Michelle Hawkins attended the Meet A Mentor breakfast event before Women Unlimited's THRIVE! Conference on International Women's Day. Only deciding to attend at the last minute, she's delighted she did, as she met a mentor that is already having a fantastic impact on her business.

Michelle's business, The Flying Dodo, helps companies maximise their profits by applying the Science of Happiness to their service. She says:

"Everything is underpinned by happiness and we are hardwired as human beings to repeat what makes us happy. There's often a perception in business that if people work harder, they'll get more money and that will make them happy, but we all know that money isn't always the key motivating factor. It's happiness that is likely to retain customers, employees and shareholders. A bigger reward might be recognition and gratitude, rather than financial incentives. Happiness can make people feel more motivated and loyal to the business".

Michelle explains why she set up the business whilst working in a high-end hotel in Tanzania:

"I've always been quite entrepreneurial and good at spotting gaps in the market. I have lots of ideas and have carried a little book of ideas with me since I was 15. When I was working in Tanzania, I had a bit of an epiphany in the meaning of life. The more I looked into the concept of happiness, the more convinced I became that this was the key motivating factor for all individuals and started to formulate the business idea. This epiphany was sparked when I met someone from the Gross National Happiness Centre who was with a business and tourism delegation from Bhutan, I found it fascinating how the Bhutanese government were using happiness as a measure for the progress of their nation. I have a background in market research and psychology, so I began to really consider how robust this thinking was and if there were any ways of applying the learnings in this area to the hotel I worked in".

Michelle tried and tested some ideas at the hotel and found that those that had the most positive impact on a guest's experience were often not the most expensive ideas. In fact it was regular small acts of thoughtfulness which made the biggest difference, those ideas that made people feel like an individual and not just a another guest.

Michelle knew she was returning to the UK so she arranged to reduce her working week so that she could spend 2 days a week getting her business off the ground. During this time she developed the brand, a website and the research base.

Six months later when she returned to the UK she was ready to go, so she networked, met with other specialists in the field of wellbeing and tried to learn as much as she could to test her framework and really fine tune her offer. The business officially set up last August and has had an exciting first few months. It currently focuses on hotel guests but Michelle sees many parallels and opportunities in healthcare. The company’s sole purpose is to make the guest experience as enjoyable and memorable as possible. She says of the first few months:

"I had a romantic vision at the start about how it would all work but I soon found out that what I believed was needed and what customers felt was needed were slightly different. I adapted the offer several times, and realised that part of the challenge was going to be to educate people. Therefore as well as building my client base I'm also setting up a research project to build on the evidence base for how the science of happiness can have an impact on the bottom line."

We asked Michelle how she met her mentor, Amanda Montagu, at Meet A Mentor, she says

"Amanda was very first person I spoke to at the event. You get a gut feel about someone even in a split second. I instantly felt that I really liked her which is a precursor for wanting to work together. If you meet someone and you have empathy towards each other, it's a good start. "

They are now meeting up every month for a check in. One thing Michelle found incredibly useful was that they agreed the rules of engagement right from the start, she says

"Amanda was very open and honest from the start. She said that she'd completed the Government funded Get Mentoring scheme and that she wanted to fulfil the volunteering requirement of the scheme which was an hour a month, and that she was happy to support me. It's really been amazing, it's the first time I've found a mentor so I'm so glad I attended the event else I wouldn't have been aware of the support available from people like Amanda".

"Amanda really structured the first session, providing prompt sheets and we used a mind mapping technique to explore some of the issues. She asked me some very open ended questions about sales and objectives which really helped me explore some of the issues I'd been trying to unravel".

When asked about the main benefits of finding a mentor, she says,

"The main benefit has been clarity of thought, having a sounding board. At our session yesterday we explored an idea for cash flow. It's been really useful in helping me understand the nuts and bolts of operating a business from someone who's already been through that process many times"

"I really just attended Meet A Mentor as a last minute attendee. I attended with very open mind, not expecting to meet a mentor, but it was a complete revelation meeting so many people willing to volunteer their time. Meeting Amanda was an absolutely bonus".

We finally asked Michelle if she thought she would go on to mentor one day, she says

"I think this would interest me later down the line. You gain so much experience setting up your own company that a business could really benefit from learning from the success and mistakes you've made. SMEs are the lifeblood of the economy so it's crucial we support each other.  Also I really feel that when someone does something so generous for me like Amanda, it feels like the right thing to do to keep that chain going".

Read Amanda's story here.