An Interview with…

Indie Stowell

Why have you decide to share your advice and experiences with Girl Economics?

Sharing advice and experiences with Girl Economics aligns with my goal of empowering individuals, especially early career professionals, to navigate the job market more effectively and strategically. When I was starting out in my career, I was seeing no success at all and I felt as though I had no one to turn to for advice or guidance. It was a stressful time, so I want to alleviate that stress for others, by being the person they can turn to for help.

Could you tell us a little bit about why social media marketing is so important for brands?

Social media marketing is crucial for brands because it offers a direct channel to engage with their target audience, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales - and at a very cost effective price as well! This gives small businesses like mine, a chance to compete with the bigger names.

What led you to decide to launch your own marketing company and what advice would you have for young women looking to start their own businesses?

The decision to go freelance stemmed from two reasons. The first reason was that I struggled for so many months to secure a job after university, and it wasn’t until I started building my personal brand that I was able to turn this around. I feel as though not enough people know this, so I want to build a platform to help others in a similar position to where I was 18 months ago.

Also, I didn’t have the best experience working for someone else, so I guess it made me realise that in order to hit the career goals I want to hit and live my life the way I want to live it, I can’t rely on anybody else. I have to go out on my own and make my dream life possible.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in navigating being a young female business owner?

The biggest challenge I've faced as a young freelancer is establishing credibility and gaining the trust of clients. Being a young girl in her 20s, people often doubt my skills. What they forget to take into consideration though, is that I have grown up in the social media age, so there’s no better person to trust with your social media content than someone who has spent their whole life using it - in my opinion anyway.

Also, documenting my skills and client results on LinkedIn has been a game-changer in overcoming this. It shows that I’m not just claiming I understand social media, but I actually have proof.

Who is your biggest inspiration and why?

My biggest inspiration is probably my dad. He started his own charity campaign in honour of my grandma about 10 years ago, and has since been invited to parliament to speak with our Health Secretary, he’s won awards at various events, and he’s now filming a documentary about his story and campaign. His determination to keep going, even though it’s taken so long to hit his goals, inspires me to never stop going after what I truly want, because eventually it will happen - and often better than you ever imagined!

What advice would you give to young women who are just beginning to think about developing their personal brand?

I always tell my clients to focus on this 5 step framework:

• Define your why

• Pick 3 content pillars

• Decide who you want your content to speak to

• Figure out your version of consistency

• Network with industry professionals who are where you want to be in 5, 10, 15 years time

Got something else you’d like to ask?

If you have burning questions you’d like me to pose to future Girl Economics Interviewees, do reach out on LinkedIn!

A deep dive into…

Having the Option to Trade Options

What is options trading, how does it work, and why do traders engage in it?

Alright, to start off, I should probably cover what exactly an option is. Before jumping right in, I’ll start with a metaphor:

Imagine that you are going to a festival (stay with me here!) and you want a backup plan in case it rains, but you don’t want to commit to buying an umbrella unless it is absolutely necessary. So, you decide to purchase an “option” from an umbrella company. This option gives you the choice to buy an umbrella at the festival at a specified price if you decide to. If it rains at the festival, you can exercise your option and buy the umbrella. However, if it doesn’t rain and you don’t need the umbrella then you can let the option expire and not buy the umbrella. All you lose is the cost of purchasing the option whereas without having purchased an option you would either have gotten very wet, or bought an umbrella that you didn’t need.

Similarly, in options trading, you can buy “call options” if you believe that the price of the underlying asset is going to rise (a bit like buying the umbrella if it rains), or you can buy “put options” if you think the price will fall (like hedging against rain by purchasing an option to buy an umbrella). If the price moves in your favour then you can exercise the option and make a profit. If not, you can let the option expire, limiting your losses to only the cost of the option itself.

Makes sense? No? Let’s explore in more detail:

CALL OPTIONS

Let’s say that you believe that the price of Google’s stock, which in this hypothetical example is trading at £50 per share, will increase in the next month because they are going to reveal a new development in their AI system. What you can do is purchase a call option for Google stock with a price of £55 and an expiration date of one month from now. This call option gives you the right to buy the stock at £55 per share within the next month.

If, by the expiration date, the stock price has risen to £70 per share then you would exercise your call option and buy Google stock at the lower price of £55 per share. You can then immediately sell the stock at the current market price of £70 per share, making a £10 profit on each share! (Minus the cost of option itself)

On the other hand, if Google actually announced that it was closing its AI division then the stock price could tumble to £35 per share. You are not obligated to exercise your option (since it would make no financial sense to buy a £35 share for £55) and can simply let it expire, meaning you only lose the cost of the option itself.

PUT OPTIONS

Put options work very similar to call options however it works the other way: a put option gives the holder of that option the right, but not the obligation, to sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price at a given point in the future.

Going back to our example, suppose you own Google shares currently trading at £50 per share but you are concerned that the price might decline in the next month, perhaps because Microsoft is about to release a new product. To protect yourself from losses, you could purchase a put option with a price of £45 and an expiration date of one month from now.

If the stock price has fallen to £40 per share, you can exercise your option and sell the stocks at the higher price of £45 per share. This limits your losses to only £5 per share instead of the £10 drop in market price of each share. Similarly if the price stays above £45, you can let the option expire and just lose the price you paid for the option.

WHY DO WE HAVE THE OPTION OF OPTIONS?

Great question 😃 

There are a few main reasons why options trading takes place (but, of course, in reality different traders and companies will have a whole range of different reasons, sometimes simply resting on trying to diversify the type of financial products that one is invested in!)

→ Institutional investors will often use options as a way to hedge against potential losses. For example, by using put options a stockholder can effectively insure their portfolio against declining stock prices.

→ Traders can speculate on whether share prices will move up or down in pursuit of profit, for example taking on a ‘short’ position (think of the Big Short if you’ve watched it) often involves purchasing put options.

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Opportunity Corner

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That is all for this issue, remember to share Girl Economics with anyone you think would enjoy reading it! See you in the next issue,

Erin McGurk