I recently listed Christie Schultz’s organization Entrepreneurial Moms International as one of the top organizations to connect with other mom entrepreneurs online (see my post titled “Women Mentoring Women“).
Reading Christie’s answers, I know why she’s successful. I personally find her answers so inspirational, articulate and intelligent and I know that you will too. Enjoy!
Go Go Mama Go: Tell us about Entrepreneurial Moms International. What solutions does it provide?
Christie Schultz: We are a growing global family of networking communities that exists to support, promote, educate, and empower Entrepreneurial Moms. We began in Calgary, Alberta, where our flagship chapter is, and are quickly growing in response to the needs of Entrepreneurial Moms internationally. Our goal is to provide tangible solutions for Entrepreneurial Moms in four basic realms; our “Complete Entrepreneurial Mom” series spotlights foci on business, body, spirit, family, which are all essential in their ultimate entrepreneurial success. We want to ultimately enable the entrepreneurial dreams of all moms if they so desire them, and provide spirit of community, a wealth of resources, and enthusiastic encouragement to do so.
GGMG: Why entrepreneurial moms?
CS: Inherently these are women who love their families and want to be fully present in their children’s lives, yet also endeavor to achieve their own entrepreneurial success. These moms often require unique business-related resources that corporate or stay-at-home moms don’t require, and yet these resources have historically either not been available, or else they have been incredibly difficult to find especially given the lifestyle of Entrepreneurial Moms. While a corporate mom might get her leads for a great accountant at the water fountain or on a power lunch, Entrepreneurial Moms have found themselves lacking a forum to learn tricks of the trade and meet like-minded women who are engaging in a hybrid lifestyle involving parenting and entrepreneurship.
GGMG: Tell us about the inspiration behind Entrepreneurial Moms International.
CS: Upon researching how to get started on my own big entrepreneurial idea, I realized quickly as a mom of two young sons that time was of the essence and that reinventing the wheel of knowledge was not practical if I was to be successful. So I began keenly listening in on fellow entrepreneurial moms’ conversations at the playground, preschool, and gymnastics class about how they got started, tricks of their trade in balancing work with family, and anything else I could gain from a few minutes here and there from moms already blazing their trails. Finally after enough great entrepreneurial mom-to-entrepreneurial mom conversations were squelched after a kid fell and needed a band-aid, or juice spilled all over everything, I decided that we should dedicate time just for us to meet without kids and talk about what makes us tick, what inspired us, good incorporation lawyers, how to get a business license, husbands, kids, lack of sleep, and anything else that was on our minds. Upon our first networking meeting when something magical happened in our connections, we all agreed that we should do it again the next month. And the rest, as they say, is history.
GGMG: I love that it started so organically. Seems like it was meant to be!
CS: Before we knew it one person invited a friend, and another invited two, and now we had a growing organization. We formalized our entity with memberships and some basic foundational tenets, and then we really took off! This year we’re launching several chapters in over a dozen markets across North America, and our excitement and passion continues to grow for the unique commerce and social connections we can offer Entrepreneurial Moms internationally.
GGMG: You’re on a great trajectory. It must be so motivating!
CS: My purpose on this earth is to affect positive change – meaning: accomplish all I can and leave it in a better condition than that in which I found it. I am highly motivated by progress. I thrive on researching, discovering, formulating, and executing upon the creation of solutions to counter the challenges to people reaching their fullest potential. In our case, I strive to be a part of innovative solutions to enable Entrepreneurial Moms to fulfill whatever dreams they dare to dream.
GGMG: Tell us about a moment when you thought “Ah ha! I am doing the right thing!”
I was at a crossroads about six months into running the flagship chapter, not entirely sure where we should go with it. I’d explored a couple of opportunities in the related realm of Entrepreneurial Mom-run businesses, but they didn’t quite feel right so I passed on them. I was struggling because I knew that running a local chapter wouldn’t fill the space for the dreams I had of changing the world and affecting positive cultural change for Entrepreneurial Moms, but it hadn’t quite clicked how I could marry my passion for Entrepreneurial Moms of Calgary with my larger ambitions.
It wasn’t until one of our chapter members who had a connection to Ernst & Young offered our group a table at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards, that the dots started to connect for me. We observed that, of all of the award diversifications and special recognition just for construction industries, service industries, etc., there didn’t exist a Mom Entrepreneur of the Year award. We all commented that we knew there were enough of us out there, yet we weren’t receiving the unique professional recognition that we deserved. It clicked inside of me that if Entrepreneurial Moms of Calgary were to share its tenets and spirit with other markets, then perhaps one chapter at a time we could begin to change the culture of Entrepreneurial Moms and affect the respect with which we’re seen in the global workplace.
Bit by bit, we could connect, support, promote, educate, and even incubate not only the businesses but also the women themselves in a wholly respectful and uniquely tailored international community where Entrepreneurial Moms truly belong. I left the awards ceremony that night invigorated to respond to the glaring hole in supportive organizations for Entrepreneurial Moms. By the end of the month I had a taken the leap to dive into the newly born Entrepreneurial Moms International, full throttle.
GGMG: What’s it like to work with mom entrepreneurs?
CS: Throughout this process I am uniquely blessed in being surrounded by fantastic, ambitious, dynamic women. I don’t have to look hard to find amazing, talented, passionate, and enthusiastically supportive females to lead up our international organization as well as our individual chapters. These leaders are inherently entrepreneurs and moms, so they get it. They also bring to the table their unique talents and backgrounds to help grow us, while their leadership with us fully complements the growth of their own ventures. The synergy is fantastic and genius- everybody wins! We do outsource but increasingly we are required to do so less and less often as our international network expands.
GGMG: What’s a typical day like for you, balancing life as a mom and entrepreneur?
CS: I try to work when my kids are asleep or aren’t home. I get up way before they do, and go to sleep way after they do. On a typical weekday morning I’ll work until the first kid (three now – new one just born August 8, 2009) stirs, when then my web traffic suddenly halts and my foot traffic between the kitchen counter and kitchen breakfast table suddenly spikes. My kids positively come first, hence they will be fully clothed, fed, watered, diapered, hugged, kissed, asked what they dreamed about, asked what they most want to learn at school, and their faces wiped and ready for the day before I’ll return any emails. However if it’s an urgent email you can often find me hustling them into the car a few minutes early in hopes that their 5-point harnesses and seatbelts will keep them contained for me for 60 seconds, long enough to get that email out.
GGMG: Life sounds like a typical mom entrepreneur! Blogging about this topic has made me see that so many entrepreneurial moms rely on cutting their day into several thin slices – where they can multi-task between family and work.
CS: It’s not always quite so hectic – after dropping off the 4 year old and 2 year old at their two different schools, I’ll often pull out my laptop in the parking lot of the preschool to catch some wireless internet to finish up that really critical newsletter that needs to go out. Once the newsletter’s out the newborn and I would continue on to the grocery store to get supplies for lunch and the rest of the week and that birthday present for a party later in the week. I might be seen shooting off a few mails via Blackberry in the grocery store parking lot. We might then show up at one of the preschools for my scheduled volunteer engagement, stop to feed the baby in the teacher’s office after my volunteer tasks, and then move on to pick up each of the boys before going home for lunch. I have occasional childcare booked for business meetings, special business events during weekdays, or just some block time to work, but more often than not this is how things happen… at least until noon! I won’t bore you with the rest of the day’s hourly breakdown but it trends the same way- kids coming first and fitting in business around them.
GGMG: All of that juggling – is it worth it?
CS: Witnessing the tangible results of not only our longer term vision of empowering Entrepreneurial Moms coming to fruition, but also of those daily, pivotal connections made amongst talented, passionate women literally ignites me. I love being a part of accompanying a mom – an inherently heroic, selfless, beautiful creature in my book – discovering that she too can achieve her dreams even while putting her children first. I live to see the lightbulb turn on in a mom’s eyes when she realizes that perhaps her childhood dream of owning her own dance studio really can still come true, or that her recent inner stirrings to innovate upon that baby item that drives her crazy just might be the next big idea. I live to connect and facilitate inspiration. It’s the magic that keeps me coming back every day.
GGMG: What advice do you have for that mom who wants to fulfill her childhood dream of owning a dance studio?
CS: You have to love what you’re choosing to do. If you don’t love it you can’t withstand the storms of rejection and your own exhaustion. When the going gets rough your passion for your vision will sustain you. Without that passion it truly isn’t worth embarking on the long, challenging, unheralded path of entrepreneurship. However if you have that fiery passion and your will is steadfast, you can weather any storm and it will be the rewards that will blow you away!
Follow Christie on Twitter at @EntreprenMoms or check out Entrepreneurial Moms International.
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Seeing Christy with her beautiful newborn and 2 small boys, I still can’t imagine how she does it. So impressive and inspiring! Great job!