My Mompreneur Sharing On Womanhood Fiesta

I was invited by my friend Azeeza Jalaludeen (Co-founder of SHINE) to have a sharing about Mompreneur on the Celebrating Womanhood 09 on 7th March. This was a fiesta in conjunction with International Women’s Day and it was a whole day event.

I had my sharing about Mompreneur and my journey and experience of being a mompreneur during the workshop – Creating An Avant-Garde You. If you were not there for the workshop, here’s my sharing and I hope you like my sharing.

Hi, I’m Moon Loh and you can call me Moon. Thanks Azeeza for giving me this opportunity to share my experience of Mompreneur today.

Mompreneur. I believe some of you here never hear about the word “Mompreneur” and today is the first time. So, what is the meaning of “Mompreneur”? Mompreneur is the combination of two words – Mom and Entrepreneur. And it means moms who establish business at home while also acting as the parent of the children. So, I called myself “Mompreneur” because I’m a mom and also have my own home business.

Let me share with you my journey of being a Mompreneur and why I want to have own home business. Like many others, I have been groomed by my parents to study hard, get good results, get into a good university and get a well-paid job. That was the path I followed to. And I didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur.
I still remember one afternoon in last year, I came across some work at home advertisements and attracted by those online surveys claimed that can earn money by answering some questions online. I signed up as many as I could and also some free to sign up programs. I seriously waited for them to send me those surveys and also looked into how the free sign up programs works. However, after some while I found that I didn’t earn much, I was wondering WHY???
One month later, that was in June 2008, I was attracted with a “make money online” website and I was thinking that I wanted to “make money online” too. During the time I joined, my knowledge in Internet Marketing (IM) was totally zero!

• I didn’t know what is affiliate programs..
• I didn’t know how to set up a blog..
• I didn’t know what should I do..
• I didn’t know how to start..

I didn’t even know how to “make money online” and the only thinking in my mind was “If they can make it, I can make it. There must have reasons and ways for them to succeed”.

My first thought was, I’m a FTWM (full time working mom) and I just wanted to earn some extra using my spare time. Very soon, I found that Online Business is a serious business that can let me earn while I sleep, earn while I enjoy family time with my lovely hubby and daughter. In other word, it generates income 24 hours a day and without barrier of countries.

I was seriously thought about my future and asked myself whether I still want to work as FTWM for my entire 20 to 30 years and once no job I get no pay. Did I have enough time for my kid and share her life? I’m a mom and I wish to have more time with my daughter, participate more in her life and at the same time have my own income.

I spent most of my free time sit in front of the computer just to:

• Learn how to set up a wordpress blog
• Find out how to blog for profits
• Learn what is affiliate programs and how it works
• Read lots of Ebooks on how to make money online, etc..

Self learning was very tough and time consuming, time is really a factor for me and I didn’t want to spend too much time on self learning and yet didn’t know whether I was doing the correct way.

I’ve decided to invest my time and education in Internet Marketing and master in three main field of IM – Social Media, SEO and Google Adwords. The course benefits me a lot and from there, I developed my business mindset and started my online business in a correct way using correct system. I very much thank to my mentor in Internet Marketing – Teddy Wu.

Internet Marketing is a knowledge that could be widely used and not only limited for Internet Marketer. It can help home businesses grow rapidly and hence I’ve made up my mind to have a blog – MompreneurAsia.com and share more with all the moms.
Through my site, you’ll find information on:

• Why want to be Mompreneur
• How to start home business
• Where to start
• When is the good time for you to start
• What is the home business that suitable for you
• Where to get the useful resources
• How to grow your existing home business
• Other valuable information

I’ve invited some moms who have home business in different industries to share their stories and experiences with us. I really love their sharing because I always learn new things from them. And I’ve also invited my mentor – Teddy Wu to share some great tips at the site. He is here today and I would like to take the chance to say thank you to him again. If I’m the Mompreneur, he is the Trainer of Mompreneur!

Today, ask yourself,

• If you don’t want to work for others for the entire 20 to 30 years and get no pay once get no job, you should start to plan for yourself to have your own home internet business.
• If you want to spend more time with your kids when they were young, don’t wait, because you’d never get the chance back if you waited for time in future.
• If you want to in charge of your own time, being your own boss and enjoy financial freedom, BUT you don’t have large investment for business, what kind of low started up cost business you can get started? Yes, it’s home based internet business.

My number 1 home based internet business advantage is the ability to work whenever I want anywhere I want. With a lap top computer I can pretty much do business anywhere in the world. No matter where I am, on vacation or whatever. The internet and today’s technology makes a work from home internet business my business of choice.

I encourage you to start up your home based internet business even if you are working full time now. Use your part time to learn and get the business started.

You can get lots of information from my MompreneurAsia.com on how to get started etc. Of course, you can also write to me and ask me questions. I will do my best to help you get started too.

I always believe in “There is a Will, there is a Way!”. Moms can have our own life and enjoy financial freedom while spending time with the family members. If I can do it, you can do it too!

Thank you.

Other than me, there are 3 more friends, Ms Murshidah Said, Ms Angela Lee and Ms Azeeza Jalaludeen to share on their inspiring success stories about their work, business & personal lives. After our sharings, there was a dialogue session where we answered some questions by the workshop attendees. I have some of my on stage and off stage questions and answers here to share more with you.

Question: I have fear on business and don’t know what my passion is.

Answer: For the fear factor, I believe for most people the financial (money) part is the first and main fear factor. That’s because most people would think that business normally involves a huge investment where you don’t know whether you have the investment and also you fear of the failure of investment. Take myself as an example, I could tell you that a year ago I had the same fear and I didn’t have the business mindset to have my own business. The main reason was the fear of huge investment in the business. However, when I came across the home based internet business, I don’t have the fear factor anymore because it’s a lost started up costs business which everyone could get started and eventually the business can turn into a passive income for us.

For the passion part, the first thing I would like to suggest you to do is to choose the type of business you want to go into. Basically you should choose between offline and online and once you have decided, you should ask questions to someone who has results in the sector you have chosen. You gain knowledge through your learning and from there, start step by step and you will slowly find your passion and you will know which business exactly you want to get started.

Question: I’m a full time working mom and how do I start my internet business using my free time?

Answer: Exactly the same case like me. I started my internet business when I was still a full time working mom. Right after I have found out that online business is a serious business which can earn me passive income, I get myself a mentor and take course to master in 3 main field of IM – Social Media, SEO and Google Adwords. I have used my time after work to learn and at the same time practise what I’ve learnt. For me, I spent 2 to 3 hours per day to learn and do internet marketing every night and that was a tough learning curve for the first 6 months.

I have quited from my full time job less than one year I have started my internet business. However, the time frame really depends on how fast or slow of your learning and also the time and effort you put in into the business. You could be faster than me if you are a fast learner. I would advise you to spend at least one hour per day to learn and do your internet business. This is to help you get started and also to gain more knowledge and experience through the learning process.

It’s worth for you to just go and do it. Compare to work for others for your entire 20 to 30 years, just go and get started with your own home internet business which may let you live the life you want.

Question: I have a home massage business and I want to know how internet marketing could help to grow my business.

Answer: That’s very good to have your own home business. Internet marketing is a marketing techniques that help to market your business online and grow your existing home business. Firstly, I would advise you to get a website with your own domain name and hosting. The next thing you need to do is to drive traffic to your website. The more traffic means more people get to know about the products and services you have offered. They all are your potential customers.

There are many free ways to drive right traffic to your website and just to give you some ideas, you may use SEO or social networking to boost your website traffic. To get more information, please visit my site MompreneurAsia.com and you are also feel free to email me and I will get back to you soonest possible.

Question: What are the problems you encoutered and how you overcome the problems?

Answer: My great challenge was the shift from my Accounting field to a totally new field – internet marketing. I’m not an IT person and in fact I have zero knowledge about internet and programming. Before I joined, I was totally an offline person where I didn’t read blog, I didn’t even know there are free blogs such as blogger and wordpress. If you know about those, you are smarter than me. But now, I have in depth knowledge in internet marketing and I know how to make use of the marketing strategies to grow my internet business.

My desire to learn and get started with my internet business was very strong. I spent lots of my time to learn new things and even those html and css code. I’m not expert and I just learn what I needed. I have turned some impossible to possible and I’m also surprising of myself. But once again, it proves that if you have the desire and the desire is strong enough, it could make things happen. Just go do it!

*lucky draw section

The fiesta was a great and success one and I hope I have the opportunity to share more with you all again. Of course, I also learn new things from the sharing and glad to know lots of new friends.