Redundancy, Rainbow Farts & Building a Business From Nothing: Lisa Jackson's Story

Reflective Rebels Podcast Season 2 Episode 7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2mafgh8r0c

Three weeks before Christmas, Lisa Jackson got called into a meeting and told the business was closing. She'd been in the job for six weeks. She was the sales and marketing manager at a visitor attraction in Liverpool, and she'd left a secure role at The Beatles Story to take it. No redundancy pay because she hadn't been there long enough. No savings to fall back on. She walked out of the office, went back to her old colleagues at The Beatles Story, and cried.

If you've ever had that moment where the ground shifts and you're suddenly standing in a version of your life you didn't plan for, Lisa's story will feel familiar. Not because redundancy is universal, but because the feeling is. That gut-drop of realising you're starting again. The voice in your head asking whether this means you've failed. And the slow, reluctant discovery that the worst thing that happened to you might actually be the thing that puts you on the right path.

Lisa came home to Cumbria with no job, no plan and no idea she was about to start a business. Fifteen years later, she's still running Acorn Marketing, she's written a children's book, and she's finally niching back towards the creative, arts-based work that has always been where she comes alive. But the journey between those two points is messier, more honest and more recognisable than any polished success story.

Starting over when you didn't choose to start over

Lisa didn't dream of running a business. She'd never considered it, even though most of the men in her family had been self-employed. Her granddad ran an abattoir and butchers in Penrith. Her dad owned a bakery, then ran his own company. Her cousins were self-employed. But it never crossed her mind as something she would do.

After the redundancy, she came back to Cumbria and started doing data entry for her dad's company because she couldn't sit still. She cried on the drive home one evening, wondering if this was what her career had come to. Then she started sending out packets of forget-me-not seeds to visitor attractions with a note saying if you ever need marketing help, don't forget about me. One of those conversations planted the seed for what became Acorn Marketing, even though the client she spoke to never actually hired her.

She started charging ten pounds an hour. She helped Penrith Chamber of Trade with their marketing. Other people saw what she was doing and asked her to help too. There was no business plan, no strategy, no moment of clarity. Just a woman doing the work in front of her because she didn't know what else to do.

That's how a lot of businesses start. Not with a vision board and a five-year plan, but with a redundancy letter and a refusal to sit still.

The juggle that never gets comfortable

Fifteen years into running Acorn Marketing, Lisa is honest about what the day-to-day reality looks like. She's a mum to two girls, a stepmum, a carer for her dad who's in a care home with a rare brain disease, and a business owner trying to grow. The guilt runs in every direction. Guilty for working when she's with her kids. Guilty for not working when she's at her desk. Guilty for not spending enough time with her dad.

She hasn't solved the juggle. She doesn't pretend she has. But she's set boundaries that make it survivable. She doesn't answer work calls when she's with her daughter. She shuts the office door at five o'clock and switches into mum mode. She blocks Fridays for business admin with no client meetings. She puts the dog walk in the calendar. She puts time with her best friend in the calendar. Because if it's not in the diary, it doesn't happen.

What she says about her desk is one of the most honest things in the whole conversation. She calls it respite. Even though she's working, it doesn't feel like work because she loves it. The boundary between work and life isn't always where you'd expect it to be, and for Lisa, the office is sometimes the place she goes to feel like herself again.

The cloud that follows you

There's a moment in the conversation where Lisa describes the financial anxiety of running a business as a little cloud that follows you around. What if that client disappeared? What if there's a point where I can't pay myself? She's had years of good months. The bank account says she's fine. She knows her bare bones survival number. And still the cloud is there.

If you run your own business, you know that cloud. It doesn't care how many good months you've had. It doesn't care that you started with nothing and you're still here. It just sits on your shoulder and whispers what if. Lisa doesn't pretend it goes away. She just names it, which is more useful than most advice you'll hear about financial confidence as a business owner.

Creativity as identity, not decoration

Running through Lisa's whole story is a thread that has nothing to do with marketing strategy or business growth. She's creative. Not as a nice-to-have, not as a side hustle, but as a fundamental part of how she's wired.

As a child she was arty and quiet. She wanted to be a sculptor, an artist, an art teacher. She studied fashion promotion at university. Her first real love in her career was arts marketing, working for Walk the Plank, a touring theatre company with a ship that sailed into ports and turned into a stage. She worked at The Beatles Story because she grew up dancing around the living room to her mum's old 45s. Even while buying carpets and men's elasticated trousers for a catalogue company, she was spending her evenings doing free marketing for arts organisations because she needed to be in that world.

She makes mirrors. She sews dresses. She writes children's books. She's decorating her daughter's bedroom with hand-painted cherry blossom. And she's now deliberately niching her business back towards visitor attractions, theatres and arts organisations because she's finally stopped pretending that any other kind of work gives her the same energy.

Her children's book, Dr. April and the Rainbow Farts, is the purest expression of that creative identity. She wrote it in three months, inspired by her daughter April who wants to be a doctor. She self-published it, worked with a children's book editor who she told to pull it apart, and put it into the world knowing she'd be proud of it even if nobody bought it. An 11-year-old autistic boy who had never read a proper book sat and read it for two hours, then went and read it to his little sister. Lisa still gets emotional talking about that.

The conversation she'd love to have

Ben asks Lisa what she'd say to her granddad if she could sit down with him one more time. Her answer is unexpected. She wouldn't ask for advice or wisdom. She'd want to see his books. What was the turnover? What did the numbers look like? Was it six figures, seven figures? She's fascinated by the business side of his story in a way she never was as a child, because now she's living her own version of it.

There's something quietly powerful about that. The shy girl from Penrith who never imagined running a business, sitting across from the grandfather she lost at ten, comparing notes. She thinks he'd be proud. She's the first person in her family to go to university, and the only woman in a family of self-employed men to build something of her own.

Key Moments

[02:28] Lisa on writing Dr. April and the Rainbow Farts, a children's book inspired by her daughter, and how a numerologist told her she had a book in her.

[10:30] An 11-year-old autistic boy read her book for two hours straight and then read it to his little sister. Lisa gets emotional talking about it.

[14:29] Growing up painfully shy in Cumbria, being the quiet girl who followed her mum everywhere, and how university changed everything.

[31:42] The redundancy. Three weeks before Christmas, six weeks into the job, walking back to The Beatles Story in the snow, crying.

[34:18] Crying on the way home from data entry at her dad's office. Then the penny drops about freelancing.

[42:37] The little cloud. The constant low-level worry about money and clients, even when the business is stable. The juggle of mum guilt, carer guilt and work guilt.

[55:41] What Lisa would say to her granddad. She wouldn't ask for advice. She'd want to see his books.

Quotable Moments

"I literally went back to what I'd been like when I was pimping myself out to people, just going, I'll do any work for you. Whereas this time I was charging ten pounds an hour."

"It's almost like a little weight or a little cloud that comes around with you. What if that client disappeared? What if there's a point where I can't pay myself?"

"I feel like sitting at my desk is respite. Even though you might be like, come on, you're doing work. It doesn't really feel like work because I love it so much."

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"I just needed to do that thing."

About Lisa Jackson

Lisa Jackson is the founder of Acorn Marketing, based in Penrith, Cumbria, specialising in marketing for visitor attractions, arts organisations and theatre. She's also the author of the children's book Dr. April and the Rainbow Farts.

LinkedIn: Lisa Jackson Instagram: @acorn_marketing

Listen and Subscribe

Reflective Rebels is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. If this episode resonated, the best thing you can do is share it with one person you think needs to hear it.

If Lisa's story has sparked something and you want to explore what's next for you and your business, Ben works with small business owners through 1:1 coaching, team coaching and the Badass Business Lab.