Mary: Kitchen dancing advances my home “business”

JJ Ramberg, mother, business woman, and Today Mom contributor, recently wrote a piece comparing running a business to running a household:

Whether it’s “managing logistics” of getting kids to school, “outsourcing” meals, “hiring” baby sitters, or “networking” with other parents, right down to the worst headache of all, “controlling costs,” these overlaps aren’t just metaphors.  Running a house and a business share many of the same kind of challenges.

Ramberg had me at her opening line: “You know you’re busy when your to-do list includes ‘have the baby’ when you’re eight months pregnant.”  I’m admittedly a touch obsessive about my daily to-do list, even with it’s inevitable carry over. It’s a false sense of order, I know, but I take what I can get.

While I’m no business expert (and every day reminds me that seven years and four kids in, I’m still a parenting novice), the linear, list-making, type-A mom in me appreciates Ramberg’s business advice, which she now shares in a new book, It’s Your Business — 183 Essential Tips That Will Transform Your Small Business. As a mom of three, she also has discovered that her business tips apply to her busy household.

Tips include “Knock off the easy stuff first,” and “Create a disagreement protocol.” Sound advice at the workplace or at home. But what about this one: “Connect with your prospects by mirroring”? Ramberg suggests responding to customer’s emotions or behaviors in similar fashion.

A word to Ramberg on mimicking kid’s moods: I hear ya.  I have discovered that my kids most need me to balance the house mood.  You are all out of control and emotionally unstable? I’m calm, cool, and enjoying the ear-piercing sounds of our home. You’re grumpy and impatient and want dinner served five minutes ago? Don’t let my kitchen dancing change your energy.  I’ve got the moves like Jagger.

Quite frankly, I am not just running my house like a business, I am in business. I’m in the business of raising children to be faithful, responsible, contributing members to a world that needs their light.

And so I will sell my product to the four clients stuck in my office. I will sell them the truth that Love wins.  That each of us was made to offer our unique selves to the one cause that matters.

And that kitchen dancing is not only appropriate, but encouraged, in the business I’m running.

24. October 2012 by Mary Gates
Categories: Economy, Family, Parenting, Values | 1 comment