Food for thought from a selection of Business Mums' Blogs

I have really enjoyed being the host for this month’s Business Mums’ Blog Carnival. What an amazingly creative and entrepreneurial group of Mums we have out there. Something to celebrate as we prepare to spend time with family and friends over the next 10 days with Easter and the Royal Wedding.

What was really incredible was how consistently the posts fitted into a theme when none had been declared. There were a whole clutch of posts that were full of practical tips. Ipshita from Minor Edition submitted a post about the five mistakes to avoid when running a small business. Erica Douglas and Antonia Chitty who are the faces behind ACEINSPIRE give valuable advice in their post on how to grow your business. In essence it seems to be about setting stretch targets based on what you need to live on and the little extras that would make life great. Joanne Dewberry, Dorset’s Business Mum of the Year, shares helpful insights on how to promote guest blogs. This month Candice, who is in the top 100 wedding bloggers, has a guest blog on how to choose a wedding photographer, advice I could have done with 9 years ago! Apparently it comes down to the following four ps - personality, prices, products, portfolio.

We have a couple of entries that focus on what happens as your brand becomes established.  KidsTravel2  are grateful for all their loyal customers and as a thank you they have now started a reward scheme.  Our very own Helen Lindop shares her excitement around businessplusbaby going international and how Mumpreneurs in different countries often face the same issues.

This leads onto the next theme which focuses on the interplay between the personal and business.  Becky Goddard-Hill in her post shared the top five blogs/ blogging platforms that got her through a tough spell and it was great to see a coach in the mix. Emma Burford recounts the fun that she had at Mumpreneur Idol.  I found Erica's personal account about how far she has come in a year very inspiring. It will appeal to all those wanting to find a way to work from home and bring up their children because it shows it is possible to make good money in a relatively short period of time. Is Carol’s success down to the law of attraction or due to the fact that she is living her life on purpose?

The last three posts are all about what else you need to be successful in business.  Cari Parker shares the joys of re-engaging with her playful child in her post, a key ingredient for success in business. Libby Hill, who is a speech therapist, invites us to watch twins talking to each other in their own language.  It is a delightful vlog.  And in a similar vein, my post reflects on the importance of creativity and educating the imagination from an early age and raises concerns about what is actually happening in the education system.

Enjoy these posts and do leave comments here or tweet me or any of the other contributors all of whom have given us plenty of food for thought.

How does she do it?

I am beginning to wonder if there is something in the cosmos at the moment but as I am not an astrologist so I cannot be sure. It just seems that many people I know are having very busy times that can at times be extraordinarily stressful. Below is an account of my day today because it highlights what those of us who are Mums and running businesses go through a lot.

I am launching a new course next month and have done a great deal of prep for it. My initial email had not had much response so I ended up going to a networking event this morning as I knew I would meet some of the people who had signalled initial interest there. This sounds easier than it was. Last week I had to call in a favour with a good friend and ask her to look after my 2 y/o as despite the event being aimed at Mums, there is no creche. I did not feel too bad as we usually see said friend and her 2 y/o on Wednesdays at the same playgroup. What it involved was getting to the venue 40 minutes early to deposit my youngest before heading off to the meeting.

However that was not all. Part of the reason I had not gone to bed until 23.30 last night was because I had to wrap a pressie and write a card for the daughter of a dear friend (we went to school together) because she was three today. It is the 3 y/o's ballet class on Wednesday and so I had to call in an even bigger favour and ask one of my local friends if she would pick up the 3 y/o from pre-school, feed her lunch, let her play w/ her daughter then take her to and from ballet. She often takes the 3 y/o to ballet but would now be responsible for her for 4.5 hours. Despite feeling uncomfortable about this, I did ask and she did say yes last week. Just needed to remember to pack her ballet stuff for pre-school and take her car seat with us too!!

That done the 2 y/o and I headed into town. This involved finding a new car park where I was going to meet my friend, so a quick look on the internet was needed before we headed out. Deposited 2 y/o then a mad dash to the networking meeting stopping briefly to apply lippy in the car mirror. As soon as the meeting had finished and I had caught up with a couple of people, it was a mad rush back to the playgroup where I sang a couple of songs with my 2 y/o, touched base with friend then a quick march homewards for lunch. Just needed to check that all was ok with friend who was picking up 3 y/o because she had not been at pre-school or answered her phone that morning so popped into her house. Ended up going through a convoluted explanation with her husband as that friend was out and then hurried home to feed 2 y/o.

After a quick sandwich we headed off to Buckingham about an hour away. We had to stop en route to fill the car with diesel as it was virtually empty! We arrived at the softplay area in plenty of time and so I was able to fit in 3 business calls including one about a possible venue for my 3 y/o's birthday which is next month. Importantly I got the last space in the car park. We stayed for an hour and a half. There was more food including chips and other starchy stodge for the mummys. We managed to see the cutting of the cake before we left. Despite a good run home we still got back after my friend so there was a message on the home phone saying that she had my 3 y/o at her house. That did make me feel guilty so we scooted over as fast as we could to collect the 3 y/o.

Since then I have been at home with two very tired children doing the bedtime ritual including supper and party cake. Not a great combination with a rather stressed, over-caffeinated Mum to boot. Is it all worth it I wonder? What do you think?

What's in a name?

Those of you that follow my blog regularly may have noticed that I have changed the name. I think that is a reflection of what I blog about and where quite a bit of my interest is at the mo bearing in mind that I have two toddlers! I hope that it means more people will follow as I think it is clear now who my target audience is.

So why the preamble. I often feel compelled to write a post and recently I have lots of questions from clients and those that I work with about naming a business enterprise of some kind. As if by coincidence, I read a great post by Neil Ryder which I will not attempt to repeat here but which I hope amplifies what I have to say.

Many people who set up their own businesses as solopreneurs fall into the trap of calling their business John Smith Associates or some other amalgam of their name. Really this is plain daft as sole traders are unlikely to have the kind of budget that coca cola or mars have that would make them known brands. Also who has heard of John Smith and I am not talking about the bitter here. If you go down that route, you are going to have to work three or four times as hard to get it to resonate with people. So here is what I suggest:

1. Choose a name that says something about what you do - a great example of this is Beth Follini's company Tick Tock Coaching which works w/ women who face the dilemma of whether to have a baby or not

2. Try to include a quality in the title of how you want to be perceived - the one that works for me here is Honesty Marketing because it says what they do and how they aim to deliver it

3. Lastly a bit of alliteration works wonders in terms of people remembering the name of your business because it can be catchy - and for this I suggest Little Luxuries which again says what it does on the tin so to speak

4. Finally it is important that the name you choose will grow with the business in whatever direction it goes in so that you don't end up in a straight jacket because the name you have chosen is just too specific - in this regard what really works for me is Minerva's Mind. It is a membership site aimed at enabling women be leaders in their lives with a current focus on Mums. With a name like that it can go into any niche for women

Lastly remember it always pays to check whether the name you want for your business is already a registered trademark and you can do this through Business Link. For more on trademarks look at these very helpful FAQs. Finally for details on how to apply for a trademark in the UK, go to the horse's mouth so to speak.

Do let me know how you get on and what you think of this post in the comments below.

Mums' Monday: to work or not to work

I have spent this evening working with a group of Mums in the area of boosting confidence skills as part of the Minerva's Mind at home session. It was a real privilege as they shared so much of their life and it left me thinking how hard it can be for all of us who are Mums today to make sense of our choices. It is so easy to fall into the trap of low self-esteem as there is an expectation that Mums will be the main carers of their children, and yet society places no value on this important role. Added to which many who enjoy staying at home fear that they will have too much free time on their hands once their children go to school if they do not have to work for financial reasons.

For those of us that do take the plunge and go back to work or forge a new career for ourselves, there is the constant juggle between our role as "domestic goddess" and spending dedicated time towards earning a crust. In our house today, we have had the difficult conversation over whose work gets priority in that I need my husband to work at home one day a fortnight so I can attend a networking event and he can no longer make that commitment due to pressures at the office. I feel unable to challenge that too strongly because he is the major bread winner and yet how can I build up my business if I am unable to attend networking events regularly?

There is no easy answer, I am not able to come up with a "cooker cutter" solution. What I would say is that it is about finding the right balance for you and the best way to do this is to work out what your core values are. To do this start asking yourself some of these questions: How important is it for me to contribute to the income coming into this house? What weight do I put on providing a stable environment for my child(ren)? To what extent if at all do I want to put the needs of my family before my own? How much risk am I prepared to take in order to obtain my own goals? How would I feel if I do nothing?

Do let me know how you get on.

MM: some dos and don'ts when starting a business

In talking with a couple of people recently I realised that I needed some left brain energy to tackle some burning issues such as dealing with paper work that had got lost in the all consuming world of Minerva's Mind. As I looked into the matter further I learnt all kinds of useful information that I wish I had known when I had started. Here follow some helpful tips for anyone in the early stages of running a business. I was thinking of Mumpreneurs who are starting out, as this is Mums' Monday but the advice applies to all new business owners:

1. When you set up your business you have 13 weeks in which to inform the Inland Revenue that you are a business owner. If you miss that deadline then you could be charged a £100 penalty fee. This is where you need a good accountant who can show how some of your initial activity relates to pre-start up costs etc. If you are self-employed click on HMRC to register.

2. It is vital to set up a separate business account because then if the Inland Revenue decide to investigate you they are limited to looking at the transactions in your business account. If they want to extend their investigation then they need to go and ask for further powers. It does make sorting your accounts out much easier too as all transactions go in and out the same place. Which banks?

• Abbey offers free banking for life. There are no major catches but they encourage business owners to do everything on line as there are limits such as cashing no more than 100 cheques a month;
• The Co-Op bank interested me because my personal account is with their Internet bank. They offer free banking for life for as long as you are a member of the Federation of Small Businesses; and
• HSBC has a good package if all your transactions are online.

3. It is worth having the services of a good accountant because he/ she can save you a lot of money by helping you identify allowable expenses. For example, did you know that if you work at home then you can claim £1,000 a year towards electricity, gas and heating costs? I can highly recommend Will Farnell. He gives very generously of his time and before setting up his own business, worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In other words don't do what I did and leave it until the last minute! So what tips can you add to this list? Feel free to drop them down in a comment at the end of this post.

The power of positive thinking

I feel compelled to share with you what has been happening to me over the last few days. It is amazing. In energy terms I feel as if I have tuned into this very positive, incredible life force. It is as if I could do anything that I wanted to do and it's as though someone is watching over me.

On Saturday I realised that one of my favourite earrings had fallen out. I was very upset because they were from Tiffanys and of great sentimental value too. Normally I would completely lose it and drive my family nuts but I remembered Gretchen Rubin's wise words about emotions in a crisis and decided to believe that it would come back to me. The next day both my husband and I took turns to search the bottom of the pool to no success. By chance I explained what I was doing to those swimming in the lane so they did not get irritated and the woman in the group came up to me a few minutes later with my earring in her hand!

Over the last few months, I have been working with another coach, Karen Wise, to develop a programme for Mums. What is incredible is that it has gone from one programme to two programmes aimed at different types of Mums thanks in part to feedback from friends on facebook in particular Jan Morgan, Becky Alexander and Annette James. One is aimed at Mums with 6-9mth babies and the issues that they tend to be facing such as whether or not to go back to work and lack of identity, me time etc; and the other is for Mums with older children who have made sacrifices for their families and feel that there is something missing. They are either SAHM, WFHM, invariably working from home with little prospect of promotion/ progression, almost on a treadmill with children, husband, work competing for their attention. They are thirsting for a mental workout.

This morning I met the editor of a new magazine aimed at Mums in the car park of Hitchin swimming pool. She is looking for interesting articles for the magazine and Mumpreneurs to put forward for the annual inspiring Mumpreneur awards in September. What a great contact!

It is incredible what can happen when one has taken a stand and lives by that stand. New opportunities keep showing up. As I sat down to write this article I read Rosalyn Clare's post about saying your dreams aloud and seeing what happens. It is so powerful because if we believe in what we are doing, others will too.