Getting to Know You: Ali Miles-Jenkins, Founder, The BoomBiz & the BoomBoss Manifesto

Ali & Teddy

What do you currently do?

I’m an award winning business owner, trainer, coach, author of ‘New Manager Secrets’, a speaker and hypnotherapist. I’m now championing the cause of women over 50 who want that second bite of the cherry to set up and grow their very own expert businesses.  My business is called ‘The BoomBiz’ and I’ve developed the ‘BoomBoss Manifesto’ to inspire, motivate and show what is possible.

So I work exclusively with women over 50 who become ‘BoomBosses’, determined implementers, who want to reinvent and reinvigorate themselves by setting up and growing their very own businesses, using their life experience, expertise, skills and knowledge.  I use my 28 years’ experience of running and marketing my own training and management consultancy to help them build and grow booming businesses. 

We may be over 50 but we won’t be overlooked. It’s not yet time ‘to hang up our high heels’.

So I’m enabling them to become their own CEOs, at work and play, finally getting the lifestyle they deserve.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

I had an epiphany moment in 2016 when I realised that some of the senior women in management roles that I was coaching for my clients were subsequently leaving their careers because “They wanted to me more like me and do what I was doing – running my own expert business.”  They felt they were being overlooked, marginalised or stereotyped because of their age. 

They were also tired of working to others’ objectives, making others rich and dancing to others’ tunes.  They realised they could set up their own businesses, be responsible for their own success, with location, time and income control. And most importantly they realised they could add values to others’ lives as well as their own. 

I in turn realised that I could lead them on a path I’d walked before, share my secrets, get them on the insider track and help accelerate their success.

What defines your way of doing business?

I’m a huge advocate of expert-based businesses in niches or microniches. With authentic personal branding and expert positioning within a specific target market you can very successfully build your business through attraction marketing. This means that you draw clients to you rather than having to be pushy or salesy, which of course most women over 50 absolutely dread!  Authenticity and helping others is fundamental to me as is building a community of loyal fans.  That’s exactly what I’m doing with The BoomBiz.  I’m very approachable – unlike some others I don’t believe that expert status means you keep your distance.  I connect on a personal level and give amazing service.

I also love giving back and one of my most important services is a free online business course called K.I.M.  This stands for ‘Keep In Momentum’ and it’s specifically for women over 50 who have had cancer. 

I had a very special, unique and unlikely friendship with my ex husband’s girlfriend Kim.  She died aged 55 in May 2017 of lung cancer.  Kim embodied the ‘BoomBoss’ mentality even though she was not a career or business person.  Kim was so interested in hearing all about my plans to help women over 50. She was strong, a no BS action taker who didn’t want to waste another second of her life. She would have given anything for the opportunity to reinvigorate herself and take advantage of the edless opportunities out there.

So in memory of Kim, my challenge is to get this free programme out there on a global scale, to help women over 50 whose lives have been so terribly interrupted by this cruel disease.

Who do you admire?

I always find this a hard question to answer.  I admire anyone who has battled against the odds to have a thriving business.  By that I mean those who start from scratch, often with little financial or other support and create something amazing from a blank sheet.  I also admire those who have overcome true adversity to become achievers and also those who have reached a level of success beyond their wildest dreams.

I also admire the vibrant, powerful and fabulous community of BoomBosses that I’m building – women over 50 who are now confident in their abilities to become entrepreneurs and have their second bite of the cherry!

I’ve sought out some of the best people in the world to teach me about the latest thinking and tools in marketing. I’ve been to some amazing places and learned from some amazing people. I love learning in the USA, as I find they are often a little ‘ahead of the curve’ with business and marketing innovations.

Looking back is there anything you would of done differently?

Goodness, yes, lots and lots over the 28 years I’ve been in business! I started my business in a recession and then lived through the next one in 2009.  That was a really scary time because there was one week I remember when I lost about 70% of my client base.  It was as I was trying to cope with and then recover from that that I learned the most phenomenal lessons about how to really run a successful business.

Lessons which I so wish I’d invested in learning about earlier.  I discovered that up until then I didn’t really know about the marketing ‘must-haves’. I knew all the theory – I even taught it on qualification courses!  But the ‘in the trenches’ type of marketing, the expert positioning strategies and the latest online methods were completely new to me.

It was a major lesson for me and it changed my life.  So you have to love the marketing as much or more than you love your business.

What advice do you give someone starting out?

 Now that’s a hard one – to choose a few top tips as I have so many! But here goes:

  1. Don’t just follow your passion – make sure it is going to be profitable and give you the lifestyle you seek. Passion wears thin if you are struggling.
  2. Research your idea – you don’t want to come up with an idea that no-one else is doing as there is likely to be a reason for that, unless of course you have millions in the bank.
  3. Set yourself up as an expert in a tight niche to start off with. Do not set up a generalist business in a commoditised market, or you are highly likely to flounder.

                                                www.alimilesjenkins.com

Facebook Profile:                 Ali Miles-Jenkins

Twitter:                                  Ali Miles-Jenkins  @theboombiz

LinkedIn:                               Ali Miles-Jenkins

Instagram:                             @alimilesjenkins                          

Happy to answer any other questions you may have.