Transcript
Community is really important for women entrepreneurs because women really thrive in community. Historically women would gather and circle and support each other and learn from each other and mentor each other and be stronger together. And in modern society, sometimes we get so sucked into the rat race and the hustle that we become isolated and think we’re doing everything alone and we end up reinventing the wheel or struggling and thinking we’re the only one with this particular problem. And it’s been studied, but it’s also just something I’ve lived is that when women come together, it’s just magical what can happen. We are naturally supportive of one another. I know there’s a lot of false stereotypes about women being catty or competitive and I really just don’t see them as our natural state. And when women team up, we just, we go further, faster, farther together is what I’ve seen.
And so surrounding yourself with other women is pretty critical to succeed. There are a lot of different types of communities that mompreneurs can join. There are some models where you can business network international, BNI, where you join a little pod that’s regional and you have required referrals to each other and required meetings and it’s pretty structured. There are also looser kind of regional meetups where they’ll have a monthly luncheon and everybody stands up and does kind of an elevator pitch and there’s a structure to the meeting that gives everybody kind of like the little stand up and somebody would typically do a presentation. I think both of those models are important and if you’re new in business that it might be a good idea to try everything out that you have the bandwidth for. I mean don’t exhaust yourself or do anything that drains you or that you hate. But if you are just getting started, you might want to throw your hat in every ring and go to the luncheons, try your elevator pitches, maybe join one of the more structured referral networks. It really depends on your business type. Like, if you are something more normal that everybody understands.
So if you’re a pediatrician or if you’re a divorce attorney and you are located, especially with an office brick and mortar physical location in a town, I think the clubs like BNI can be a good fit because everybody understands your business, they know how to refer somebody to it. If you are not so simple or not so general a business type, you might be maybe an empowerment coach that works online. I think for those kinds of business models, the structure isn’t as effective, if that makes sense. And then there’s more person first communities. That’s really what I’ve tried to do with the Club is get people to stop thinking about networking. I kinda hate the N word and to think about building friendships and relationships and really just having a social life and putting that joy aspect back into your life and from building friendships, the business connections and the business awareness will organically come out of that. And that’s the kind of club I gravitate to and that’s why I’m running one.
Because we are balancing a lot actually. I know a lot of people say I hate the word balance and I’m kind of on that page as well because I think there’s never exactly a perfect balance, if you are a mompreneur. There is a kind of juggle maybe and a rotation and a shift in focus from one thing to the other thing. I’d say it’s more of a masterful juggling act than a balance. And if I’m trying to achieve balance, I just feel frustrated and like I am failing. Community is really important because one of the biggest things that drags a mamapreneur down is just that feeling of isolation. Often because we have kids, we can be stuck in our houses having to do a lot at home and missing out on that comradery and that adult speak. The stimulating conversation and the ability to bounce ideas off of each other. When you’re a mom, you often are working from home and are literally alone or you know, talking with three year olds. One reason that community is important is to have that adult comradery and feedback.
Another reason is that you really need to pull in all of your support because it’s very hard to juggle being a parent and an entrepreneur at the same time. And so having that community aspect gives you easy access to all the different kinds of support you’re going to need. You might need to know who’s going to file my taxes, who’s going to help me with my bookkeeping? I need a virtual assistant. I think building that team as quickly as you can and having the audience from which to pull that team is just critical. You know, most people do start off working just solo, but as soon as it’s possible, it’s great to add an assistant, a social media marketing person and a backend person and a systems person and I’m just stacking that team. You know, upon each other one at a time. And having a community gives you the ability to tap each other for references, recommendations, the community might also be her team, we see our members constantly throwing things out there. Like I have this rather low paying gig but I need a logo and I could go to these different websites and quickly get it.
But if there’s a graphic designer that can do it for this budget, you know, hit me up. I want to come to you guys first. And so, you know, depending on the bandwidth, we have members doing things for each other, maybe at a lower rate or discount because they’ve got the time and they want to do, you know, a favor for each other. Saving yourself the time that it takes to hunt down every single different aspect that you’re going to need in your business is what a community can really help with. Really important aspect of having a community, especially for moms is the ability to collaborate with each other. So often when we start out a business, we have very small budgets and we’re having to think outside of the box and get really creative. And there are lots of ways to use each other without, you know, using each other in a negative way by cross promoting and doing mutually beneficial collaborations.
And I think that’s really been the main magic of the club is fostering those collaborations and getting people to think of them. And when some members see a successful collaboration, they get inspired and get ideas and do it themselves. One aspect that I think has been surprising for all people, including myself is to see that people are finding that their main competitors are becoming their best collaborators. You’d think that, okay, if I am a fitness expert that another local fitness expert is going to be my competition and we wouldn’t normally want to help each other out because we’re competing for the same audience. And actually what people have found and what we’ve seen is that you can totally collaborate with your main competitor because it’s kind of magical that you share the exact target audience. And when you get creative you can find ways to jump into each other’s Instagram channels. Co-Promote an event so that you’re throwing an event that is twice as big, twice as supported, sharing it with both of your audiences so that you’re finding a teammate in what would have been a competitor and doubling your efforts and not having to do everything alone.
