IB Woman
Issue No. 41 - June/July 2008
Change to a healthy business
by Penelope Herbert
The days of having a job for life are long gone and nowadays changing your entire career direction is
quite common. However, when the career change involves your own business, the challenges and risks
are magnified.
Despite being an active child with a great interest in physical well-being, Carly Coleman trained as a beauty therapist and developed a business servicing many regular customers. Then fate forced a change.
“I developed RSI and shoulder problems which were the catalyst for change,” Carly explains, “because after six years I switched careers. I had earlier thought about a career in fitness but felt I had committed to the beauty industry after studying for my qualifications.”
Carly says leaving the beauty industry wasn’t an easy decision despite her joint problems.
“Shifting from business security to business insecurity was a big decision for me and a stressful time,” she says. “I talked it over with a close friend who is involved in strategy planning and project management to gain some clarity. Following a fitness career really clicked with me so I investigated gaining qualifications through the Australian Institute of Fitness.”
Planning to take the course as a part-time student, Carly had to keep her beauty business going in order to live and pay her study costs. That gave her six weeks to make arrangements for the transition. But at the last minute she decided to “get it all over and done with” by becoming a full-time student - while still maintaining her beauty business.
“I figured there was no point in dragging it all out once the decision had been made, but that then meant I only had two weeks before the course started,” Carly says. “It transpired I could only work in my beauty business for eight hours a week so my client base dropped off considerably.”
While Carly was highly motivated to gain her qualifications and says the experience at the AIF was a fantastic...
