Having recovered from a serious illness, Tracy Rainieri decided to re-think her lifestyle and work for herself in order to spend more time with her little boy.

Tracy says that if she hadn’t suffered ill health, she most likely wouldn’t have left her role as head of Human Resources and PA to the board of directors for an engineering company:

“I became very ill back in June 2013, went through an emergency operation and nearly lost my life. During my recovery I told my husband, I really didn’t want to go back to what I was doing. I wanted to do something else and spend more time with my son, who’s only six. I probably would have been too scared to do it before. You get a whole different outlook when things like that happen.”

Once well enough, Tracy ventured out on her own running TR Virtual Office Solutions, seven months ago. Providing a ‘virtual assistant’ business-to-business service, her one-woman enterprise delivers all sorts of administrative services to clients – everything from typing and secretarial duties to creating forms and other documents. Looking to simplify her life, Tracy’s goal is to establish a small, solid enterprise:

“I’m not looking to earn millions. I just want a business that allows me to work from home in school hours, giving me more time with my son. If I can get to a point where I’m supporting myself independently again, I’ll be quite happy.”

The entrepreneurial mum heard about a Meet a Mentor event in Swansea through her involvement with WAVE (Women Adding Value to the Economy). For Tracy, who signed up as a mentee, attending the event presented the opportunity to ask more experienced women entrepreneurs about one business area in particular:

“My big concern had been the pricing side. Was I pricing things right? Was I advertising how I priced things right? That was a big one for me. I asked about my website and the impact it could have. I was also looking for advice on simply getting customers. I wanted to ask the mentors how they did it, did they have any advice for me, that type of thing.”

Having signed up as a mentee for the day, Tracy sat with different people and, as though they were speed-dating, spoke to each mentor for ten minutes before moving on to the next. She was pleased to meet a number of women with valuable advice to share on pricing:

“I didn’t have any pricing advertised anywhere and I had a very complicated list of charges, which I was advised to simplify. People like to see a cost up front so I have actually put prices on my website now. It has made a real difference.”

Tracy has stayed in touch with some of the women she met at Meet a Mentor who attended both as mentors and mentees, and believes that when you’re setting up a business on your own, this type of support is invaluable:

“Definitely try to find someone who you have a connection with and who has that experience because it can be very lonely. You’re doing everything yourself. I have had to do a lot of things I’d never done before like accounts and proactive sales. You get days and sometimes weeks where you think ‘Oh. I’ve made completely the wrong decision. What am I doing?’ These people have been there, they’ve been in your situation. They perk you up and say “You’re doing the right thing, keep going, it will happen.”

Do you want to find mentoring support in Wales, or support as a mentor? Join Meet A Mentor in Cardiff on 25th Feb.