I interviewed Catie Kale who is a school counselor by day and after school she owns her own home based business. Catie makes the process of owning a home-based business seem very easy as she is extremely successful. I chose to interview her because I wanted to know what makes her different from every other home based business consultant. What can one attribute to her success? The following is a summary of our interview. The mp3 of the full version is attached.
1. Why did you decide to start a home based business?
- She and her husband are educators. She had her first child in 2011 and realized that the pay didn’t match the cost of living and needed to do somethings. She started with a low cost direct sales company. In June 2016 she moved to a different direct sales company because, even though she was very successful at the first, the time she was putting in didn’t equate to enough profit. She wanted to try something different and started working in a multi level marketing fashion retailer.
2. What challenges did you face when you began?
- The fashion retailer, Lula Roe was very new to the area when she began and people didn’t know a lot about it. There was a lot of educating people on the brand.
- The start-up cost with Lula Roe is significant.
3. What advice would you give someone who is beginning a home based business?
- Find something that fits you and your interests
- She loves Lularoe because she is able to help people be comfortable and fashionable.
4. What goals have you accomplished with your home based business? What goals do you have for yourself?
- Started with a monetary goal of $12,000 a month for the first 4 months– she achieved this goal
- Next goal was to grow her team– she became “trainer” in the first 6 months
- Now her goal is to sell $12,000 to $15,000 a month and have enough people on her team to become a “Coach”
5. What marketing strategies have worked for you, which have not worked for you?
- Social media– Tries to post daily on Facebook and Instagram to show her living her life working the brand
- Be Careful of oversaturation
- Customer Service and word of mouth
6. What skills are essential to be successful in owning your own business?
- Goal driven
- Personable
- Respect and grace
- Recognizing strengths and hire someone for the skills you aren’t good at
- Delegate out what you don’t want to do
7. How do you balance having a full time job, and running your own business?
- Set a defined schedule
- Delegate out what you don’t like to do
- She hires someone to clean her house because she hates doing it
- Task Share- you can’t actually multitask, you lose time from something. Set aside time to respond to emails and in the meantime turn off your email notifications. You are more productive if you respond to all the emails at once than you are if you respond to them every 20 minutes.
8.For educators working with middle school students, what skills would you suggest we develop in students to be successful in owning their own business?
- Develop the soft skills that we often don’t have time for in the curriculum
- Teach them how to function independently
- So much of education is tech based now, but students still need the interpersonal skills
