Nobody asked me to apply for the Good Business Charter. No client has ever said “before we start, can I see your accreditation.” It’s free, it’s self-certified, and if I hadn’t told you, you’d never have known.

I did it anyway. Ten pillars, an online form, an afternoon of my life.

The first four pillars are about how you treat your employees.

I have none. It’s me, a laptop and a Nespresso machine. Double espresso, no milk, and I’ll not be taking questions. The pods go back for recycling, before anyone writes in.

So I sat there ready to tick “not applicable” four times and get on with my day … and then I actually read them.

Real living wage. Do I pay myself fairly?

Fairer hours and contracts. Do I let myself work in a way that fits round my family and my health?

Employee wellbeing. Do I look after the only person in this business … the one who doesn’t get sick pay and whose pension is entirely her own problem?

Employee representation. Does anyone in here speak up for her? Put her head above the parapet? Back her ideas before they’re fully formed?

The answer to all four is yes, as it happens. But only because I fought for it. Years of boosting myself up, arguing my own corner, backing my own suggestions before anyone else did. I’m glad I did, because now I’m the one calling the strategic shots.

I’d just never written any of it down. I’d never once checked.

We’re brutal with ourselves in ways we’d never be with anyone else

If I employed someone, I wouldn’t dream of putting them on no sick pay, no pension, no cover and hours that stretch to whatever’s left in the day. I’d be horrified. Someone would report me.

Do it to yourself and it’s called being self-employed. It’s called dedication. It’s called “well, that’s just how it is when you work for yourself.”

I’ve worked through things I’d have sent an employee home for. I’ve moved my own deadlines to protect someone else’s. I’ve called a Tuesday evening “flexibility” when it was actually just a Tuesday evening.

None of that showed up on a to-do list, because the person it was happening to was also the person writing the list.

What the Good Business Charter accreditation actually showed me

Some of what I found was reassuring. Ethical sourcing made me realise I already do the thing I’d want anyone else to do … I use other freelancers wherever there’s work I can pass on, and I tag my network in every job opportunity that crosses my path. I’m told I do this with all the restraint of a butterfly that’s emptied an entire buddleia and is now high on sugar. But it’s free, it takes ten seconds, and it’s how most of us got our first decent client.

Some of it was less comfortable.

My commitment to customers, for one. I sat down to link to it and found it wasn’t anywhere. It was scattered across my website in bits … values on one page, testimonials on another, the AI stuff mentioned somewhere in the middle. Nothing pulling it together.

Which is embarrassing, because it’s the pillar I’d have said I was strongest on. I bang on about being upfront with people. I’ve built a whole business on not taking work I can’t do. And a stranger landing on my website would have had to go digging to find any of it.

I’d never noticed. It lived in my head, and my head thought it was fine.

That’s what happens when the only person reviewing your business is the person running it. You know everything, and you can see nothing.

Nobody asks you good questions about your own business

Clients ask you for things. Family ask if you’re busy. Other business owners ask how it’s going, and you say “yeah, good, bit mad,” and you both move on.

Nobody sits you down and says right, talk me through it … and then makes you actually answer.

An accreditation form did it to me by accident. It took an afternoon, it was mildly annoying, and it’s one of the more useful things I’ve done for my business this year. Not because of the badge. Because of the questions.

I do that for other people on purpose, and it takes considerably less than an afternoon.

Waffle & Write is a focused session where you talk, I listen, and we turn whatever’s swirling into a proper written summary you can actually do something with. You walk away with a clear head and it on paper.

No prep. No homework. You don’t need to know what you want to say before you turn up, because working that out is the session. If there’s a thing that’s been sat at the back of your head since March, that’s the thing. Bring it. Waffle at me about it.

And no, you shouldn’t have been able to sort it out on your own. Nobody can see their own business clearly from the inside. That isn’t a personal failing, it’s just how heads work.

If you’re not sure what kind of help you’re after in the first place, I wrote about how to work out what support you actually need a while back.

But if it was the thing-that’s-been-there-since-March that got you, don’t go and read another blog post about it.

Book a Waffle & Write session →