Book Review: Secrets of Millionaire Moms

Although I love blogging and social media, I will always be a book person.  Earlier this year when I decided to take my entrepreneurial journey more seriously I started haunting the business section of the library.  There are some really great books out there about  the great juggling act of being an entrepreneur and mom .  One book that provided a great combination of inspiration and practical advice on this subject was Secrets of Millionaire Moms by Tamara Monosoff founder of Mom Inventors Inc.

In her book she profiles a number of famous entrepreneurs including Victoria Knight McDowell, founder of Airborne Health and Maxine Clark founder and chief executive of the Build a Bear Workshop.    My favorite anecedote is that Victoria Knight McDowell, who was still a school teacher when she was first developing her Airborne product enlisted the help of school staff, students, and even parents when she needed to attach 44,000 samples by hand to preprinted post cards! 

This book is well organized and contains a wealth of good information.   It gives you ideas on how to get started, market your business,  deal with finances, as well as balance work and mothering. 

I’ve been feeling in kind of a slump lately,  so I plan to take this book on vacation with me next week and give it a second look.  I don’t know if I will ever be a millonaire mom, but I find it inspirational to read about fascinating  and confident  women who have “made it” in business.  Hopefuly in a few years I will have my own business stories to tell.

If you own your own business and/or are a mom inventor check out Tamara’s Website http://www.mominventors.com/ .  You can purchase Secrets of Millionaire Moms and Monosoff’s other  book  The Mom Inventors Handbook on Amazon.com .

What Seems Like Failure Yields Small Success in This Entrepreneur’s Journey

The guidebook is published.  Our CD is launched for another year.  I have a lot of selling to do these days.  I would love to say that both products are wildly successful and I’m selling  several a day…nope!  I am definately in the tedious process of attracting customers, hustling to gain some market share, or in the case of my guidebook create a market.  (There is no other Legoland guidebook on the market right now.)  Still, I’d like to share some small successes that are rising out of what seemed to be failures.

• We were negotiating with a client about conducting some training classes.  We bid on the high side, made some concessions, but when we checked back in with her…she said she was comparing bids.  My husband and I panicked…should we have gone lower?  How low would the other bid be?  When we compared our class with other offerings we realized that it was still on the high side.  I didn’t hear from the client for a while and had almost given up, but decided to e-mail her to check in and let her know we would match the bid if it was reasonable.  The client asked for one more modest concession and we landed the job!

 

• The postcard fiasco.  Many postcards sent out, a significant number arrived back to us return to sender.  Very sales generated compared to the overhead cost and amount of work  required.  Still, just found out today the we are doing a project for a major client who became aware of our company via the postcard.  (He also purchased a CD!)

 

• This blog has not been my most successful venture.  It gets very few comments, and I don’t know if anyone is actually reading it.  Still, it landed me a huge opportunity to promote myself, my book, and my blog.  A few months ago I wrote a post about Twittermoms,  a social networking site for moms that’s really thriving.  A few weeks later I received a comment from a reporter…she wanted to interview me for a Redbook Article.  The article was published in the March 2009 edition.  Meghan, the founder of Twittermoms was so greatful for the exposure that she featured my blog in one of her weekly newsletters which is read by thousands of moms!

 

• It pays be involved in social networking.  When I first started promoting my book I took advantage of many social networking opportunities.   I became very involved in Twitter and Twittermoms.  I amped up my Facebook involvement.  I reached out to fellow travel bloggers through their blogs and social networking sites.  Well, it is clearly paying off, but not necessarily paying the bills.  I have found that the majority of books that I have sold so far have not been through Amazon,  Barnes and Noble or Target, but rather downloads from my publisher.  Although I run a Google ad, it is shown very infrequently due to circumstances beyond my control.  I’m pretty sure that the majority of those customers found me through my outreach to social media.

What are your failures that turned out to  be successes?  I would love to have some inspiration as I continue my entrepreneurial journey.