Self investment : part II

Victoria Baldock, 34, company director,was so confident in her own net worth that four years ago she gave up a hefty salary and some lucrative perks to start her own business.

The talented television sales executive decided it was time to start seeing herself as her own primary financial investment. Just like a good share portfolio, she was destined to mature over time and to turn a tidy profit – with careful management, of course.

Victoria’s instinct for success paid off. From a start-up company founded with an incentive bonus she received from her employer, her independent distribution company, Verve Entertainment, now employs six staff and has gathered together a list of interesting and prestigious clients. That sort of nose for success – and a healthy attitude to risk – has enabled Victoria to chart a course in her career that ensures a work/life balance and a healthy financial lifestyle, too.

Right from the beginning, Victoria recognised good decisions in the workplace would be the biggest indicator of her future financial wealth. After university, Victoria stepped into a job selling ad space to magazines and then network television sales. She finally found her niche as head of international sales for television production company Southern Star. When opportunities arose, she jumped into new roles, aware that the type of employers she wanted would value her skills, enthusiasm and breadth of experience.

She moved to London in her early twenties, giving up a big salary and an exciting position in sales at a television network. Although she was already earning more than most of her friends, Victoria was confident that what she would lose in salary, she would make up for in added experience. “My boyfriend at the time was going overseas and I wanted to join him. The job I took was much less money, a big pay cut in fact, but I felt it I would be worth more when I returned for having gained experience overseas,” she says.

Victoria stepped into a marketing job for the stage show Tap Dogs and later worked for a PR firm, the same company that employed Sophie Reese-Jones before she married Prince Edward. At the time, both jobs seemed far removed from her original work in ad sales. Eventually though, Victoria was able to pull together the skills she had learned in all three mediums to take on a job in distribution at Southern Star.

In less than 10 years, Victoria worked her way up to an executive position within the company, earning more than $100,000 a year. By this time, she was savvy enough to realise she had built a strong reputation as a hard worker who achieved results. “I’ve never been afraid to ‘pack up’ and start again,” she explains. “That’s what I’ve done with my business. I could have stayed with my comfortable salary, but it was that whole thing about weighing up the lifestyle choices offered by running my own business, versus working for someone else.