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KIM: Hi this is Kim Constable, CEO and founder of work at home moms network, and I am very
excited to present to this interview to you today, it is with a work at home mom that
I have followed and admired for a long time ever since I got the idea to start work at
home moms network, I pursued her, I emailed her, I hunted her down and she finally agreed
to do an interview with me today and it is about a very, very close to my own heart being
a linguist and believing in languages for children and Laura Berg, hello Laura how are
you today.
LAURA: I am great thank you.
KIM: wonderful, Laura runs a company called my smart hums and you can find it at www.mysmarthands.com
it is a baby sign language company. Now Laura's company is phenomenal, her videos on YouTube
have over 23 million views, is that right Laura?
LAURA: yeah actually it is 23.3 million.
KIM: wow, that is absolutely phenomenal, and I am so excited that you are here today; I
know we have built up this kind of email relationship, we have been trying to interview and you know
it's not happening; finally we got here and thank you so much for choosing to spend your
time with us.
LAURA: that's my pleasure.
KIM: Wonderful. So Laura can you just tell me a little bit or tell our members a little
bit about your company how it started, your family, your business just give us a little
bit of the Laura Berg in a small hands in a nutshell.
LAURA: well I think that I am like most work at home moms who started business and I started
it because I had a kid, I wanted to stay at home with her, I was a teacher before I started
my business and we actually had infertility issues so it took me 3 years to conceive our
daughter and so when we finally conceived I was like I am not going to work, I will
stay with this little thing that I have got, but you know the reality of living in a big
city means you need to have 2 incomes, and I can just flow out with my job and so I had
to think about a business idea and my teaching background.
I had my take in ASL classes and I actually used it in my classroom for my letter switch
purposes so i was already familiar with the concept of baby sign language with my daughter,
that I would sign with her and when I was sort of exploring business ideas I thought
this will be a great one for me to do with my teaching background.
KIM: so ASL is American Sign Language, is that right.
LAURA: That's right.
KIM: so were you trained in it before or were you self-taught or how did it come about.
LAURA: yeah when I was in teachers college I took a sign language class and I just fell
in love with it and I just kept taking more and one time my principal came and told me
to help with the literacy program which is traditional methods were working really well,
and I took research and came across a study that showed how to use sign language to teach
kids how to spell.
So you use the letters to say C A T, off course this is the American sign language which is
different from British sign language, but the concept is really the same, it is then
that it is the textual experience for them, they can feel it versus hearing it.
Some students are just visual learners, so it helps them too, as they are experiential
learners it helps them feel the words and it works really well, so when I was doing
the research it just made me fall in love with the language even more and even I then
went online to create a ASL studies. And then which helped with my teaching background but
when I decided to start my smart hands it was a perfect marriage because I already had
experience with the ASL, had the confidence of designing the curriculum and all that stuff
so it is perfect for my expertise.
KIM: and how difficult was it in the beginning when you first started, I mean what age was
your daughter when you first started.
LAURA: I started signing with my children when they were 4 months old and my daughter
started signing them by about 9.5 months and my son was about 6 months when he started.
KIM: Wow that's interesting, and what about starting it as a business. At what point did
you start working on it.
LAURA: I started on the planning phase while I was on my maternity leave began a year to
stay at home with the kids and then I went back to teaching for a little while just to
be in a position to be able to launch when I was going to do because it took a lot of
planning and I think that a lot of people do start businesses that there is no planning
phase before you make that jump, it was about a year and a half in the planning phase and
then I finally did a test class with the friends of mine and my other mommy friends just to
get my feedback and even when I did start I found that I stung.
I do laugh at it, I do lots of speaking now in conferences entrepreneurship and businesses
and I didn't all of a sudden become successful, I actually wasn't making money and I had to
do the baby sitting job when I just launched my business because I quit and I had all of
these classes setup and I did not have any money, I thought that this is an historical
area with a master's degree and business sitting.
KIM: Right
LAURA: but you know it was something that I had to do in order of continue my dream
of staying at home with my daughter and I realized that things don't happen overnight,
it takes some time to get it going and if you have to pick-up some job and I was quite
happy to do it. I had to do it from October until December and then by January my classes
were often running and I was sort of off to races as they say.
KIM: that's wonderful, I love hearing that because it is one of the things that I always
preach in the network and I always something that I do video series on, it is on the 2
things you mentioned, adequate planning you know, a work at home business is still a business
it requires it to plan research and know your market but also sometimes you need to pick
your lost timing root like how can I while this is in development stage because you are
going to hemorrhage cash at the beginning and there is nothing coming in, so you really
need to plan for that with a loan or you need to substitute it with another job so I love
hearing these 2 points that you have brought up.
Tell me at what point did it then become a success, I mean at what point did the momentum
take off, like you know what I am on my way now. I am nearly there or this is a real business.
LAURA: Well you know my idea was first to teach some classes on my own, until my daughter
was in school and then I went back to teaching, I loved being a teacher and I was quite happy
in that carrier. So that was my idea, I just needed enough money to stay at home until
she was in school and then I could go back and our schedules would match and then I posted
a video of my daughter to YouTube signing, because I ran into people who loved the idea
of baby sign language but had never seen a baby actually signing.
So when I was signing with my daughter, it was going on for several years, it was still
a fairly new concept I mean it was around but it wasn't like a history where people
saw it everywhere. So I took the video and then people started emailing me and asking
me if there could be an instructor in my program and then I thought
KIM: what program, Ha, Ha, Ha
LAURA: I don't have program, then I realized that it was a great thing for me to do because
I had a program I just had to polish it in order to sell it as a company so it was really
having people coming and contact me and tell what teach me the program that really made
me think I need to make this bigger than what it is.
By doing that I have now created this massive international brand, because I have 200 instructors
worldwide that teach the My Smart Hand Classes so that helped in marching product because
it was already a well-known brand name so it is very important to create a brand I felt,
in order to be successful and selling products which now we do.
KIM: yeah it's amazing as well discussing before the interview started but the power
of getting someone emotionally involved or something like when I watched your video I
was like OH that's so amazing, I just wanted to kiss her you know whenever you see it it's
the same for me, I run my first company that is multi lingual children's company and my
children speak 4 languages each fluently and whenever people saw my daughter.
She was like 21 months interchanging between Spanish, Chinese and English they were like
oh my god I want this for my children, but you know whenever you tell people whenever
they see it and become emotionally involved it will be hard to really understand what
it is so it is great that you used YouTube and you used that emotional involvement and
the power of video to push your business forward in that way, would you attribute that video
to a lot of your success then?
LAURA: yeah for sure, because that videos had over 4 million views, just the one video,
I get contact from people all the time and then I saw that it was a invaluable tool as
business to post the video for free so it is very cost effective for me and I have over
400 videos over my YouTube channel
KIM: wow that's amazing, absolutely amazing. I am so inspired by you, it is great. So I
have certain questioners, may ask a couple of them. Describe a typical day in Laura's
world from getting up to going to sleep. How does it work for you?
LAURA: for me we get up and I am very fortunate that my husband also works from home so it
is a good bad thing, he will be around but we have to juggle our schedules who is going
to have a meeting or do their work, my husband is a music producer so sometimes he is in
the studio and he is gone, so we get up together, and we get kids ready. We have the breakfast
together and then we walk the kids to school and then my husband and I go for coffee with
our son and have some family time which I absolutely love and then come home and a baby
sitter that comes in at 11 and that's what my day starts with. I love it.
And then I have rent till 5 so I try to work from 11-5 and it is just working on projects,
working on emails. A lot is doing new projects now, doing videos and stuff like that and
then I try to shut it down by 5 but when you are working from home and you are an entrepreneur
there is no shutting it down.
KIM: I understand but it is really good that you have that balance and family time your
day sounds like mine because my husband works from home too. It's funny. How important do
you rate having a schedule routine, you have said that you have a baby sitter come in something
that I again say if you need to start a business from home you need to really be serious of
finding scheduled work time every day with the baby sitter, I also have a child care
at home, that's why I get to work in the way I do and would you attribute that to a part
of your success.
LAURA: yes at first I tried to do it all round nap times and then I found that it was too
overwhelming and I actually don't have her full time, I have her 3 days a week and then
the other 2 days my son has preschool in the afternoon and then my husband is around.
My whole thing is I started this business to be around the kids and so I am so fortunate
that I have people that help me out, I also have a personal assistant that does things
for me, I have a regional director that does work at office with me, she takes care of
a lot of my instructor network, so I delicate a lot of the work that has to be done by other
people in order for me to still maintain that life balance because when you start a business
it is overwhelming.
There is a lot to do so I do think it is important to have help and make that as part of your
business expense. I needed somebody to come in and not necessarily work full time and
I found someone who is available 20 hours so I found perfect person.
KIM: that's right, who would say from my videos that this is my crappy little office but it
is perfect for me, it does the job, I mean I need to go out when the kids need me but
I do work as much as I need to work and for me it is very important when you seem to have
the same setup, you know you have the home office, the work time, the family time, the
work schedule and I think what you do is amazing. You said that you have a virtual assistant
but do you have somebody who virtually would delegate to that does your administrative
task, how do you manage more of the () stuff.
LAURA: right, I do have an assistant that comes in to do that kind of stuff in my office
but I do have 2 people that are in my network as instructors who I trust and I get them
to do work for me virtually. So I did hire a virtual assistant and I know that the entrepreneurs
do that but they have tasks and I pay them hourly wage, and for me it is working perfectly.
KIM: great wonderful. And how important do you feel it is for work at home mums to have
the support of other mums or work at home mums. I mean do you have other friends as
work at home mums or mums whom you rely on, how does it work for you.
LAURA: it's imperative, you have to. Its 2 things, I have friends who have traditional
jobs like I used to have and they don't necessarily get it. They don't get how hard it can be
to be very isolating working from home as great as it is.
Still you don't have that chatter, you know I used to have colleagues in the hall with
whom you have fights and the chat which was absolutely wonderful so I tell others that
social media has been a great thing for me, () for example has been my water cooler, when
I am having a low end, where I am stressed I may go there and sit and have a little bit
of () with them. It's also a great network I find going to () is great and going to conferences
where other women is great because you get to network in and you understand what it is
to be an entrepreneur from home.
I also have 2 very good friends who stay at home mums, one works part time and other is
full time stay at home mum, and that's just friends whom you can call them to, the other
day I was so stressed, you know when that 20 things go wrong in 1 day in your life and
I am so done, and it was 3oclock and I had a 5 minutes chat, I called my girlfriend and
said can I come over in half an hour and she said done come on over and she had tea for
me and I could just unload of me.
KIM: we kind of need that sometimes don't we, we feel better when we have said that
all.
LAURA: like I dint want to talk on phone, I needed to go out so I went there and had
tea and then I was like yes I can do these 20 things now, I just needed a break so having
a connection where I could call her and say 3 o clock and can I come over and she said
yeah come on no problem, that is most valuable.
KIM: this balance is really important, it is something that I try to maintain in my
relationships as well. And there are 2 more things that I am going to ask you just to
finish up. I suppose the first one is where is My Smart Hands going then, what are your
plans for the company in future.
LAURA: well domination,
KIM: ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Why not, can I tell you something just from my personal view,
I think that you almost have an obligation to bring My Smart Hands to the world domination
because of the phenomenal effect. You are really giving a new language to children another
means of communication and how that shapes the brain and I know from my own company how
that shapes the brain and how that makes them better communicator.
I think it is an obligation to bring that to the world to help raise a generation of
children that are better off communicating, that have better empathy and more connection
with human beings. I think as mums there's no better we can give to the world and give
that to our children so that we can help to raise a better generation of society.
LAURA: yeah I agree fully. I think that I am just going to continue on my path that
I am going, I really enjoy connecting with people through YouTube by posting videos and
you would not read the emails I get from people that they say it has been a life changing
experience.
For example I had this one mother and this is early on in my business and I said to my
husband I don't care what else happens to my business this is enough and in that email
she said she had a son who was () who stood half not verbal at the time and life was becoming
very frustrating for them she didn't know how to communicate so as to signing, so she
researched it and came up with the video on YouTube.
And he heard me and my daughter and he came up and sat and he watched over the video over
and over for 45 minutes and at the end of the 45 minutes he started signing, and she
said that was the first form of communication she ever had with her child and she wanted
to thank me and my family for taking time and posting these videos. Let me tell you
I sat by my computer and balled, I was crying.
KIM: you are making me cry.
LAURA: I know it is amazing; I had another mother whose daughter was affected to meningitis
when she was 4 and she was () and she was becoming very frustrated and one day she saw
my video of my daughter and my daughter was of the same age and she thought it was cool
and it gave her the confidence to then to sign and then she brought my daughter's videos
into the class and all the kids learned from her. So these stories that I hear from parents
which is why I do what I do.
Just post the videos on YouTube for free because you know people say you can charge, I don't
want to charge for this because it allows me to connect with people on such a meaningful
level that I am so completely satisfied in my life because of that. I know what I am
doing is making an impact in the world, it is impacting the world in a positive way and
I just want to continue that.
If I can do what I am doing I am happy.
KIM: that's really good, one of mottos at work at home mums network is hoping mums to
be wealthy healthy and happy. And I always say wealthy doesn't necessarily mean money,
wealthy is like you said I feel so rich in life that you are making a difference you
feel satisfied in every way that you go it is far beyond money. Research show women really
start businesses for money they start because they want to make peoples life better and
you are a shining example of that.
You really should be proud of yourself that what you have done and what you have created
from home is aspirational. You know there are a lot of mums out there who are watching
this and are inspired by you which is why we do these interviews so that you can make
it work and it will take resistance and it will take dedication but it is possible and
you can do it and don't be scared, just go out there and try.
What would be your advice for a work at home mum who is thinking to start a business from
home or has just started one and is at that peaking point to take that to the next level
what would you advice?
LAURA: so really the things that I love to tell people is if you look at me and what
I have created I have zero business background I come from an education background so if
I can do it anybody can do it. And sort of model is that if you do nothing, nothing happens.
So if you just sit back and wait for opportunities to come, they are not necessarily going to
come. You need to do things in order for those opportunities to set them. You have to make
sure to take action and the other thing that I encourage people to do is to say yes to
more opportunities.
Sometimes people are too afraid to make the start or to say yes because they don't know
or they analyze this could happen. Really if you say yes and something bad happens and
trust me I have had bad things happen they are all the learning experiences.
Even if bad happens you will still learn and it will add experience to your life so just
take chances. You know if you have this business idea and you want to do it, do it and make
it happen.
KIM: yes that's one thing I say to people if you are scared of failing, well by not
trying you are going to fail anyway so you are actually doing the thing you are scared
of so you have nothing to lose.
LAURA: yeah exactly.
KIM: Laura it has been such a pleasure talking to you, I apologize if I ran into your time
and I know that your husband has kids and you had to squeeze me in between everything
that you were doing.
Honestly this interview has been amazing and we really wish you success in this business
in the future and I said to you in the past that I would love to invite you to come into
the discussion boards and look at the conversations going on in the network with the mums and
if you see something that you could give advice on please jump in.
We would love to hear from you and we hope to see you around the network and see you
as a part of the community and thank you so much for your time today. It has been so special
and all the advice you have given has been invaluable really.
LAURA: thank you for having me, it has been fun actually.
KIM: You are very welcome. So this is Kim Constable sighing off with Laura Berg from
My Smart Hands and I really hope you will go to YouTube and look up to Laura's YouTube
channel which is my smart hands Laura?
LAURA: Yes if you type baby sign language I come up.
KIM: Yes she comes up first page that's what we want and Google has the power to do that.
Not Google, YouTube sorry. So please do look up to www.mysmarthands.com and look up to
Laura's YouTube channel and we hope to see Laura in the network at some time in the future.
LAURA: Thank you.
KIM: Thank you Laura and we will catch up with you very soon. Enjoy the rest of your
day.
LAURA: Thanks,
KIM: Ok, Bye, Bye!
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