Amazingly gorgeous - Thousand Oaks, CA

How long have you been married?

I’ve been married to prince charming since 1982

What business do you do?

Day planner                            New 7 or 11 pocket Leather Purses

URL(s):

http://www.thebusywoman.com

http://www.finderskeypurse.net

What made you pick the business that you are doing? 

I was a natural at helping women get organized and when the opportunity to sell a product came along I jumped at it. However, I started out as a rep for the company. When I heard through the grapevine that they were selling, I jumped once again and purchased the company.

How long have you been in business?

I started selling for this company in 1997 but purchased it in 1999.

However, I’ve been in direct sales since 1982.

What are your favorite hobbies?

Do you find it hard to balance working from home and having to run a
household?

Yes, as it is for the rest of the world, I find it difficult to balance working from home and running my company. While I loved staying at home to run my company, I love it even more having my own out of the home office and warehouse. When I was at home, no one took me seriously enough to let me work until the bills were paid. Now that I have an office, the family can’t just barge in and talk. And it’s fun for my husband to come to work with me on his days off. We have a great time working together.

I also enjoy the fellowship of my neighboring businesses. One of the owners of a business near me pulled me aside one day while I was visiting and said, “It’s SO NICE to finally have a friendly neighbor come by and visit. So tell me all about your business.” He has the nicest smile and I could see it was truly heart felt.

Many women stay online more than they should for the fellowship. In the past while I was working from home, I did too! But now it’s down to business and my internet chat room can stay on all day for all I care. I can go in and out if I want to but it doesn’t consume me.

Do you take time for yourself everyday?

Yes I do. I get up early enough to get myself ready for the day (as I did when I worked from home). I drop the kids at school, then go to Starbucks for my morning coffee and social time. Most of the time my husband will meet me there for a mini date. If he’s running late I’ll order for him and wait.

At night I try to take an hour for me. I also am a Toastmaster and I consider my meetings to be some of my FREE Time/Me Time.

I clean house on Saturday with or without the family and then try to set up time for my husband to take our kids out. He’s great at going out with the kids or grocery shopping. And I have to brag a bit here. My husband does laundry and dishes! He’s an amazing father and husband and I am privileged to be married to such a man.

What is the most challenging thing working from home that you have had to
face?

When friends assume that they can just drop their kids off with me for babysitting. Too many times I’d get scorned or lose a friend because I wouldn’t baby sit. Also, for a long time the children thought that because I was home it was no problem for me to jump up and run when they wanted me to. However, there were MANY times I dropped and ran homework into them.

How did you overcome that challenge?

I moved my office out of the home, I learned not to answer the door and to use caller ID to see if it was a friend or not. If you have friends who call you, chances are you know their phone number. Ordering caller ID was a life-saver. Getting strong enough to NOT answer the door was a necessity.

What is the BEST thing about working from home?

Being there all of the time for the kids. I was able to home school while running the business. I could take a break and cook dinner. I would multitask and get housework done in between.

What is the Hardest thing about working from home?

Feeling the need to work longer hours to make up for the time taken to clean the house or make meals. Also not having a private, quite office where no one would hear the kids talking or a TV, etc. People treating me like I wasn’t a real business because I worked from home.

What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about working from
home?

Make sure you are prepared for the day when your business grows out of the home. If you want this to be a profitable business, then you have to treat it as a professional business. Kids screaming in the background is not professional. Research your niche, trademark your products (if they are yours), copyright everything that is yours, get separate phone lines and caller ID.

Set up separate areas for work and family.
Set boundaries and clear consequences for the children if they cross those boundaries.
Only go into business if you have the support of a spouse.
If you’re a single parent, then disregard the last comment. 

If you’re thinking of doing a business that requires inventory, do a lot of research and homework. Ask another mom to allow you to see what her home looks like with inventory. It was fine when I was selling Discovery Toys and the kids got their new toys and were able to leave my inventory alone. But once we got into The Busy Woman, Inc. and the house started to fill up with inventory, everyone went nuts at the space issues.

Any specials that you would like others to know about?

Receive $14.99 OFF of our ebook: The Busy Consultant, direct sales basics for Busy Women. Use code: a890979120 when ordering the Direct Sales planner pages WITH The Busy Consultant.

Click here to purchase

Upcoming Chats or Online Parties that you are hosting:

Every Friday we offer a Direct Sales Chat (can you put the link for me since I’m getting confused with the new chat room links?)

Every Wednesday we offer a Personality Based Time Management or Scheduling Chat

Where: Small Business Referral Network

Scroll down and type your name where it says username.
Click login. No password is needed.

Finally tell us a little bit about where you live, what you like to do on
your downtime with your family and how using your products or services could
help us.

I live in one of the most beautiful towns in America. It’s almost always warm and sunny! I’m only 20 minutes from Malibu Beach yet don’t have the cold breezes you’ll get there. I love to go out to eat with my husband and children on my down time. Watching movies is also something I love to do. But most of all if you catch me camping (in a nice motor home or trailer that is) you’ll probably see me at my happiest. When I’m camping is when I get my best inspiration to write and read.

My newfound relationship with my grandchildren has been exciting (and exhausting) all at the same time.

Sitting around with my family on the weekend is another favorite time.

My products have helped me learn to manage the time I have better than before I had them. They aren’t the end all fix to every problem. However, they are the BEST tools on the market to help people get more organized and on time. The Busy Woman’s Daily Planner® is the BEST day planner on the market for today’s Busy Women. Time tested, woman approved for over 16 years! We’re the only small day planner company to stay in business while up against fortune 100 companies.

Our motto is: Come as customers, leave as friends.