Nina's story: From the horse industry to a marketing agency
I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. Our parents ran a company involved in woodworking in the 1990s, manufacturing wood products in a workshop at our home. We could just run in there along a path across our back yard. Therefore, we spent a lot of time at the workshop building our own works of art from surplus wood using my father's tools, with and without permission.
In a small rural community, the environment was creative in other respects as well and allowed us to grow up freely. We often spent the weekends with our parents on markets and fairs, selling products, competing over who could sell the most. All the rest of my time I spent with horses. At best, we had three horses in our own stable.
Eventually, horses became my profession. I completed my studies in the field and ended up working in several companies operating in the horse industry, where some of the work communities and my job descriptions were quite challenging. The industry is tough and requires perseverance, but it also taught me that. It is a totally different matter to have horses as a hobby than to be an employee or an entrepreneur in the sector, and this may come as a surprise to many of those who go on to study as a horse manager (groom), for example.
Before setting up my own riding school, I took a couple of years' break from horses and tried out nursing. In my family, there are many people working in the care sector, and I wanted to find out whether I was cut out for that kind of challenging work. I did enjoy helping people a lot, and the work was meaningful. However, when I started my maternity with my middle child, I no longer wanted to return to three-shift work. It was time to consider what would be the best solution for earning my living with a view to ensuring smooth running of everyday life. I decided to set up a riding school on my own home yard, where we had excellent conditions for that. My own riding school gave me an opportunity to create services in a more customer-oriented manner and in my own style, unlike when I had been working for someone else, and it gave me a lot of new motivation for work. My business operations are very customer-oriented and personal. I felt that my task was, above all, to help people find their own strengths and to learn to be merciful to themselves with their failures and sense of incompleteness. In my opinion, the teaching of riding and horse skills entails much more than learning technical matters. It's a much more comprehensive process. A horse lives in a moment and teaches this important skill to people as well.
Later, I realised that working with horses and horse enthusiasts was also the best supervisory training there is. In my work, I learned to observe very subtle signals that the human body sends nonverbally. When instructing several horses and riders simultaneously from the ground, it’s important to learn to communicate with different kinds of people and to react quickly to body signals in order to correct them, which may even help avert dangerous situations. At the same time, I had to become a champion in the horse's body language, so that I also understood which signals a horse, which does not speak our language, sends to us. Managing this combination of skills requires years of dedication and studying on the matter. Since my customers came from very different starting points, I learned to be a good observer and to use my intuition. I also developed my understanding of diversity, because to help others, I must be able to put myself in the position of the person I am helping in order to understand what are his or her starting points in the situation. I have been thinking about horse-assisted management training for people in managing positions. I could start developing this training service in the future.
Passion for people-oriented sales and marketing
I also wanted to challenge myself more in business matters. I started studying entrepreneurship at the Finnish Institute for Enterprise Management, after which I started my studies at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, aiming at a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. When I studied, I noticed that I had a strong passion for sales and marketing, so it was also natural to seek work in the field. I first applied to marketing tasks at the Booster Academy (BSTR Luova Konttori Oy) and won a position as a project manager trainee. My four-month trainee period was an eye-opening and strong learning experience that strengthened the feeling that I was on the right track.
Since then, I have already had a chance to do marketing for many companies. I have worked in sales and marketing positions at a start-up, done content production for small businesses, and, most recently, served as marketing manager and team manager at a marketing agency. I have coached entrepreneurs in sales and marketing and provided training in using social media. I enjoy the opportunity to work people-to-people, sharing my own experiences and proven best practices.
The best part about my work is that it gives me a front seat and an opportunity to contribute to the growth and development of different business sectors.
I’m also a lifelong learner and I keenly follow how marketing is done around the world. The next step in my career could be entrepreneurship in marketing. I have already established extensive networks and I have been working for my personal brand by taking advantage of the great opportunities offered by LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a channel that I can warmly recommend. Networking is one of my favourite topics, which I’m happy to talk about. It‘s a good idea to start networking already during your studies so that when it’s time to search for a job, it’s possible to stand out and find the best job opportunities. By being active you also achieve great results.
Niina Kandolin