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While entrepreneurs, small business owners, and educators are always seemingly happy to talk about business and marketing strategies and tactics, many are seemingly hesitant to talk about what life looks like outside of their businesses. This includes what it truly looks like to be a mother while also doing all of the things you need to do to serve your clients, lead your team if you have one, and run and grow your business.
And, for this reason, we have invited Brooke Greening onto the show to share some motherhood wisdom. Brooke is a sales expert with more than two decades of experience in corporate sales, and her sales ethos is centered around having great conversations, solving problems, and not being salesy.
But, in addition to being a sales guru, Brooke is also a mom. As a mother of three—including a child with complex medical needs—Brooke has learned how to juggle being a mother and building a business. And on this episode of Priority Pursuit, she’s sharing that experience.
What are some of the unique challenges that mothers specifically face when running their own businesses?
The best way to explain the balancing act of motherhood and being a business owner, according to Brooke, is that you’re not running one business, you’re running three (or more, depending on how many kids you have).
You’re not only doing the things you need to do to keep growing your business going, but you’re also constantly working on your children’s lives and helping to manage everything they have going on—like school, doctor’s appointments, extracurriculars, etc. Everyone has a different schedule, and nothing ever really goes according to plan. So you need to be on top of everything and stay organized.
For example, you may have calls or Zoom meetings, but what if your child gets sick? You need to have an understanding of what needs to happen and have plans in place so everyone gets what they need—including you.
How do you manage your time effectively to ensure both your family and your business receive the attention they need?
To help mothers (and any business owner really) continue to grow their businesses while also taking care of their families, Brooke created a framework known as the “daily five.”
She explains that oftentimes what can happen is that you focus on doing a lot of things for your business, but it’s not actually moving it forward. You’re not really doing those sales-generating activities, and that is going to cause a lot of problems. That’s where the daily five can come in.
- Make sure you are following up with everyone interacting with you. Whether it’s a lead or someone who has called you, respond at least within 24 hours, but preferably within two. This is the very first thing you want to do on a daily basis. It should always be on your radar. Brooke comments that this is usually something she can do on her CRM.
- Be prepared for conversations. Whether it’s a sales conversation, outgoing proposal or contract, or anything else, have a pre-call plan with every conversation you have going forward. Brooke states that you certainly don’t want to just wing these conversations. Your customers deserve more than that, and so do you. You want to be prepared.
- Similarly, be sure to have a plan for anything that is happening, specifically for that day. Again, you don’t want to wing anything that has the potential to lead to a sale or customer interaction.
- Create a plan to manage unfinished tasks. Everyone has things they don’t get done. Rather than letting them pile up and become overwhelming, make a plan on how to tackle them and get them off your to-do list.
- Focus on who or what you want in your corner. As you grow and develop your business, consider who you want to network with, what podcasts you want to be on, what conferences or speaking engagements you want to attend or participate in. How are you preparing for these or seeking them out?
If you do these five things every day, your sales cycle is going to shorten, and you’re going to be able to make more sales. Plus, by doing it daily, it shouldn’t take you very long to go through.
If you’d like a deeper dive into Brooke’s daily five, she has created a special guide to walk you through each step and help you integrate it into your daily routine. Access the guide here!
How do you adapt your business operations to accommodate your family’s needs while maintaining productivity?
The first thing Brooke wants to encourage moms to do is to give yourself grace. No one is watching you with a grading system and waiting for you to fail. Being a mother alone is tough. If it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it. Remind yourself that what you’re doing is a great thing. You’re trying to help your family and move things forward. Keep going, but give yourself the grace that you deserve.
That being said, Brooke also shares that it’s important to set expectations for yourself and your family. You have to be pretty intense about what your day’s going to look like and about inviting your family into that schedule and those expectations.
Now, when you have a four-month-old, you can’t necessarily invite them into your business world. In fact, you have to figure out how to work around your business to handle their needs, such as nursing and the many other nuances of having a baby attached to your hip. With this in mind, you still have to be really clear on what your day is going to look like, and then guard it.
In order to do this, you need to fully understand what you want and learn how to balance it. For example, Brooke shares that when she worked in a corporate setting, she was stressed about having enough time to nurse throughout the day. At some point, she decided that nursing was an important part of her life that she refused to have her work dictate. In knowing that, she was able to create boundaries and expectations and guard what was important to her.
But sometimes, it’s not going to be balanced. If you have an important sales call, you can’t help your child with homework at the same time, and that’s something both of you will need to accept. Likewise, if your child is sick or in the hospital, you can’t make the sales call. It’s about priorities and give and take.
What strategies do you use to maintain your mental and emotional well-being while juggling the demands of motherhood and entrepreneurship?
For starters, Brooke explains that she is happily married to her husband, whom she refers to as the “lid to their crazy.” They realized that one thing they needed was to spend time together so that they could then feed into their family and business. With this in mind, they have a date every Friday morning that is set in stone on their calendars.
Brooke also mentions that exercise, namely walking, helps. She acknowledges that most moms believe they simply don’t have time for exercise between getting everyone at home ready and out the door and doing it all at work.
But Brooke argues that, for her, she can’t afford not to move. Otherwise, she’d get burned out and not be able to help anyone. And by using walking as her way to get up and active, she’s also able to use that time to dive into other things that refresh her such as praying, reading, or listening to music. She also finds movement is helpful when she feels stuck with a specific task or client. It helps her clear her head and get the creative juices flowing.
It really all comes down to taking the time to burn some energy in a positive way and refreshing yourself. If you’re sitting at a computer all day working, you’re going to burn out. You need to get moving in some capacity.
Finally, Brooke shares the importance of therapy. Even with her own degree in counseling, she has found that having someone to talk to about all the major and minor changes happening makes a huge difference.
How do you involve your children in your business?
It’s important to include your family in what you do as much as possible so they don’t feel so separate from you and what's going on in your life (and vice versa). Brooke acknowledges that there are times when her children simply can’t be involved, like sales calls and recordings.
But, there are other ways and times she can invite them into the business, such as through goal-setting. Brooke and her husband allow their children to work with them to set goals for the business. And, they give them some stake in the goals by offering the kids a prize when they do reach it, like going on a trip.
Brooke explains that involving her children in this way helped include them in the growth and success of the business. Plus, it’s fun to have them cheering for her when they book another client or join another sales call.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to juggle being a mother and building a business, be sure to listen to this whole episode (at the top of the page or wherever you listen to podcasts) to hear more about Brooke’s experience. If you’d like to connect with Brooke, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website.
Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Access Brooke’s Daily Five Guide
- Find Brooke on LinkedIn
- Visit Building Momentum
- Receive 30% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook
- Save $20 on Your First order from InstaCart of $35 or More
- Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services
- Join the Priority Pursuit Facebook Community
- Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
- Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
- Follow or DM Victoria Rayburn on Instagram
The Priority Pursuit Podcast is a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
You can find The Priority Pursuit Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
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