Mothers Day Special “Mompreneurs - a very happy mother’s day!”

Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May is a well-established tradition going back to Ann Jarvis of Philadelphia in 1907. With her strong determination, Ann dedicated her life to fulfill her mother’s dream of the recognition of day for honoring mothers.

Mothers are special, absolutely! They carry a baby for 9 months, day-night, work or rest, rain of snow. Go through birth pains, feeds, loves, cares, guides. No doubt, God has combined all His loving qualities only in one person “Mother”.

With ever changing dynamics of business, raising a family for working mothers has been a challenge. The term used for Mom Entrepreneurs is “Mompreneur”. Cool, isn’t it?

There is no doubt that striking a balanced life is perhaps the biggest struggle for a Mompreneur. Writer Julie Lenzer Kirk in her book “The PartnerpReneur Edge” suggests that being a mom makes a better businesswoman and how parenting teaches helps building a successful business.

In my view mothers are:

Better planner
Have people’s qualities
Caring
Visionary
Understand money
Pushy and
Supportive

Keep it up moms, a very happy mother’s day to Momopreneurs around the globe!

Financial Wisdom helps Generate Wealth!

I was sitting with a very old friend who is a brave entrepreneur. He has successfully owned businesses in the US, Sri Lanka and now experimenting with his travel knowledge and owns a Travel Agency in Karachi, Pakistan.

He was in bad mood!

Reasons:
1.Phenomenal increase in cost of doing business
2.Strike calls by various political and religious outfits in protest of one thing or another.

Knowing my friend, I asked him about his financial management policy. Response: Sales-costs=Profits. Well done I said!

But how do you price your services? Are you now underselling, how much capital has been with held by your suppliers (airlines etc)-did you add the cost of capital into your pricing, how much is your promotional cost-who pays for this?

These were aftershocks for my friend. He never built those costs into his pricing and was also unaware if he was underselling. The only thing he knew, “His company was getting into financial trouble”.

I remembered a tag lines from Robert T Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad “The Rich Invent Money”. They do it by carefully considering the financials of their businesses, “every bit of financials”. They understand the difference between assets and liabilities. They invest in assets and reduce their liabilities. This helps them invent money. That is the power of

Robert suggests:

“ the primary cause of financial struggle is simply not knowing the difference between an asset and a liability.”

Usually businessmen, particularly in countries with low literacy rate, struggle in working with their financials. Today I understood the key reason for business failures in developing countries – Lack of Financial Literacy - A knowledge that ensures the strength of a company.

Be an Entrepreneur - Do not suppress your career potential!

Over past 25 years of professional career, I have been interacting both with employees and entrepreneurs. Only this week while traveling from Lahore to Karachi, I was sitting with a young MBA who is working at a large FMCG company (www.engro.com) as an Assistant Brand Manager, a career job for the last nine years.

We started talking about career progress and role of employers. Generally speaking, a good employer with strong HR department provides a career map to its employee right at the beginning of their career. This young lad also had the same experience. He was happy that from research, he is moved to a more lively position that allows him to interact with a wider community and also involves substantial traveling. At this position, a small company maintained car and cell phone expense are also provided. Excellent deal, isn’t it?

My radical thought process started! No it is not a good deal, my thoughts pushed me further in the opposite direction………….

I am getting convinced that if an employer gives you a career map……. Your growth is almost pre-defined. Annual performance reviews and career meeting might help in couple of quick jumps on your salary scale, you are happy to visualize a decent career growth and position 10 years down the line without realizing that your mind has been locked to a certain path.

Okay, now compare working for others, with working for yourself as an entrepreneur. Looking at examples such as Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Ray Kroc, Sir Alan Sugar etc, you will see that the freedom and the flexibility to progress for an entrepreneur is unimaginable!

Having said this, entrepreneurship is not a piece of cake like some may believe. This means no more 9-5 working, no more relaxed weekends. Because now you have different set of challenges, you are a manager, order taker, order filler, bookkeeper, shipping manager and customer service representative all in one, at least at the beginning of your entrepreneurial career.

But the pleasure is awesome! Now you are defining your own career path……….