A woman who started her own cleaning business with a mop and a bucket when she was aged 18 earned almost £5million last year.
Rags to riches Rachael Flanagan, 34, from a South Wales steel worker’s family, started her company as a teenager after failing her business studies A level at school.
Sixteen years on, Mrs Buckét (pronounced ‘bouquet’), now employs 320 staff and has won a series of prestigious contracts, including cleaning the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.
She explained how during her Business Studies A Level, she spent two hours writing out her business plan instead of answering the questions.
She said: “I know it’s really wrong now but I just wrote it, then later when I got my A level results I remember standing there and thinking ‘I’ve got a U, I won’t be able to go to university but I don’t care because I want to set up my business’.
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“All my friends were like – 'what the hell, what are you going to do, we are off to uni and you are going to be a cleaner?'
“They thought I was bloody nuts! I was just like - well, watch this space.
"What I found hard was – can they take me seriously when I go into commercial cleaning – I’m still in my 20s – still young– if you have a pitch from a 25-year-old woman versus a 45 year old bloke who has been in cleaning for the whole of his life – who are you going to choose?”
But armed with just a mop and a bucket – she says she did not even own a vacuum cleaner to start with – she took on all the work that started to come in until she was working a regular 60-70 hour week cleaning houses.
An early successful business decision to start employing and training other staff to work alongside her saw the business start to take off to a new level.
She said she had an epiphany and decided to give up actively cleaning herself and concentrate on developing the business after she won a top award at the UK Young Entrepreneur Awards in London.
She explained: “I was in a room at Claridge’s -completely out of my depth but it was really good for me because I was like ‘wow’ – all these businesspeople, were there I was the youngest in the room and right at the back and everybody clapped and stood up and cheered and I remember thinking – wow, I just need to believe in myself even more and more and more so that’s what I do now.”
Her career has led to some unbelievable opportunities.
She was personally chosen by the Prince of Wales to attend the 2014 NATO summit in Newport, attended by world leaders including Barack Obama.
She also travelled to Downing Street twice for St. David’s Day receptions and met former Prime Minister David Cameron as a proud representative of Welsh business.
Mrs Buckét turned over £4.5 million in 2021, its most successful year yet.
She lives in the Gower, near Swansea, with husband: Daniel Stanley, coach for men’s mental health and ex-Army commando. They have been together since they met at a party when she was 19.
They have two children, Spencer, 2, and Sophia, 5.
Tuesday is International Women’s Day and something Racheal is firmly behind.
She told The Mirror: “The growth of International Women’s Day over the last few days into a campaigning force for equality and change has been incredible.
“In many ways, I know I have been very lucky to run my own business as I believe women are still being held back at the most senior levels.
“No-one else will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself.
“Anything and everything is possible if you believe you are capable of achieving your goals and your dreams.”
