Mums are at the heart of families, and role models for their kids, but traditional business models often don’t work for them? because they’re based on a 40-hour (or more) work week?.
Jo and Janine are a good working example of what can be done in business when you have scarce time and keep crazy mum hours — because they are doing it themselves. They truly understand the challenges their clients are facing.
Even though they haven’t lived in the same city for six years, the long-time friends work together easily using online tools for meetings, project management and correspondence.
Jo, who is on maternity leave from her role as circulation manager at The Gisborne Herald, says one of the biggest things they help their mums with is leveraging their time better.
“If you have only 15 hours a week to run your business, look at ways you can package products and services and make them automated so you can reach more people, have more of an impact, and make more money within the same amount of time.
“We also focus on narrowing the niche mums are marketing to as well. We find people are spreading themselves too broadly, so we ask them, ‘who do you specifically want to be working with?’”
High prise for their workMums who have already been through Jo and Janine’s programmes can’t speak highly enough about their assistance.
Justine Parsons says her business generates nearly $6000 a month in recurring income because of changes she made through Get It Done Mum.
The help had been “priceless”, she says.
Get It Done Mum offers free webinars — like mini-conferences straight to your coffee table — free podcasts, a series of digital audio files that anyone can download from the internet, and online tips. Or you can sign up for their five-week e-course over e-mail, plus plenty of other options — some that you have to pay for and some you don’t.
“The biggest challenge our mums face is, ‘I’ve got this idea but I want it to work around my family’, but it can be hard to make money in the time they’ve got.
“If the business isn’t generating a profit, our clients just end up feeling huge guilt at all the time they’re putting into their business and not spending with their family.”
Jo says by starting early on their business journey with Get It Done Mum, their clients quickly build up simple but solid strategies that mean they can be profitable even in just 10 hours a week.
“Most of our mums don’t want to be millionaires but they have to make sure their business is profitable and not just an expensive hobby.
“A lot of mums come to us because they were in a career, took time off to have children but didn’t want to go back to employment — or they have found a gap in the market for their kids, and now that’s what they want to do.”
They offer a range of group and one-on-one programmes for business mums, and also host a private Facebook group for clients. Alongside the support from Jo and Janine, simply connecting with other mums and bouncing ideas off each other can be invaluable.
