Why mums make great business people

It’s 9am and you’ve already been to the gym before the family stirs, breakfasted with the children while helping them get ready for school, remembering to take the chicken out of the freezer for the evening meal, putting a load of washing on and taking an early morning call from a client. So starts the typical day of a Mumpreneur.

Taking daily hectic home routines, mashing it up with a busy work schedule and, often, mixing that up with an essential social life is par for the course for most women in business. And through this ability to combine an enormous workload yet still manage to keep everything functioning smoothly is exactly the abilities that make a mum the ideal business person.

Think of the attributes you need to succeed in business. To succeed you need to be able to multi task yet still focus on the end goal. From overseeing the operations, to making sure the daily function of an office is running seamlessly, to high level financial negotiation to dealing with inter staff disputes a Mumpreneur is likely to consider and be able to deal with all these issues while keeping an eye on the big picture goal.

The ability to negotiate with even the most unreasonable people is also a valuable asset. Whether they are right or wrong, staff often have an opinion or desire which needs to be acknowledged but isn’t necessarily the best for the company, the client or themselves. And a mum, who has stood up to a three year old having a tantrum in an assertive and productive manner, already has this experience.

A creative company director I spoke to recently quoted her clients as being as ‘petulant as her teenager’. I suggested she applied the same tactics as she applied at home – consideration, negotiation, rules and rewards. Her ‘tough love’ principle secured a great contract and set the boundaries for a productive working relationship.

The ability to be adaptive, learn new skills, and be reactive to changing demand and desires is also paramount. Every mum I know has had that, ‘I need to go to school tomorrow in historical fancy dress’ conversation at 9pm at night, then to find themselves creating ‘Boadicea’ out of bits of sticky back plastic and an old bed sheet.

That creativity and adaptability and that ‘what the heck’ gusto is a great asset. Even scarier is the maths problem of a kid sitting GCSE – I know many a parent who has turned to BBC Bite Size while a child sleeps to explain the problem the morning after. Now that’s willing and able.

A Mumpreneur is undaunted – whether its illness, school holidays or family crisis or equally a brought forward deadline, a 24 hour pitch or a crisis management situation. They always have a plan, a support system and have considered these issues if only subconsciously in the wee hours of the morning.

And a Mumpreneur knows how to get the best out of her team – whether at home or at the office. By encouragement, praise, reward and consistency you can guarantee a busy Mumpreneur evokes loyalty and commitment and the willingness of either her family or staff to go that little bit extra for the benefit of the team as a whole.

Finally there is reliability – if it needs doing it will be done – and often by her own fair hand. There is no over inflated opinion of herself, or ‘jobs worth’ mentality – if it needs doing the Mumpreneur will gladly get her hands as dirty as her teams.

It's often said that mum's suffer a dip in confidence after taking a break to have a family, worrying their skill set is reduced by their absence from the work force, or fear that other colleagues may judge her torn between family and work. On the contrary, the mum experience improves and enhances a business person’s ability, like an in-house management training course of unprecedented ferocity.

And as the saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person. Who better than a Mumpreneur?

By Kate Lester
Managing Director of Diamond Logistics and RS Couriers www.katelester.com