Design Your Business to Run Itself

I am so excited to share this training with you!

If you have an established business and want to learn how to systematize and structure your work load so you can explode your
business (and be the rock star mama you were born to be), this training is for you!

Kim Flynn is a friend of mine, a Startup Princess Fairy Godmother and is a business consultant/coach extraordinaire for women. 

She is doing a content-intense phone training for women next week.  I have been on her calls, and she offers SERIOUS content about  structuring & organizing your business so you can get out of the office & spend more time with your kids. You will not be disappointed.

Register Here

You will learn:

• How you can run your current business without working more than 20 hours a week
• 3 quick ways to know if your business is broken
• 1 simple business upgrade that will transform your business
• and more!

Here is that link again

She only does these trainings three times a year–this won’t be available again until September so get on now! If you can’t be live on the call, a recording will be sent to you.

**If you purchase one of Kim’s programs we’ll likely get a commission, but don’t worry, we only recommend products, trainings and services that we feel are a great fit for our members.  So listen into the free training call.  She’ll offer incredible insights for your business on that free call.  Then you can decide for yourself if Kim’s program is right for you.

How to Hire Employees When You Can’t Afford to Hire Employees

By Kim Flynn

Before we talk about how to hire employees when you can’t afford them, let’s build a little foundation. Think back to when you started your business.

In an ideal world, we would all announce our business was open and immediately customers would come running and line up outside of our establishment. I am the founder of five businesses and so far, this has never happened to me. Nope, I have had to pour money into the business before it is profitable. I have had to spend money on marketing before I made my first dollar. This is a known and accepted fact for most business owners–we know we have to spend $5 on marketing to make $15 in profits. We have to step into the dark, spend some money on marketing and hope that it comes back to us with a nice return. We accept this risk along with millions of other men and women who take this risk every day as they head into the world of entrepreneurship.

Fast forward a couple of years. That same risk-taking business owner that took that initial step into the dark now has a business up and running. She is working really hard and making some money but because she spends so much time running the business she is getting nowhere fast. Sound familiar? Most entrepreneurs find themselves in this position, in what I call the “swamp” of business. They have seen some success, but feel stuck and don’t know how to take their business to the next level.

Do you want to know the secret to taking your business to the next level? Here is the big secret: you need to hire employees to do the work for you. That’s it. That’s all. For you to grow your business, you must move beyond the world of solo-preneur and into the world of leadership. If you don’t hire employees, your business is nothing more than a glorified job, and statistically you will work more hours and get paid less than if you just worked a regular job. Disheartening, isn’t it?

So why are business owners so hesitant to move to the next level of business ownership? Why do so many women in particular get stuck in this swamp stage? I have coached hundreds of women on this topic and this is the response I usually get: I don’t have the money to hire employees.

That excuse doesn’t fly with me ladies! You didn’t have money to put into marketing before you made your first dollar, and yet you did it. You aren’t going to make money as a solo-preneur either until you are ready to step into the dark and make that leap of faith.

Do you remember that Indiana Jones movie when Indiana is standing in front of a giant cliff, and he sprinkles dirt in front of him and a glass bridge appears? Then he does what all successful business owners have learned to do: he steps off the cliff and onto that bridge, having faith that it would be under his feet. And it is!

That has been my experience in hiring. If I wait until my company is rolling in the dough before I hire an employee, I will be waiting an eternity. If I spend all of my time doing the mundane day-to-day workings of my business, I won’t have enough time to spend on the things that really matter. And the things that really matter are always things that will bring in more customers (marketing) and take your business in a new, upward direction (leadership). It is impossible to move into the creative, big-picture mentality that a leader needs if you are answering customer phone calls and putting out daily fires.

So here is your challenge: make a list of all of the things in your business that you hate to do, things I call energy-suckers, and hire it out! Yes, you will have to pay some grateful college student $10/hour to do it, but assuming your college student will work 20 hours a week, you will have 80 more hours a month to focus on marketing and leadership. Imagine how much value you can create in your business with 80 more hours a month.

Put that ad up on Craig’s list, and take that step into the dark sister!

Kim Flynn is a devoted wife and mother of four, as well as a business coach, a speaker, and the passionate founder of five businesses. If you have an established business and are struggling to take it to the next level, she can help you design an organized business that aligns with your life. Visit her website at www.KimFlynn.com

Owning Your Role as CEO

By Kim Flynn

I want you to consider the three most powerful letters in business: CEO. And next to those three powerful letters, I want you to consider the most powerful word in your experience: your name. So many women struggle with owning those three powerful letters next to their name. Let’s talk about owning our role as CEO.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I started my first business when I was 24 years old, and have started a new company about every 2 years since. I currently have four active businesses and one in development, I have been in business for 11 years, I employ about 30 people, and I still have had to learn many, many times that I need to step up and own my role as CEO.

Why do you need to own your role as CEO, you ask? Let me tell you what will happen if you don’t. Many of you are married or in a close relationship (whether that is with a boyfriend, or even with your mom). If you are in a relationship, there WILL come a time in your business life when you need to step into the dark and do something new.

So let’s say you need to learn how to set up an autoresponder drip email sequence in aweber, and you are freaking out. Even the name sounds intimidating. And your dear sweet hubby sees you struggling, and you are happy to have the help, so you bring him on to help you with your autoresponder drip sequence. That isn’t the problem. Having hubby help you is a wonderful thing, and you are not giving away your power by getting help.

The problem is when you have one way you want to do it, and your dear hubby has another way that he thinks would be better. You might say to yourself, “Well, I really like my way, but my husband is a smart man and makes a good income for our family, so I am going to trust his judgment above my own and follow his direction.” In that moment, you just gave away your power. You are no longer CEO of your company.

Now this is totally different from him having a great idea and you liking that idea and changing your mind to go with his. That is just called using other people’s great ideas. I have no problem with that and do that all of the time! What I do have a problem with is when you choose his idea over your own great idea because you trust him over yourself.

The problem with you giving away your power is your company now has two heads. You have one idea of where the company should head, and he has another idea of where the company should head, and it ends up getting pulled in two different directions. It results in you feeling frustrated that you don’t have ownership, and him feeling unvalued because you aren’t listening to his advice.

If you haven’t hit your head on this problem yet, it is time to hit your head on it. It is time to draw a line in the sand (and you may have to redraw this line every month for the next six years) and say, “Darlin’, I love you, but this is my company. I would like to make my own mistakes.” And then give yourself permission to jump in, standing on your own two feet, not needing permission from anyone, and start making some GREAT mistakes.

Kim Flynn is a devoted wife and mother of four, as well as a business coach, a speaker, and the passionate founder of five businesses. If you have an established business and are struggling to take it to the next level, she can help you design an organized business that aligns with your life. Visit her website at www.KimFlynn.com

Put On Your Big Girl Shoes and Come Play!

Fairy Godmother Kim Flynn writes the following:

I know where you are right now because I have been there—you have this inclination, burning, desire, feeling inside of you that says, “I will be a business owner one day!” but you have no training, no experience, and no money to start a business.

If this sounds like you, read on my friend. You are in the right place!

Let’s discuss that feeling first of all. I believe that you were given the inclination to go into business for a reason. I believe if you have a desire to do something, like start a business for example, and that desire comes from a good place, that IS your purpose! If you have a family and have young children, right now raising your family will probably trump as your #1 purpose, but having a family doesn’t prevent you from living your JUICY purpose. It just requires you to do a little more planning.

So—if you have that desire inside your little entrepreneur heart, I want you to take action. Specifically, I want you to take inspired, imperfect action. I want you to ask for guidance from your higher source (that is the inspired part) and then I want you to jump in and start making some really killer mistakes (that is the imperfect part).

It is time to get messy! It is time to start digging and planting in the dirt.

It is also time to step into the dark—where you have never gone before. It is time to step off that cliff, knowing a bridge will appear when you do.

Do you remember that part in the Indiana Jones movie, when Indiana knows there is a bridge across the cliff between two mountains? He scatters some sand over it, and can see that there is a glass bridge there. And then he does what you will have to do when you start your business—he steps into the abyss and onto the bridge that appears under his feet. That is what it will feel like for you as you step out of your comfort zone and into what I call the playing zone.

When you start a business, you will become a master of stepping into the dark. You will be a master of cliff jumping. You will feel the fear and do it anyway!

Here is a quote that I keep on the wall in my office:

“To live a life of excellence, you will have to take risks. If it feels safe, you are underachieving.”

So to all of you underachievers out there, no more hiding behind “I have no time,” “I don’t know how,” or “I have a family.” What you really mean by all those excuses anyway is simply, “I’m too scared.” It is time to put on what coach Heather Madder calls your “big girl shoes” and come play! It is time to start your business.

Let’s talk about the biggest mistake women in business make when starting out.

It is very common in my coaching business for me to ask women, “What is your business idea?” only to have them answer “I want to have my own clothing line at Nordstrom,” or “I want my digital photography products to be on Oprah.” The mistake they are making is they are thinking too big in the beginning. This may sound counter-intuitive coming from a women’s business coach. “Shouldn’t my business coach be encouraging me to think big?” you may be asking. Absolutely not—you think small in the beginning to get big at the end!

Let me explain. My good friend Diane has a dream of one day opening a children’s art studio. She has it planned out in her head, down to the giant neon sign of her logo that will hang outside of her art studio in every mall in America. She is thinking BIG. She has determined that she needs $50,000 to start the company, and believes that she can’t start until her kids are grown. And she is correct—she can’t start the company because she wants to start BIG.

She thinks she is held back my money (I need a loan!), time (I can’t juggle a business and kids!) and experience (I need to find a business partner who knows all about business!).

If Diane waits until her kids to grow up in ten years, then starts the process of trying to get a loan, and then starts trying to recruit a business partner who is already an expert in the field, do you think she will have success? Absolutely not. No one is going to lend to someone without experience, and no seasoned business person will want to team up with someone without experience.

Let’s pretend that instead of waiting ten years, Diane decides to scale down the size of her original plan and start with the resources she has RIGHT NOW. Her resources are: the living room in her house, her computer, and $100. On her computer she prints up some rudimentary fliers about art classes in her home, passes them out around her neighborhood, and buys art supplies to teach classes at her dining room table. Over the years the business grows, and she moves it out of her home and into a commercial location. Five, six and seven years pass by and it suddenly dawns on her that she is close to realizing her original dream. She has a large commercial studio with her beautiful logo in neon hanging out front. At this point, if she then wants to franchise the company, or begin expanding so she can move the business into every mall in America, she can now go this route. The up-in-the-sky idea is now feasible because she started small, and she started now.

If you are feeling that desire to start a business, now is the time to start! The worst thing you can do is to go another year with this desire to start a business and keep telling yourself: I’ll do it when I graduate from college, when the kids are grown, when I get more training, or when I have more time. Suddenly, you’ll wake up 85 years old and realize that you missed out on your calling because you (let’s face it—you can come up with any excuse in the book) but you were simply too scared to take that step in the dark.

Kim Flynn is a wife, a mother of four, and  the owner and founder of five businesses: Tutoring Connection, Brenson Property Management, Fabulous Living, Kim Flynn Coaching, and University for Women. You can find her at kimflynn.com.

Meet Kim Flynn, Founder and Owner of Fabulous Living and Tutoring Connection

We have so many great speakers lined up for this year’s Touchpoint Conference in Utah, one of which is the business-savy and extremely likable Kim Flynn of Fabulous Living and Tutoring Connection. Kim, who is also one of our very own Fairy Godmothers, will be speaking on, 5 Steps to Organizing Your Business From the Ground Up. Don’t miss your chance to learn from Kim and our other speakers on September 24th! We hope to see you there! 

Hometown: Suburbs of Atlanta

Current Residence: Cedar Hills, Utah

Education: BA Brigham Young University

Professional Background: I taught English for 3 years before starting Tutoring Connection at age 24. Ten years later I started Fabulous Living, inspiring, in-home classes for women.

What you wanted to be when you grew up: An English teacher

What you are: A woman, a wife, a mother, a business owner, an author, and a speaker.

Brief Summary of your Start Up: After having my first baby, I started tutoring kids in my own home. The business grew, and pretty soon I had 5 different tutoring “stations” set up all over the house. We had cars parked up & down the street all day long, so we switched to an at-home tutoring format: our tutors now go to the clients home. We now have up to 20 tutors, and tutor up to 150 children per week in reading, math, and specialized subjects.

Fabulous Living started when I wanted an in-home personal trainer and a personal stylist, and I figured other women would want the same services. Fabulous-Living.com now offers in-home training and image consulting in Utah County, as well as video and on-line classes in a variety of subjects available to everyone!

Company Website? www.TutoringConnection.net and www.Fabulous-Living.com Twitter @kimmo29

What inspired you? My Dad. He was always thinking up new business ideas when I was growing up. His latest idea is a tilapia farm!

How long have you been in business? 10 years

How did you fund it? I grew it organically, never needing a loan or any more than $100 in start-up funds!

Do you have a Fairy Godmother (or Mentor)? Heather Madder is my business coach extraordinaire. www.heathermadder.com

Do you belong to any Business Organization or Networking Groups? Utah County WEB, and Startup Princess, of course!

Current Business Challenge? I just restructured and let the woman go who has been running my business for me for three years. It was time to progress, but it was a very painful decision!

What are you doing about it? Choosing to make the hard decisions when they need to be made, even when they are personally painful.

Favorite motivational quote: “When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.” — Ezra Taft Benson

Family? I have a fabulous hubby, and four kidlets ages 10 – 2.

If so, how do you balance family and business? I work two days a week from home with a babysitter. I involve my kids in my business choices, decisions, and lessons learned. They know that business is a key purpose and mission in my life, and I encourage them to develop and find their own.

Favorite book? Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, E-Myth by Michael Gerber, Why Our Children Can’t Read by Carmen McGuinness, A New Earth by Eckart Tolle

What do you do to relax? Tinker in my garden, scrapbook, take a bath, and read anything non-business related.

What do you want to change most about your world? I want to show women that they can LIVE. I am committed to strengthening marriage.

What are you most proud of? I am proud to be a teacher, in many different settings.

What advice would you like to offer other Start Up Princesses? Take that first scary step in the dark, and then another, and then another. Pray for guidance. The Lord wants you to be on the path that you want to be on!

Favorite Magic Wand (tool/resource)? Books, books, books.

If you could design a tiara, what precious stones would you use? Anything but diamonds. My socially conscious sisters would not approve!

4 Steps to Organizing Your Life: Creating a Household Time Map

Fairy Godmother, Kim Flynn entrepreneur and mother of 4, writes the following article: I like to compare a person’s time management to a junk drawer. If you are like most people, you have a junk drawer that is full of everything from legos to batteries to rubber bands to chapstick. Everything is tossed into one big collection, and even though it all may not be, it looks like a big pile of junk because it isn’t organized.

Now think about your weekly schedule. Your schedule is probably full of everything from ballet class to making dinner to date night to checking email. If everything is thrown into your schedule with no rhyme or reason it looks like a big pile of junk. In time management terms, a big pile of junk translates into a big pile of stress.

If you are trying to run a household, raise kids, and run a business all at the same time you have to have a time map to keep things organized and stress-free. Here is a picture of my junk drawer. Yes, that is a “lego” section that is actually labeled. Before you think I am too crazy, however, know that I organized this junk drawer in its present state when I moved into my home five years ago. I did not clean it out for this picture. This is how it looks every day . . . because it is labeled. If you create a space for everything in your life, things tend to magically stay in their place without much effort from you.  Let’s do the same thing for your weekly schedule.

You will need a paper & pencil for this so go grab one . . . I will wait.

STEP #1: Write down all the basic things you do (or you wish you would do) every week. This is not the time for minutia—don’t include making your bed or getting the mail! Most people end up with 10-20 things on their weekly schedule. Here are some examples:

• Clean the house

• Deep clean 1 room of house

• Work on business (you may need to do this several times a week)

• Home office/pay bills

• Errands

• Kids’ tutoring

• Hobby time

STEP #2: Print out the empty weekly time map at the end of this article. Notice that there aren’t exact hours on the time map. If you try to organize your time “to the penny” you will drive yourself crazy. “Oh no! I only have 5 more minutes to feed Jonny before I need to get started on laundry!” Creating false stress is NOT what we want to do.  Here is a sample time map.

This weekly time map is organized by time chunks: morning routine (more on this later), morning, afternoon & evening. For a relaxed lifestyle, I recommend only ONE activity in each time chunk. A busy person will have one or two activities per time chunk. If you have more than 2 activities in any one time chunk I would be able to spot you in a crowd. You are one of two kinds of people:

Weekly Time Map: Household
	Moving Monday	Tutor Tuesday	Windex Wednesday	Thorough Thursday	Field Trip Friday
	Routine	Routine	Routine	Routine	Routine
Morning	business meeting grocery shop	work out with Becca work on business		work out with Becca work on business	field trip Friday & errands
Afternoon/ Kids home		kids: tutoring	clean house	home office/bills	scrapbook kids piano lessons
Evening	family home evening	Photoshop class		deep clean 1 room	date night

1. You look like you have it all pulled together. People comment on how much you can accomplish. You are probably president of the HOA, PTA, as well as your own company. You work hard because you feel like you need to earn your worth. You aren’t living life to the fullest because your life is too full. Ironically, life will feel more substantial, more meaningful, when you choose to do only the most important things and marinate in the empty space that you will create. It is time to edit—not because you can’t, but because you can!

2. OR—You look like your life is falling apart. You don’t answer email for days, if not weeks. You tell people in conversation, “I just can’t think about that right now. I have to get through ___ first.” People worry about your stress levels. You feel frazzled. You aren’t living life to the fullest because your life is too full. It doesn’t matter that others can get more accomplished & not feel stressed out. Your life is too full for YOU to handle. Embrace this reality & prepare to make changes.

Back to the time map. Starting with scheduled events (ie Piano lessons on Tuesday afternoons), place each item from your list onto your time map. Remember: one item per chunk is the ideal. Use a pencil because you will be switching things around a lot as you work.

Tips:

• Put like-items together. Run errands after your kids finish soccer practice.

• Most people like to clean the house & go grocery shopping at the beginning of the week

• Plan work time when the kids are in school. If you can’t, it is time to hire a regular, weekly babysitter.

• Limit each child to 1 activity per week. Unless you are encouraging your child to excel at something at a professional or Olympic level, they really don’t need more than this. We tend to think that our kids need piano, dance and spelling bee club all at the same time. What our kids really need is a mama who isn’t yelling at them all the time because our lives are too busy!

• Include AT LEAST one hobby time for you. If you don’t have a hobby, block this time in for you to GET a hobby! This is your spice of life, ladies. Treat yourself as well as you treat your kids. Take a class in something you find juicy!

• As you place items in your time map, think about WHEN you like to do this activity. Mondays are usually really busy for me so I keep them as unscheduled as possible. By Thursday & Friday I am ready to relax, so I schedule my hobby times then.

• Try to limit driving to 2-3 times a week. Getting kids out the door is one of the most stressful activities for me as a mom. I limit my driving to grocery day and errand day. When I take the kids on field trips, or when I schedule doctor appointments, I always do them on the same day as errands. The kids don’t mind going to the bank on the way to the museum.

• If at all possible, plan your business work schedule to be three times a week without kids instead of five times a week with kids. You can afford that $5/hour for your babysitter because you aren’t out shopping every day any more!

• Don’t schedule more than 2 items in any 1 chunk of time. If you have too many items to fit into your schedule, this is not a matter of time management. You just have too many things in your life. Start crossing out the less vital ones (resign from the HOA, cancel your daughter’s ballet lessons, etc). Do this TODAY. It feels so amazing to have that weight lifted.

• Don’t list individual tasks of your business work yet. Just schedule “work on business” as many days as you need to. Look for how to create your business time map in a separate post. It is organized a little differently.

• If your business is a full-time, out of the home business, you have 2 choices:

  • #1 is to edit your household schedule substantially. In my humble opinion, your children are better off having a relaxed mom and a less active schedule than a hysterical mom driving them to swim practice every other day and deep cleaning the banister at midnight. Sorry, there are only 24 hours in the day and you are a human. You have to cut back.

  • #2 is to make changes in your business. You set this baby up to run, and you can change how it is run. Hire help; give up a less productive time-consuming division; make the changes needed to create more space in your time map. This is your business—make it work for your life.

STEP #3: Create a cute phrase that goes with each day’s purpose. This helps you and your kids memorize the schedule. As cheesy as this sounds, I wake up every morning morning and think, “Oh! Today is Tango Tuesday!” or whatever the phrase for the day is. (I imagine myself doing the tango as I walk down the grocery aisle). It gives my day a purpose and a mission.

Tips:

• Don’t use negative adjectives. Would you rather wake up knowing that you are facing “tedious Tuesday” or “tranquil Tuesday”?

• Here are some examples to get you started:

Moving Monday

Macy’s Monday

My Monday

To-do Tuesday

Tango Tuesday

Tranquil Tuesday

Tidy Tuesday

Working Wednesday

Workout Wednesday

Wal-mart Wednesday

Windex Wednesday

Thin Thursday

Thankful Thursday

Thorough Thursday

Fun Friday

Field Trip Friday

Football Friday

STEP #4: Create a morning routine. You will do this every morning when you wake up, before you begin your first “morning” time chunk. Here is my morning routine:

• Make my bed & clean room

• Clean my bathroom while my babies are in the bath

• Do 1 load of laundry

• Do dishes while kids eat breakfast

• Defrost food for dinner

I love my morning routine. I love walking into a bedroom that is always clean. I love having a time to bathe my kids. I can keep up with the piles of laundry if I always do my daily load of laundry. I love knowing what is for dinner at 10 am instead of waiting until 5:30 pm.

Tips:

• Notice that “check email” isn’t on the list. For me, checking my email involves following up on email, and often takes over an hour. This needs to be scheduled on my time map in a “work on business” time.

• Limit your morning routine to only 4 or 5 items. If you have 10 items on your routine, it won’t be a memorized routine. It will be a slave of a to-do list.

• Don’t put menial tasks like “get dressed” on your morning routine. That is, unless you have a serious problem forgetting to get dressed.

Your household time map is complete! Although you will probably memorize yours within a few weeks, it is helpful to keep it handy. I tape a copy of mine in the front of my planner so I can refer to it whenever I have a time choice:

• Should I schedule a doctor appointment on Thursday or Friday?

• Do I have extra time to take an evening photography class?

• What non-essential items can I delete from my schedule to make room for a new business venture?

If you keep your time limited to one or two events per time chunk, you can maintain the organized, purposeful, but relaxing lifestyle that you want. Just like that junk drawer!

My Morning Routine:

Weekly Time Map: Household
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
	Routine	Routine	Routine	Routine	Routine
Morning
Afternoon/ Kids home
Evening					© Kim Flynn 2010

Kim Flynn is the mother of 4 and the founder of 3 active businesses: Tutoring Connection LLC (2000), Brenson Property Management LLC (2004) and Fabulous Living (2009). She has received business recognition as “Woman of the Year” at the 2006 Thanksgiving Point Women’s Conference, and was the director of the 2008 Women’s Conference in Provo. She has also been featured in Utah Valley Magazine and on the radio program “Ask a Woman.”

Introducing Kim Flynn, Serial Entrepreneur and Startup Princess Fairy Godmother

What a pleasure it’s been for me to get to know Kim Flynn, one of our newest Startup Princess Fairy Godmothers sharing wisdom and inspiration! Kim’s also in our Utah County Royal Court helping to organize our events here, love her energy and vision. Talk about a bright and talented woman- WOW. Kim just blows me away because she’s the mother of 4 and owns not just 1 business but 3 (Tutoring Connection, Fabulous Living, and Real Estate) and consults as well. How does she do it? Kim has figured out how to start companies and let them manage themselves, she’s teaching me a lot about organizing and setting up systems so you can spend more time overseeing a business and not running one. Here’s a couple of her recent posts for Startup Princess. Enjoy getting to know Kim.

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

Current Residence: Cedar Hills, Utah

Education: BA, English Education, BYU

Professional Background (brief, please): Taught jr. high & high school English before starting a tutoring business.

What you wanted to be when you grew up: English teacher

What you are: Business Owner, at-home mom of 4, wife to luckiest man in the world

Brief Summary of your Startup: I started tutoring out of my home, and it grew out of control! We had 5 tutors at a time set up all over my house & cars parked up & down the street. The neighbors started to complain, so we moved to an office location. After almost 10 years of business, we started Fabulous Living, a division of Tutoring Connection that provides in-home classes for women. We currently offer a Kick Start to Fitness class and a How NOT to Dress in Utah Valley class.

Company Website?
www.tutoringconnection.net
www.fabulousliving.net

What inspired you? My dad is an entrepreneur extraordinaire wannabe— and he would be if he didn’t have a day job. As a kid, I grew up hearing about all the businesses he wanted to start. (One of his most recent is opening a tilapia farm).

How long have you been in business? Almost 10 years

How did you fund it? We grew the business internally—I probably spent $50 of my own money to start with my first client.

Do you have a Fairy Godmother (or Mentor)? No—but I cherish lunches out with friends who have a similar business spirit as mine.

Do you belong to any Business Organization or Networking Groups? Startup Princesses, of course! I also belong to Utah Trading Center.

Current Business Challenge? Marketing Fabulous Living in a different way than I have done for the past 10 years! I always did door-to-door marketing for Tutoring Connection, and in this economy it just isn’t cost effective.

What are you doing about it? I read Guerrilla Marketing & am going through it & implementing each marketing idea that I can do one by one. It is extremely labor intensive.

Favorite motivational quote:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Marianne Williamson

Family? 4 kids, age 9 to 9 months.

If so, how do you balance family and business? There is no such thing as “balance.” We are always searching for a magical place where work doesn’t run into family time and family time doesn’t run into work. It isn’t going to happen—we are only given 2 hands and 24 hours a day, so something has to give. A stay-at-home mother of 4 without a business doesn’t have enough time to get the laundry done, house cleaned & kids nurtured beautifully every day. Throw a business on top of that, and you are just going to have to accept that some things won’t get done. For me, the hard part is making sure the intangible duties of motherhood (looking my kids in the eye & giving them my attention) get priority over the tangibles (checking business duties off the to-do list). This is a huge challenge for me.

Favorite book? Fiction—Pride & Prejudice ; Non-fiction—Bonds that Make us Free

What do you do to relax? Read a junk (read—not a business) magazine in front of the fire

What do you want to change most about your world? I want to show women that they can give themselves permission to be more.

What are you most proud of? My marriage

What advice would you like to offer other Startup Princesses? Just do it. Don’t spend one more minute researching. Take that step into the dark, and then another . . .

Favorite Magic Wand (tool/resource)? Books in general

If you could design a tiara, what precious stones would you use? Anything but diamonds. My culturally responsible sister would not approve.

Intuitive Eating in 3 Steps

If you have ever been on a diet before (and really, who hasn’t?) these steps are going to sound silly and counter-intuitive to you. You are going to have to go out on a limb and just do some trusting Read more