Founder and CEO of Role Mommy
Beth's list of accomplishments is dizzying. In addition to running her own public relations firm (Beyond PR), she is the co-founder of Role Mommy, an online community for professional parents balancing work and family. She has authored two books: 'Peeing in Peace: Tales & Tips for Type A Moms' and 'See Mom Run: Side-Splitting Essays from the World's Most Harried Moms.' In 2010 Beth launched Project You, an online magazine dedicated to helping women pursue their passions.
Find Beth Feldman
• Beyond PR
• Role Mommy
• Project You magazine
Beth: The idea started when I was working at CBS. As soon as I started having kids, I was always advocating for the working mom. I was the first person in my department to ask my boss if I could work from home and he actually said yes, and let me do it for eight years. I was always fascinated with women who were managing to do what they loved while raising a family, and I wanted to share those stories and the more humorous side of what it was like to be a working mother. A friend of mine wanted to the same thing. We got together one summer in my basement and worked on a proposal, and that's where [Feldman's first book] 'Peeing in Peace' was born. We pitched it to agents and when they pitched it to publishers, the publishers were like "Well that's great that they're working moms but who are they? They don't have a platform, we don't know who these women are. They're just good writers."
We started realizing we needed to get out there. We started doing events with working moms, everyone from Barbara Corcoran to Lee Woodruff, really inspiring women. It was one of those things: The switch goes on and I realized wow, this is really cool to hear their stories and to see what their journey was like, and to be around women who feel like I'm completely overwhelmed as a mother and yet I still need to have that piece of me that existed before I had children. Because if I lose that piece I'm going to be miserable.
My partner in Role Mommy stayed on at 'Extra!' and I decided to continue building Role Mommy, and stayed on at CBS for another year. I eventually decided after meeting all these interesting and incredible women who kept saying you need to do this on your own, you're so creative, why not give it a shot? So I left, started my own PR consulting company and continued to do Role Mommy.
Beth: I did not leave my corporate job until I knew that I had my first client. I was not going to just jump off the cliff and have nothing to start with. I always advocate, if you are thinking about starting a business, moonlight. Try the moonlighting part of it, and suddenly that part starts growing more and more to where you feel comfortable enough to walk away. I worked at CBS for 11 years and before that at other corporate jobs for six years. So 16 years of corporate experience to then go off in this weird world was scary.
Beth: I did not leave my corporate job until I knew that I had my first client. I was not going to just jump off the cliff and have nothing to start with. I always advocate, if you are thinking about starting a business, moonlight. Try the moonlighting part of it, and suddenly that part starts growing more and more to where you feel comfortable enough to walk away. I worked at CBS for 11 years and before that at other corporate jobs for six years. So 16 years of corporate experience to then go off in this weird world was scary.
Beth: Emotionally it's the amount of hours that go into it. You're working 20 times harder than you did at your regular job. You're no longer working five days a week; you're working seven days a week. Even when you're on vacation you're still on call. And your family has to understand that. For me that was the hard part, trying to figure out how am I going to take a step back and still be there for my family while I'm trying to build this thing.
The other was taking on projects that were not necessarily the right fit. As a business owner you sometimes think, I just got the business so I'm going to take it. I've now discovered that I'm going to take this because it makes sense for what I'm doing with my business. The more you get sidetracked, the more you get away from what your ultimate goal is. It makes it so much harder to focus.
You don't have to be a company of 40 employees. I think as women we're always afraid of supporting all these people, what happens if I can't pay them this month, or I lose a client? It's a tentacle approach. I grow when I need to grow, and I get small when I need to be small. So if I'm doing an event and I need a fabulous party planner, then I align with the right caterer that's going to make sense for that part event. Because of all of the connections I've made over the years, they're all at my fingertips so I can grow my company to as big or small as I want it to be.
Beth: I feel like Michelle Obama made it OK to say I need to be home with my kids so I can go to my kids' ballgame. When I was at CBS I was that advocate. If your kid has 103 fever, you shouldn't be in the office right now. Tomorrow, someone wanted to do a conference call at 10:30 and I had to respond back I'm very sorry, but it's my son's spring concert. I have to be at the concert and I will be back at 11:30 and will be available to you then. You realize as parent you never get those times back.
The other thing is that women, especially bloggers, travel so much. I came up with a humorous anthology last year called 'See Mom Run.' I traveled to 10 cities across the country. That really took a toll on my family life. So this past year when there were opportunities for conferences or events out of the city, I really took a step back and said do I need to be there, and will it be a better situation if I'm home with my family? And I made that decision; the year before I spent a lot of time traveling. This year I'm going to spend time being home more. I try not to travel every single month. My kids are now 12 and 9 and it's just too much. For me it's about being able to create this website, and the online magazine, do these events and still work out that I'm home at the end of the night, and able to hang out with my kids and watch 'American Idol.' It's the best of everything.
Beth: You need to make that list. Don't try to tackle it all at once. The biggest problem is that women want to get from 0-60 in less than half a second. It's going to take a really long time to build. Don't get discouraged by rejection. As a teenager I loved singing, I wanted to be on Broadway. I remember those first few rejections from auditioning turned me off from ever trying it again. When I got into the world of entertainment, where failure is much higher than success, I realized that people who are successful are the ones that have failed so many times and that's OK. You learn from your failures. I've learned from my mistakes and I feel stronger. When I make my decisions they're much more calculated now. I now do have that vision of the business plan because now I've got six years behind me and I'm in that place. Surround yourself with positive people. The last thing you want are the toxic naysayers who are just going to tell you all the reasons you're never going to accomplish what you set your heart out to do.
That whole concept of growing from your own backyard, and then going from there, is really how I built my company. I do events in my community, then I do them nationally, and I really advocate that if you truly have this vision, you need to be famous in your own backyard first. Then you're going to get enough exposure so you can then take it into the mainstream or the national media. You're not going to wind up on the 'Today Show' overnight. There's a reason why there are certain people on those shows time and time again, and it wasn't like they just happened to get there by luck. It takes many years. It's like the book 'Outliers' [by Malcolm Gladwell] - you need 10,000 hours. I'm deep in the throes of my 10,000 hours!
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