Business Opportunities Weblog

June 26, 2008 by Angela Shupe | 4 Comments

The internet is filled with opportunities for someone to work from home. The options are endless. Offering services as a virtual assistant is only one of them, but the option is a very real one for those with the skills people are looking for.

Motherhood Incorporated opens up a world of opportunities for these skilled mothers. Professional mom’s that want to stay home with their children are able to use their skills to bring in some money to their household. This isn’t just for mothers in the US either, there are also virtual assistant opportunities through Motherhood Incorporated Canada.

Finding customers on your own may not be the easiest approach to take, but Sandra Beck has been able to create a place where these moms and businesses can be paired up, making sure both sides get what they need.

I have gotten an opportunity to ask Sandra about how she got started, and she was kind enough to share her inspiring story with us through an interview.

What is ‘Motherhood Incorporated’?

Motherhood Incorporated is a company comprised of mothers who left the traditional workforce to spend more time with their children and choose to work from a virtual office.

What inspired you to start a service which connects stay-at-home moms to businesses?

I was on bedrest with my recent toddler for 5 months and in order to do my job at a top international company I had to find ways to do what I needed to do – everything except face to face meeting — and even those we did over the internet. Being confined to a bed for months on end makes you very resourceful. I then realize upon returning to my traditional employment that I couldn’t afford the time commuting with my very full schedule. I created a company around this type of “employment” and retained my prior company as a client. In congested cities, with homes being so pricey to be near downtown locations and the affordability of phone, fax and internet along with the ability to use online services for video and phone conferencing along with virtual office hookups it makes good ecological sense and good business sense because everyone benefits. Being green is such a plus!

What kind of services do they offer?

We offer services that include administration, management, technology and pretty much anything ethical and legal that can be done by phone, fax or internet.

How long has it been since your website launched?

We are in our second year of operation and our first year of operation topped 6 figures.

What are some of the qualifications to be able to join your website as a virtual assistant?

The mother must have been professionally employed in the area in which she worked prior to leaving the traditional workforce. We do some training for our specific needs or specific company software needs, but we have found that the opportunity to use the skills mothers have already honed prior to staying home with your children to be exceptional.

Is there anything you’ve learned since you started up Motherhood Incorporated that you wish you’d known beforehand?

I wish I had known how freeing it was to be on my own, owning my own company and leveraging my time and skills. I missed a lot I realize with my first born son and I don’t want to miss anymore. I work around the needs of my family yet still meet the deadlines and exceed my client’s expectations. I wish I had done this sooner because I will never get that time back with my children. No amount of money is worth missing that if you can avoid it.

Have you seen any benefits by working from home and what are they? Any negatives?

You control your time and your income which is a plus. You don’t have the benefits afforded by a big company, but you also have control over which benefits are important to you. Paid vacation time for me is not important because I control my time. Company health insurance would be cheaper for me, but with the specific conditions of my family I find being able to choose a health care plan and provider to be a plus. The time I spent commuting and wasting time in unproductive meetings translates to more money in my pocket to offset the additional expense of running my own company from home.

The negatives are that it is sometimes lonely because I talk on the phone and with my fingers over chat rooms but I don’t “see” other adults other than the caregivers for my children and my husband for days on end. I miss going to lunch with the girls. But honestly, the plusses far outweigh the minuses…

How much planning went into starting your website and building your virthual assistant database? What are some of the steps you had to take?

None. I simply put up the site hoping that people would like it and come. Then I went into online groups and talked about what I was doing. Pretty soon my blog exploded and had 20 new readers daily…then 80 …then 383 and I almost passed out because I thought no one read my blog until the comments starting coming in and my friend put google analytics on the site and I understood what wordpress stats really mean. I just did a little bit each day and by the end of one year I had accomplished a great deal. I also asked a lot of questions and read everything I could about building an ebusiness.

Where do you see your business in 5 years?

I already hit my five year mark in one year. Maybe I didn’t set my sights high enough but I wanted to buy a home for my family to escape this dreaded desert heat. I dreamed my kids would ski and swim without feeling like they were in a furnace ( we live in the high desert). I am a from Buffalo and really fair and so are my kids. We fry in this area. In December we were able to purchase a place using the money generated from this company. And we are putting money away for college and all the good things that working hard and smart can bring.

Did you have any experience that you were able to bring with you in the building of Motherhood Incorporated?

I think that my education at Northwestern University helped a lot along with my 15 years of experience in the business world as a manager. I think what was most important for me was that I needed to find a way to support myself and my lifestyle while being there for my kids. Necessity has a way of helping you that way. I also think that I am a person who fails forward…that means I try something…it doesn’t work so I just try something else. I am good at failure which means I keep doing it until I stumble upon the success.

How do you manage your time between working on your business and family?

I have very strict hours. If you call my office you will hear a recording that I will not return calls until the following day. At 5:30 I close my doors. I start at 9:30 and not a minute earlier. I take lunch with my kids and swim with them at 3. I schedule around these times. I do work a few hours on the weekend each day when the kids are busy or sleeping. What we do is not brain surgery and client emergencies are rarely that. They may think it is an emergency or the virtual might, but in reality we all functioned effectively much slower before cell phones, faxes or the computer and we don’t have to go as fast as the technology allows. The turtle and the hare both cross the finish line – but who has the better quality of life?

Do you have any advice that you’d like to share with any mom’s who might be interested in taking on the roll of virtual assistant from their own homes?

Yes, do not feel you need to have a perfectly quiet environment to do your work and do not apologize for a little noise in the background. I am a mother. I have kids. They make noise. Now if my one year old is screaming his head off that’s one thing…but if my four year old comes in and asks for his batman that is on my desk I don’t freak out and I don’t apologize. I am polite to the client and to my son. I don’t yell at him and I don’t shoo him out like he’s a leper. I do tell my client, excuse me my son has a question. I am not rude to either child or client. If a client says to me he is worried about working with me because the kids are around, I tell them that they are with a caregiver. If they make a comment about noise or what is that I simply say that is my child. If they give me grief I ask them if they have ever made a call from a restaurant, airport or conference center. That usually does the trick. When you call a help line you can always hear calls going on from Dell or Potterybarn. Why do we feel as work at home mothers that we should be working in anything less than a home. Offices are noisy. So are homes.

In Interviews, Self-employed, Telecommuting, Women, Work at Home | 4 Comments