Streamlining Success as a Mother in Business with Dorothy Andreas – PODCAST EPISODE 37

Today’s episode discusses how Dorothy Andreas has successfully built a multi-million dollar business while being a single mother raising two boys. We talk about tips for mothers in business as they look to grow their businesses to that level of success, as well as Dorothy’s two best-selling books: Streamline Success + Conflict Revelation. Dorothy offers her advice for young moms and gives you a look at what a seasoned entrepreneur can really look like. You can find Dorothy HERE.

Streamlining Success as a Mother in Business with Dorothy Andreas

At the age of 19, Dorothy Andreas left college, sold her car and became a business owner. Over the next four decades, Dorothy started and grew numerous companies. Most of her rapid growth was done as a single mother to two young sons. Simultaneously, she served in leadership positions for non-profits she was passionate about. As the author of two best selling books, Streamline Success and Conflict Revelation, Dorothy has spoken on international stages regarding business growth, ethics, marketing, overcoming limitations and managing time effectively. Dorothy, with over 75+ employees currently, also provides private consulting to growth oriented entrepreneurs who wish to scale and surpass the million dollar mark.

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BULLET POINTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Women who are doing business while they’re doing the mommy thing are resourceful at any cost. We get it done. We look at the big picture. It’s never about just doing one thing at a time. It’s how many things can we do at a time? We are looking at the big picture of the whole day, all parts of everything, and then mentally compartmentalizing what we need to do and then physically doing it. It’s something that not everybody can do, but women – we get it done.
• There is a distinction between being a work-at-home and stay-at-home mom, too. I think sometimes people like to lump them together, but there are really different demands on a stay-at-home mom and a work-at-home mom. And they’re both difficult. They are both hard. Raising children at any stage, no matter what you’re doing, whether you’re working or not, is going to be a challenge.
• I think that the overarching key to growing a business with children is involving them in every single aspect. We all have a ton of mom guilt that we work through every day – that we are choosing to have a career while we’re raising kids, which means sometimes less time with our kids.
  • I came up with a rule that if it’s not fun, I can’t do it. If I have to do it, I have to make it fun. And that became a mantra in our household. Every decision I made, I involved my kids – from the time they were tiny up until the time that they went off to college.
• Segregating the days into focus days and free days is really, really important as a mother. Free days are uninterrupted. My staff knew that unless the building was collapsing, don’t interrupt me. You have to be able to delegate effectively to other people so that you can set yourself up to have beautiful free days with your children or your family.
  • Entrepreneurs rarely have one 24-hour period that they aren’t doing something with their business. It’s really important to give yourself that 24 hours unplugged – no social media, no emails, no nothing. An entire 24-hour period to recharge.
• This exemplifies what hustle like a mother really is – we figure out whatever we need to figure out. We are as creative as we need to be to get the result that we wanted.
• We can’t do it all. We have to outsource. If you find yourself being drained by tasks, then hand that off to somebody that has that as their unique skill set.
  • Ask yourself: What do I need to delegate? What do I need to give away? If it’s not making your company money or it’s not feeling fun and effortless and it’s not energizing you, it needs to go off your personal checklist.
• Turn your service into a product – there’s always more money in a product!
• Another big, expensive lesson that I learned: the importance of insurance. Upgrade the policy!
  • For everybody who’s working from home, you have upgrades on equipment. There are expensive microphones and headsets and cameras and monitors and all of this stuff. Adjust your insurance on an annual basis and grow up your policy. It’s really, really important when you’re working from home. That’s your business. If you have a fire and you didn’t have adequate insurance on that stuff, what can you do?
• One more thing that is hugely important for me – is finding blind spots in our day.
  • Time is a huge blind spot. Think about your day and your morning prep. I used to only allow 10 minutes to get out the door with my kids when we really needed 20.
• The number one thing when growing and scaling a business is your mindset.
  • Self-limiting beliefs (that we’re not even mostly aware of) can stop that growth.
  • When you see a problem in the marketplace, ask yourself how you can provide the solution to that. If your solution is new, better, and different than what’s out there – that’s innovative thinking. Innovative products make way more money than just doing what somebody else’s has already done. We need to allow ourselves creative mindset space!