Think Like a Mom for Success.

I have been reading articles in several magazines lately applauding the entrepreneurial success of mothers. These moms had great ideas most of them amazingly simple  and they are now running successful multi-million dollar companies. There is even a new word, Mompreneur, to describe these women.

All of these articles got me thinking about what great on-the-job training being a mom really is! Moms are forced to handle all types of situations like school dynamics, scheduling and multi-tasking. A great article by Alyssa Dver (a mompreneur herself with the creation of wander-wear) listed all of the skills that moms develop that make them great entrepreneurs. It makes a lot of sense, so I wanted to share some of it here:

Mom Skill #1: Coming Up With Creative Solutions. After you’ve come up with your own ways of handling everything from diapering to feeding time, put some of those ideas to use in business. Jen Groover, 33, is a mother of 2-year-old twins and CEO of Jen Groover Productions, a $1 million conglomerate brand of products, many of which aim to make a mom’s life easier. In a year and a half, she’s launched two TV shows, a book, websites, a blog and several product lines. The first version of her patented Butler Bags–a line of highly organized handbags, gym bags and diaper bags–quickly sold out before the first shipment even left China.

Mom Skill #2: Never Taking No for An Answer. Once you’ve learned to deal with recalcitrant toddlers, it’s easy to persist in the face of stubborn buyers.
Laine Caspi, CEO of $1.2 million product licensing company Parents of Invention, brought a unique baby wrap from Israel back to the U.S. four years ago to use with her infant. When hordes of people stopped her to inquire where they could get one, Caspi, 37, saw the obvious opportunity. ‘I never would have started my own business if I hadn’t been a mom,’ she says.

Mom Skill #3: Scheduling and Prioritizing.Moms have critical entrepreneurial skills such as patience, stamina and persistence,” says Tamara Monosoff, author of The Mom Inventors Handbook. They know how to prioritize and are master schedulers.

Monosoff should know. She regularly races from QVC to Good Morning America, making cross-country day trips so she can be back home for her children, who are 2 and 4 years old. After a successful political career working in the Clinton administration, Monosoff, 41, became a stay-at-home mom. Frustrated by her daughter’s delight in continually unraveling the bathroom toilet paper, Monosoff invented the TP Saver. The product did well and has inspired many other budding mompreneurs to seek her advice. Now her books, consulting and product licensing efforts are all designed around helping other mompreneurs succeed. She advises mompreneurs to learn about the processes involved in starting their venture before spending a lot of money.

So if you are a mom who has a great idea, don’t be intimidated by starting your own small business. There are plenty of resources to get you going and the potential for success is huge!