“I think us business mums are a very special breed indeed”, says Accidental Businessmum Andrea Daly, host of this month’s Business Mums Blog Carnival.
Andrea, I think you’re right!
Big thanks to Andrea for posting November’s carnival, especially as it just seems to get bigger every month! Why not grab a coffee, take a break and have a read of some great blogs?
If you’d like to join in next month, you can grab all the details on the Business Mums Blog Carnival page.
It’s Monday again, so it’s time for this week’s challenge. (If you missed the previous challenges, here they are: Promote your blog, Get out there!, Get creative!)
Right, let’s dive in!
Content, content, content. You need it for blog posts, words to put on your website, things to link to on your facebook page, useful links to tweet about….
But how do you come up with all this stuff?
Your challenge this week is to….
More specifically, to take one step that will make creating fresh content easier for you from now on. (But that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue!)
Here are some ideas you could try this week… Continue reading “Mumpreneur Monday Challenge: Create Some Fresh Content”
You know how life has its ups and downs? Last week I was getting bogged down by everything – working, cleaning up after the family, not having much time off to myself. I still very much believed in helping mums get businesses of the ground, but all I could see was a long, hard slog ahead. The days here are getting shorter as winter approaches, I was tired and if I’m honest, a bit bad tempered too.
So I took a few hours off (steady on, Helen!), got stuck into a good book – fiction, rather than my usual business books – and tried to get things back into perspective. Then I got an email from Erica Douglas that sums up exactly why I’m doing all this. Here’s her story…
“In 2009 I was working part time as a waitress, a job I enjoyed but that was physically demanding. Events that year meant I had to resign leaving me with very little personal income (I was earning £100-£200 from my blog). A few months later I found myself well enough to seek work again, I attended the Job Centre every week only to be disheartened to find that the recession meant that opportunities were limited. With every week that passed and every visit to the job centre I felt more and more depressed and my self-esteem was suffering.
I’d been trying to make a go of things online but the small amount of income I was earning via my blog wasn’t really enough. In October 2009 my husband told me to stop looking for a job, just like that, just stop. He promised that he’d make up the difference between my waitressing job and the income I was making online in overtime (about £200-300 per month). I took his advice and, well, he never had to do any overtime. My husband is a sensible guy, he figured by taking away the barriers it really put me under (good) pressure to follow my passion and soon as I started taking it seriously I started earning an income. I ‘work’ for around ten hours a week now on various things but predominantly my income comes from training business women how to use the internet more effectively. I chose that niche as it’s something I’m hugely passionate about but there are a ton of different niches out there.
My target next year is to earn a ‘full time wage on part time hours’…
My target in the first six months this year was to exceed my waitressing income £400-500 per month. My target by the end of this year was to earn more than £1000 per month working just ten hours a week (I’m not lazy, I’m studying full time too!). Last month I exceeded my target, I know it’s not a huge amount (I’m not rich, yet!) but it was a big milestone. My target next year is to earn a ‘full time wage on part time hours’ and I calculate that as £1500 per month before tax.”
Why was Erica sharing all this? Erica, Antonia Chitty and I have put together a pack of books that will help mums start their own businesses. In Erica’s words:
“I’m sharing this personal information because I want you to know that this is accessible, but it’s not a get rich quick scheme. These books will teach you how to build a proper business that you can run flexibly around your children.”
Sometimes you need to hear someone else’s story to bring things back into focus. Erica reminded me why I started Business Plus Baby. I wanted to help women build a working life on their own terms, not to have to put their children into full-time childcare (unless they wanted to) and spend all their earnings on it. To earn a decent income but still have plenty of time to spend with their young children. To make use of their talents, keep their skills fresh and perhaps discover an entrepreneurial streak. To open up possibilities and opportunities.
I wanted to help women build a working life on their own terms
Because I’m passionate about my subject and also online, blogging is the perfect way for me to do that. But an online business is a long haul, it takes a lot of patience and determination.
So if you’re knee-deep in hard slog and flagging a bit, remember you’re not alone. Whether you’re thinking of starting a business and daunted by all the challenges ahead or you’ve hit a tough patch after starting your business, keep at it.
Keep taking those steps forward and make sure you’ve got the company of other business mums (we know what it’s like). From time to time reconnect with you reasons for doing all this. Take a little time out if it all gets too much.
Keep going and all those steps will add up to something really amazing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, please leave me a comment :0)
Are you an aspiring mumpreneur? In this video I’ll tell you about the businesses that fit around a family and discuss some of their pros and cons.
If you want to know more, take a look at my book Start a Family Friendly Business
It’s week three of the Mumpreneur Monday Challenge!
Weeks 1 and 2 have gone down really well, so if you’ve joined in don’t forget to leave me a comment to tell me how you got on. If you missed the previous Monday Challenges they were Promote Your Blog and Get Out There!
This week I’ve taken my inspiration from Business Plus Baby’s guest blogger Amelia Critchlow. Amelia’s an artist and workshop leader who blogs at 101 Bird Tales (fab blog, I really recommend going over there and having a look). Amelia really is making a living from being creative and that’s why she’s inspired this week’s challenge.
Recently I’ve got a bit bogged down in the logical, outcome-based side of business, so a quick read of Amelia’s blog was like a breath of fresh air for me.
True, you do need focus, planning and a firm grip on your finances to run a business. But if you lose your creativity you can get blinkered, miss opportunities and just stop enjoying what you’re doing.
So your challenge this week is to…
Here are some ways you could do this:
Splash in puddles, crunch in the leaves, blow away the cobwebs, feel the wind on your face.
Pick a time and just focus on where you are at that exact moment. Don’t think of the million things you need to get done before the end of the day, just pay attention to what is happening in that moment. You’ll notice things that would pass completely pass you by otherwise – perhaps that’s a feeling, perhaps something you can see, smell or touch.
Play doh, sew, make stuff out of cereal boxes… it’s up to you.
Sit down with a pen and paper and just write. Don’t think, don’t edit, just let the words flow.
Do an art or craft activity with your children but be a child, not an adult. Don’t supervise or teach, just get in there and have fun together.
Maybe this post has sparked another creative idea for you? Go and do it!
And after all that..
Has this task made you see you’ve got stuck in a routine? Or perhaps that you need to reconnect with why you started your business in the first place? Has it sparked some new ideas? Or maybe it has reminded you to have fun and take some time out?
I’ll leave you with a quote from 101 Bird Tales, which is taken from ‘How to be an artist’ by Michael Atavar
“It [creativity] doesn’t work to deadlines. It needs room to grow and that space can be a place of waiting. We assume that time on a bus, waiting for some-one to arrive, a train delayed is lost time. Perhaps it’s just the universe telling you that you need to do nothing.”
Please do leave me a comment to tell me how you got on!
photo credit: Siona Watson
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