Jenny Cross of Cross Productions tells her story

Jenny Cross: NOT GIVING UP

From voluntary liquidation to losing loved ones, Kerry Smith talks to Cross Productions CEO Jenny Cross about losing it all and starting over

t six months’ pregnant, Jenny Cross quit her telesales job at a privately owned newspaper company for the good of her mental health and her moral code. Now the CEO of successful marketing company Cross Productions, she looked back on the experience: “It was a hostile environment and the manager was intimidating. Back then I was so shy and quiet that I would never have dared confront her. The only way to get back at her was to sell more than her so I got my head down and made it happen.”

Six months later, Jenny was promoted to sales manager and again within a year to sales director at the age of 19. “I was earning really good money, had a BMW three series, and was living the life while all my mates were skint at uni,” she told us. But the dark side of her seemingly flourishing career was festering away at her. “It was a known culture that the company avoided promoting women and that being pregnant was frowned upon.”

Jenny says she knew that being pregnant would cause trouble for her within the male-owned company and it eventually took one fateful incident for her to finally leave. Not willing to name the company, she explained the final straw that led to her leaving the environment she found to be negative: “One of my team had sold an advert to a B and B owner but head office had taken the money three times, I asked them to refund her to which I received a call from my boss telling me it’s not my job to tell them what to do and that I had to sell more advert space to the B and B owner, but three adverts weren’t worth it for her. I went home thinking I can’t do this anymore and the following Monday I quit.”

Without maternity pay or another job to go to, Jenny’s first child was born a month early due to stress, and four months later, she decided to set up her own company hiring an accountant and a designer and selling advertising space in her own magazine called Insight. Pregnant with her second child a year later, Jenny had just two days off before returning

to work, “I needed to manage the team because there was no one else to lead it, and I didn’t have a clue how to train someone to be a manager.”

Things were ticking by until the birth of her third child was shortly followed by the death of her grandma. “It knocked me for six and my head wasn’t in the game. I took my eye off the ball, so had my accountant, and I wasn’t checking the figures properly until HMRC turned up at the office because we hadn’t paid our VAT bill.” The event forced Insight magazine, which had been running for five years, to go into voluntary liquidation as well as having to call the police after some rather unofficial ‘bailiffs’ on her doorstep. Jenny had to sell her home to pay off her debts and distribute the final ever Insight magazine for their existing advertising clients.

With the help of her friend Leanne Latham and sister Sally Smith, Jenny set out to build up a new company called Cross Productions with its own B2B publication Niche Magazine. Starting from scratch, she would often breakdown in tears through the tough early days of her business whilst raising three young children. After moving the business from home into offices in Oadby, which the now 14-strong team still resides today, Jenny became friends with Leicester business women Leanne Bonner-Cooke MBE, Eileen Richards MBE, and Glynis Wright MBE. She said: “I was in awe of these business people and there was me with a handful of GCSEs, a failed business, and a marriage on the rocks at this point.”

Networking was successful but another devastating blow came when her mother died. Determined to keep the business going and be there for her team, she was convinced by a friend to take the Post Graduate Certificate in Professional Coaching at Leicester Castle Business School. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. Doing a degree when you’ve not even done A-Levels was so hard. I remember having to go home and Google what the Harvard Referencing System was because I didn’t want to ask and look stupid.

“But it was the best thing I ever did. It’s impacted the whole company. We now have a development and coaching culture with strong department leaders so we’re able to run as a profitable commercial entity.”

The Cross and Niche teams have gone on to win numerous accolades and awards and runs events such as Inspirational Women in Business networking and Niche Business Awards. She says the success of the business, which turns eight in April, is all down to the work of her team and some hypnotherapy sessions with SanaMente owner Linda Neville for confidence as well as repeating positive affirmations five times a day.

Visit crossproductions.co.uk/why-cross to find out more about Jenny.

“I was in awe of these business people and there was me with a handful of GCSEs, a failed business, and a marriage on the rocks”