I think a blog is there to share business information, knowledge and insights. However, sometimes, personal life plays a critical role when it comes to business success.
Naturally, in a woman’s life, there is a clock that is constantly ticking: the decision for or against having children. From my own experience, there is no perfect time to have kids when you own your own business, and you always have to expect the unexpected when you are pregnant. Why am I writing this as a business blog? Because I think that many women are in a similar situation, having to make a decision or being forced by medical circumstances to accept a situation they never wanted to be in.
This article doesn’t just focus on pregnancy and business but, rather, overcoming personal issues that come your way when you own your own business. If you want to skip my personal story, click here to get directly to the business advice.
Pregnancy and business: My personal story
Before I was pregnant, if someone had asked me how I imagined my job as a director to work out, being responsible for a team and playing a big role in a business, I would have explained that no matter what happened, I’d always be able to do my job because I could take my laptop with me to bed and work from there. Spoiler: that didn’t work out.
The first weeks were pretty swift. I thought, that’s easy, I can do this. I had more and more pregnancy-related problems, but hey – women are tough! My big blow, though, came in my 16th week of pregnancy. I was in such pain that I went into hospital and ended up having an emergency operation because of a pregnancy side effect that only 0.2% of women have. Did I expect I would be one of the 0.2%? Definitely not – I had a business to take care of, and no time for this sort of thing. However, there was no choice other than for me to accept reality.
The usual recovery time after such an operation is two weeks. Amazing, I thought. I can go back to work. Well, eight weeks later I was still not able to concentrate for more than 30 mins without having a nap in between – and I could only do that for a maximum of three times across the whole day. Still hoping to get back to my desk, in week 25 I got the news of another pregnancy complication. No work allowed at all, no sitting, no stress. I was to told I had to just relax in order to keep myself and my baby safe. Guess what – it’s a rate of 1.5% of pregnant women who are affected by this.
I felt a lot of frustration and wasn’t able to understand (or didn’t want to accept it), I mean, how could it be that out of 0.2% I made it into a group of 1.5%? I have an answer now: that’s life!
Tips for when personal life affects business success
So, how does all of this relate to my business tip? The answer’s very simple. No matter how much you expect to be able to sort everything yourself, things like this can happen. Health is something that we cannot always control. But what you can control is setting up your business in a way in which it can run without you.
Luckily, even before I was pregnant I was aware that everyone is replaceable, including me. Get rid of the arrogant idea that you are the only one in this world able to do this. It also doesn’t mean that you need to have a full team of staff around you. But you need people who support you, know your business, and will do what is best for you and your business without you telling them.
Let’s stick with marketing as an example. I regularly hear (or heard, when I was allowed to speak with our clients 😅) that our team fades into our clients’ teams. Our MegaMarketers are invited to join Christmas parties from our clients, because they are “part of their team”. There is full trust, understanding, and knowledge sharing. Our clients rely on us to run their marketing activities – and we will run this in their best interest, no matter if they are currently on holidays or not allowed to work due to medical restrictions. The most exciting thing for me is that this is is the case with all businesses, regardless of size or industry. For instance, I want to share a quote from Jason at JY Candles, an independent candle business in Leeds with you: “KAYBE gets my business and ideas better than I do.” I think you get my point.
Back to my situation, to give you another example, trust and belief is critical for this. Luke joined my team in October 2022, fresh from uni. He has now taken over all my responsibilities. While his way may not always be my way, both ways reach the same goal. You have to accept that this is all that matters, because the goal is what makes your business succeed – regardless of how you reach it!
In a nutshell: Collaboration and trust are key players when it comes to business success. Not only does this count for you in a key role, but also for your teams. We‘ve recently released a report about the smarketing landscape, shining a light on the collaboration between sales and marketing. One thing that we identified is how disjointed this collaboration is. Thinking about your role as a marketing or sales leader, or director, while you think you need to be there and when unexpected things hit you hard, great team work is what will keep you going. You can download the full report for all insights into our findings about collaboration between these two teams.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, and enhance your network to be prepared for future, unexpected situations like I had.
