Hey there, I’m Abi,
I’m from a tiny town on the coast of Essex and a mama to my little hero Henry, wife to Ian, who’s my university sweetheart and I’m just a tad obsessed with interiors & Instagram.
I am fuelled by coffee, wine and twiglets… but in a pinch any crisps will do!
When I went on Maternity Leave in 2017, I felt like I finally had the headspace to be able to create a business I wanted, where I could fulfil my creative side after years of working in a very corporate London. I started plotting and when I was wandering around a beautiful interiors shop in Bristol late December the idea came to me. I decided I wanted to start an online home decor business.
We had recently finished refurbishing our 3 bedroom property, which when we first bought the place was a complete hovel, but it meant I could put my own stamp on it which massively excited me.
So I had already been bitten by the decor bug and the idea of selling to others beautiful unique pieces filled me with such excitement. The moment we got home I registered the domain name and opened an Instagram account called @thewhitethistle.
My whole marketing plan centred around styling the pieces in my home, using my house as the stage for my products and using Instagram to reach my customers.
It took me 8 months to line everything up enough to launch my shop and in that time I had managed to grow my account to over 8k followers. I was overwhelmed by the community I found on Instagram and the passion that I had for the platform grew. I absorbed everything I could, learning about the algorithm, filters, presets, comment pods, I could go on and on.
At the time of the launch I had to make a decision, I was being approached by lots of brands to collaborate with them and I remember turning to Ian and saying what is going to make me more money? I made the decision a month after launching to really scale back the products I offered. Now I only sell the products I make by hand and the rest of the income I earn is through collaborations. I have worked with major high street retailers and million dollar companies to small independent retailers and my passion for Instagram just exploded.
It was because of this passion that I launched my Instagram coaching business, a place to teach others what I had learnt first hand on Instagram and another source for my creative side to outpour.
I started to work with clients managing their accounts but this was so time consuming and the impact I was having would never reach what I wanted it to. So, I moved into helping clients revamp their feeds, and making them look aesthetically pleasing, this is something I think is so important and what really makes brands stand out on Instagram.
From that I realised I wanted to be able to help as many small businesses as I could. Whilst I still love working with people one on one and focusing on their individual needs, I felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day to help everyone, so I started plotting a way to reach and teach more people. That’s why I created my Insta Membership which is a platform where I teach everything I know and have learnt about the biggest marketing tool going!
Love Abi x
Let’s hang out!
If you want, you can…
- Join my FREE facebook group where I share all the free Insta goodies here
- Find me constantly scrolling through Instagram
- Get inspired with me on Pinterest
- Check out my free Instagram advice here
