Kiwi Business Story: Kate Stanbury from Make Your Mark Signage

Kate Stanbury from Make Your Mark Signage  is a Taking Your Business Forward, TYBF5 cohort alumni.

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 20 January 2022, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast here.

Tell us about your business and journey into business ownership? 

We have a commercial signage business called Make Your Mark Signage. Anything signage related, bringing people and their company's brands back to life. I come from a background of marketing. I grew up with parents owning businesses, and I always knew I wanted to own my own business and be in that position, but I just never knew what or how or when that was going to happen. I have been with my husband since we were 17 and he has also sort of been in trades. He was in the signage industry and it just got to a point where it was not likely that he would buy into where he was. We thought why not give it a crack before we have children and start our own business? That started Make Your Mark Signs.

What is a piece of advice that you would have given yourself at the start of your Business Ownership journey, knowing what you know now? 

I wish we had started earlier. I felt like we put mental blocks in place, “we can't do that”, or “that seems so hard”. We made starting a business harder than it is and do not get me wrong, there's challenges, but I wish we had started a few years prior, before having kids and all these other sorts of responsibilities. You are scared and a bit gun shy, but there is no better time than now. You put other businesses and other business owners on pedestals, but they all started from where we were, so it is better to start earlier, rather than later.

How did you hear about The Icehouse?

I have had a couple of friends start businesses and complete the Owner Manager Programme, and to see where they are now and how successful they have been, and they really attribute that to that programme. So that piqued my interest with The Icehouse. I also had a friend do the Leadership Development Programme, through a company that she was with, and thoroughly enjoyed it. She happened to mention this course, Taking Your Business Forward, which was more applicable to where we were at and wanting to grow our business. So It was more through recommendations from people that I know and had done well, and reaped the benefits of it.

What were your key takeaway points from Taking Your Business Forward? 

It was good in terms of how it is broken down into modules, you know what is coming each week. Prior to doing the course, we did a survey on our business, like a check of where you are at and where your strengths and your weaknesses were. I found this super helpful. I knew going into the course what modules I should be concentrating on and where my strengths and weaknesses are. Each week we would have a new module. I found it super refreshing with my prior experiences with university and being in the corporate industry. Whereas, when I relayed and talked with my husband about it, he is like, “Oh wow” he had never thought about all those sorts of concepts, so that was good at starting that dialogue between us both as Business Owners.

Even though people are from all different industries, they all had similar problems. Some of them were a little bit further down the track than I was, but could still relate to what I was going through and gave really good solid advice. My favourite module was the finance one, because that was a big weakness of ours. Coming from corporate and working with bigger businesses, I have always had a finance team, I had never had to do the end of year accounts etc, so that was super beneficial, helping us change our money mindset.