Business.Mom?
As you may be aware, I chose to live in Florida after I started Bonitas International but 95% of our business is based in a small town on the east side of Cleveland.
We have run the company virtually since its inception, on a business model we liked to call Business.MOM!
The concept was simple: like the dot com era, we have a company that is run based on technology. We are a global organization, infinitely scalable and we are about about delivering results. The difference for us is that we used the technology to enable people to have a job and a life…to be able to weave in the parts of life that don’t cleanly fit into your life before 9 or after 5. To hire talented, driven people into jobs that have measurable output and to hold them accountable for their results.
That approach enabled us to attract highly talented people across the US to join our team without the expense or consideration of relocation, both of which were probably not realistic for our young, cash- strapped company located in a market with a declining population base.
The model was successful and got us to the first million in sales just 3 years after we opened our doors, a feat achieved by less than 3% of women-owned businesses. Heck, it got us to $2 million as well…. But we have since centralized more jobs in Cleveland over the years most of our team is in one space now, and it has gotten to the point where I am frustrated by trying to run the business via Skype, GoToMeeting and WebEx! I am missing the ability to read the body language of my coworkers, the thrill that comes from pulling a group of people into a conference room, making a decision and watching its flawless execution. While I would consider myself a techno junkie, I miss the ability to feed off of human energy on a daily basis and I have decided to temporarily relocate to my Cleveland office for the next few months to try to rework our business model and take our business to the next level.
As a result, I have packed up my life and today I got on a plane with 3 kids, 11 bags and Toby, the family dog to temporarily relocate to my Cleveland office. To hell with the cyber world, I am looking forward to life in the human race again for a while.
