5 Things For Mompreneurs To Consider When Launching A Business

Starting your own business can be exciting and loads of fun, however it is important to implement some planning and research before you get started to ensure that you know exactly what you are doing and not just jumping in blindly.

There are a lot of businesses that fail, very often due to lack of foresight and planning. Being a mom means that you also need to factor in some unique challenges.

Here are some things for women to consider when launching a mompreneur business.

Business Plan

Every business starts with an idea which should then become a full business plan. Creating a business plan will help you to formulate your goals and how to get there. It will outline exactly how your business will work and how it is set up.

Here’s what your business plan should include:

• Executive Summary – a summary of all the key points of your business plan
• Business Overview – legal structure of business, type of business and location
• Business Operational Plan – details on how the business will operate
• Market Analysis – define your target market and an overview of the market as a whole
• Products & Services – define the products and services you will be providing
• Sales & Marketing – outline your sales and pricing plan, including reasons why your target audience will purchase from you an how you will reach them.
• Competitor Analysis – find out who your competitors are, both direct and indirect.  Make an analysis of your competitors strengths and weaknesses and how you will be able to gain an edge over them.
• Management – describe all the key players managing the business.
• Finances –  create a financial plan including the finances to start and to maintain the business, an outline of business expenses for the first few years and extra funding that may be needed.
• Projections – anticipated balance sheets and income statements for the first few years.

There are plenty of online resources for you to follow to create your business plan, or you can hire a professional to help you to formulate your initial business plan.

Marketing

Yes marketing is listed in the business plan, but keep in mind that one of the biggest tasks that your business will be busy with is marketing your products or services. Without consistent marketing efforts you will struggle to make sales.

Make sure that before you launch you have your website up and ready for business. You may have an online business or it may be offline, but there is no denying it that these days every business needs its own website.

Before you have your website created you will need your corporate identity wrapped up and your logo designed to ensure that your website incorporates your company colors and your logo. Your website must flow with your corporate identity.

You can get a professional company to design your logo, make use of fun logo design companies online like Logojoy which make use of artificial intelligence to create a logo or you can try your hand at designing your own logo from scratch using software like Photoshop or something more simple like Canva.

Have all your corporate stationery and marketing materials ready to go too.

Along with having your corporate identity, website and marketing materials prepared and ready for business make sure that you have already created business accounts or pages on all the major social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google Plus. Learning a little bit about social media marketing will go a long way in your marketing efforts.

Find yourself a good email autoresponder – I personally recommend SendPulse (which is free to get started up to 2500 subscribers and 15000 emails a month) – you can read my SendPulse review on my online markeing website. Email marketing is a highly effective way to connect with your customers on a regular basis and the sooner you have it set up the sooner you can start to build your list.

Finances

The financial aspect is also highlighted in your business plan, but once again this is such an important aspect of your business. The entire reason you are creating a business is to bring in an income.

It is imperative to be realistic with the money you will need to startup your business and to maintain it until the time you manage to break even and start making a profit.

You will need to figure out how you will finance your business.

Once you have launched your business remember to constantly keep an eye on your expenses and your income and compare it to your business plan. Are you on track, are you doing better than predicted or are you faring worse than expected?

Keeping track of where you are financially when you start out will be vital to your long term success.

Work & Family Balance

You need to figure out how many hours a day you are able to invest in your business and how much time you will need to invest into your business to make it work for you. Being a mom is tough, being a working mother is too – but being a mompreneur just takes it to a whole new level entirely.

While you want to achieve financial success and create an environment whereyou can be there for our children and our family, just make sure that the amount of time you will need to invest in your business and the amount of time you will have available to invest in your business are in line.

The long term goal here is to have more income, more time available for your family, more freedom and less stress than if you had to work for someone else.

Do you have plans in place to keep your business running smoothly if for example you want to have another baby? What about when your kids are sick and need you to look after them so you can’t spend any time on your business.

Trust me on this, you need a plan! My second baby wasn’t planned and I managed to take off a total of 3 weeks to have a c-section and get back to work full time. I worked up until 4pm on the day before his birth!

I then worked full time with my little boy with me until he started playschool when he was 13 months old.

Organization, Planning and the Finer Details

Let’s face it, not everything goes according to plan does it? While you want to try and stick to your plans often things take a life of their own and go off in unexpected tangents – sometimes good and sometimes not so good.

For this reason it is important to pay attention to where you are at all times and stay organized. You may have heard the saying “She couldn’t see the forest for the trees”? So pay attention to the forest as well as the trees.

While you have done your planning at the start of your business you will need to revisit these plans from time to time and make amendments to suit your business where it is at the time.

Your business plan is just a starting point and an idea of where you want to go, it doesn’t dictate where you must be in the future.