How to be disability inclusive in your small business & speaking at the #2021Sorted online event.

by | Last updated Jun 8, 2022 | Published on Nov 2, 2020 | Blog Posts, Business

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Last year I had the biggest dose of FOMO ever after seeing Laura Robinson from Worditude and Andrew & Pete from Atomic, come back from #2020sorted and talk about how they had their content planned out for the whole of the following year after attending Janet’s live event.

On the back of their experiences I signed up to attend #2021Sorted (when going to actual places was still allowed). I didn’t even know who Janet Murray was. (Shh, don’t tell anyone) I was a complete noob to the content marketing world. I’d been making dance costumes for pole dancers for years, but my disability meant I could no longer keep up with demand.

I didn’t even know who Janet Murray was.

(Shh, don’t tell anyone. 😂)

This year I’m not only attending, I’m speaking on a panel too. Janet is holding a series of ‘levelling up’ sessions where panelists will discuss the kinds of topics that always come up when digital marketers and entrepreneurs get together to discuss business.

I’m on the diversity in business panel along with Sam Hill, Elliot Reid and Suzi Grant. We will be talking about how you can be more inclusive in your marketing.

I was a complete noob to the content marketing world. I’d been making dance costumes for pole dancers for years, but my disability meant I could no longer keep up with demand.

Having MS and being a wheelchair user has had a huge impact on how I run my business. The brain fog and fatigue are some of the major symptoms that affect what I am able to achieve. Tasks take me longer than they used to and sometimes I just have to stop and rest up until I am well enough to push forwards again.

The final decision to stop making costumes came after I experienced an episode of optic neuritis, a fairly common but debilitating symptom in people with MS. I had just handed over a finished costume to a customer who was competing the following weekend when I went blind in one eye. Within three days the vision in my right eye had gone completely. It took nearly five months for it to return.

Had I not finished that costume that week I would have been devastated. My customers put so much effort into their competition entries. The music, the costume and the choreography all perfectly balanced and coordinated. I would have hated to let my customer down and there would have been nothing I could have done about it.

Instead of crawling off (or wheeling off ♿️ ) and closing my business, I decided to try and adapt what I did so that I could continue to work. I have never imagined myself being happy to just sit around and be disabled, despite how people with disabilities are often perceived.

So once I had discovered Janet I started listening to her podcast. Which is totally ass backwards to how most people find Janet. Then I signed up for a free month in her signature programme Build Your Online Audience.

That was January 2020.

I am still a member now and I have also bought several other products from Janet including the digital version of #2020Sorted from last year. The progress I have made in my business can be attributed to a number of key people, but Janet is definitely a major factor in how I have progressed.
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While it has been a tough year for many small businesses, I have been able to challenge myself and drive my business forward by implementing Janet’s advice and following her methods. It’s been an incredible year and I’m so excited about the future.

I’ve gone from being a costume maker who was struggling to keep up due to physical limitations, to an online business owner selling my digital content to other dance costume makers around the world. I have launched a podcast after taking one of Janet’s courses and totally overhauled my branding and online presence.

When I first started following Janet I never could have imagined any of this was possible. Learning about digital courses, memberships and content marketing has opened up a whole new world of business opportunities for me.

My first online course that helps dance costume makers price their costumes properly and earn an income from their talents launched this month. By following Janet’s advice I was able to sell out within days of putting the course on sale.

So now I have 10 fabulous beta testers who are helping me iron out the wrinkles and make the course as amazing as possible before I make it more widely available. I’m enjoying this new part of my business so much because it means my illness isn’t beating me and I can continue to feel like I have a purpose.

This is not a bid to get sympathy for my illness, my health condition plays a huge part in my work life, but I do not let it define me. I don’t want to be anyone’s ‘inspiration’ just for doing normal stuff that people do, like having a job and getting on with life.

When people say they are inspired by a person who has a disability, I wonder if they are inspired by what the person has achieved, or are they inspired because the person managed to achieve it ‘despite being disabled’.

If it’s more to do with the disability than the achievement it’s probably ‘inspiration porn’.

If it’s more to do with the disability than the achievement – it’s probably ‘inspiration porn’.

Part of the problem with inspiration porn is that ‘some people’ have a distorted view of what disability means on an individual level. People with disabilities are often portrayed in the media or on TV as not being able to contribute to society in any way. They are presented as people who need things done for them or to them and always in need of assistance. 

Yes, we do sometimes need help and reasonable adjustments to be made, but that’s only to enable us to continue living our lives as closely to a non-disabled person as possible. We still have so much to contribute. Even if we cannot work, we can still think and have opinions and express ourselves.

This can lead to the idea that someone with a disability would never need certain services like business advice, social media management, marketing help and many other areas of business that are catered for in the online marketing world.

By painting a picture of disability as equating to something that always needs something doing to it, rather than as something that can contribute, we will always be perceived as being ‘in need’ and therefore incapable of achieving much. It facilitates the opinion that people with disabilities are a burden.

So when a person with a disability does something cool, other people start behaving weird and saying things like “If they can do it, then so can I!”

It’s fab if you’ve found inspiration in this way and I’m happy if it has helped you overcome something challenging in your life, but I ask you to take a moment to reflect on what it actually says about the person with the disability.

“If they can do it, so can I”

Is the same as…

“If someone with such an awfully crap life can do it, so can I”

Which also means…

“Their life is so utterly rubbish that I feel I should be able to do something that even a disabled person can do.”

This is not a good way to think about disability.

This misguided view of disability and how it affects different people is a contributing factor to how business owners behave in terms of being inclusive in their marketing, operating procedures, content and their products.

If ‘people’ think that a person with a disability is not likely to become their customer, they often will determine that they don’t need to be inclusive in the content they put out. I’m hoping that by sharing my experiences as a person with a disability who still does exciting and cool things, I can show people that it’s always worth considering how their content might be accessed by others.

Don’t assume that someone with a disability won’t want to be your customer or that your products aren’t suitable for them. A few basic adjustments can be made that will create an environment where a disabled person can be a part of what you are doing without having to request for additional help.

💎 If you create video content, do you always create subtitles?

💎 Do you offer written versions of your content for people who find it easier to consume content this way?

💎 If you hold in person events (hopefully this will be a thing again one day) do you ensure the venue is accessible to those with limited mobility?

💎 Do you include accessibility information on your sales pages? 

💎 Do you expect people who need these things to have to make a special request?

When a business makes these adjustments to their business without someone having to request them, it makes the world of difference to people like me. I really dislike having to be the one person who needs more info or has to ask lots of questions about a venue before being able to buy something.

Making these requests can increase the feeling of being a burden instead of reaffirming the idea that we can contribute and be a part of everyday life like those people who take this for granted.

I happily share my story because I want to help other small business owners create a safe and welcoming space for people with disabilities to be accepted and part of ‘the norm’.

Being unique and an individual is definitely important to me, but sometimes I just want to be a part of something without having to request special measures. Being inclusive in your business doesn’t need to be hard.

Helping other business owners change their perspective about disability and realise how they can make small changes in their work to be more inclusive is super important to me. So when Janet asked me to speak at #2021Sorted about diversity and being inclusive in business I jumped at the chance.

I must admit, I am nervous. I haven’t done anything like this before. But I’m keen to talk to other delegates and see how I can help them make changes in their business to become more inclusive. 

The first step is to radically change the way you see disability and the impact it has on a person’s life. Then try and break down every contact point your customers may have with you and ask yourself if it is truly inclusive and welcoming to people who may have different needs to you.

💎 Do your videos have subtitles?

💎 Are you printouts available in larger print?

💎 Does your website meet the criteria of  the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1)?

💎 Do you have an accessibility statement?

💎 Do you include people with disabilities in your market research?

💎 Do you even know if you have any customers with disabilities?

💎 Is there an alternative text element to your online images?

💎 Can your website be navigated without using a mouse?

If you have a team, have you spoken to them about diversity and inclusivity? Do they know your core values and how to implement them in the work they do for you?

Try not to assume that a person with disabilities won’t want to access your products or services. Even if someone is not able to do certain things, they should still have the right to read about it and make a decision about whether or not they want to pursue it.

Making these changes in your business practice doesn’t have to be a chore. It can be a fantastic opportunity for growth and self-development for you and your team. Don’t be afraid to ask if you are unsure and need some guidance. We are all learning and growing every day. 

My website is not perfect and I have a lot of work to do to get it as accessible as I would like it to be. It’s an ongoing journey and there’s always more to learn as we discover more about how other people access the internet and the services and products they want to buy.

While making these changes you will come across people who don’t agree with you. There will even be people with disabilities who don’t understand or get what you are trying to achieve. That’s ok. You can’t cater for absolutely everyone in every possible situation.

But you can do the work and you can make a difference to a whole group of people you might never have considered before.

For more info about how you can be inclusive in your business you might want to checkout the following websites. 

Web Usability

https://www.webusability.co.uk Web Usability is a consultancy specialising in UX (User Experience). Their blog posts are easy to read, understand and implement. The following blog posts may be of particular interest.

https://info.webusability.co.uk/blog/uk-government-accessibility-requirements – UK Governement Requirments

https://info.webusability.co.uk/blog/why-we-hate-pdfs – Why we hate PDFs

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

https://www.w3.org/WAI/ – making the web accessible. This is an amazing resource, but it can appear overwhelming if it’s the first time you have started to look at the issues faced by people with audio / visual disabilities.

You might want to try this page first https://www.w3.org/WAI/roles/writers/ (resources for content writers) while you start to understand how you can make your online content more accessible.

I hope this has given you some ideas about how you might be able to be more inclusive in your business. I could talk about this forever but I don’t think that would be helpful. It can be quite a task when you start to tackle a project that you might not have previously given much thought to.

If you only remember one thing, remember this. A person with a disability should have the right to access content, even if the content is not relevant to them.

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The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. Nicky Merrick disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.

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Hi! I’m Nicky from Pink Giraffe.

This blog is where I share tips and tricks that have helped me run a small business from home since 2007.

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