Success Tips From And For Mom Entrepreneurs
One of my favorite things about being a mom entrepreneur is meeting other mom entrepreneurs. There is a powerful camaraderie between us and just so much to learn from each other. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been chatting with successful mom entrepreneurs about the success tips they’d offer to fledgling mompreneurs. Some of them talked about products and services that helped them, while others spoke of inner qualities that guided them. I’m honored to share their words of wisdom with you.
Sara Sutton Fell of FlexJobs.com:
As moms and entrepreneurs, we are all balancing so many professional and personal responsibilities. A tool that has helped me IMMENSELY with managing and organizing all of these is Google Calendar. It's been an invaluable tool for me. A few of my favorite Google Calendar features: • Everywhere access - I can see my calendars from any computer connected to the Internet, which is great for traveling, and for my husband who can glance at the calendar from work to see what's on the schedule. Google Calendar can also be synched with Outlook and smartphones. • Easy access - The calendar can be included in the Google sidebar, which I have loaded on both my professional and our home computer, so it's right there at all times. • Multiple calendars - You can create multiple calendars, color code them, and display whichever ones you want to at a given time. For my family, we have 6 different calendars - one each for my work, my personal, my husband, our family as a whole, and one for each of our two boys (to juggle babysitting/daycare). • Email/SMS reminders - Who doesn't need a reminder from time to time? • To-do lists - Although it's technically another feature, I also enthusiastically use the Google Notepad, so that I keep a digital to-do list along with my calendars. It's easy to update and edit. Nothing falls through the cracks and no one can doodle on it! • It's free!
Jen Singer of MommaSaid.net:
Stay focused. “People are going to think you’re an overnight success,” a friend told me the other day. “But I know how hard you’ve worked to stay focused these past few years.” I’d told her that actress Melissa Joan Hart had given me a book jacket quote for a series that’s branded to my web site, MommaSaid.net. When I’d launched MommaSaid in 2003, my mom was pretty much the only one to visit it for a while. Determined to make it work, I stuck with it, redesigning it twice, adding columnists and promoting it relentlessly until I’d built up a loyal audience of thousands. Then, last year, an editor from HCI Books approached me to write a three-book series on parenting. “MommaSaid.net Presents: Stop Second Guessing Yourself” will be published in 2009. The editor had been a fan of my web site, watching it grow over the years. Good thing I’d stayed focused all these years.
Doreen Foxwell of thechildrensschoolofyoga.com:
5 years ago when I got the idea to start my business I went to my local Small Business Office and met with professional business owners that coach you and give you advice on every aspect of starting a business. All the How To's, Why's, Where's, and Who's. The business advice I received included coaching, writing a business plan, business licenses, etc...I believe the type of services I received would have cost me thousands, but was FREE. To this day I occasionally check in with my original consultant, Sam Keston, and update him on the successes of my business.
Cindy Aggson of CarpeViamGroup.com:
The final key to success and happiness is being in a continual state of profound gratitude! No, not every day is going to go perfectly, but what about the day are you grateful for: your big ol’ cup of joe, your dog is happy to see you, your kids are healthy. We ALWAYS have something to be grateful for, if you focus on that you will get notice that you will have an abundance of things to be grateful for in your life.
Kirsty Lawson of PrezziExpress.com:
For 10 years I worked as a financial TV Producer for companies such as CNBC, Dow Jones and Bloomberg TV. I met and interviewed a lot of successful business people through my work. Over the years I noticed that most had one thing in common; the ability to quickly adapt and change their businesses if it meant improving profits. This emotional detachment meant that these entrepreneurs didn't feel they had 'failed' simply because their initial idea for the business had been superseded by new opportunities. For them, a business is NOT a vehicle for proving that they can make an idea work, no matter what the obstacles. Successful people are led by the potential for profit, not by their egos.
Marina Westerdahl of GissyBella.com:
For as long as you can, work only with freelance contractors. They always do a great job, charge less and you only pay them as you need them. Most times freelance contractors are also entrepreneurs working from home and raising a family. Maia Haag of ISeeMe.com:If you’re starting an ecommerce company, I’d suggest using a Yahoo! Store for your website. You can get your website up and running without a significant upfront investment or need for a programmer. Yahoo! provides tools that enable you to update your site without knowing HTML programming. And you will never need to worry about your website going down. Our website www.iseeme.com is a Yahoo! Store and we’ve been very happy with it for 8 years. We process thousands of orders for our personalized storybooks through our website every week without a hitch.
Sophia Chiang of QLubb.com:
Split up your work into two categories - creative and mechanical.In any given day, I have many tasks, those that require a lot of hard and creative thinking and those that are very mechanical. I plan to complete the hard/creative work in the early morning and early afternoon when I am the most alert and focused, leaving the mechanical work to the late afternoon and to the late-night talk show periods. A big thank you to all the mom entrepreneurs who took the time to share their success tips.
Have a success tip to share? Leave it in the comments!