“Hey Cathi, can you do some activity please so that we have something to post about on social media?”… are NOT words uttered by the Verve marketing team this week!

This has probably been the craziest week in the 14.3 years of running my own business, which says something. We’ve had:

• Our biggest ever conference.
• The launch of our new tech, Dextera.
• And last night, winning a phenomenal award.

It’s like buses, all coming at once. But all off the back of years of hard work to get to the bus stop in the first place.

If you couldn’t make it to Evo, you can see a full update of the day on the link below, and I think the key overriding takeaway from the day was for people to have belief in themselves, their goals and their businesses. From Abraham, busting some myths about the alleged demise of the small advice firm in a consolidation world, to Tess and Joseph talking through the potential for tech and AI to bring your dreams to reality, all the way through to the absolute phenomenon that was Jill Scott MBE.

The former Lioness resonated with so many people about the focus on hard work and being a decent person – even when others aren’t looking and you’re not getting recognition for it, for those are the qualities that build up over time to equal success. Her determination to achieve something, even without a clear path available to her to achieve it, was inspiring to me and, judging by the incredible feedback we’ve had on the event, to many others too.

As you may well expect, we’re already bursting to the brim with ideas for how to make Evo even better next year. It takes a huge amount of work to bring it to life. However, the opportunity to get some of the brightest minds together in one place and share how we can collectively work together to evolve the profession that does so much good in the world, makes it worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears.  

I’m about ready to collapse in an exhausted (but happy) heap, so I will just jump into leaving you with some links; as well as the Evo round-up, there’s a link to sign up for your free trial of Dextera and a round-up of last night’s awards. Someone pass me the fizz, we’ve got some celebrating to do 🥂

Have a wonderful weekend all,

Catch up: on an absolutely brilliant conference and events!

Sign up: to 7 days free of Dextera.

Find out: about all the amazing Teesside female led businesses.