We started out as eight moms who met on Mamasource, a nifty little website that I think is now called Mamapedia. Anyway, the idea was that we would all meet monthly and share tips from all of our individual businesses. This is actually how I had met my Mary Kay upline, she was at an event with her networking group and it gave me the idea to start my own. This was in 2006 when Taylor was just about 18 months old. I really only worked my Mary Kay business for a few months, then my time and attention went solely to BizEMoms (what we called ourselves when we first started). We did a few showcases where we all had tables and then sold extra tables to those outside and group and continued to meet regularly, refer business and help support one another. After that first year we grew from the original eight to now 40 different businesses, alternating meeting at each other's homes.
We changed things up a few times- we moved to a clubhouse as our meeting location, then to one of our member-owned deli's, we began to have guest speakers, developed a new fancy website, started the bridal show, held a few events at a school including the craziest fall festival ever. We went back and forth between being a support group to a business networking group, we worked with several different charities and organizations, spent a morning cleaning a townhome for a homeless family, walked a few 5K's, organized a Christmas present bonanza for a family with cancer, and started up the still going Mother/Daughter Glamour Day with Hope Kids.
BizEMoms became an official business in 2009 and we changed the name to BizEWorks to incorporate all the different divisions. By this time we had gone from just myself doing the planning to me and three others, to me and Tamara and one another and eventually just me and Tamara. We both had our second kids during this time; the group itself had enough babies we joked to newcomers not to drink the water; Tamara's daughter had gone through and survived cancer and I had survived running the show without her for a bit. We also gained so many friends; our "network" was more like family. Some businesses did great, some maybe not but that did not matter. I am happy to say that somehow we had the perfect mix of women (and a couple of men!) that made it all work and work well.
The experience was great, I would not go back and change anything. But it was so much work and completely took over our lives. I get that businesses do that and there were many times when we did have excited chats about how far we could go with this and what exactly we could do- should we add a magazine? Do two bridal shows? It really came to the point where the bridal show completely overwhelmed everything else, we struggled to make the whole thing function just the two of us. And then I dropped the bombshell on Tamara that we wanted to leave Arizona. If that happened, was there a way to make it work?
Even though we did not end up moving out of state, we decided that we'd have to let it be and we were happy to go out on top. I am even happier to say that we are still close with many of our members and I am amazed and all the things we did over the course of the business.
I am forever changed by the people I met and the tips, advice, love, understanding and support that was shared. I sometimes cannot believed I owned a business and I know now what it was: Tamara and I helped others and I loved every moment of it.
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