21 Monumental Secrets To Succeed As A Mompreneur [ Mom Entrepreneur ] ★ Elayna Fernandez ~ The Positive MOM ♥

I recently spoke at the local eWomen Network chapter in Fort Worth, Texas. As usual, the audience was comprised of women entrepreneurs, most of them mompreneurs, and they were excited to learn the fundamental strategies of Guerrilla Marketing.

There are 20 monumental secrets of Guerrilla Marketing that you can read about on The Best of Guerrilla Marketing–Guerrilla Marketing Remix book by Jay Conrad Levinson, the Father of Guerrilla Marketing himself (and his lovely wife), and which were featured on Entrepreneur Magazine in 2010. I am proud to say that I was trained personally by Jay and became a Certified Guerrilla Master Trainer before we lost him to cancer a few years ago.

I call these the monumental secrets to succeed as a mompreneur, although, I’ve got 21 to share because I added an extra secret that is essential to enjoy your business success. Each secret is only one word, each word ending with the letters ENT.

Jay used to say that a mediocre marketing program with commitment would always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment, because commitment makes things happen. As mompreneurs, we often refer to our business as “our baby,” and when we do indeed show a similar level of commitment to our dream, that’s when it becomes true.

If you watched the movie “Catch Me If You Can,” you’ll probably remember the epic moment when Frank Abagnale Sr. tells the story of the two mice:

Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn’t quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out.

In many a worthwhile journey we feel like giving up, but just like you wouldn’t give up on your marriage or on motherhood, you should quit everything else before you quit on your purpose!

Marketing (when done right) is an investment that will pay off. You must set aside time, energy, effort, money, and other resources to invest in your business.

When I started out, I worked 40+ hours and was a single mom of two toddlers with below poverty income. I decided to invest $10 a month and 10 minutes a day toward the freedom of mompreneurship and here I am, 13 years later.

Do you know a mompreneur who changes her elevator speech every time she introduces herself at a conference or networking event? Or maybe you know one who has rebranded her blog and changed her Instagram handle several times just in the last year? No need to judge her, but assess how much you would trust her products, services, or advice.

Changing your branding, your marketing approach, or your advertising can be very tempting because it becomes boring to you and becomes old to those close to you, but it does take time for prospective readers, customers, media, and brand partners to trust you. These two R’s will be great mantras for you: restraint and repetition.

Congruent means “in agreement” or “in harmony.” This is a two-fold principle. 1- All the pieces in your marketing, your branding, and your positioning strategy must be aligned with one another, and 2- your message must be congruent with your values and the value you offer.

Many times, incongruency happens because your branding identity is developed by someone else, your website is created by one team, your social media graphics by a different team, and your PR yet by another company, and none are talking to you or to one another.  A truly successful mompreneur takes the time to self-reflect, mastermind, and provide feedback into her projects and not delegate her message entirely to someone else.

Your audience wants substance, not just style. Many will tell you to “Sell the sizzle and not the steak,” and while that may have worked in the past, your prospects know the difference.

Your ideal audience is sophisticated, smart, and selective, so if you want to stay in business and succeed as a mompreneur, you must show that you provide useful, helpful, and valuable answers and solutions.

No individual marketing weapon works on its own. In order to succeed as a mompreneur, you must employ a powerful strategy that combines an assortment of the best tactics for your industry to reach your audience.

One of the biggest mistakes we make as mompreneurs is to devalue our worth; to think that offering the lower price, giving our services away for free, or taking off a generous discount are the only possible ways to attract customers and partners and close the deal.

A nationwide test determining why people buy, price came in fifth place and a whopping 86% thought price didn’t really matter. Selection came in at fourth place; service at third; quality, second, and, confidence took the first place.

People do business with people, brands, and companies in which they are confident. As you become congruent, consistent, and committed in your mompreneur business, you will trust in your offering and others will trust you, as well.

Your small business will require as much patience as any 2-year-old. Patience is required to practice any of the mompreneur success secrets we’ve discussed.

Results take time; it’s a reality we must accept and it is an unbreakable universal law we must align with in order to see our vision manifested. You may look at your effort and think you should be further ahead than you are right now, but like Steve Jobs said of Pixar: “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”

People don’t pay attention to what you do unless it attracts their attention. Be willing to step out of the box and share your authentic self to add a touch of amazement to everything you do. It will make a difference!

As both moms and entrepreneurs (among all the other hats we wear), we know that time is not money – it is far more valuable than money – time is life! In order to succeed as a mompreneur, you will value, respect, and save people’s precious time. Make it easy to contact you, partner with you, and pay you!

Raise your hand if you met someone at a conference or networking event and all of a sudden you get home and start to be bombarded with e-mails you did not sign up for. A successful mompreneur practices Permission Marketing by obtaining someone’s consent before providing information. Having an Opt-In strategy can certainly help you get started!

Involvement leads to commitment. In order to succeed as a mompreneur, you must be in the business of building relationships. Think of the ways you can engage with your audience in interactive ways to let them know you want to be a part of their lives. I always say that in order to convert, you must converse.

To succeed as a mompreneur, you must realize that profits don’t happen when you make a sale, but when you get repeat and referral business. The sale is when the real marketing must begin. As they say, “the fortune is in the follow-up.”

A successful mompreneur doesn’t compete because true success comes from cooperation. Fusion marketing, affiliate marketing, tie-in, and collaborations are brilliant ways to profit more and invest less.

Armament is defined as “the equipment necessary to wage and win battles,” so investing in technology that will move your success forward. Technophobia has no room in a successful mompreneur enterprise.

In order to succeed as a mompreneur, you must be willing to experiment so you can know what works and what is worthy of your investment and commitment. The three most important tasks in marketing are: test, test, and test!

When you make experiments you risk a little with the potential to obtain a hugely profitable result!

Projecting, tracking, and measuring don’t sound like very sexy activities, but you can actually double your profits by measuring the results of your marketing because you get familiar with what works, what doesn’t, and how to proceed.

Seeking information, wisdom, insight, awareness, and instruction is the way you will improve personally and professionally, and it will reflect on all areas of your life – including your mompreneur enterprise. In order to gain enlightenment, you must strive to be coachable!

Becoming a successful mompreneur requires you to augment your “attack,” making it more powerful and profitable. I started out with $10 a month and 10 minutes a day, but I gradually invested more time, more money, and more efforts as it made sense, to continue to grow and reap results.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. These secrets will only work if you implement them and take strategic action on them. That’s probably why they are secrets!

And lastly, as an added bonus for mompreneurs, the final secret of mompreneur success is empowerment. As you take personal responsibility for who you are and why your mompreneur business exists, you will gain the strength to keep practicing these secrets. What you do for your family is already remarkable, and you’ve survived 100% of the battles you’ve fought so far, so I believe you’ve got this if you believe it!

Now that you know these success secrets, you can see that they are all about your mindset. As you set purposeful intentions, invest in giving your success priority attention, and detach from any tension that may come your way, you will achieve the success, prosperity, and fulfillment you desire in your mompreneur enterprise!

Which mompreneur success secret do you practice already? Which mompreneur success secret will you focus on next? Share what makes you successful as a mompreneur in the comments below!