Protecting your peace, valuing your time, and saying “no” in business is the lesson from Mary Kate Trevaskis

Ex-Estée Lauder group (for decades) Mary Kate (or MK) is a PR OG and the founder of brilliant comms agency, Tape. MK shares in my latest ‘Learn from our mistakes’ instalment.

You can just tell that MK is one of those people that everyone likes. We only became friends this year, and I’m really glad we did. I bang on about the value of mentoring and spending time with peers - how I don’t see others as competition but as teammates, and my relationship with MK perfectly demonstrates the benefits of this.

I can’t remember who reached out to who first, but MK moved nearer to Brighton, where I am, and we met in person, to share experiences agency founder to agency founder. What I instantly loved about MK was her warmth and willingness to be open and honest. We’d both been cheering each other on from afar, watching through the lens of the industry and social media mainly, so it felt natural to connect.

When I asked MK the usual question - “what would you do differently if you could have your time again?” - she reflected on how saying yes to everything doesn’t always equal success.

If you’ve been following me for a while, then you’ll know that this is something that resonates with me, especially in relation to the challenges we found for my skincare brand, Faace. So it was interesting for me to read MK’s response in relation to the way she’s ran her now eight year old agency business, Tape.

One of the biggest rewards of owning your own business and being the boss is the freedom to say yes to anything… this is also where I would definitely do things differently from the beginning of Tape.

We really ran before we could walk, which in a lot of ways is the only way to start your own thing, because if you thought about it too much, you wouldn’t do it. We were incredibly lucky in that a couple of clients were kindly recommended to us at the start of Tape and we just kept saying yes forever more.

When I look back on it, our client roster at the beginning was a bit bananas, we took on people, brands, projects and divisions that we loved and had a lot of fun with, but you couldn’t have really clearly identified what our pillars/principles/core beliefs as a business were.

I think that giddy feeling of - I make the decisions, I decide, and no one gets to tell me otherwise is so important to feel but also, anchoring yourself in a core belief and principle system for your business is integral to staying on the right path. I mean, at one point we were representing a pom pom creator, very Tape in principle but in terms of work and output, not profitable or practical.

I also think the ability to say yes to everything meant we lost our focus and diversified too broadly. It all kind of made sense to us in our heads but now that we are focused in on our focus of PR and Comms - digital/social/traditional, the space I have in my head to give creatively and consultatively to my team and clients is an equally giddy feeling, backed up by a level of control and focus I had lost for some time. I am definitely more conscious now and am very protective of my time, Tape’s values and where the energy goes.

While saying yes and stepping out of your comfort zone can be incredibly beneficial, there can also be power in saying no.

For women especially, I think we can have a tendency to people-please - to say yes to everything and struggle with the confidence or faith to believe that by saying no, we can help define a role or life that’s truly our own. My mum always said to me "don't cry, cancel" and the older I get, the more I understand her point.

Simply by saying no - whether to work that doesn’t align with your goals or social plans you’d rather avoid - you can create space for a path that feels more fulfilling. It allows you to focus on the things that genuinely bring you joy (a mindset quickly becoming my 2024 catchphrase).