Jayne Chater
Known for: Developing and supporting working mothers

When it comes to working mums in the workplace, few people have more expertise than Jayne Chater. Not only a mum herself who’s navigated the challenges of exiting and reentering the workforce, she’s also an executive and leadership coach who supports organisations and working mums to help them maintain, grow, and succeed in their careers.

Jayne had a pretty extensive repertoire of experience that was highly valuable for mums transitioning back into work – and people were starting to demand something that they could use for themselves and their teams.

The beginning of an idea…

“I had written a whole heap of different articles and blogs over the years,” shares Jayne. “One of my clients suggested I put all my work together as a book. I loved the idea – I wanted to create a really valuable resource as there wasn’t really anything out there for Kiwi mums.”

After putting together the beginnings of it, Jayne got stuck. Getting the book from conception to publication was beginning to be an anxiety-inducing process with many sleepless nights. The seed had been planted but it was a challenge to keep the ball rolling.

“I sat on it for three years which really stressed me out,” describes Jayne. “I was getting quite anxious about it and was constantly thinking ‘How do I get it out of my head and onto the page? Will I ever finish it? Will it be any good? I had to fill in all the gaps and I had no idea how I would do this.”

Putting pen to paper

Jayne knew she needed help – which was where Intelligent Ink came in.

“Intelligent Ink had done some work for Professionelle, of which I’m a trustee. One of the co-founders of Professionelle told me I should get in contact with Christina to discuss my book and their ghostwriting services,” explains Jayne.

“When I chatted with her we clicked straight away. I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, she’s perfect.’ As a young mum I knew she would get it.”

Intelligent Ink soon came on board to help get Jayne across the finish line. That started with an intensive planning meeting, to determine who Jayne’s audience was, exactly what she wanted to get across to them, how her work would differ from other books, and what gaps still needed to be filled in her existing content.

“The process was awesome, Christina was able to ask the right questions to draw out interesting answers that sounded true to me and my experience.”

Following the meeting, Christina devoured all the content Jayne had already created to pull together an in-depth recommendation document of exactly what was still needed, how she’d suggest structuring each chapter, and how to make it as engaging as possible. After that, it was all about setting a realistic (although tight!) timeline to get everything done.

“Christina had everything planned out. What I really valued about working with her is that she was realistic but at the same time shared my goals wholeheartedly,” shares Jayne. “Working with someone who would always do what they said they would made me more accountable myself.”

Following a confirmed plan and timeline, Intelligent Ink created an introduction for the book. This enabled Jayne to get a feel for our writing and give feedback on style and tone that could be carried through the rest of the book.

Once we’d made minor changes to the intro, it was onto the rest of the book, writing chapter by chapter. Some of the content was there – so we transformed it into something that flowed well, would engage the audience, and brought Jayne’s passion alive on the page. We also interviewed a number of women who had successfully (or less successfully) stepped out of and back into the workplace, creating case studies for each chapter that showed how Jayne’s advice works in real life.

Following the creation of the content, Intelligent Ink edited the entire manuscript, and helped Jayne through the process of self-publishing – until the final product emerged: A Slight Detour.

“For me, if I surround myself with the right sort of people I’ll fly but if not I know I’ll just sit on it and make minimal progress,” says Jayne. “I tend to jump to the end results, overlooking the smaller steps on the way. It was great to have Christina to talk through each stage so I was always really clear on the process and what my responsibility was. In hindsight, what I realised is you’ve got to allow a decent amount of time for the reviews and changes – which Christina was always on top of.”

A book in her hands

Once the book was published, Jayne felt incredibly proud to see her expertise in a tangible form. Positive feedback immediately started coming in, sparking excitement for future works.

I’ve got a book, a decent sized book – I never thought it would be that thick!,” laughs Jayne. “I’ve already gotten awesome feedback to the point where I am now excited to write another book focusing on working mums. It’s an incredible feeling just to know that the book is useful, it’s practical, and it’s valuable.”

Jayne knew she had a story to tell – and thanks to Jayne’s hard work, and some help from Intelligent Ink, Kiwi mums now have access to an incredible resource to make that transitionary period a little bit easier to navigate. We loved getting to be part of Jayne’s journey – and are thrilled that we could take her from a bunch of articles to a finished book.