Since opening my marketing company I have worked with a lot of people who are opening a company. Many of these people are mothers, as I tend to market toward this crowd and since I write for several venues that deal with mothers and mother owned companies it is only fitting that the majority of my clients are mothers who are starting their own companies.
Today I was speaking with a mother that I met recently at the library. Two young children in tow, she was talking about how she had to make a decision: Go back to work teaching school as she had been doing before having her two young children or tackle a career that would be run through her home.
We talked about the good and the bad of owning your own company. For many mothers the prospect is wonderful because it affords mothers an opportunity to remain at home with the children while also embarking on a career that they love. Face it, you generally would not open a company in a business that you hated, so most of the time if you see someone who owns a business you are going to see someone who is pretty happy, overall, with what he or she does.
This mother talked about enjoying jewelry making and told me of some of her creations and what she had planned should she begin her own company. We then talked about scheduling, because she wondered how, with two children not yet in preschool, she would manage working and taking care of the children.
This of course is a challenge that all work at home mothers face. I told her that you have to learn how to juggle it all, and that you do make sacrifices when you work from home (meaning sometimes the kids have to watch a second tv show so you can meet a deadline, and sometimes your client has to wait an extra day for the project to be done because you have to take the kids to the park).
The woman with whom I was speaking then said that she would not work on weekends, so that all of her work had to be done during the week. I laughed and told her, “If you like to have your weekends off, don’t start your own business.”
Honestly, some of the majority of your work will be done over the weekends. For one thing, you have help on the weekends that you probably don’t have during the week when others are in the office. Also, if you are a jewelry maker, or a different type of crafter, chances are you may have to work some craft fairs and festivals in order to raise money and get your name out there. Also, if you own my type of company, meaning one that doesn’t stop on the weekends, you are going to have to meet with or talk to clients all hours of the day and night regardless of what day of the week it is.
When you own your own company, time does not stop on the weekends and allow you to hang out with family and friends. In fact, oftentimes weekends are most hectic, because you are not only trying to work but you are also trying to juggle a spouse or significant other along with everything else that you typically do. And as work at home mothers know, they never want to have one part of their life receive more or less attention than the other; we are always trying to balance everything so that we don’t feel guilty about wanting to or enjoying work.
If you are planning to open your own business and you want to take weekends off, my advice is to stop the plans. Instead, go to work for a company that shuts down on the weekends and enjoy taking that time off, because once you are in business for yourself you’ll never really have a day, night or weekend off again!