What advantages do you think you have as a divorced solo business owner that your married counterparts don’t have?
From my experience, I learned the following: I got married, and worked in corporate America about 50-60 hours per week and became an executive. Then, I moved out of corporate America to have and care for a baby. When I wanted to go back to work, the conversation then was—what about managing my child, a spouse and work? The expectation from my spouse was not aligned with my desire to pursue my dreams. My spouse at the time didn’t mean to ask about this balance selfishly, but on the other hand, if you don’t have a supportive spouse, there are limitations on what you can do.
Now that I’m not married, I can work until 11 o’clock at night, and I can work without guilt. I can take care of business without worrying about a spouse’s expectations, which allows me the space to build my dream. Now, just worrying about me, my child, and my dogs is easier than worrying about another person who has different expectations of how things should be because their dreams and expectations are different than mine.
What about disadvantages?
As a single mom, when my son needs to be picked up from school because he’s sick, I have to do it. The business gets pushed to the side, especially for a child. It can be difficult to explain to clients that you have to cancel at the last minute. Luckily, I have great clients and they understand. Most understand that as a single mom, my 7-year-old child is a priority.
I’ve also learned that a single mom still is responsible for the majority of what takes place with children. Even though my son has a great dad who is responsible, I still must make sure my child has his doctor and dentist appointments completed, is picked up from school on time, etc. I take that role as mom.
Do you think business ownership has led you to remain single?
I’m not married, but I have a significant other. The difference in this relationship is that he is hugely supportive and accepting. On a day I’m completely swamped with work, he’ll come over and walk the dogs. When my grocery list is full, he’ll come over, get the groceries and put them away for me. I also talked to him about going back for my MBA, and shared with him my concerns that would occur with me being gone on weekends to attend classes. He already volunteered to come over and take care of the dogs. He’s incredibly proud of what I do, and has already helped me put into place the things that would need to happen in order for me to pursue my dream this fall to further my education.
What advice would you give another single woman who is thinking about starting a business?
Go for it! I think when it is your calling or passion, you need to move mountains and part oceans to get there. Of course, don’t do it without a business plan, and here’s why. Four out of five businesses fail within 5 years of starting, but, I think we could get this down to two out of five if everyone wrote a business plan, followed it, and updated it as necessary. If you actually go through the planning process—do a SWOT analysis and really understand your competition, you can create a business AROUND the potential obstacles and know you have to resolve issues before you just jump in. What happens is that people have a great idea and just start doing it without thinking through the roadblocks. If you have a plan for getting around roadblocks, your chances of success and sustainability are MUCH greater. Without a business plan, some businesses are also grossly underfunded. Then, the passion or great idea becomes a nightmare, because they had not thought through the business concept.
I work 12-hour days and I wonder if I can pay the bills next week. I am constantly looking for different options to grow my business in order to pay the bills. But, even during the worst parts of my business development, I’m still motivated, passionate and willing to go forward. Without that passion, you’re in trouble. I don’t care how great your business is, no one is successful in 30 days or even a year. Sometimes it takes 5 years to become successful. You have to have the willingness to persevere.
What was the best training you received to prepare you as a business owner?
Corporate America. I think that dealing with all the different personalities and putting out fires in corporate America served me well to learn what I do—by working in organizations that were a complete mess. I was hired to fix the mess and improve the mess. Within the mess, there’s always a solution. I’m an analyst. I found a best process to fix something within a company, and then trained people on the new process. However, I slowly watched people start returning to their old ways, until I started documenting processes. That is where my training came from. In corporate America, I worked with companies that had either a large business, or large businesses within a bigger business, and there is no option but to succeed. I worked for some great companies and not so great companies.
What makes a company great?
I think what made the great companies great was clear vision and mission—and respect for their employees. Great companies had good communication with employees and empowered their people to do what needed to be done. A lot of people had great companies at one time, but they just lost their way; they became successful and they had NO IDEA why they were successful, until they changed their formula. And, in that change of formula, they lost what it was that actually made them successful in the first place. Part of that all goes back to clear vision and mission. (And a plan!)
Are you running your business as a part-time or full-time venture?
I am full-time. I’m not sure how people do it part-time, because it seeps into all aspects of your life. I’ve had a couple ventures, and even this business, which I first started intending them to be part- time. I’ll give you an example from my life: I started a part-time gift basket business. What happens when you’re only doing it on the side is that you start doing it 4 hours a day. But, something will arise when you need to start putting in 6 hours per day. When work creep happens, something else in your life must give. Usually, it is your children, your spouse, or something that you intended to give your full and undivided attention. Then, you have increasing frustration between doing “what you need to do” and letting someone else down. In that case someone is always neglected. Either way, you can’t win. I’d make my gift baskets when people needed them. Then, I had more orders for corporate gift baskets for a company, so I had to hire a nanny. Then the corporate orders for one company turned into 3 companies. Then, 80 boxes were being delivered to my house and I had 4 weeks of full-time work to do, and it was NO LONGER part-time. It was no longer fun, either, and not planned. That is the temptation of a part-time business; when you work part-time and you get these great opportunities, you don’t want to turn them down. Then, there arrives a tipping point. You need to either do this full-time, or not. You can’t do it part-time anymore.
So, I opened a store and sold gift baskets for 3 years. When the economy started turning bad, we sold the business. My point is this: when you’re creating a business full-time, you’re creating expectations with your clients and family. When I create something, I’m creating it because I have long-term goals, vision, retirement plans, and an exit strategy. I can’t get to that with part-time work. That doesn’t mean that eventually I wouldn’t like to work part-time and have 50 people under me. But I also realize that won’t happen immediately when first building a business.
Besides, in my soul, I’m definitely 100% an entrepreneur. I was speaking to a recruiter friend recently and shared with her that I don’t know what I’d do if I actually had to go back to work. She replied that I would be tough to find a job for—because although I’m bright and I’m good at what I do, I need continual challenge. There would be no issue on finding