Family Friendly Working Interview
Fab interview about Polly and life running a business whilst being a Mummy. But then I would say it was fab……I wrote it!
Read the full interview here. Perhaps you’ve got your own ‘Family Friendly’ line of work too? I’d love to hear your stories and how you manage to ‘fit it all in’ too. Tell us what you do in the Comments box below.
Mumpreneur Profile: Angela and Polly of the Fit Mum Formula #activemums
Name of Business: The Fit Mum Formula
Your Name and Age: Polly Hale, 30, and Angela McCall, 37
Tell us about your family: By pure coincidence our families are very similar; I am married and have a 5 year old daughter now in school, and 20 month old Bella who is at home with me. Angela’s eldest Lucie is exactly a year younger than my Aurora, and Amy is only 11 days older than Bella! She lives with her partner and 7 year old step daughter Chloe. Very female biased, but it makes planning fun days out together simple!
What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?:
I was a beauty and holistic therapist and nutritionist pre-kids but stopped to be a stay at home Mum, though I wrote and published a book on diet and weightloss called Eat Drink And Be Slim in any spare time I found – mostly while Aurora was in my arms breastfeeding with the laptop in front of me!
Angela’s background is in website design and internet marketing though she trained as a fitness instructor specialising in Metabolic Conditioning when she became a Mum, as it was easy to fit into her Mum-schedule. She introduced me to the concept (though I was already familiar with the science), we started brainstorming, created the programme, and haven’t stopped expanding since!
When did you launch? The website went live September 2013 and people began doing the BodyBack programme the following January.
How did you get started?
With absolutely zero budget, meetings with four young kids in tow, and enough drive, ambition and determination to strive to achieve anything we put our minds to. I started devising recipes, Angela researched fitness video concepts and got the framework of a website up, and there were lots of late night Skype sessions!
What’s your favourite thing about running your own business? Flexibility – I am still a stay at home Mum. And 100% creative and business control.
What’s the thing you least enjoy about running your own business? Trying to get work done whilst not neglecting the children – I’m often up before the dawn to work while they sleep.
What has worked well about your business? We’re both on the same wavelength in so many ways – we even call and text each other at the same time, like we’re psychic!
How do you fit in work with the family? Is your partner supportive of your business? Both our partners love what we’re doing, but they also have their own jobs so can’t sacrifice that to give us more time, that’s not the point.
Are you working towards a financial goal for your business? Isn’t everyone? If you can make money by doing something you love, it won’t feel like work.
Would you ever give up your business to do something else? I can’t see that happening at the moment, though I may well branch out and do other things as well, alongside, like I did with my book for example.
Have you had your ‘I’ve made it’ moment? Tell us about it. If not when do you think it will come? I don’t think I want that moment – I want us to continue growing however big we get. There’s always something more you can do to improve, it’s a continuous journey.
Where do you hope to be in five years’ time? Our little ones start school in September 2017 so suddenly we’ll have a lot more time to devote to the business, and I think things will really accelerate then. Having said that we’ve already got a fully functioning business as it is!
If you have a flexible working business opportunity, please explain briefly what you offer and how people find out more.
We’ve got plans for an affiliate programme in the pipeline, meaning other people can earn money through us without compromising their existing commitments, or even create a full-time income from it! Newsletter subscribers will hear first when this is ready, and you can sign up on our website.