We’ve all heard the difficulties of balancing career and kids as a woman, and the media constantly likes to remind us that we can’t ‘have it all.’ But while it’s not easy, it’s not impossible so don’t be deterred or let anyone tell you that it is. If you’re in the fortunate position of being earlier on in your life/career and wanting to plan for the future, setting up a business venture that will allow you to easily earn money once you start a family can be an excellent move. If you put in the groundwork now and get everything established, by the time children come along your cash cow will already be providing you with a sustainable income which you can earn in a very flexible way. Here are a few ways to go about it.
Start Something You Can Run from Home
Starting your venture as a side hustle is no bad thing. That way you can continue working your day job and gaining money/ experience in your career, while building your business more gradually in your spare time. Since there’s relatively few upfront costs to working from home such as no rent for premises or travel to and from your business workplace, it saves you money in the early days.
If you’re selling items you could start using a site like eBay, Etsy or Amazon and see which kinds of products get the best response, before eventually moving on to set up your own website. You could get a blog that’s linked to your business established and work on creating excellent content, as well as monetize with ads. You could start developing business relationships with suppliers and clients to keep everything running smoothly. Set up social media accounts linked to the business and share reviews, chat to your customers and build a community.
Grow Organically
From there you can let it grow organically, there’s no rush to make lots of money as you’re still working another job so you can make the best decisions without panicking or rushing. You don’t have to worry about having to earn a set amount right away as your overhead costs are low. You can start it and let it snowball over time, build authority and reputation and grow as it needs to. As you begin to become more and more successful, your business can grow organically.
This is a much safer option than investing lots of money right away into a business and then hoping and praying it does as well as you thought. Once you find that you’re struggling fulfilling orders, look into outsourcing to a warehousing and shipping company. If you no longer have time to keep up with the content on your website, consider hiring a freelancer to create you regular pieces of work that are up to your standard. You could even hire some workers yourself, they don’t need to come to your home and instead could work remotely from their own.
Establish Yourself Online and Build Reputation
One of the things customers will look for when shopping with a new business is whether the company looks reputable. Gaining presence online and a good reputation takes time, and getting this right before having children is one of the best things you can do for your business. As once your company is well known online, you’re likely to make more orders much more easily. Run offers and competitions on social media to encourage people to follow you, and share customer reviews and feedback to encourage them to connect with your brand.
Ask satisfied customers if they’d be happy to leave you reviews, doing so on third party review sites like Trustpilot and Reevoo are particularly valuable. You can’t offer any kind of compensation for doing this, but if you ask nicely many people will if they’ve had a good experience. Creating good blog content will encourage your followers to comment on your posts and share on their own social media. Use the time you spend building up your business to gain this online presence and reputation, as it massively helps with your marketing efforts and makes selling much easier when you have less time on your hands later on.
Upgrade Your Equipment
As your business becomes bigger, you can start to put systems in place to help you handle the load, this could be investing in software to automate areas of your business or upgrade the equipment you use to make processes faster and more efficient. For example, if you’re a printing business then a commercial printer, if you’re an embroidery business a professional embroidery sewing machine, if you’re a baking business, better ovens and equipment. Regardless of what you do, a good internet connection is crucial, but if your business relies on streaming, video calling (such as online tutoring) and other internet- heavy tasks then a strong internet connection is essential.
There’s a lot of coverage surrounding potential 5G radiation out there these days, no one knows for sure if this is something we need to worry about yet. But there’s no denying that a strong internet connection is vital in running a successful business, so do some research and consider options like super fastspeeds if you don’t have it already. Waiting until you’re achieving success before investing in these things means you’re less likely to lose money as you already have plenty of orders coming in. If you’re going to be working around raising a baby, you want to make sure any time that you do put into your business is used in the best possible way, and the right equipment will allow you to do that without slowing you down.
Get Your Finances Right
As with any business, you’ll need to ensure that your finances are right. If you know you’re going to have to take time off and close your doors for a little while then be ready for a drop in profits, however a better idea would be to find someone that can take over your job. This gives you a few weeks or months after having your baby to spend time with them, and once you’re ready you can get back to your business and pick up where you left off.
There are plenty of professionals you can find online in all areas of business who are able to cover temporary roles like this, so spend some time training them up and letting them know what you want to do. Alternatively, you could have your partner or a family member take over for you for a while. But do consider how paying an extra staff member will impact your profits. Use accounting software to make life easier, and consider using a tax accountant for your tax return too, they’re not overly expensive and worth the peace of mind to make sure everything is done right.
Be Adaptable
One of the best things about establishing a successful business before having a baby is the flexibility it gives you. Particularly if you can run things from home, as you’re able to fit everything in much easier. However, you’ll still need to be adaptable and be happy to change things up when you need to. You’ll still have challenges to overcome even if your business is established and doing well, so be prepared to be adaptable and flexible in the way that you do things when your baby comes along. Make a plan, but don’t be too rigid and expect that things can and probably will change as your priorities shift.
Starting up a business when you already have children is of course perfectly possible, and something worthwhile that parents can aspire to do. But if you have the luxury of having time before they come along.
