As told by a WAPPoint-Mommy-To-Be:

Being pregnant or having kids whilst running a business or working in a very high pressured job with lots of responsibilities is nothing less than exhausting and can be very difficult to maintain a balance between being a mother, having a full time job and maintaining your marriage.

Being a workaholic and not interested in the idea of being stay at home mom at all, I’m sitting with my feet on hubby’s lap and blocking out the noise of some car show on TV as I’m writing this article at 9pm on a Tuesday night. Hubby is fed and watching cars so life is perfect. Baby has found another spot in my tummy to practice her ninja moves on so she’s having a blast and I’m trying to hide from the sight of my dirty kitchen behind my laptop screen; I wonder if my husband will notice and action the hint to be awesome and go clean it like a real big tough man? Probably not; there’s a pretty car on the TV distracting him. I’ll do it when I’m done with this article. Baby kicked again to remind me of her existence and now I’m suddenly a little bit overwhelmed. How am I going to come back to work after she’s born and still be the beast that I am at work as well as be a super mom and wife at home?

Surely I’m not the only soon to be working mom, or still trying to figure it out working mom, that feels this way and this got me thinking that it was about time we wrote a blog article for all our momtrepreneurs!

How to cope with all the demands of being a Momtrepreneur / working Mom:

1. Automate your workflow

• Working moms work 24/7 and this teaches you more resourceful decision making, trouble shooting and multi tasking. You quickly learn how to find the priorities in your day and delegate the less important work to other parties. One fantastic way to delegate is to automate your work to software and services that can help you achieve the same results. By taking your business online, you can service your customers when it suites you and setup automated email responses to answer their queries, automate purchases through an online shop or social media account and manage all of this at your fingertips. WAPPoint can help you by providing online / ecommerce payment solutions which can be integrated into your online shop or social media pages.  

2. Plan Ahead

No matter how organised you are, you will become flustered and lose your mind at some stage. Spend some time and plan your year ahead, setting goals for your business to achieve for the year. Setup a 1 page marketing plan and a sales forecast or growth plan and then when life is happening around you, you will have something to bring your focus back together. If you plan to attend any expos this year, we have almost 500 events on our expo list and can help you to find the shows that will help you achieve your sales goals for the year ahead. 

3. Accept your doubts and guilt

Accept your doubts and guilt. You are a mother and a business woman. You will doubt who needs you more and when they need you. You will feel guilty for missing out on that hockey match but you know what, if you didn’t miss it your kid might not have been able to attend that hockey match in the first place. In today’s world it’s a rare privilege to be a stay at home mom and if you can, that’s awesome, but if you can’t then there is no shame in that. Your job is important because it helps you care of the most important little human(s) in your life and you deserve a medal for everything you do!

4. Provide customer incentives to generate returning customers

• Retaining 5% more of returning customers, can increase profits by 125%. 
• Existing customers spend 67% more than new ones and it is 10 times more expensive to market to new customers than to keep old ones. 
• Selling to an existing customer is likely to happen as often as 60% to 70%. Selling to a new customer is likely to happen only about 5% to 15% of the time!

All of the above indicates that keeping existing clients will require less resources, time and effort while growing your revenues. A Loyalty App allows you to structure your rewards in several different ways. You can even try them all and see which works best!

5. Clearly define your work time from your personal time

Clearly define who needs your attention and when. When you are at work, you are work and you are only available for priority matters with regards to the children. If you need to work from home, ask your husband or someone to help out for a while so that you can mission through your work from a secluded spot. This way you can be a mom without trying to be a worker at the same time.

6. Use the village

They weren’t joking when they said that it takes a village to raise them. You may not realise it but who cooks when you don’t? The delivery guy. Who cleans when you don’t? Your domestic or husband. Who takes care of them when you are working? The school, nanny, a family member etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

7. Make time for yourself and for your partner

Our life partners need our attention and devotion too and it’s imperative that we not forget about them and let them become background distractions. Have a monthly date night. Also don’t tackle the children on your own. Include your partner in activities like bath time fun, tucking the children in to bed, play time etc. Ask the village to babysit or put the kids to bed an hour earlier, switch off the TV and play a game of cards or sit on the stoep and drink a cup of hot chocolate together. Don’t forget about yourself either. Sleep every chance you get, have a girls night or drink a glass of wine…Lord knows you deserve it! If you do your own business accounting, make use of our excellent csv reporting feature to lessen your load by importing your card machine’s transactions directly into your accounting, saving you time on endless data-capturing. By saving on these hours, you’re guaranteed at least 1 date night per month from us! 

8. Be Proud Of Your Achievements

You are a mom, a partner and a salary earner. Many of you are salary creators! You never stop working, thinking, planning and caring for anyone. Use motherhood to help you advance your career and your career to help you manage motherhood struggles.