Finding APeacefulPlace2Be – with support from Backing Essex Business
Creating a secure and prosperous future for her and her young daughter, Paris from Essex overcame her hurdles and now has a clear plan for the growth of her new business APeacefulPlace2Be after reaching out to fully-funded business support service Backing Essex Business.
A Peaceful Place 2 Be is a serviced accommodation provider that can source its clients with peaceful and stress-free accommodation anywhere in the UK, and help property owners to easily let out their space. Working with both the owners of the accommodations and potential guests, A Peaceful Place 2 Be works to provide a seamless experience so that guests can truly relax and find a place to leave behind their worries, in a location and accommodation that they love.
““(People have) difficulty booking serviced accommodation, and then navigating confusing or expensive high fees and commissions on top. Also, the time-consuming stressful task it is, to find and book accommodation. This is where I thought I could help. Helping guests to not have a stressful experience when looking and booking accommodation or during their stay, I wanted guests to be in a peaceful place whilst letting me sort their accommodation for them.””
Paris created her business A Peaceful Place 2 Be to provide a place that does just that – taking the stress out of letting out your property, as well as finding that perfect place to stay or retreat to, whether you’re getting away for work or leisure. Paris’ journey and approach to the business has been a personal one – embodying her own struggles growing up and craving a place to create and find peace.
“I named my business A Peaceful Place 2 Be as I know (especially since being a mum), how hard it is to find peace in such a busy, fast paced world… I realised how precious having this peace is, that’s why I want everyone working with us to be in that peaceful place, before getting to their peaceful place to stay.”
– Paris, from the A Peaceful Place 2 Be website
Creating A Peaceful Place 2 Be
Peace is important to Paris; having had a difficult childhood and upbringing, losing her mother at the age of six and suffering abuse into her teens, she then found herself struggling with addiction and her mental health, which carried into her early twenties. On becoming pregnant with her daughter in 2019 and moving into mum and baby rehab, she committed herself to making a change for the better - and found comfort and hope for the future through her faith in God. She has been a believer in God since 2016 and has strengthened her faith since 2022, when she was shown the gospel properly. She is passionate about telling people about God. She feels her belief saved her, and she plans to include some info and a link on her website about this.
A new mum, Paris moved to Essex to make a fresh start. She knew that from her own struggles she could create a force for good, and she began to run a national recovery course online to help other people that suffered with addiction – helping hundreds of people and giving them support in overcoming addiction. She also supported women in the community, giving 1-2-1 support to those affected and suffering with addiction, and became a Wellbeing Support Worker as a volunteer for Mind and another local charity.
““Where I overcame these things personally, I knew I could help other people by telling my story and giving them the hope that I didn’t have””
Although this was a success, Paris struggled as a new mum and single parent to find paid work that would support her and her daughter. In 2020, she began to search for work, and found herself a new role in customer service and quality control for a serviced accommodation provider that she could fit around her new family life. Gaining great experience and skills in the job, Paris found that it was difficult to juggle both working and motherhood and be able to do both things well – which got her thinking about a new venture.
“I kept feeling like I needed to work for myself as my own boss, so that I could work around my daughters life and her needs and still be a hands-on mum”
Paris wanted to utilise her experience in serviced accommodations to now create her own business – and although she didn’t have any experience running her own business, she had had many people tell her that she was business minded over the years- her dad was a successful business man. With pure intentions and the motivation to make it work, she began to think about how to move forward.
Finding the way
After coming up with the idea for A Peaceful Place 2 Be in January 2023, she began to look into how to register and officially start her new business. Realising she would need support to get the business off the ground, she researched what was available to help people like her – and found business support service Backing Essex Business, which is fully funded by Essex County Council.
““When I realised there was support out there, that gave me a lot of reassurance. That support came through really quickly, I was contacted straight away.””
Paris began to meet regularly with Business Advisory Manager John Sargant, who helped her to develop a business plan and collect her initial documents for the business.
“Although I didn’t need the business plan to present to anyone, that was important for me to have to refer back to. It’s really useful to have that, I had all the ideas in my head since January, so it was really useful to see it in this structured way”
After she had a vison in her head for how she wanted her business to work, she began to plan her website and the finer details.
A Peaceful Place 2 Be officially launched in the spring of 2023, with a new website up and running and registered on Companies House. Paris acquired a new virtual assistant to assist with customer enquiries and developing leads, but taught herself how to design her logo and marketing, as well as get to grips with the new software she’d be using.
Paris also received free start-up support from Colbea, a not-for-profit organisation based in Colchester, on her marketing and learning new skills to give her the best start for the business. From there, she learnt how to effectively market herself on social media and improve the SEO on her new website to ensure she was creating awareness for A Peaceful Place 2 Be.
““When starting a business you’re learning as you go, and you can have fears you’ll do something wrong or incorrectly. Asking John questions and getting that support was really reassuring, and the meetings were really productive. I don’t know if I would have been able to do it without the support.””
Now, A Peaceful Place 2 Be is getting noticed. Lots of businesses have been enquiring about using the business as a provider of their accommodation for corporate bookings, as well as property owners who want to work and advertise with APeacefulPlace2Be. Paris says that one of the most important aspects of the business is building those good relationships with property owners and learning from these beginning stages to create the best experience for clients who use the business.
She has corporate and holiday enquiries and booking until the end of the year lined up, so the first year of operating for the business is looking promising – with potential partnerships with local travel agents on the cards too. She’s feeling hopeful for the future of the business, and for her and her daughters future as a result.
“I didn’t think I’d have the courage or strength to start my own business but I believe God has given me everything I need to do this and do it well.”
