-11 https://www.wearemavenly.co.uk/blog/are-you-building-a-business-youll-secretly-grow-to-hate monthly 0.5 2026-08-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/b262812b-a1f0-4655-98ac-b565511fb61f/f176cfc1-21f0-4889-80e7-c215d5254e74.jpeg Blog - Are You Building a Business You’ll Secretly Grow to Hate? - The Networking Moment I’ve been in many a room, looking every inch the part, and had someone stand in front of me and say “you are absolutely smashing it, look at you go.” And I could see on their face that they genuinely meant it. Maybe they were rooting for me, maybe I’d given them hope about where they were going, maybe they just really liked me. Either way I smiled and said thank you so much, it’s been a brilliant year. Then I went back to my hotel room and thought, why couldn’t I just tell them the truth? That I was earning the same as twelve months ago despite working triple the hours, that I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing next, that I was tired in a way a good night’s sleep wasn’t fixing. Because it would have shattered the image. Because I didn’t want to disillusion them. And honestly, I wouldn’t have known where to start. This is how you end up building a business you secretly grow to hate. It doesn’t happen all at once, it’s not a dramatic “Oh my God, I hate it all”. It’s a slow realisation that you’ve stopped recognising what you’re working for, the joy goes quiet, the stress levels rise and because everyone around you is telling you how well you’re doing, you can’t even say it out loud. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/cd748066-590f-4aa3-b055-aa22f8a3c788/IMG_2183.jpeg Blog - Are You Building a Business You’ll Secretly Grow to Hate? - I Did This Too, More Recently Than I’d Like To Admit Let me be completely transparent with you, because I lived this. Last October I rebranded, became a limited company, went VAT registered, and then spent the best part of seven months in a complete spiral. I just didn’t know what to do, so I did all of it. I looked elsewhere for my tone of voice, I tried to be punchier, I tried to be spicier. I packaged up VA services in a hundred different ways and spent the whole time fighting against the one thing I actually knew I was good at, which was working as a strategic business consultant for women who’d already built something brilliant. I was outsourcing my own self belief to other people. And the more opinions I gathered, the less I trusted anything I knew about myself. Someone told me, with genuine good intentions, that to be taken seriously at a higher level I needed to stop being so friendly, approachable, and girl next door and for a while, I actually tried to do that. I gave up my own magic because somebody else told me it wasn't enough for the level I was aiming for. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/8574f986-ee01-48b3-b7be-50a5ae077966/Lois_+Culture+Camp+Headshots-6.jpg Blog - Are You Building a Business You’ll Secretly Grow to Hate? - Make it stand out Lois Bates—Stubbs is a strategic consultant and founder of Mavenly, a VA and EA agency based in Manchester. She works with women in business who are ready to stop carrying everything alone. The Reset Room free, monthly on the 2nd Tuesday. https://www.wearemavenly.co.uk/blog/your-business-your-life-your-heart-and-your-head-are-all-one-thing-4crs3 monthly 0.5 2026-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/2fa65bb6-0000-4436-af68-e8e03793c66e/Lois_+Culture+Camp+Headshots-13.jpg Blog - The Wardrobe of Other People’s Coats. - The gap that gave it away. For a long time I genuinely couldn’t work out why. The engagement on LinkedIn looked fine. People were telling me I was smashing it, that the content was great, that they loved what I was putting out. But nobody was booking calls. Nobody was converting. The interest had dried up while the compliments kept rolling in, and that gap should have told me everything sooner than it did. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/8574f986-ee01-48b3-b7be-50a5ae077966/Lois_+Culture+Camp+Headshots-6.jpg Blog - The Wardrobe of Other People’s Coats. - Make it stand out Lois Bates—Stubbs is the founder of Mavenly, a VA and EA agency based in Manchester. She works with women in business who are ready to stop carrying everything alone. The Reset Room free, monthly on the 2nd Tuesday. https://www.wearemavenly.co.uk/blog/your-business-your-life-your-heart-and-your-head-are-all-one-thing-3sdgx monthly 0.5 2026-07-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68ebc54be323945999530369/8574f986-ee01-48b3-b7be-50a5ae077966/Lois_+Culture+Camp+Headshots-6.jpg Blog - The Women Scaling Sustainably Are Not Doing It Alone. - Make it stand out Lois Bates—Stubbs is the founder of Mavenly, a VA and EA agency based in Manchester. She works with women in business who are ready to stop carrying everything alone. 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