'Working from Home' some truths from mums and business women

October 2, 2009 Chopsy Baby

By Suzanne Borrell, with expert input from Sam Mackley

Working for yourself – having it all or having a breakdown? A few ‘Working from Home’ Truths from the founder of the BabyExpo baby show event.

Combining motherhood and maintaining a career can be a very tricky business. You’re sometimes damned if you do and damned if you don’t and in my weaker moments I sometimes ask whether previous generations had it right – our mothers often gave up work upon marriage or childbirth and only ventured back many years later. Opportunities were dramatically reduced no question, but so were many of the pressures.

Launching your own venture is one of the most exciting and exhilarating experiences and can be the perfect antidote to many months at home with a little one

I was made redundant during my first pregnancy but having watched female colleagues who came back part-time passed over for promotion, disregarded by management and resented by team members for leaving ‘early’ to collect their little ones or being off work ‘again’ with a sick baby I decided to take the plunge and work for myself. Having experienced at first hand the gap in the market for professionally run, affordable and successful Regional babyshows I launched BabyExpo – a baby show to cater for the family-focussed Southern Counties. Fully flexible hours, no boss breathing down my neck, no ‘office politics’ and time to invest both in the family and the burgeoning empire seemed on paper, perfect……

The reality however is that working for yourself, from home especially, brings enormous challenges and pressures (as well as benefits). It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone.

The Benefits

Launching your own venture is one of the most exciting and exhilarating experiences and can be the perfect antidote to many months at home with a little one. You have the ‘hunger’ and time away from work may have given you the opportunity to realise what is important to you and also where your skills and strengths lie.

Freedom – If you are successful, you will be forever liberated from the stresses and limitations of being someone else’s wage slave (on the other hand, your days of spending an hour playing Patience and checking e-Bay on your computer while the boss is in a meeting, are well and truly over…)

Flexibility – You can take time out when you want to accommodate holidays, child sickness and other family demands.

Self-worth – Nothing can beat the sense of achievement or satisfaction of building your own business.
It’s all new and exciting! Even filling in a VAT return is marginally more interesting than the contents of the third poopy nappy of the day (usually…)

Every day is guaranteed to be different and interesting. There is no danger of being bored with new people to meet and doors opening.

Personally, I experienced a new appreciation for my husband and children, both for affording me the opportunity and for supporting me through the ‘darker’ days.

Challenges

Money – Suddenly there’s no regular pay cheque and set up costs can be very high.
Guilt – oh the guilt…..surely, starting a business is the worst thing to do with small children who need your time and attention.

Jack of all Trades – It’s all you! Unless you plan on employing a team, you have to be all things to all people. The learning curve is steep and lengthy and you don’t yet know what you don’t know.

Loneliness – You will doubtless miss the camaraderie of the work environment, nipping down the pub or just the chance to bounce ideas of colleagues. Without the usual ‘office’ support structure you can spend a lot of time wondering if you should be doing things differently or could be doing them better.

Keeping a lid on it! Your empire is not the ‘be all and end all’ and learning to switch off is very hard. Keeping work stuff out of the family domain is essential to help you wind down and avoid irritating your partner and children. This also ensures little darlings can’t take a crayon to your completed VAT return!

Time Management – Unless you have really robust childcare and a marvellous partner (and even if you do) you will still find yourself working at stupid hours to get things done. Then it stops being fun and can be the stuff of nervy breakdowns.

Addressing your weaknesses – Without a ‘boss’, the temptation can be to focus just on the stuff you love doing/are good at and let the less interesting stuff slide.

Multi-tasking – If you think life is a juggling act now, wait until you have your own business!

So if it’s for you – where do you start?
When I launched ‘BabyExpo’ baby show it was as a reaction to my experience as a mum, as a consumer. My initial research – all be it carried out quite unscientifically via NCT groups, friends and random mums supported my gut feeling that there was a demand for a major event for parents and parents-to-be in this part of the UK and this gave me the confidence to proceed.

Do your research therefore – talk, ask questions and seek opinions whenever the opportunity arises (even at the risk of becoming increasingly dull to all those who don’t share your enthusiasm – I swiftly became a ‘Babyshow bore’)! Spend time defining your USP and ensure there is a market for your business and that you can meet your competitors head on. As the Dragon’s Den experts advised to one of our exhibitors recently ‘just because there’s a gap in the market, it doesn’t mean there’s a market for the gap’.

Seek help – There are some great websites out there. Network at every opportunity and seek out similar souls – I benefited from enormous support, advice and friendship from other business mums, ‘Twitter’ and the ‘Mums in Biz’ seminars are a great way to start this process. Swap skills where you can to keep your costs down, accept offers of help and don’t be afraid to ask for favours. Be prepared however to spend on necessary professional advice, i.e. financial, IT and legal to avoid costly errors down the line.

Aim high, believe in yourself, be tough and don’t take any cr*p ! Go straight to the top when approaching new business contacts but make sure you have the necessary back-up – employ an agency to answer your phone when necessary, ensure your childcare is reliable and invest in professional-looking business cards and website. Shop around and make sure you are treated with the respect you deserve or go elsewhere. My first ‘business banking’ encounter was with Barclays in Hove – on the morning of the appointment the manager cancelled saying I was not sufficiently ‘prepared’ to make the meeting worthwhile. I had everything ready and had organised extra childcare so needless to say, they lost my business at that moment (and I had been banking with them since the age of 9 !)

In summary…..

I was very fortunate to find a great team to work alongside me as part of the 08 event and that was just as well. BabyExpo really took off, surpassing my expectations both in terms of exhibiting companies, visitors and workload (!) and we are really looking forward very much to building on these foundations for the next show in June 2010.

It’s a rollercoaster ride however… Be prepared for the fact that your business might not succeed and decide, with your partner if necessary, on the amount of money you are prepared to invest/loose. That may sound negative but you need to be realistic.

Aim high, believe in yourself,
be tough and don’t take any cr*p

Don’t be afraid to walk away if it’s not for you or it doesn’t work – flogging a dead horse serves no purpose but the knowledge and experience gained are never wasted. I possibly learned more in one year than in the rest of my professional career put together but also I learned so much about myself and what is important to me. The only way to grow is to learn from your mistakes and keep improving!

Finally, try to keep a sense of perspective and be kind to yourself when going it alone. At one stage I felt guilty doing anything that wasn’t work, shopping, a trip to the hairdressers, even stopping to eat and the stress just built up. Be proud of yourself and your achievements and remember what Mark Twain said ‘years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do…than by the ones you did’. Good Luck !

MumsClub member and business woman Suzanne Borrell is the director of SMB Events, an exhibition and event-management company based in the South East of England.

Suzanne is organising the Baby Expo show, a baby show attracting thousands of visitors across the South East and Southern Counties. Exhibitors showcase all kinds of products for the pregnancy, birth and early years markets. There is also plenty of entertainment for little ones and the opportunities to get expert advice from healthcare professionals.

http://www.brightonbabyexpo.co.uk/baby-show

Sam Mackley is the founder of MummyLooksFab.co.uk, a website selling stylish maternity, breastfeeding wear and some really beautiful nursing dresses. Sam set up her business after the birth of her first baby when she struggled to find good designs for breastfeeding mothers on the high street.