If we have learned anything in the past year, it is that nothing is guaranteed – our jobs, going to school, having the freedom to visit our friends and travel without restriction…

This article is more about my personal experience, my realities, my past insights, my goals, hopes, and possibilities for my future. Next week, we’ll talk more about the many options available to you to work from home.

So many people were unable to work as they normally did, and many lost their jobs entirely. This was partially due to restrictions, and partially for health and safety reasons. My mother is in that age group that she was not comfortable going to work. Luckily, the shop where she worked closed for quite some time, and she was able to draw unemployment. That was only temporary. She did apply for what few jobs were available, but really wouldn’t have been comfortable in those. I’m guessing due to her age, she wasn’t hired or even contacted about those positions. She is now doing a little bit of work from home to sustain her home.

She always taught me to be sure that I had money and resources of my own and to never rely on a man or anyone else to take care of me. My grandmother always had a secret stash of money in an account shared with my mother so that she could purchase gifts for her grandchildren, incidentals and splurges for herself, and provide financial assistance to her children should they need it. And should things get bad at home, she could leave with at least some financial resources. This money was hers – earned from her employment after raising her four children. Was it right to hide money from her husband? Well, that’s a discussion for another day. He was an absolutely amazing grandfather – but, as the story goes, not such a loving husband and father.

Does that mean that every marriage or couple will fail to remain together or ruin each other financially or emotially? Of course not. In fact, I’m in the camp of believing that marriage is sacred and every effort should be made to heal a broken relationship, with the exception of abusive (physical or emotional) relationships. Having one brief failed marriage, a child following that marriage out of wedlock, and now a 16 year marriage – I can tell you that I’ve been there and experienced that. Not everything, but many of the situations and emotions that you can imagine in a relationship were or currently are my situation.

But I digress. Boy, how do I manage to get so off topic??

My point is this – we don’t know what tomorrow brings. We don’t know what the future holds. There are so many things out of our control, but that doesn’t mean that we just have to sit back and wait for disaster or the inevitable. We can do things to secure a future that might or might not ever come to fruition.

I don’t work from home because I have to – I enjoy working. I enjoy contributing to our household income. I have peace in knowing that I can take care of my family should anything happen to prevent my husband from bringing home his bacon. But, I also love being a mother.

I’m not really what most people picture when they think of a stay at home mom. I don’t like school functions – they exhaust me. I love hanging out with the kids in class when I can, but it also exhausts me. In fact, in my 21 years of being a parent, this is the first year I have volunteered to be a room mom. Granted, I was working outside the home for some of those years, but not the majority of them. I never trusted myself to stay focused enough to plan ahead for the parties, teacher gifts, special events, etc…plus, I just flat out didn’t want the responsibility. I have always, though, been at the beck and call of the room parents, because I know what they do for our children. I would walk across hot coals to make their lives easier. I’m not very ‘pinteresting’ with kid activities and such…but I can pin ideas with the best of them!

Want to know the truth about why I decided to Volunteer this year? I thought it might be the only way I could actually walk into my daughters classroom this year. Well. Guess what? It’s the end of February and guess how many times that has happened? Exactly zero. None. Zilch. Nada. #fail

BEFORE ‘ALL THIS’

Before COVID-19 struck the world, I did work outside the home, and from home. I just ‘stayed home’ for a while after my third child was born. My husband drives for UPS, so his schedule and the realities of that job just don’t allow him to just leave early, or go in late. He either works, or he doesn’t. In fact, with the two children that are his, we had very elaborate contingency plans to get him home should I go into active labor while he was at work. He makes enough to support our family, and has an excellent benefits package, so it’s not totally necessary that I work. Yes, I do count my blessings on a daily basis. As she began to age up in Preschool and attend 3 days a week, and with Kindergarten fast approaching, we decided that I might start keeping an eye out for a part time job to help cover some of the extracurricular activities of the older children, the cost of preschool, family vacations, and just other incidentals of having a five person household.

With my husband’s work schedule, a middle schooler that required all of the attentioin and focus a mother could muster as middle schoolers do, and an elementary son playing travel baseball among other sports, it was going to be tricky to find a position with hours that suited our schedule (or with hours that I was willing to commit to). We weren’t interested in the need to beg friends and family to get our kids to and from, and I wasn’t interested in leaving an employer high and dry because I was more interested in seeing to my children than I was in working. I also wasn’t interested in going back to teaching, or working at a school in any capacity.

Enter Shipt.

Scrolling facebook one day, I ran across an ad that read ‘GET PAID TO GROCERY SHOP!’ Well…I can do that! So, I followed the ad, and applied without even discussing it with my husband…I did, of course, clue him in when he got home. I went through the virtual interview process, was hired and waited for Shipt’s launch day in Nashville. That was July of 2015.

Back then, Shipt was a small start up with only a handful of employees. Nashville was only the second Metro area for Shipt and we only shopped at Publix. They would even personally call shoppers if an order needed to be taken care of quickly to see if we were available. Now, of course, Shipt serves customers in multiple stores in cities across the country. Launch started off slowly, and I often had to travel to the next city (only about a 15-20 min drive) to stay busy. The shoppers here in Nashville did a great deal of sharing and educating the area on the service. Most people were leary of the idea…but, of course, we managed to win them over. Now, I don’t many people who haven’t used the service at least once or twice. Grocery delivery is now part of normal life. Only having 2-4 hours to devote to the job, some days it was worth it, some days not so much. Over time, things got busier and I was able to stay in my ‘home stores’ and build up regular customers, making the job more fun, and less taxing.

With Shipt, I was able to set my own hours, change my schedule on a whim, pick up orders when I wasn’t working but found myself available, and I actually ended up doing a great deal of training for Shipt, starting and running a Facebook group for local shoppers that I have since handed off to other shoppers, and creating a YouTube channel for shopper tips, strategies, hot topics, and frequently asked questions. At it’s peak, I posted at least two videos a week and the channel began to gain quite a momentum as it wasn’t a one and done ‘look what I can do.’ I really tried to focus on topics that I knew shoppers were struggling with, and strategies that I knew worked for me and top shoppers across the country to increase earnings, tips, and provide the top notch customer service Shipt was known for at that time.

Meanwhile,

As luck would have it, I was desparate to find some way to keep my hair up or at least pinned back – I needed the staying power of a hair tie, without the damage. I was absolutely destroying my thick wavy/curly hair with constant hair ties. No one wants hair in their groceries. And, it’s hard to hard to grocery shop all day, and care tote bags with long hair everywhere.

Being the AMAZING mom 🤣 that I am, I was at the school’s Fall Festival – basically, a carnival of games, treats, inflatables, and vendor booths – all to raise money for the school’s PTO. And, being a huge fan of our school, our PTO, and especially our teachers and staff, I always try to make my rounds at the vendor booths. I don’t always buy something unless it’s actually something I’ll use, but I do at least make a pass and see what’s there and thank some of the vendors for being there and supporting our school. I mean, if we don’t shop, it’s unlikely that they’ll come back with their booth fees, right?

I’m almost to the end of the vendor loop and there’s this guy standing there surrounding by bling…for your hair…but not the same kind of accessories I’d seen elsewhere and tried, only to be sorely disappointed in the quality, durability, and staying power of basically everything I had tried. I had basically resorted to knit headbands, and usually paired those with a hair tie. But, the wide headbands hid all the damage and my more often than not overgrown roots.

So, reluctantly (knowing I probably buy something just be nice), I stopped and said…‘Ok, what are these and why do I want one?’ Boy, did his eyes LIGHT UP! And, now I know why. Randall (that guy), his wife Wanda, and I are now friends and co-workers. You see, he probably saw me and my wildly piled up mane turn the corner…knowing before I did how much I needed him to save my hair. And he knew he had the goods. He asked the right questions – he didn’t try to sell me something fancy and blingy. I told him what I needed and why and I needed it…he waved his hand over to a little container of what looked to me like wide, strategically bent wires…

That was the Swerve. It was a Upin. I knew what a Upin was (the normal, smaller kind that many women use to hold french twists and buns), but didn’t know it’s name – nor had I ever actually used one, much less considered a large one.

Randall briefly demonstrated how it worked on his manequin head while I took my mess of hair down from the headband and hair tie…and then he handed it to me. I had paid very close attention to his demonstration, because I was intrigued and REALLY wanted it be as good as he suggested…he really didn’t have to say much. It took me two attmepts to secure it, shake my head vigorously to see if it would hold and hand him my debit card. I didn’t even ask him how much it was. I declined the receipt & brochure he offered as I would have just thrown it away, and a return was NOT happening. Randall smartly insisted that I take a business card in case I had any issues or questions about the Swerve. I left him with a warm thank you, and he left me with the same. No pressure, no gimmicks. Just the facts and PRECISELY what I needed at that moment. He knew I’d be back.

At that same event, there was a Flexi Clip available at the silent auction. After my Swerve purchase, I went to bid on that. Even though Randall had not really demonstrated the clip to me (that’s not what I needed at the moment, and I’m not one to splurge on things I don’t need just because I fancy them), and he knew that). The clip had a fairy centerpiece and I thought my daughter might like it, so even if I didn’t use it – she might. I won that auction.

For about two weeks, nothing else went in my hair. I either used the Flexi Clip or the Swerve. Then I started wondering. I had held on to the card, in case I wanted more (I had never seen these things before, so I wanted to know how to find them). I looked up the website, saw that it was a direct sales company, groaned inwardly – but thought, meh – I’ll make some purchases then. And that’ll be it. You see, there are few companies I SHOP myself – because I love the product – but I’m always very clear with the folks I buy from – don’t try to get me to join you, no, I don’t want to host a party, and please don’t constantly message, text or call me. If you want to check in now and then, great – basically, “don’t call me, I’ll call you.” I was a fan of the products, but not the methods of selling. And, there are some companies I only want ONE specific product from – and I purchase that when and if I need it. There are other companies I wouldn’t pay full price for – so I looked for deeply discounted products, usually from reps ‘going out of business.

And then I started researching the company, expecting to find all sorts of scathing review of what rip off it was…how horrible they compensation is, and how there’s little to no support. I couldn’t find it. Nothing. Of course, I came across a few raving reviews from people who had already joined, but we all know those are a little biased right? Yea. I know.

So, I started researching the actual company and the compensation plan, fees to join and remain active…and I was pleasntly suprised – decent compensation for the price of the item, reasonable fee to join, no monthy fees or quotas. Basically to keep your account active, you only had to sell $29 (wholesale) worth of product in a year. And that could be your own personal purchases…hmmmm.

So, I reached out to Randall’s wife, Wanda…she’s as no-nonsense about this as Randall was. She answered my questions very clearly and only offered additional information if it was needed to clarify her answer. She didn’t try to ‘convince me’ or ‘sign me up.’ She listened, and made herself avaialble.

So, I got up the nerve to talk to my husband about it – he’s seriously not a fan of all of the sales pitches he sees on his social media feed. My pitch to him was this: ‘Here are our options: I can spend money on these products, or I can sign up and get a box full of products. Share it with my friends whom I actually spend time with (like naturally, not HEY, LOOK AT THIS!) and see if they like it…I can literally never sell one thing and save you x amount forevever, and potentially make a little money.’

The pitch worked. I bought my box, set up a couple of social media pages, and shared occasionally. My friends loved the product, a few of them making multiple purchases without much encouragment from me…their response prompted me to up my game…that was 2.5 years ago.

Because I was able to stop breaking my hair, I eventually began to research styling methods and hair care for waves and curls. This, as you may already know, led me down the long rabbit hole that is the Curly Girl Method and several derivatives thereof.

What was supposed to simply be a replacement to a hair tie has changed the way I think about hair, and my life.

DURING ‘ALL THIS’

I continued to shop for customers and assist and educate shoppers until March of 2020. Since then, I’ve only completed two Shipt orders – barely enough to keep my account active. Why? Well, because kids. And viruses. It was simply more important for me to be available to my children to help them navigate this new world of remote education and figure how to handle our life that would now be primarily led isolated at home. And my husband still had to go to work. So, someone had to be around and a Nanny just wasn’t in the budget.

So, What Have I Been Up to in the Past Year?

My word for 2020 was Clarity. And, well, we all got that, didn’t we? I took full advantage of being pulled in…NO directions. I figured out, first, how to get my children settled into remote learning. Then, I turned to some much neglected home chores (that didn’t last long – not my strong suit). Finally, I was able to focus on myself – Bible study, a self care routine, and figuring how I wanted to manage my business, both temporarily and long term. There was plenty of time to study, learn, consider, test things out, explore, etc. I did just that.

I spent more time blogging, and less (as in 99% less) time looking for, prepping for, and following up from vendor events. Most of the events I had signed up for were cancelled. I discovered that by NOT doing those events, I was much more rested and productive when I was at home. Having Fibromyalgia makes it very difficult to balance the time and energy required of vendor booths and interacting with LOTS of people all day. I would often spend 2-3 days recovering from those events, leaving me continuously behind on life. So, I decided to turn my attention, after playing around with other possibilities, influencer marking, reviews & giveaways, and focusing more care and attention on the customers I had already acquired. This is working out beautifully so far – even with the learning curve. Though it did take me the better part of the year to figure things out, it was time well spent, and I am enjoying the fruits of my labors, especially the friendships and connections that have been formed.

THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE

While Shipt was a perfect fit at the time, and I do expect to fall back to it from time to time, it simply isn’t sustainable, for my family, long term. It was great ‘now’ money. As Shipt began to grow as a company, and eventually sold the ‘MotherShipt’ to Target, it became apparent that there were no real growth opportunities for me…the ‘small startup’ had grown into a major player in grocery and convenience industries. The people that actually knew me (yes, there was a time that many of the shoppers in Birmingham, Nashville, and Florida were known by name and reputation) had moved on to other opportunities, and the personal feel is now long gone. I’m now just a shopper, a number, a data point. And, at this point, a very insignificant one. It’s still a great opportunity for me to earn a little income for my family, but nothing with the potential to grow, unless I were to shop regularly enough to keep my Shipt YouTube channel going, up to date, and relevant. I knew I could do more, and wanted to do more. Though the channel still exists, I think I’ve maybe added 3-4 videos in the past year. I just don’t feel that I’m ‘in the game’ enough to have a voice or opinion to share with other shoppers.

The Hair Accessory sales have continued to hold their own, and grow at a slow, but steady, pace. I expect this to continue, but gain momentum, with many improvements and better processes being implemented by myself, as well as continued growth and quality products coming to us all form Lilla Rose. This company has given me the opportunity to learn with training, support, and the most amazing colleagues. It has also allowed me to TRULY work completely from home, requiring fewer in person interactions and, with that, helping us to avoid unnecessary contact tracing.

As for this blog, I’m very happy with the steady organic growth it is achieving. I won’t say that numbers are off the charts, but they are climbing! I attribute this to learning new strategies, feedback from readers, friends, and family, and the plethora of blog advice available out on the web. I love writing. I could literally just sit and type for days! It’s a great outlet for me, a way to expand my business and better sere my customers. And, of course, with a personal website, it’s very easy to add more than one revenue stream to share with the world.

That’s where I am now. Truly, truly working from home…on a good day, when I have all my ducks in a row, I can simply spend 1-3 hours in the morning working, and then focus on the kids and home tasks (or lunch with the girls!) for the remainder of the day. I am able to focus on my personal goals, and the goals I have set for my family, my team, and my social network.

The Bottom Line?

Let’s get back to the title of this article: What’s to Love About Working for Home? For me, it’s the following:

• True creative freedom.
  • There’s so much more to selling hair accessories than just selling hair accessories. Having a background in education, and a heart for teaching and serving others, I can still do that, in SO MANY WAYS.
  • Someone once suggested that I shouldn’t mix my faith with my business. I disagree with that…in fact, I utterly object to it. That’s a post for another day.
  • I’ve learned so much about hair, content creation, writing, customer service, how to actually SERVE my customers in more ways than just finding them the right hair acceessories.
• True financial independence.
  • I alone am responsible for the success and growth of my business.
  • I alone am responsible for setting financial goals, and determining where the money earned will go.
  • I alone can decide when it’s feasible to take a day, week, month, or even a year off from my work.
  • *when I say ‘I alone’, I don’t mean to exclude my husband and children from those decisions.
• True freedom of self growth.
  • I’m one of those people that would spend a lifetime in university if it were financially viable and realistic. There is so much education in every subject available to me now – and I have the TIME and MOTIVATION to take advantage of it.
  • I am able to set my own pace, my own goals, and make my own choices about what areas I need to focus on for myself, and my business.
• True freedom to focus on my health.
  • A big part of my decision to primarly focus on working at home had to with my health and emotional well-being. Being able to focus on that has absolutely been life altering. Again, that’s a post for another day.
• True connection to my children’s educations.
  • I know more about what they are doing, and what is expected of them.
  • I am more available to assist them with their assignments.
  • I am more available to connect with their teachers and other individuals involved in their education

If you made it this far, you’re either really nosy about my life…or curious about exploring options for your future. Next week, we will dig into what some of those options may be for you, and how you can personally benefit from merging your home and work life.

I look forward to exploring this topic more with you!

In the comments, please let me know:

• What is your current situation?
• What are your goals for 2021?
• What are your goals for the next 5-10 years?
• What is one thing you would change about your present work life?
• What is one thing you love about your present work life?