The following is a guest post by Melissa Haddad, mompreneur and owner of MH Virtual Assistant Services, who inspires me daily! As you read, I am sure the story of how her business came to be, and came to be successful, will inspire you as well!
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Do you remember when you were younger,
going to the park and jumping on the teeter-totter, but you were the only one
sitting on it until your friend hopped on for a minute and then left to go down
the slide? This is what it feels like running my own business and still being
mom and running a family and all the things that come with it.
I am married with two children, my daughter
is 9 and my son almost 6. My husband is an amazing father, he is
attentive, playful and there for me and our children…he is my rock. He works two jobs, his full time job as an IT
professional in a law office in downtown Toronto and he also officiates
hockey. He has a third job of being my
“IT guy” for my business, although he doesn’t get paid for that…he was
“voluntold”. So going back to my point
about the teeter-totter, my husband is the friend who hops off to go down the
slide. He is there when I need him, but
has to leave to do other things. During
the winter we refer to myself as, “the single married mother of two”. I always love when he is around as he helps
me with the kids…he is that second pair of hands, eyes and ears, but as with
all great things, they don’t last and I am left alone to fend for myself.
I started my business as a Virtual
Assistant after my second layoff in 6 years. Just before my first layoff, I only had my daughter and life was much easier
with just one child. She was young, my
in-laws watched her all day while my husband and I carpooled together into
Toronto.
When I lost my first job and landed
another one a mere 5 weeks later and only 10 minutes from home, I knew I found
a job for life…until it wasn’t.
At the
time of my second layoff, I had my son and my daughter and they were just about
to start school, my daughter going into grade 2 and my son just starting
JK. I had made plans through the school
to have after school care for both of them which I had until 6:00pm, but when I
was laid off, I began to worry…so many thoughts and it all revolved around the
unknown. “I can’t go downtown to work,
my husband works downtown, the school pick up is at 6:00pm, there are GO train
delays and then what about paying for daycare, I’ll have to pay for GO and
daycare, I will only be working to pay for those things, not to mention the
time spent travelling and the rushing of the day to get dinner, then homework
and then bed…okay what about retail, can’t do that because my husband referees
hockey most nights and weekends and then I have to work nights and weekends
with no time for the family…” Yep, all
of those things made me consider all my options…downtown, retail, in-home
daycare and finally my own business. The
only best option was my own business; everything else had MANY downfalls.
So, fast forward to February 2, 2015, I had
taken the leap to start my business and by the grace of God, I got into a
government funded program called the Ontario Self Employment Benefit
Program. This paid me Employment
Insurance benefits for 42 weeks and taught me how to run my business and I was
able to keep any money that I made from the business and not have to declare it
through EI. Unfortunately this is not an
option in Ontario anymore. Having said
this, my group was the 56th group out of 58 and many of the people
from the groups had to go back to a part-time/full time job. This was not an option for me, so I took the
bull by the horns and have rode it to success.
Now it hasn’t been without a lot of work and A LOT of time spent
planning and working on the business, so much so that my daughter within my
first year said to me, “Mom why do you sit at your computer all the time?” I wish I could say she was exaggerating, but
she truly wasn’t. I worked most evenings
and weekends, but it was truly a give and take.
I was able to get the kids off to school in the morning, start working
at 8:30am and pick them up from the bus in the afternoon and continued to make
dinner and help my daughter with her homework after all, they are the reason I
started my business, so any available time was going to have to be spent
working in order to make this work and not fail.
Just before I hit my first year
anniversary, I decided, I have worked hard enough and positioned myself well
with my clients to be able to take the weekends off. Not all the time, but it was a work in
progress. Since my husband is gone most
evenings in the winter and many weekends too, I had to be with the kids on the
weekends and work during the evenings when the kids went to bed. The first summer of being in business, I had
no idea what things were going to be like and since I was getting money from
the government, I decided to put the kids into day camp. It was for 6 weeks and my in-laws took them
for another 2 weeks.
I wasn’t that busy
with client work, but busy enough with building my business, so when this
summer came around, I was thinking that I didn’t need to spend the money, I
would keep them home and work around them…not a chance. Have you ever tried to do some sort of home
renovation, whether it was painting, renovation or evening gardening, with kids
around? Yes? How did that work out for you? Well, it was a disaster for the first 3 weeks
of the summer. I was busier than I ever
thought I could be…on most days I was working the same amount of hours on
client work as I did when the kids were in school. So, I looked at my options which were each
set of grandparents and they helped me tremendously…many people don’t have that
to fall back on, so I am VERY grateful.
It really does take a village.
I have learned many things with running a
business and a family…it’s a balancing act.
A business coach said to my mastermind group many times, when you run
your own business there is no work/life balance like when you were in a
corporate job, it’s all life. This is so
true.
There are days that I am busy,
some days that I am pulling out my hair and going to cry because the crap is
hitting the fan and there are days that I can do some work and then sit on the
couch to catch up on my favourite TV show.
No matter what type of day it is, I still get up in the morning, get the
kids ready for school, walk them to the bus and then pick them up after school
from the bus stop, make dinner and help them with their homework. They are the reason why I started my business
at home and they are the reason why I continue.
The most amazing thing is, I have clients that understand that. I get to choose my clients just as much as my
clients choose me, maybe even more so because I am upfront about having my
children and the responsibilities and obligations I have and if they don’t
understand or have other expectations, then they are not the right client for
me and vice versa. When I was in
corporate, I didn’t have a choice about anything, everything had to “fly up the
flag pole” and things were stressful…all the time. Now, of course there is stress, but I can
make my own decisions because if I don’t like how something feels, I drop it
like a hot potato.
Working for yourself and being a business
owner/entrepreneur is a lot of hard work and a lot of doubt, but if you are a
tenacious person and are willing to deal with short term discomfort for long
term gain, then do it. I have always
wanted to start my own business, but it was never the right time. After being shown the door a couple of times
within a large corporation, I decided I didn’t need another invitation, I was
going to do it. My only regret is that I
didn’t do it sooner in life, but we all have a road that was paved for us and
we travel down it and we learn things along the way…I learned all that I needed
to know to do what I do now, so really this was the path I was supposed to be
on at this time. My children were
supposed to be this age and in this stage of their lives, we had made our plans
the way they were supposed to be planned to prepare me for this endeavour…not
to mention my last position ensured that I met all the people I had to meet to
ensure I started off on the right foot.
Just know that it’s scary and some days you may not make enough, but if you keep pushing and overcoming the obstacles you will be successful. IF I CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU!
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Melissa is a real-life mom and business owner who runs MH Virtual Assistant, a virtual business that inspires clients to transform their business by creating efficient ways to conduct administrative tasks and documenting those ways for use by others, while building relationships with clients and their customers.
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