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Launch Interview: Motivating Mums Launches their Mumpreneur Mentor Scheme
Clare Oliver, Laura Tenison and Alli Price
After mumsnet hosted live webchats last month with Gordon Brown and David Cameron, it is believed that the site can greatly improve people’s participation in politics. So it seems the Prime Minister has recognised the rising power of geek mums as they work together in communities for the greater business good, and just looking at the wealth of support coming from, and going to mums on the net, he is spot on.
Today Alli Price, Founder of Motivating Mum, launches the Motivating Mum Mentor Scheme for businessmums. Aimed to prevent the reinvention of the wheel, the scheme is amazingly cost effective and has some high-profile mentors already signed up, including Laura Tenison of JoJo Maman Bebe. Here, Alli Price talks to The NextWomen about the potential isolation when starting a business on your own, the importance of mentoring in the 21st century and how people should learn to ask for what they want.
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Tell us about yourself – your background and education
I have a Bachelor of Business in Hotel Management and Catering and initially worked in the marketing department of a 4* hotel in Melbourne, working my way up to Marketing Manager. After a few years, I returned to school to study Film and TV and then worked as a Production Manager in a Production Office, also in Melbourne, making TV commercials, corporate videos and pilots.
After years of talking about wanting to travel, I finally left in 1998 aged 28 for a trip to Sweden to edit a film for a friend. The film didn’t work out but the backpacking bug had well and truly bitten and five years later I had been to much of Western Europe, America, India, Nepal, Fiji, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Slovenia and Poland. Although I had worked a lot in the corporate sector, I realised that I was only truly fulfilled when helping people so trained to be a life coach. I completed my training at the same time as giving birth to my daughter and launched Motivating Mum.
What is Motivating mum? When did you launch and what are your objectives for the next three years?
Initially, Motivating Mum was a coaching service for mums, whatever stage of pregnancy, launched in 2006. However, running a business from home, coupled with looking after my daughter full-time quickly revealed how lonely and isolating it can be, being a Mumpreneur. In the belief there must be other mums out there like me, I launched the Businessmums’ Networking Lunch, a chance for mums to get out of the house, network and rest assured they weren’t the only crazy ones. The first lunch attracted 45 mums!
Following three years of mixing with Businessmums, I recently relaunched my service as a website offering support and advice to Mumpreneurs. The site consists of mentoring with established businessmums, a forum, articles and features and details of events now being held across London.
My objectives for the next three years are to provide Mumpreneurs with a service tailored uniquely to them. This includes providing mentoring and events for an exceptionally good price (as mums in business traditionally don’t have a lot of disposable income), having events offered across the UK (as although online support is great, it doesn’t combat the isolation), developing the forum to a point where mums can connect, network and help each other succeed and have each and every visitor to the site or an event walk away with whatever it is they need: a connection, information, inspiration. Lastly, it is to always be accessible. My pet hate is trying to contact businesspeople and their websites offer plenty for you to buy, but no details for contact.
What is your business model and how do you differ from your competitors?
My business model is to help Mumpreneurs. Everything I have done to date has been a case of trying to help fill a need or offer a service and I have had success with this approach as a result. I feel I differ from my competitors in that I always try to maintain approachability no matter how busy I get, I don’t charge membership fees for my services and I encourage face-to-face meetings in addition to online connections. I like to feel that my site is set up to offer support and advice, first and foremost, not to simply make as much money from people while I sleep.
What were your start-up costs and how were they funded?
My start-up costs were minimal as I only needed a website and business cards. The re-launch of my site and other investments have all been funded through money raised by the business. I am lucky in that the most expensive thing required of me for the success of my business was my time.
You are about to launch your Motivating Mum mentor scheme for businessmums and already have some great names onboard like Laura Tenison of JoJo Maman Bebe. How important do think mentoring is in the 21st century and how have you secured your mentors? Read more
If Only We Could Bottle The Essence of These (Entrepreneurial) Women
This is a guest post by Lou Hamilton, owner of Createlab, where she makes feature films and documentaries about inspiring people. She is also organizer of a women in business networking group in London for which she created a short film series Women Talking Business.
There are so many inspiring women in business who are balancing their home, family and work lives and who are a shining light to other aspiring people. I recently want to the We Mean Business conference run by Business Link in London. The aim was for women to come together, meet, support, encourage, befriend and connect with each other. There were several keynote speakers whose passion, determination and courage were infectious, such Steph Cutler, Penny Power of E-Cademy and Shaa Wasmund of Smarta.
If life deals you lemons, what do you do? Make Lemonade!
One of them was Steph Cutler who overcame sudden blindness but defied “the bastards who wouldn’t employ me” to build a successful business helping others with disabilities. She encouraged us to see obstacles as opportunities not setbacks. In fact she says there were times when she found her blindness was to her advantage, for instance when she started public speaking she couldn’t really see the audience so it made her feel braver and now she loves it. She forced herself live with her disability in a way that meant living her life to the fullest. As she jokes- if life deals you lemons, what do you do? Make Lemonade! It has not been an easy journey but it has been a rewarding one.
Our personalities are our greatest asset, not what we are selling.
Penny Power who runs the social media site Ecademy spent 12 years building up her business, losing her family house along the way as she and her husband struggled to make ends meet. But she was determined to be a full-time mum (and a great one at that) at the same time as creating a successful business around the then entirely untried idea of globally connecting with people online. She stuck it through the tough times, held on to her dream, balanced her steps along the tightrope and finally it all came together.
She encourages us to make an assumption of trust of people- to make friends with others, to connect, to engage, to share ideas and contacts, to give, to listen, to offer yourself to the world community, to be there for others, to offer help, to ask for help. Read more
MOTIVATING Mum to Launch Nationwide Mentoring Initiative for Businessmums
It was only last month that we featured an interview with Iveta Tancheva of Mums Like You – a venture geared towards mothers – highlighting the massive draw the internet has for women. In the same vein, a mentoring scheme to support businessmums across the UK is to be launched on March 15, 2010 by Allison Price, founder of Motivating Mum. This exciting new initiative will enable mums already in business, as well as those wanting to start up, to obtain affordable support and advice to help them achieve their dreams.
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Launched three years ago, Motivating Mum was set up by Allison Price, professional life coach, mumpreneur and mother of one, for mums who needed help with the everyday challenges they faced. It now helps mumpreneurs across the UK succeed in achieving their business dreams through the provision of support and advice.
Increasing Numberss of Mumpreneurs
An increasing number of mothers are setting up their own businesses, however many of them lack knowledge and/or experience and face difficult challenges right from the start. The Motivating Mum mentoring service will connect mums needing professional guidance to mums who are experts in their field. It will cover all areas of business from law and accountancy to marketing and PR, in addition to getting ideas off the ground.
The Who’s Who of Business-mums
High profile business-mums already signed up as mentors for the launch include Laura Tenison, MD at JoJo Maman Bebe, Rachel Jones, inventor of Totseat and Wendy Shand, founder of Tots to Travel.
When talking about the launch, founder Alli Price said: Read more
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