This Mother’s Day, we have something a little different to share. If you follow the blog, you can sense we tend to keep the personal and professional separate. Our work, after all, is about realizing our client’s visions and dreams, not about ourselves. We really embrace being “behind the scenes.” This Mother’s Day, though, we are delighted to share a project we collaborated on with photographer Rachel K Photography. She is doing a series on four mompreneur interviews in celebration of mothers who are also business owners. We toast all mothers and those who mother others this weekend and every day.
Tell us a little bit about your business. What inspired you to start your own business?
Petal’s Edge is a custom floral design company that specializes in weddings and events. We’ve been a woman-owned and -operated company since our inception, and bring diverse backgrounds in art, horticulture and design to our work with flowers.
What does getting to be a mompreneur mean to you?
We didn’t have any teammates with children at the time the company started, but as women, we’ve always been conscious of the and simply planned for it. We structured our business to think about how that might be accommodated as the company grew. Part of this is inherent in being a team. We have always had to be considerate of each other’s personal time. To us being a “mompreneur” means not sacrificing the professional in order to accommodate the personal but rather to seek that balance out from the start.
What’s the best part of owning your own business? The worst part?
The best part of owning a business has been the autonomy and flexibility that it allows us. Our work is uniquely seasonal and as a non-traditional work week, with our off-season falling primarily in the winter. This has been fabulous for accommodating major family holidays, school schedules, weekday doctor’s appointments, being present when kids are sick, and frankly snow days from school! So there are good aspects of being a mompreneur.
The worst part, though, is how time demanding the world has become. As a small business, we simply can’t operate the way a 24-7 corporation does. When people demand our time – all day, all evening, and all weekend – it can be a challenge. In particular, we struggle with the lack of sympathy we received from other working women who perhaps haven’t experienced the challenges of having a family. For example, when a team member expected her first child, we had a client ask how she would accommodate the demands of her wedding and having an addition to her family. That would have been an illegal question in any other work situation. We similarly had clients express outrage when a team member was out on maternity leave – even though their needs were being more than handled by our remaining team.
What do you and your kids like to do in your free time?
Legos, craft and science projects, cooking, baking. Park and zoo visits. Hiking. Going to the pool, swimming and boating. Museums and art activities. Reading books. You name it.
How do you balance life and work? Any tips for other mompreneurs just getting started?
As an entrepreneur, learning to set boundaries is critical to balancing life and work. We structured our business this way to start. Some smaller things we do have included distinguishing between work time and personal time, learning to say no (that really is okay!), learning to speak up when we need to be there for our children, and using a separate, dedicated work number rather than relying on personal cell phones for calls. And finally, CHILD CARE! Whether it’s full time, part time, an occasional baby sitter, or a nanny, it truly takes a village. Get help if you need it, and don’t be ashamed or embarrassed for doing so. Don’t be fooled by those romantic images of a child sitting on your lap while working at the computer. That’s a great way to lose all your hard work – and frankly doesn’t cater to your child’s needs either. We love working, and we also love being 100% “there” when we are with our kids. Operating as a team makes us a bit unique as we have a built in “someone” to lean on, so if you’r just starting a business, think about what you would do in a situation like that and who your someone is.
What do you consider your biggest milestone that you’ve hit with your business? What was the number one thing you did to get there?
One of our biggest and proudest milestones has been making maternity leave happen for all of our team – and four times! After having our children, our team members took around 13 weeks off. It was about more than just having time off. By planning for and making use of disability insurance, we were able to make that paid time off and not sacrifice income for having a family, a challenge for many people.
Let’s hear it for being a mompreneur!
