Christina Barker, manager of Dolphin Outsourcing tells us about her personal life and what it means to be working with Dolphin Outsourcing Ltd. Join her as she is interviewed by Zara Roberts and find out how Christina can help you with your own business.
Check us out on our website to find out more and enquire about working with us - https://www.dolphin-outsourcing.co.uk/ and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Listen to our 'Dolphin Pod' podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Christina
Hello everyone, today is a little bit different in the fact that I'm going to be interviewed by our lovely team member Zara. I don't know which side she's on your screen. Yes, tables have turned, and she gets to interview me in the hot seat. You may have seen my face for around, and you might not have done and but you might not necessarily know that much about me. So over to you, Zara, if you fire away with the questions, and I'll answer them as best I can.
Zara
Oh, I like this, especially after last time, it was me in the hot seat.
So tell us about your career so far?
Christina
Okay, so I am part of a military community, reason being my husband is actually in the RAF. Therefore I have to be really organised in everything that I do. We have two young children, and we're currently based in North Yorkshire. We do have to go up and down the country a lot, but currently, we're here. I've spent 15 years plus, kind of lost track now, with various sort of admin roles in the past. I've got a vast knowledge of social media, and I even had my own digital marketing business before, as well as a wedding events company prior to working with Dolphin. I don't know if you knew that already.
Zara
I didn't know that see I've learned something new
Christina
See, you've learnt a few things as well. So yeah, I've had a couple of businesses before.
Zara
Wow. See, there are some things you never know about people? Okay. So tell us about your personality? What are your interests? And what do you do in your spare time?
Christina
So you're going to think I'm really weird now, but the first thing that I thought of is I'm really interested in like the unknown so UFOs, aliens, spiritual type things. I don't know how you would word that. But basically, things like past lives and life after death and all things like that. I really believe in all that stuff. And I just find it really fascinating. So conspiracy theories, like things like that?
Zara
Oh, yes, definitely.
Christina
So all those things really intrigued me. So like, basically, in my spare time, I just like, consume all the information about them, and then I can't sleep.
Zara
I don't think I would either. I like these types of things as well. So maybe we should just have a chat about the spiritual and the unknown.
Christina
We could somehow turn into a business thing. Thinking about business stuff, an idea for something else in the future.
Zara
it's a good idea. So what do you do for Dolphin on a daily basis?
Christina
My position as manager is to support the team with guidance and advice. So that could be in the form of training with a programme, or helping anyone with clients and things. I also have my own clients as well, so I help with lots of things really varied basis, so it can be anything from checking emails or one to one training. So it does kind of vary on a day to day basis. But I do enjoy it.
Zara
That's good. I don't know how you do it managing all of us and your own clients. Is that organisation from being from a military family background?
Christina
Yeah, we just got on with it, I suppose.
Zara
So have you got any courses coming up that you've got an interest in? Or have you completed any recently?
Christina
I've been pretty busy with the kids being off school at the moment and locked down, but I'm always sort of adding snippets of things that I've learned to put on my list. So, for example, I've recently assisted our director with the update of our website, which hopefully you will see soon. We're still tweaking it a fair bit until we're happy with it because you do one page, and then we think, oh, I'll do that on all the other pages, and then you have to back, but it is coming. There's always new bits and bobs on there, so they've popped up, and then things have moved around a bit since I was last on the platform, so it's always good to keep on top of those, and then I'm able to pass the information on as well to our clients and colleagues.
Zara
It certainly is. So, where do you see yourself in 12 months with Dolphin?
Christina
It seems like ages since I've been thinking about that, doesn't it? We're hoping for a bigger team, actually. So during the next year, I'll hopefully have some more staff members onto my wing. And I would eventually then train those staff members up to become managers themselves ideally, so big things are happening.
Zara
We like big things happening.
Christina
So you need to follow us on Facebook if you're not following already.
Zara
Definitely, there is so much going up on there at the moment. So what makes you stand out from the crowd?
Christina
I feel as though I'm a very approachable person and therefore easy to communicate with, so I can relate to how the other person is feeling and then support them. I have an ability for that.
Zara
I think you are very good at that; you do seem to have this sixth sense of how people are feeling; I do like that you. Your message going 'Are you ok?'
Christina
I like to check on people.
Zara
You said you do social media. So what is your favourite social media platform?
Christina
I'm a little bit old school, and my go-to has always been Facebook, and I don't think that's gonna change. Social media basically revolves around it, and therefore, has been my number one, so I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon.
Zara
So what would be your second favourite then?
Christina
That wasn't a question. Probably Instagram; that's probably the one that I use secondary, although not really so much at the minute. Still, Facebook is my go-to.
Zara
So which platform do you have the most experience in?
Christina
Facebook again, so I've been using it now, I worked this out last night, I think it's since 2007, which is quite back, so like 14 years, and I googled it last night as to when it opened, it was 2005, and I was only young, and I don't think it was really a thing until a little bit after that, say 2007. I think that's when I started using it. So that's a long time.
Zara
Yeah, when it first started, it wasn't a huge thing people were still using MSN Messenger and things like that.
Christina
I think at the time, I was probably using Myspace quite a lot. I wasn't a Facebook fan, although I heard that's coming back out soon. I don't know if you knew that?
Zara
Oh, is it? I'll have to keep an eye on that one.
Christina
That's a story for another time. But there we go, a little snippet of information there.
Zara
I like it just feed them a little bit. So I love this question. Tell us a fun fact about yourself.
Christina
You may or may not have already had this one, but I can juggle up to six balls.
Zara
I can’t even juggle two!
Christina
Can you not, well learn, obviously with two to begin with and then you kind of learn one hand then the other hand, and then I was like, well I can just add another one in. Then I was like, well, how many can I hold? Okay, so I can three in this hand, that's how many I can fit, so I was, well I'm just gonna try it. Then eventually, you do four. I haven't done the whole six in a while, but I can do it.
Zara
Maybe we should get a video of you doing that. That would be a really good video of you juggling these six balls.
Christina
I mean, I juggle things in life, so it similar thing, I suppose.
Zara
Definitely, Well, thank you very much, Christina Barker, That is your life.
Christina
So that concludes our interview today. So if anyone's got any questions that you want to ask me, or you'd like to work with either myself or one of our team, and please get in touch, and we'd love to hear from you and we will see you all next time.
Comments