For a while, I have been on a quest to syndicate my BlackBerry Mom column and to increase sales for my home accessory business. It is a long, hard road, and sometimes I can't help but think what it would be like to go back into marketing ...
When my older daughter was born, I realized the only way I could make money, find professional fulfillment, and still be home for my family is if I started my own business. And while I have been able to teach an art enrichment class at my older daughter's school, bake challah in my younger daughter's school and drop fresh vegetables at my husband's office so he has healthy snacks, I have found professional fulfillment.
I had no idea what starting my own business was going to entail: Making sure the people I know know what I do beyond being a columnist, getting a website up and running, so people who don't know me who turn to Google to find cool home accessories and gifts find me, too. And that is obviously on top of the time it takes to paint the home accessories.
New responsibilities
I understand if I work in marketing for someone else, I couldn't do everything I do for my family, but I would get to be back in a conference room — brainstorming strategies, presenting ideas to clients, and executing plans ranging from trade-show booths to event marketing, to producing materials.
I wonder, would I need to catch up on the Internet marketing strategies that took off, right about when I took off? Or does having my own website put me in an even better place than had I stayed in corporate America? Plus, now I have the experience of starting my own business.
I have taken on long-term strategy and accounting responsibilities in my company that I definitely would have shied away from if I wasn't forced to do them. And I wonder how Internet-savvy I would have even become in a large compartmentalized company where I had "computer people" who handled that side.
Learned my way around
When I ran my own marketing department, I worked on what I wanted the "meal" to look like and taste like, but for the most part other people did the cooking. There were several pieces I could do as well as the sous chefs who worked for me, but there were other things I couldn't.
Starting my own business, becoming a chef under fire, I learned my way around the kitchen, doing whatever I had to do to get things done, without getting burned.
Firsthand understanding
If at some point I take a job in marketing, I will bring with me a firsthand understanding of why marketing has to go well beyond pretty postcards and advertisements, that there has to be a comprehensive strategy that brings in results.
And if I don't, in a year my younger daughter will be in kindergarten, and I can really focus on marketing my column and my business: marketing myself.
Allison Berman, an artist and mother of two, hand-paints custom accessories for interior designers and private customers. View her collection at www.withlovealib.com. She can be reached at info@withlovealib.com. Her column appears Sundays.
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