There are times when you will be under a deadline and kids are more hindrance than help. Though you obviously want to spend time with your little ones, you might just need to get rid of them for an afternoon! Here are some tips on how to do that:

• If you have obliging in-laws, send the kids over for a bit. This sometimes requires swallowing one´s pride, if you don´t really get along with the in-laws!

•  Set up some fast playdates. Offer to take the other kids when your schedule frees up.

• Hire a babysitter. You can work while she has the kids out in the backyard. Some babysitters will care for children in their house, too.

• If you find yourself in this position frequently, you might want to look into a local daycare. See if you can set up a pay-per-session deal, where you only pay when you choose to leave the kids there, which can be once a week or every day for several days.
• Get y0ur husband to take the children to the playground for the afternoon. Give them a picnic lunch and let him know he´s not to walk in the door again until a certain hour.

What do you do under deadlines to keep kids out from underfoot?

People love personal touches and if you can give them that in a business transaction, they will most likely come back for more. There are many ways to add a special something to your orders and transactions, here are a few ideas to get you started.

- Take note of birthdays and send out a little card, nothing over the top, just a short note saying “Happy Birthday from YOUR COMPANY”. If you like, you can include a gift certificate for a free product or sample, but just the card is fine. Whatever you do, don´t turn it into a salesletter, that won´t go over well at all.

- Add something special to your packages. If a client has ordered a good amount, or is a repeat customer, why not treat them to a freebie? A simple addition of a low-cost product (perhaps an applicator sponge with an order of custom foundation or something similar) will be unexpected and welcome. You can bet that customer will think of you the next time he or she needs the same product.

- A personal note, handwritten is a great way to thank someone for ordering. The fact that you took the time to write a note is often very touching. Of course, this only works if your business is still fairly small, if you´re sending out a thousand orders a day, you can´t possibly write a note for each one!

- Taking a moment to think about your packaging can do wonders for your business. Don´t get too complicated, but perhaps the addition of a simple ribbon and bow to a feminine product would be enough to make it stand out from the rest.

How do you personalize your business?

Since I didn´t have an interview ready for today´s Motivational Monday, I thought I would answer the questions myself and let you all know a bit more about me. Next week, we´ll be back to regular interviews.

Successful Mompreneur Interview Questions

1. What is your business?

I´m a freelance writer and blogger.

2. How did you get started?

Well, I´ve wanted to write since I was a tiny kid, I used to dictate stories to my mom to write, before I knew my letters. When I was older, I told everyone I was going to be a novelist and I wrote all the time. My dad gave me an old laptop of his when I was about 12, so I could write in my room (and get off his computer :D) and when I was 15, I started a young adult novel that I finished when I was 17. It was never published, but there is a certain satisfaction to knowing you are capable of finishing a whole book.

Later, I realized that it was really hard to break into the fiction market. After writing a half dozen children´s books, stories I would make up for my 3 year old sister, and receiving rejections from every publisher I sent them to, I decided to try doing some non-fiction writing.

First, I wrote for a website called WriteforCash, this was back in 1999 or so. I earned quite a bit of money before they closed for submissions. Then I went on with life and forgot about it, left writing behind while I studied to be a paramedic. To make a long story short, I ended up here in Guatemala with a latino guy and when our first son, Dorian, was born, he had some problems and needed several surgeries and a colostomy. I stayed home with him, but after about 6 months, I was going stir-crazy, so my husband started to take the baby for an hour or two in the afternoon and I´d go write at the local internet cafe. Right before my second son, Dante, was born, we got internet at home and I´ve been writing and blogging online ever since.

3. What mistakes did you make when you were starting out? What did you learn from them?

I took on very low paying jobs, figuring that it was a good way to get a start. But it was really stressful and when you have small children, daily deadlines aren´t a good idea. Plus, I had no time to look for something that paid better, so I was slaving away for $20-30 a day!

Finally, I just quit the job and took the time to find a better one. It was the best move I made and I have been taking on better jobs since then, plus building up my blogs.

4. How long have you been working from home? (was this your first business or have you had others where you worked from home?)

It´s not my first business. I´ve worked from home on and off since I was 16. Here, in Guatemala, I´ve done seamstress work, run a bakery and taught English.

5. What are your tricks for balancing work, kids and household chores?

I have to admit that I´m still not very good at balance, but I´m definitely working on it! I try to outsource, we pay a lady to wash the clothes (all by hand here!) and my husband looks after the kids when he is home. My inlaws take the baby sometimes so I can finish up under a deadline, too.  As for housework, that is pretty low on my priority list. Luckily, I have a husband who likes to clean, so he tends to keep things tidy.

6. How many children do you have? How old are they?

I have two boys. Dorian is 22 months old and Dante is 5 months.

7. When do you usually work?

Right now, I try to work early in the morning, during naps (if they both go down at the same time!), and late at night, after the boys are in bed. Before, I was on the computer all day and it just wasn´t good.

8. What is the best part of being a mompreneur? And the worst?

The best part is being able to take a day off when it´s sunny out and take the kids to the park or have an impromptu picnic. Just spending time with the family is a great benefit of working at home.

The worst is that work is always there. I find myself wanting to get back to the computer to finish up just a couple more articles . . . when I should be relaxing with the boys.

9. What are your plans for the future of your business?

I plan to start up several more blogs, with the intention of turning them into a mini network and possibly selling some in the future. Truthfully, I want to get away from the freelance writing where you are just exchanging time for money. Once my blogs and websites are all earning well, I will stop writing for other people.

10. What advice would you give new work at home moms?

Don´t expect too much at first. You might think you can do it all and the schedule looks perfect on paper, but life gets in the way. It´s part of working at home, you have to clean up the toilet that is overflowing because your son stuffed a toy into it, you have to take a day off when the kids are sick, it´s not going to work out the way you planned . . . and that´s ok! Accept that things will get messed up, have a backup plan and keep going.

Part of making the move to work at home is to cut back on excess expenses so you can focus on starting up your business without having to worry about what you´ll be feeding the kids in a few days time. Often, the budget cuts aren´t all in one area, you need to make a lot of small adjusments to get the budget to fit. One good way to do so is to reevaluate your cell phone bill.

Did you know the average American talks about 477 minutes on the phone per month and spends and average of $49.91 per month on their cell phone bill? That seems a bit excessive to me, though we use pre-paid cards, if I were to use a plan . . . I would be very careful about selecting the right one! It is important to know what you are getting into and even though it can be a pain in the butt, you need to compare cell phone planss if you want to get the most bang for your buck.

The best way to get all the information you need, short of sitting down with a stack of contracts and a calculator, is to use a website like Wirefly, which allows you to plug your information (minutes used per month, price paid, etc.) into an easy to use form which will then do the math for you and give you the best plan available. For example, if you are an average American, you are probably spending at least $10-20 too much on your monthly plan. Imagine what you could do with an extra $20 a month? That´s a whole $240 a year . . . enough to buy a new piece of office equipment or a few toys to keep your little ones occupied while you work. Or, it might just make a big enough dent in your budget to allow you to start working from home.

Even with an online business, there is usually some paperwork involved and even a handful of papers each week can really start to pile up if you aren´t careful. If you deal with offline orders and paperwork, those stack of invoices and order sheets can take over your office!

So, what can you do to reduce the clutter? If the paper is necessary, you certainly can´t just toss it, so the best option is to have file folders and hopefully a place to put them. This can be a simple cardboard file box or a proper metal filing cabinet, whatever you feel fits the situation.

To prevent spending too much time sorting and fussing with paperwork, the old advice of “handle it once” is very good. Instead of shifting papers from place to place on your desk, when you print something or receive something in the mail, immediately deal with it. An invoice is printed out? Stick it in an envelope and toss it into the mailbag. Don´t leave it laying around!

How do you cut down on paperwork time?

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