***** Disclaimer *****
This is a post about MARKETING. In the post I clearly say the words “PR,” “Pitch,” and “Campaign” several times, but the people who are leaving comments are either scanning over those words or just not reading it at all before they launch into an attack against me. I’m going to leave the comments up, and I’ll reply to them at the end of this post.
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As I write this, I know that this is going to either be:
A) one of those posts that goes over well and people get what I’m saying …. or
B) one of those times where I put my foot in my mouth and I am going to get a lot of flack.
I’m going to take my chances. I hope you’ll get it. But if not, feel free to disagree with me, and even leave a comment telling me so.
As a blogger, I get a lot of pitches from PR people who want me to feature their clients on this site. I especially get a lot of pitches about Mompreneurs (moms who have started businesses.)
The subject lines of these emails are usually something like “Feature This Mompreneur” or “This Mom Started A Business.”
I find this a little irritating.
I don’t care if you’re someone’s mother.
These PR people are basing their whole campaigns around the fact that a woman, who has bore children, did the un-thinkable and started a business.
Full disclosure: I’m not a mom. But if I were a mom, and I hired a PR person, and their whole campaign was based on the fact that I had a kid, I would be really effing pissed.
If you’re a mom, and you’re basing your business claim-to-fame on being a “Mompreneur,” I’m going to ask you to stop. NOW.
Why? Because you’re worth MORE than that.
You’re more than just someone’s mom. Maybe that’s why you started your business in the first place, so you could be known for something else than cooking dinner, wiping noses, and folding laundry.
So, if you took the step to start your own business and form some of your own identity, why back-pedal and base your business on the fact that you’re someone’s mom?
You have a WHOLE business. You make products or offer services. You’re smart, talented, and unique. Base your marketing and your campaigns on your business and what you offer people, not your maternal role in this world.
Like I said, I’m not a mom, but I am someone’s daughter. Should I start calling myself a “daughter-preneur?” I’m someone’s sister, so how ’bout “sister-preneur?”
See how ridiculous all of that is? Raise your hand if you really think “Mompreneur” sounds better.
In addition to being a daughter and a sister, I’m also an aunt. I’m a very good aunt. I’m very involved with my nephews and have stayed up all night with a fussy baby, I’ve answered emails with one hand while holding a baby in the other and lead conference calls while holding a sleeping baby and praying that he didn’t wake up screaming.
I’ve been the “snack aunt’ at T-ball games, dropped kids off on their first day of school and cried all the way home at the fact that they were “growing up” and weren’t my “baby” anymore. I’ve attended school parties, chaperoned field trips, and picked kids up on the last day of school with my sunroof open and their favorite songs blaring.
Trust me. I get it. It’s really effing hard to be a parent and have a business at the same time.
Guess what? It’s really effing hard to be anything and have a business at the same time.
Since I started this website four years ago, I’ve moved across the country, went through a divorce, almost died and found out about my blood disorder, traveled to quite a few new cities, and juggled all of that with family, friends, and a full-time job.
Like I said, it’s really effing hard to be anything and have a business at the same time.
We’re all struggling with something. Starting a business isn’t easy. You’re going to have good times, bad times, and you can count on putting in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
So, let’s start celebrating that you’re a woman (or man) with the courage to start your own business and the drive to be successful.
This is YOUR business.
Celebrate IT. Celebrate YOU.
It doesn’t matter if you’re someone’s mother or not.
***** MY RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS *******
I am writing my response right here, in the post so that it doesn’t get buried in the comments. Since this is my blog, I want to make sure that my voice is heard.
Several of you have said that being a WAHM or a Mompreneur is your “club.” In this post, I did not say that you couldn’t find support with other business owners who are mothers.
I said you shouldn’t be basing the marketing / PR campaign of your business around the fact that you are a mother.
You should be basing your marketing campaign on what unique product or service you offer.
And by the way, those of you who have said that being a mompreneur is a club and compared that to the people who work in offices and have co-workers – well, what about people like me, who don’t have children?
I support ALL WOMEN BUSINESS OWNERS on my site.
I offer many free resources, hold regular Twitter Parties on business topics, and am holding a Holiday Twitter Party with lots of prizes, since we are business owners and do not have an office party to go to.
It is hurtful, disrespectful, judgmental, and discriminatory to women business owners, like myself, who work from home and do not have children when mothers leave comments about being in the “mom club” or only supporting businesses owned by mothers.
Again, my advice is to start basing marketing campaigns around the products or services a business actually offers and to start supporting ALL WOMEN who have started their own businesses.
The End.
I am an artist first, an entrepreneur second. I am not a woman, a mom, a mompreneur, a sahm, a wahm or anything related to my femininity in relation to my business. I find it tacky and unappealing when women play any card that emphasizes their femininity in their business. When I see an emphasis on those titles, I’m immediately turned off and move on.
Now, don’t get it twisted. I’m a stay at home mom with a 9 month old baby girl, a 10 year old boy with a heart defect and a 15 year old. I take care of the house, the grocery shopping, a booth at the farmers market and I make products to sell. I believe I would do myself a huge disservice to emphasize any one of those things in my marketing. I used WELCOMESAMARA as a coupon code in my newsletter to commemorate a huge event. Marriage, moving, buying a new car would have gotten the same attention in the newsletter.
I agree with another commenter that the wahm title gives many an excuse to offer a shoddy product. At the market this year, there was a booth ran by “mompreneurs” (probably a title they use proudly) that sold a severely inferior product and though baby sitting was available, their bratty, loud, rambunctious kids were used as marketing tools. They were covered head to toe in the product for sale. ”I’m a marketing prop!” (said in your best Ralph Wiggam) It was disgraceful. Not surprisingly, they didn’t do very well and only attended a few markets.
I simply believe that in order to move forward as women we need to stop identifying as women of any sort and identify as our most effective title. I am an artist. My gender does not play a role in that. My status in life and business is not dependent on the gender specific hats I wear. I am an artist. First and foremost. Being a mom does not have any bearing on that. Being a woman does not have any bearing on that. The feminists of yore did not bust their ass to be recognized as women but as equals. And so-called feminists today are doing those women a disservice by trying to be identified and given special priviledges because of their femininity. I suppose you can call me a feminist – a true feminist at that. I do not support women solely because they are women, I do not expect others to support me just because I’m a woman. I do expect that if you like my product, my style of art or me personally that you’d like to do business with me. As I you under the same circumstances – man or woman or mom or dad.
I totally agree. While I think it’s great that WAHMs and Mompreneurs like to support each other, I don’t think your status as a mother is something that should be used to market your business unless you only want to sell to other moms. If being a parent is related to your product or service, then go ahead and use it as a selling point. Otherwise, it’s unnecessary and may even backfire. I’ve seen businesses who were hesitant to work with someone who promotes themselves as a WAHM or Mompreneur because they had concerns about the person’s ability to focus and make the project their top priority. It doesn’t matter if parenthood distracts you from your work or not; what matters is that they will perceive it that way. In some ways, it’s an indicator that you aren’t able to separate your personal life from your business. Focus on your skills as a business owner, focus on the product or the service you are offering. You don’t have to hide the fact that you have children but it has no place in your business plan or your marketing strategies.
First, thanks, Crissy, for opening the discussion.
I agree with your thesis, and I find the reactions to it interesting, and some of them downright disheartening.
We are thirty years post the Feminist Movement, and yet, there are still women who blindly or miopically continue the Great Biological Divide. Until we can stop saying ‘you can’t possibly know because you don’t have children’ and stop any implication that women who have not had children are not as good as women who have, all women will continue to be in the position of finding themselves treated as not-quite-as-good-as-men, whether this is overt or implied.
Motherhood is simply one thing that people do. (And not everybody does it well, but that’s another article). Proud as we all are of motherhood, we need to de-mystify this. People who say that they are part of an exclusive club and proud of it, need to think a bit. If you said you were a member of an all-white club and you kept out inferior people like negroes, or part of a Christian club and kept out Jews, would you expect the world to respect and applaud your bigotry?
To get back to the business aspect: part of this may simply depend on what you want to achieve. If you just want to manage a cottage industry or a niche industry and bring in a few extra bob, you may find the adjective ‘mompreneur’ or SAHM convenient. I suspect, though, that most female entrepreneurs who have become moderate to great successes have not said ‘I’m a mother with three adorable small children and by the way, I make widgets’, but rather, ‘I make the best d— widgets on the planet. (I also have three of the most adorable children you have ever seen.)’
Thanks, Crissy! You couldn’t have made your point any clearer. I’ve had a few different businesses over my life, the one that was the biggest blooper was when I pushed myself into the, “I’m a mother, you’re a mother— let’s do business. I was selling a wonderful line of skin care products. The young ladies who weren’t mothers and were focused and enthralled with the make-up and knowledgeable outsold me by an embarrassing margin. I also found myself only receiving parties with other mot.her’s who just wanted to have a night out and weren’t there to buy anyway. My husband at the time told me to get a real job.
Anyway, you are spot-on for so many reasons.
Anyone who checks out your website will see that you are a supporter of women entrepeneurs. You are successful at what you do, and have offered good advice to those wanting to have a creative business of their own. So, what I take away from this is that ‘mompreneur’ is–like ‘new and improved’, ‘all natural’, and ‘high in fiber’–a once unique and now common catchword or phrase used as a marketing tool. It may be a good keyword to use when searching for advice, support and networking, however, I should be wary about using it solely as a marketing tool. (Personally, by the 100th time I see ‘New and Improved’, it has lost its effectiveness on me.) I think you are saying that I should concentrate on the uniqueness of my art/product/service. How do I stand out from the thousands of other ‘__________’s’ (insert label here).
My Background- Using the lingo, I am a ‘grandma-preneur’. I work 8 to 5, care for my 2 yr old grandson from 5 to 11 every weeknight, and for 10 hours on many Saturdays/Sundays. I have to work very hard to find time to create art or do things that feed the creative soul. I relate to the ‘mompreneurs’ and every other person working two or more jobs in this way. I would like to have a creative business, and am working out what exactly that is. I am so very grateful for all of the creativity, inspiration and information on the internet from all of the creative and independent folks out there!
I’m a MOTHER and a WIFE, but I’ve never been one to define the PERSON I am by those titles. I love both dearly but I’m much more than that. I think women that define who they are by being a mom or wife are stifling the potential they have a a person and a business owner.
There are few things I hate worse than seeing someone with an email address like mommytosally@whocares.com. Seriously? Why do I care if you are little Sally’s Mommy? That does not tell me why I should want to do business with you.
I think that everyoe is entitled to their opinion but I lose respect when people make judgements on a situation they have never experienced. I was a business owner before I became a mother and now run a business as being a mother (a mompreneur). And I have many friends in the same situation (business before and after children). I don’t know any of them who would say it’s the same thing. Because as a mom you not only have all the regular challenges that come as an entreprenuuer but now you have to factor children into the mix. So you can’t tell me that doesn’t add a whole new dimension to running a business!
I do agree that if you use your mother status as the only selling feature of your product/service (i.e. “Buy from me because I have kids!”) then you’re doing something wrong. As mentioned, that won’t get you far. Just because you have children does not exclude you from all the other aspects of running a business. I also recently read an article entitled “The Disposable Entreprenuer” which I think talked similarly about some wahms. As a mom there are extra challenges to running a business but you do still need to run a legitimate business with proper marketing, customer service, quality products/service, etc. But if I have the choice between buying a product from a big corporation vs the same from a wahm, I will choose the wahm. I choose her because I get how hard she works to run her business and her family and I want to make it possible for her to continue to do so. Just a thought: could you imagine doing all you have done in the last four years PLUS having a child or more 100% dependant on you?
In conclusion, there is a difference between a mompreneur and a successful mompreneur. I don’t concern myself with the former because they’re not going to be around long enough to make a dent. I applaud the latter because I know that they have overcome the regular challenges in addition to keeping their children their priority in their life.
I celebrate the success of my business. I celebrate me. It DOES matter to me that I’m someone’s mother. If I wasn’t, the other stuff wouldn’t be nearly as significant.
I’m glad that you posted the blog and I get it, Chrissy. I appreciate that you acknowledged that being a mom with a business to manage is a lot of hard work! Having started my business a few years ago (not realizing then I’d be pregnant 6 months later), I realized that I needed to separate my personal life from my business if I’m going to stay sane and effectively get work done. Yeah I’m a ‘mompreneur, wahm, etc. but that’s just a few of many labels I’ve got in my pocket—it’s just not how I’d introduce myself to potential clientele or business contacts. Instead, it’s in my “Bio” or “About” page on my website and people will read about it if they’re interested.
[...] going to piss a lot of people off. Well, maybe not as much I did with this post about how the Mompreneur label is NOT in and of itself a marketing campaign. And then, I made a few other people made when I sent an email out about how I pissed off a bunch [...]
[...] great example is the comments thread on small business marketing consultant Chrissy Herron’s blog post, “The [...]
[...] & Con – You’re responsible for what you say (and how it looks.) Back in October, I wrote a post about the term “Mompreneur” being used as a marketing / PR strategy (and why it was bad to do it). I received a lot of positive feedback – and a lot of really [...]
Well, first of all, Mompreneur is a trademarked term, but it appears Pat Cobe and Ellen Parlapiano haven’t done much to protect it, so I don’t know what the legal ramifications are.
That aside, I think the mom thing can be a GREAT hook. For me, it’s what got me my exposure in my local media several times. It’s also how I got exposure for quite a few clients in years past. Of course, the mom in business thing isn’t quite as unique these days, so it has to be more than just a mom or mompreneur who has started a business. Whether it’s a mom in business making a difference in her community, or a mom who made millions from her kitchen table, those are all viable hooks.
It all comes down to targeting and if someone is pitching you (Crissy), it’s probably not the best choice. Not just because you said you don’t like it, but because you’re “Indie Biz Chicks”. You’re all about women in business and trying to get your attention by saying they’re a mompreneur is a little bit shortsighted.
As far as my being a “more than a mom”, of course I am, but that isn’t something that would keep me from shouting my pride in motherhood from the rooftops. To be able to provide what I do for my family IS an accomplishment and one I should be proud of. Now, I don’t carry the WAHM or mompreneur label around with me so publicly these days as I’ve changed my focus, but I don’t think it’s backward at all to be proud of the label.
It’s not backward at all.
For me, I think the feminist movement (someone mentioned it in the comments) is backward if we can no longer be proud of something that is an integral and important part of our lives. I thought the point is that we can do what we want and how we want it.