How Rachael’s 75% lockdown pay cut inspired move to start her own business
IN March 2020, Rachael Stevenson had been working on the Tokyo Olympics as a freelance events coordinator.
She was preparing to fly out to coordinate a more than 300-strong team charged with looking after the US Olympic Committee.
But by the end of April she was without work and unable to access any Government financial support to help her pay for basic necessities.
As a self-employed events organiser, Rachael, who is from Chellaston, was not eligible for many of the schemes that were offered to workers across the UK to help them through the pandemic.
Rachael recalled: “I applied for over 60 jobs and was rejected by all and have scraped my way through the pandemic earning where I can. To say it has been a rollercoaster has been an understatement.”
Rachael said her monthly salary during lockdown was a quarter of what she had been making pre-pandemic.
However, the pandemic also allowed her to take the plunge into founding her own events company, RS Events and Lifestyle.
She said: “I decided as no one wanted to offer me a job I had to get out of this hole myself and so set about setting up RS Events and Lifestyle.”
She describes her journey to founding the business as “squiggly career ride”.
Rachael said: “It was sort of a natural progression really. I worked as a dancer when I was in my 20s and so between dancing jobs I would often work in events and hospitality and that is where I really learned the trade. As soon as I came out of dancing, I went into events fulltime and that’s what I had done until Covid came along.”
Rachael went from helping to organise sporting,
music and charity events, including Elton John’s concert at Derbyshire Cricket Club and Channel 4’s Stand Up To Cancer, to working as a temp during lockdown with a stint selling cereal to shops around Derbyshire. Rachael said: “I worked as a freelancer in a variety of roles. Everything from event planning through to operations manager, artist liaison, transport manager, you name it.
“When Covid came along, I had actually been employed full time for the Tokyo Olympics and I had been working on it for around eight months. At first, we weren’t sure if the Olympics were going to be cancelled or not and I was quite fortunate because my friends were being cancelled immediately whereas I kept my contract.”
The announcement that the Tokyo
Olympics was going to be postponed came in April and Rachael’s contract was cancelled.
She said: “It was that point I looked at the support that was available and I found out that I was excluded from all Government support.”
“As a freelance consultant in the events industry, we’re expected to be set up as a limited company so it makes me a small limited company director. At the time I would pay myself on dividends and that was the reason for being excluded.”
Rachael has now gone 19 months without support from the Government.
Her first instinct was to find a fulltime job but by August, despite applying for dozens of jobs, Rachael was “just getting nowhere”.
She said: “It was just getting really frustrating because in the events world, I had built up such a career so to keep getting those rejections, it was really hard to take.”
She said that is what motivated her to find her own business.
She said: “I’d always wanted to have my own business but I’d never found the right time to do it and make that jump.”
Rachael took advantage of the bounce-back loans being offered by the Government and has used the money to make the leap from freelancer to businesswoman. To help get her business off the ground, she is also selling her flat which has been her home for 14 years.
Now Rachael, who spent a number of years working in Dubai, has now settled back in Chellaston, where she grew up and is turning her attention to organising and hosting events in her home county.
She said: “Very, very quickly, I was approached by businesses that were wanting to host Christmas parties because last year nobody could gather.
“And also, I then started to notice that there was a big trend in clients spending a lot more money on celebrations at home or in their gardens and spending more money on decorations.”
I decided as no one wanted to offer me a job I had to get out of this hole myself ....
Rachael Stevenson