Mommy's Company.com-Blog: March 2007

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Mommy's Company.com
Location:
Orange Co., California, United States
Welcome to the Mommy's Company.com blog where everything about MC.com will be revealed, discussed, and okay that's all I've got.
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Friday, March 30, 2007

April!

Hello Business Moms! We're going through an extensive redesign right now, thanks for your patience! If you or a mom you know is looking for a fun job, we're also hiring! Send an email to mail@mommyscompany.com for more information.

Have a great weekend and come back on Monday to see pics of Amanda, our Virtual Makeover winner! She looks so beautiful.

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 5:42 PM | (0) comments |

Monday, March 19, 2007

Inc.com loves BusinessMom.net

Inc.com is the online version of Inc. magazine, one of the best resources for modern entrepreneurs. When they're not interviewing the hottest new entrepreneur, they're keeping us up to date with an "oldie but goodie".

Every month, I wait in anticipation for my Inc. (I've subscribed for a number of years) to get crammed in our home mailbox.

This morning I received an email from a company with exclusive reprint rights with Inc. asking if I'd like to create a press kit including the recent coverage.

Recent coverage?

I did a quick search and lo and behold, BusinessMom.net, our sister site, was covered by Inc. com! How cool is that?

http://www.inc.com/criticalnews/articles/200702/products0221.html?partner=rss-alert

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 10:23 AM | (1) comments |

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Bunmi Goes Bummis

In the "Natural Products Expo" blog I mentioned working on a very special project. This project touches on a very controversial topic in the mom community. When the idea first came up, I was excited and quite nervous at the same time, especially because it involves my baby.

Are you ready to know what I'm talking about?

For the next 30 days starting Monday, I'm going Bummis. Bummis is one of the leaders in cloth (yes, I said cloth) diapering. Betsy Thomas, the founder of the company, is launching me on what will be a very interesting journey that we're calling "Bunmi Goes Bummis".

For those of you die hard cloth-fanatics that have never touched a plastic disposable, I probably sound melodramatic. But when you've been able to "change and dump" for the last 10 months, this change, even though it is temporary, feels pretty drastic.

Part of the project involves keeping a blog (www.mommyscompany.com/bummis) of this saga as well as allowing a camera crew to film for a period of time.

If you see me doing anything weird/wrong, don't send me an email!

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 4:36 PM | (0) comments |

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

New MC Printables

When you're in the early stages of planning a business, everything seems so overwhelming. How do you write a business plan? How much money to I need to launch? The questions are endless.

We've created four Mommy's Company.com Printables to make the first steps a lot easier. Here's to you being a Business Mama in 2007!

To view the Printables, click on one, then click again to enlarge. That's two clicks.

View Printables

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 9:41 PM | (0) comments |

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Natural Products Expo 2007.

This weekend I was privileged to attend the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA (a few blocks from Disneyland). Imagine close to 3,000 companies on two vast convention center floors exhibiting everything from herbal tea to gummy vitamins. So fun. There were the big guys like Odwalla and Horizon as well as many small businesses in attendance.

The natural products industry is one of the fastest growing sectors. I believe this is due to conscientious mothers both starting businesses and shopping smartly.

I was there bright and early on Friday, the first day of the expo. It takes an early bird to scope out a prime location in press rooms; somewhere where one can people watch and get perfect WiFi reception at the same time.

I wasn't with one of the big media outlets; I was looking for entrepreneur moms, of which I found many!

Rondi Prescott, the business mama behind Healthy Times, was proudly manning her display along with a corporate representative. I had a great conversation with her about how she turned a small baby food line into an internationally recognized brand.

Guess who else I stumbled across? Our very own MC Business Mama, Theresa Kiene, at her Homemade Baby station! The convention is so huge that it felt like it's own country, so our shrieks of excitement upon seeing each other were more than warranted in my opinion. I saved on lunch by eating her yummy baby food samples including a new line of apple-goodness that they will be releasing soon (I'll keep you updated).

I also had a meeting with a company that I will be doing a very special (and public) project with very soon.

Many non-mom owned businesses had great items that will be making their way onto future MC's Hot Products pages.

I met so many enterprising women and can't wait to showcase them on MC. I experienced everything from toddler health smoothies to organic baby sheets. How can you not love how businesses are creating solutions and products to serve families?

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

Bunmi in front of the VitaMuffin display. Could it be any more staged?

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 10:28 PM | (0) comments |

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Getting out when you work at home

When you're a WAHM (work-at-home mom), it can be very easy to let your day become a laptop-baby-laptop-baby tango with little to no human interaction in between. Now that my daughter is becoming a toddler and exploring her environment, it would probably be considered abuse if she was either napping or in her playpen all day.

In a grand effort to socialize my little one (and myself), I joined a mom's playgroup and Maya has her first Gymboree class today. I know I'm so behind the ball on Gymboree. I'm pretty sure they have classes for fetuses and Maya is just now going at 9+ months. She's a very hyper kid, so I'm sure she'll have a blast.

A friend of mine told me that Gymobree can get a little competitive in terms of the parental units.

"Oh, my Stephen has been doing (inset developmental milestone here) for three weeks, she just started?"

"She only has two teeth? My Isabella had six by that age."

I'm fully expecting a loving, nurturing, soical environment, but just in case I encounter any competitive banter, I've got comebacks planned.

Weird Comment: "Did you notice your daughter drags a leg when she crawls? I'm sure she'll grow out of it..."

My Comeback: "Oh, she does that on purpose. She's doing a report on the effects of unequal exercise on fast twitch muscle fibers and using herself as model."

Weird Comment: "Your daughter doesn't seem to be getting any of that snack into her mouth, has she always been that uncoordinated?"

My Comment: "(said in a serious, monotone voice) As a matter of fact yes, earthling. What our species lacks in eye-hand coordination, we make up for in our ability to destroy entire planets of lower level beings."

I feel prepared now. The diaper bag is packed with diapers, wipes, Gerber Puffs, and her pink sippy and mommy's got her lines prepared. Just in case.

Don't forget to take a break today! Having a wildly successful business is no substitute for a social life.

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 9:41 AM | (0) comments |

Why kill Captain America?

Yahoo! news just reported that legendary comic book hero, Captain America, is doomed. The character will be killed in the issue that hits stands today. Captain America, known for his red, white, and blue uniform, is iconic of World War II patriotism.

I think Marvel Entertainment Inc., deserves a giant, glimmering award for the Worst Timing Ever.

What other country would kill off their namesake superhero character during a war? This makes no sense to me. It seems as if everyday there is some new grim report about our country; who hates us, CIA leaks, startlingly low government approval ratings...the list could go on and on.

With all of our troubles, I can't imagine a Marvel Exec deciding that this would perfect time to kill (and by sniper bullet no less) a figure that for over 60 years has stood for national pride, imaginary or otherwise. I'm no conspiracy theorist (okay, I SO am), but I don't think whacking Captain America was a random decision.

This makes me think of a teenager, so mad at his parents, that burns his house down. Hello! Your room is in there!

We live in this country. We do business in this county. It's far from perfect, but let's save the shots for the bad guys, okay?

As an entrepreneur, I feel extremely lucky to live in a country that allows me to pretty much do business as I see fit. There is a reason so many rags to riches stories come out of the U.S., we foster the entrepreneur spirit and help it thrive. Why do you think so many people fight so hard to become citizens and do business here?

Maybe, I've got it all wrong. Perhaps Captain America will come back to life in a future issue and save us all from greenhouse gases. I still Marvel should have broken his leg, not killed him entirely.

What's the popular saying? Don't sh-t where you eat.

Yahoo! News article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_en_ot/captain_america

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 8:52 AM | (0) comments |

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Branding Stretch Marks

A few months ago I was talking to Suzanne Fulford, our resident MLM Mom, about mommyhood, life and business. Suzanne, who has a corporate sales background, is as bright as she is talented, so I always look forward to bouncing new ideas off of her.

We were chatting about "branding" on a particular afternoon and I confessed to her that, while I can spot a fantastic branding job in a New York minute (i.e. Target, McDonald's, The Home Depot, etc.), developing a company image and persona for my own ventures is always difficult.

"Oh, you NEED to read this book," Suzanne gushed and proceeded to tell me about Bill Schley's Why Johnny Can't Brand.

Shortly after our conversation, I purchased the book from Amazon and have been making conscious branding changes ever since.

I'm not going to summarize the book here; read the online reviews and make a decision for yourself.

It's not just us small business owners who frequently miss the mark when branding. Expansion is one of the main reasons why mid- to large-size businesses lose track of their brand.

A perfect illustration of this phenomenon which I call "branding stretch marks" was the topic of a fabulous Los Angeles Times article today.

The subject: a memo by Starbucks Corp. founder and Chairman Howard Schultz was posted on the Internet, expressing regret over the loss of the company's original grassroots, coffee-loving, "mmmmm-it smells-authentic-in-here" brand during the past 10 years of ginormous growth.

"Some people," Schultz wrote, "even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee."

In Starbucks' case, the branding deviation resulted mostly in their original customer base (artsy hipsters toting sketch books) fleeing to less commercialized pastures. No serious damage done to their bottom line.

Don't think you'll be as lucky as Starbucks execs if you follow their example. The Times writer went on to focus on three companies: Krispy Kreme, Snapple, and California Pizza Kitchen, which each sustained significant financial damage from a combination of fast expansion and watered down branding.

What is the mom entrepreneur supposed to learn from this? Well, if substantial growth is part of your business plan and I've convinced you that branding should be as well, here are three tips for you.

Bunmi's Branding Exercise

Think about branding in the most literal form possible. For me that is imagining a cowboy using a heated metal rod to burn information onto the backside of a cow. You want to "burn" sensory information into the minds of your customers.

1. Make a list of five companies that have done an excellent job branding. How did they do it? What images/colors/phrases did they use to create a schema in your mind?

2. How are you branding right now? Determine your DSI (your Dominant Selling Idea) and if your customers can easily perceive it. (Why Johnny Can't Brand goes more into this topic)

3. If it works, stick with it. If it doesn't, see Number 1.

A great example of mom branding: Happy Housewives Club (happyhousewivesclub.com)

I have my work cut out for me in this department, but I'm determined to enjoy it. I think someone important once said, "The journey is the destination."

Posted by Mommy's Company.com @ 5:57 PM | (0) comments |