Debbie Blackburn : Debbie Blackburn Limited

I acquired a franchise of LighterLife, weight management programme, for the Halesowen region of Birmingham. Read more on how Debbie started her own weight management business…

I am a single 51 year old living in Halesowen, West Midlands. I have been selling telecommunications equipment, networks and more recently IP video conferencing services for the past 20+ years. I was made redundant for the third time in July 2007 and decided to make a complete career change and start my own business.

I needed some help

The main problems/concerns regarding setting up my business were re-training (it was a long time since I was in college!) and becoming aware all of the factors that needed to be considered before starting a business and then subsequently running a business.

A friend then recommended that I speak to someone from the Women’s Business Development Agency as they specialise in helping women in business and I thought as I was setting up in business myself for the first time that all the support and help I could get from an agency who had this expertise would be very useful to me.

Business Support from WBDA

Joy, my business advisor, was very helpful in providing information on all aspects of setting up and running a business. She provided support on the preparation of my business plan and advised me of course provided by the WBDA that could be helpful to me.

I accessed the West Midlands Women’s Business Centre website, took advantage of the online courses to ensure I was fully informed of what was involved in setting up my company.

She also introduced me to another LightLife Counsellor in Nuneaton who had used WBDA to set up her company. It was great to speak to someone who had just been through what I am now going through!

Joy also kept in contact with me throughout my 4months training and was a constant support and motivator.

About my business

I now acquired a franchise of LighterLife, which is a weight management programme, for the Halesowen region of Birmingham. The weight management programme is unique in the UK as it offers clients the ability not only to loose weight quickly but also identify the reasons for gaining weight in the first place and enables them to change their attitude towards food in the future to maintain their healthy BMI. This provided through the small single sex weekly group counselling sessions during which techniques from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Transactional Analysis are used.

For more information about LighterLife please contact Debbie on 0121 559 7953 or email debbie.blackburn@lighterlifecounsellor.com