From teacher to content lead: how Jo Williamson found a whole new side to business
There’s a funny thing that happens when you start a business: you usually think you know which part you’re going to love most. You picture the classes, the families, the children and the bits that already feel familiar, then somewhere along the way you discover a completely different strength you didn’t even know was there.
That’s exactly what happened to Jo Williamson from Story Rangers Stourbridge & Dudley, a finalist for Content Marketing of the Year, sponsored by Tamara Holland from Dot and Stripe, at The Class Business Awards 2026.
Jo spent 11 years teaching and, like so many people I speak to in this sector, she didn’t fall out of love with working with children. She fell out of love with everything around it. The paperwork, the pressure and the constant demands were starting to take her further and further away from the part of the job she actually cared about. Two years ago, she decided to take a leap she never imagined herself making and move into self-employment.
What makes the story even better is that she already knew Story Rangers as a parent. She’d taken her own son to classes, seen the experience first-hand and knew how much she loved what the brand did. So when Story Rangers began franchising, the timing felt too good to ignore and Jo became the pilot franchisee.
She’ll tell you herself that she’s not naturally a risk taker, but this one felt worth it. Two years later, she says leaving teaching has felt like “a breath of fresh air”.
Growing at a pace that actually works
Jo didn’t come out of teaching and try to build everything overnight. She launched community classes in two locations, secured a nursery contract and then gradually added more as the business became established.
That first nursery relationship is still going today, and over time recommendations helped open doors to more nurseries and nursery chains. When her daughter started preschool, Jo had a little more space to grow again, so she added more contracts and launched an after-school club at her own children’s school, which is regularly fully booked.
What I really like about that is how intentional the pace has been. Jo hasn’t been trying to prove anything by growing as fast as possible. She’s built around the capacity she has, the family life she wants and the stage the business is actually at.
“I’ve been able to pick the speed in which things grow.”
That’s a really important business lesson in itself. Growth doesn’t always have to be dramatic. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is build in a way that’s sustainable enough for you to keep enjoying it.
The impact goes much further than the class
Jo’s work now takes her into community classes, nurseries, schools and childminder settings, which means she gets to see children in lots of different environments and with very different experiences of books and storytelling at home.
For some children, reading might already be a big part of family life. For others, access to books or confidence around storytelling might be much more limited. That’s where the Story Rangers approach becomes so powerful, because it isn’t about sitting children down and simply reading a book at them.
The stories are brought to life through craft, sensory play, role play, puppets, drama and story scribing. Children can retell what they’ve heard, make up something new, act it out or become the storyteller themselves. The whole point is to make stories feel exciting, playful and something they want to be part of.
Jo also talks about the ripple effect this creates beyond the session itself. She’s worked with nursery staff through CPD and is now starting to offer parent workshops too, helping adults rethink what reading can look like and how they can make it more engaging at home.
That’s where the impact starts to spread. It’s not just one child enjoying one class. It’s a nursery team taking new ideas back into their setting, a parent seeing reading differently or a child discovering that stories are something they can play with and create for themselves.
The part of business Jo never expected to love
When Jo started Story Rangers, she knew she loved children, stories and creativity. What she didn’t know was that she was going to fall in love with marketing.
She didn’t come from a marketing background and had no reason to think content creation would become one of her favourite parts of the business. But as she started posting, experimenting and being a bit silly in front of the camera, she realised she really enjoyed finding ways to show people what Story Rangers was actually like.
“I’ve sort of fell in love with marketing.”
And I think that makes complete sense when you hear her talk about it, because Jo doesn’t see marketing as sitting down and forcing out sales posts. She sees it as another creative outlet. It’s a way to show what happens inside the classes, share the team’s expertise, connect with families and let people see the real humans behind the brand.
That’s probably one of the reasons the content works. It feels like an extension of what they already do rather than a completely separate job that has to be bolted onto the side.
From local franchisee to leading the wider brand
As Story Rangers expanded and more franchisees joined the network, the team needed a clearer approach to content across the wider brand. They wanted consistency, but they didn’t want every franchisee to sound identical or become what Jo jokingly describes as “little robots”.
So from January, Jo took the lead on the main Story Rangers marketing. She now helps plan the content going out across the wider brand, works around agreed content pillars and uses the combined education experience of the team to create useful, engaging material.
At the same time, each franchisee still has room to show their own personality, local community and individual way of doing things.
That balance is really important in franchise marketing. You need enough consistency that people recognise the brand, but you also need enough personality that customers still feel like they’re dealing with a real person in their local area.
The content Jo is helping shape now brings together a few key strands:
- what Story Rangers is and what the brand stands for
- the experience inside the classes
- the impact storytelling can have on children
- useful education-led content from the team
- the personality of the individual franchisees
The fact that Jo was trusted with that responsibility after such a short time in business says a lot about what she’s built and how naturally she’s stepped into this part of the role.
Business can show you a version of yourself you didn’t expect
This is probably the part of Jo’s story I love most.
She left teaching because she wanted something different. She knew she loved working with children and she knew she believed in Story Rangers, but she didn’t know she’d enjoy networking, content creation, marketing strategy or helping shape the direction of a growing franchise brand.
That’s one of the brilliant things about running a business. It stretches you into roles you might never have applied for and gives you the chance to discover strengths you didn’t know you had.
In two years, Jo has gone from pilot franchisee to someone trusted to lead marketing across the wider Story Rangers network, while still growing her own local business at a pace that works for her family.
That’s a big journey in a relatively short space of time, and it’s a really good reminder that growth isn’t only measured in bookings, contracts or turnover. Sometimes it’s also about the person you become while you’re building it.
Watch the full interview
In our full conversation, Jo shares why she left teaching, how she’s grown Story Rangers Stourbridge & Dudley in a way that works for her family, the impact interactive storytelling can have on children and how she unexpectedly became the person leading marketing across the wider Story Rangers brand.
👉 Watch Jo’s full finalist interview here.
Jo is a finalist for Content Marketing of the Year, sponsored by Tamara Holland from Dot and Stripe, at The Class Business Awards 2026.
If you want to spend a day surrounded by other class business owners who are working through their own next stage of growth, join us at The Class Business Live on Saturday 10 October 2026 at the National Conference Centre in Solihull.
We’ll be getting into the real conversations around growth, marketing, leadership, partnerships and building a business that actually works for you, before celebrating together at The Class Business Awards & Afterparty that evening.
