ENTERPRISE
When Tammy Neal started her own business just over a year ago, she admits it was a scary undertaking.
Tammy Neal is the owner/operator of Tammy’s Administrative Services in Enterprise. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo |
"Because you need an income to pay your bills, right?" she explained. "And if you fail, you can't pay your bills. So it was a big jump for me."
However, she took that plunge and the home-based Tammy's Administrative Services officially opened a year ago as of Jan. 1.
"I made sure that we were secure enough for me to give it a shot," said Neal, explaining her husband has both a summer job at a park and runs a Bobcat service.
Although she admits she wasn't confident her business plan would end up being viable, she pointed to something which helped to boost her morale.
"I got calls before I even opened, so that kind of encouraged me, too," she said.
Those early calls, and the resulting three clients, were the result of her simply telling people that she was starting the business.
Now, she says the past year gone better than she anticipated, and she is now even considering hiring an assistant.
"I've been turning away work actually, because it's only me," she said.
Tammy's Administrative Services offers bookkeeping, document preparation, small business plans, project management, special events co-ordination, desktop publishing and senior administrative officer or finance officer assistance for community governments.
"Just about anything you can do in an office," Neal said.
Right now, her company has six clients, including community governments, small business and individuals, in Enterprise Hay River and Fort Smith.
She said she would consider taking on projects in other communities depending on what a potential client may require.
"I'm really good at multi-tasking," Neal said with a laugh.
She has set up her office in what was the living room of her home and ended up moving the living room to another part of the home.
While she occasionally travels to visit clients, she does a majority of her work from her home office.
"I love it because, if I have to do some work and I know I don't have to go anywhere, I can just sit here with my coffee, in pyjamas," she explained.
"I can work whenever I want."
Neal was born in Ontario, but has spent most of her life in B.C., where she owned a graphic design business for a couple of years before moving north.
The 45-year-old came to the NWT in 2001 after earning a Grade 12 adult graduation diploma at Northern Lights College in Fort Nelson, B.C. when she was almost 30.
"Some people have a really rough life and I was a survivor," she said, explaining she waited to go to college until her children were older and then found career stability in the North.
"One day it just kind of all falls into place. That's what happened to me."
Neal's first job in the NWT was as community justice co-ordinator in Fort Liard.
"And from there I got tons of training and went to tons of workshops," she recalled. By 2008 she had earned certification as a senior administrative officer (SAO) and a finance officer through the School of Community Government with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Neal has been a band manager in Fort Liard and a band manager/SAO in Jean Marie River.
Since 2007, she has lived in Enterprise with her family, where she spent almost four years on hamlet council.
Neal has realistic goals for her still relatively-new business.
"I don't want to get rich," she said. "I just want to work to live. I don't want to live to work."
