40-year-old Susan Walsh, otherwise known as The Classification Guru to her legions of LinkedIn followers, has had a colourful career. In just three years, her business has grown from a pipe dream into an internationally competitive company and Susan, considered an expert in her field, speaks regularly about the benefits of cleaning and maintaining your data. But, how has she done it? Well, with a lot of hard work, determination and a little bit of chance…

Let’s talk about job history first, because you have quite a colourful past…

I graduated with a degree in commerce and never, ever really knew what I wanted to do when I finished. 
My first job was as a paint merchandiser, travelling all over Scotland. But my dream was to live and work in London and the company I worked for had a vacancy down south and that’s how I ended up here in Guildford. That didn’t last long though, it wasn’t for me, so then I tried recruitment… that was traumatic!
Then it was print sales, then telesales, and I was also working at weekends in a nightclub… then I got a job with Colgate, selling toothpaste to dentists. I pushed for a promotion and ended up being head hunted by different departments and took a role as a national account exec., but I was really unhappy in that role and decided to open a shop!
It was around the time there was a real shift in business where from more formal stuff to smart/casual but there wasn’t really anywhere in Guilford you could get anything like that. I planned and planned and a proper business plan, but it was so, so quiet and it took me a while to realise it but something I couldn’t plan for was brand snobbery. I wasn’t a Gucci, or a Calvin Klein and it was really hard to tackle that. By the time I was making headway I was basically broke. I had to shut and go bankrupt. But the kicker is, I was so broke from the shop I actually had to save up to go bankrupt – I couldn’t afford it!
I ended up getting a data classification job through Gumtree. 
I’d never done it in my life, but I thought ‘hey, I can give this a go’ and I took to it really quickly! I was really fast and accurate. It wasn’t a full-time role though, so I ended up taking another job at Wonderbra. I was even on QVC! That was my 15 minutes of fame.
That was a 6-month gig and when it came to an end the data analytics company had a full-time role for me classifying data and as their business grew, I recruited a team and trained them to classify and just discovered how much I loved it. 

I was there for 5 years and after all that time I found myself looking for something more. That’s when I decided to set up my own business so I could keep doing what I loved and here I am – The Classification Guru!

Does it feel like it was ‘meant to be’ then?

Absolutely, there’s no way I would be doing what I’m doing now if I hadn’t had the shop and it hadn’t failed. I found that ad on Gumtree by chance and I really think I was meant to, and I found my calling.

Were you apprehensive of setting up another business?

So, the spend analytics company was focussed on selling dashboards and analytics, but what I noticed was that all the data that came in was wrong! So, we had to spend a lot of time fixing it and nobody seemed to be actually concentrating on the data part. 
I really felt there must be a way to clean the data without having to spend money on the dashboard or the analytics and I spoke to a few people who said it sounded like a good idea and I had some savings, so I had a bit of a buffer this time. My dad was a little apprehensive, but I just felt determined. 
I had no connections in procurement so I really did have to fight my way up from nothing but that just made me even more determined and when I spoke to procurement people they all thought it was a really good idea and it was something they were having problems with, so I knew I was onto something – there was lots of interest. And, not just from small businesses. There was large UK based and some international companies too, so I really felt there was a chance and I just had to hang on. 

Where did ‘The Classification Guru’ concept come from?

I kind of dreamt it up. When classifying I was twice as fast as anyone else and I just have a natural knack of doing it and within the team I was working with I was better than anyone else and I knew no one could do it as well as me so that’s where the Guru part came from.

How far have you come since those first 10 months with no business?

So far, last March, which was about a year and a half in, I decided that if this was going to work, I really had to go all in. 
I was still working part-time to keep myself going and I’d just finished a contract which I’d stressed myself out so much during that I actually started to lose my hair. It really physically affected me and that was a wake-up call. 
I started doing local networking and I found it was really hard to describe what I do in an elevator pitch so I started doing little videos to explain what data classification really is in a way that people could really understand. I started posting them on LinkedIn and people really loved them, so I did more and that was the turning point.
It was still a tough year though and then suddenly around February, just as I was thinking about giving up, I had five projects come in one day and since then I haven’t stopped working. I have been constantly busy. 

Let’s talk a bit about LinkedIn then because you are a wee bit ‘LinkedIn famous’ – how does that feel?

I own it now and enjoy it but at the start of the year I was still quite uncomfortable with the idea and felt that maybe I didn’t deserve it. But I’ve realised I have a really niche skill so I’m more comfortable accepting that I am an expert and owning it. I have worked really hard for it. It didn’t just fall in my lap and it’s really cool. 
People message me for advice on projects and how to get into data science and I always try to have calls with them and give back a little bit and that’s amazing too. 
I also love when I meet people on Zoom for the first time, they always say that they feel like they know me, and I am just how I am in my videos. I love that because all I’ve ever wanted to do is just be myself. There’s some people out there who aren’t authentic but with me what you see is what you get.

One of the big things you talk about on LinkedIn is the important of your data having a ‘COAT’ – where did that come from?

People love it and it was a complete fluke. I was doing a podcast with Daniel Barnes for World of Procurement and I think he asked me for four tips so I started writing out ‘data should be accurate, it could be consistent, it should be organised’ and I realised I had a bit of an acronym. So, pure chance. I think that was in April and people really get on board with COAT and find it really easy to understand. You could give that to anyone within an organisation and they would understand it.

What advice would you give to someone who is a bit lost and hasn’t found their niche yet?

Try lots of stuff out. You know there are loads of freelancer websites out there now. They don’t pay a lot, but you could try a few things and see what you like. Do some temp. work or some contact work and see how that goes. When I was growing up there was still that kind of ‘job for life’ expectation whereas now you can be two years in a job and be an old timer. It’s so much more acceptable now to try things out, do different things and not like stuff and want a change. It took me to my early-mid thirties so be patient too because it might not come straight away. But also, I wouldn’t have been able to do this job ten years ago. It came about as a result of all that combined experience.

So, what’s next for The Classification Guru?

I’m hoping to win some new projects over the rest of the year, and just keeping up what I’m doing now with LinkedIn – all the content creation and videos. Even more podcasts, webinars, blogs. I’m laying all the groundwork for growing the business. I’d also like to start taking on some people to help me with the work because things are just crazy. Longer term still, I’d really like to set up a UK onshore classification hub. So, watch this space….