TAT’S THE WAY I LIKE IT
How tattoos helped Hannah transform her business and establish a better way of networking
WHEN entrepreneur Hannah Cox walked into networking events, she felt like she had stumbled upon an ‘old boys’ club.’
Turning up in jeans with tattoos across both arms, she felt people didn’t take her or her ideas seriously.
“I was treated like I was a 10-yearold because I had tattoos and wore jeans,” Hannah, 37, said.
“People assumed I didn’t have a business yet or that the man standing next to me was my boss.
“I only learnt to drive last year so I’d have to get a train, walk to some golf course on the edge of a motorway somewhere, feeling out of my depth and not having much in common with the people I was in the room with.
“And this is as recently as a couple of years ago.”
Hannah says the demographic of traditional, paid-for networking events was white middle-aged men and a few women in power suits resembling ‘Margaret Thatcher-like’ figures.
She got her first tattoo at 19 and a few more in her early twenties, but then stopped for fear of being judged for how she looked in professional environments.
“The perception that I wouldn’t be taken seriously and that I should look more formal did stop me,” said Hannah, who now has around 30 tattoos.
“But then I thought, I can’t be bothered trying to spend the rest of my life doing the work I love but trying to fit in with people who don’t get me and the way I do business.
“Everyone gets first impressions, and I understand there’s a respect thing of turning up in a suit, but I’ve always thought it’s not about what you look like but your actions when it comes to the work you do.”
As the founder of a sustainable agency, Betternotstop, Hannah helps businesses to improve their social and environmental performance. Businesses can go through a certification process and make a legal change to show their commitment to ethics and sustainability.
Following the pandemic, where the world of networking moved online, and after feeling tired of being dismissed at corporate events before lockdown, Hannah chose to take her work a step further by setting up a new way of networking.
The Better Business Network (BBN), based in the Northern Quarter, connects like-minded people who want to make positive changes socially and environmentally whilst growing their businesses.
“I wanted to work with other good businesses. Too many rooms felt like an old boys’ club, so I decided I needed to change the room I was in,” Hannah said.
“The Better Business Network is for people who believe we have a responsibility to make the world sustainable. If we can bring the right people together, they can make a difference.
“I’ve met so many great people doing this. As it turns out, having my arms tattooed transformed my business.”
As with her tattoos, which include a ‘why not?’ slogan, different lines and twirls, and the Manchester bee symbol, Hannah has also found she’s often quizzed on her role as a woman in society.
“I get judged just as much for not being married and for being in my late 30s and not having children,” she said. “It’s rare a man is asked about that.”
The BBN, which focuses on achieving fair salaries and maternity leave policies too, vets members to ensure they’re aligned with the values of the group and donates 30 per cent of its membership fees to ‘impact giving’ - providing cash to groups such as Client Earth.
Hannah, who moved to Greater
Manchester from London more than 10 years ago, wants to give her adopted home a reputation as a place for sustainable business. “Manchester is a city that could really swell in creating better businesses and jobs. It would be a nice legacy to create an opportunity for other people to work in a different way and it being a serious thing,” she continued.
“I wanted to create a social impact company and what better place to do it? It’s a city that means a lot to me and I’ve watched it evolve and grow.
“I want it to be known for having these businesses that are doing amazing positive things.”
Hannah argues that although people can make an individual change, it’s down to businesses and the government to lead by example.
She said: “It makes me furious that people are expected to make sustainable decisions in a broken system and the guilt largely lies with the consumer. “Don’t put the guilt on a single mum with four kids for buying fruit in plastic, don’t put the fruit in plastic to begin with.”
away from the ‘old boys’ club’
I wanted to create a social impact company and what better place to do it?
Hannah Cox of BBN