Heather King is a strong believer of mums supporting mums. She set out to create a flexible business that would allow her to work from home and be close to her son. Mumming The Label is all about supporting, celebrating and empowering mums – showcasing with humour and style what motherhood is all about, whilst at the same time focusing on sustainability and ethical working environments.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I have multiple inspirations for my business – it’s so hard just to pick one when they have all contributed inspiration in some way. What I would consider as my main inspiration is my son. He was 10 weeks old when I decided I wanted to have flexibility to work from home as I was not ready to go back into the workforce, after having just 4 months off for his birth. The job I had previously was working in a maternity store – which I absolutely loved – but there was no option to work from home and I couldn’t fathom the thought of leaving my son at such a young age and whilst I was still breastfeeding. One of my other top inspirations is the two female owners of the maternity brand that I worked for, as they had left completely different careers to start their brand in maternity wear. So awesome! I would read about what they had achieved over their journey and I just caught myself pondering, “What if I could do something like this too? If these strong women can do it, there is no reason I couldn’t do it too.” They had also encouraged women to put themselves out there because you never know what is possible until you try. And now, they have stores all over Australia, worldwide customers and selling through Myer stores! How amazing! Another inspiration is seeing a lot of other Mums in business and how all of them are right there with you, cheering you on, always making the effort to see how things are going, sharing content, helping build the brand and always interacting with their followers. It’s absolutely inspiring to know that there is ALWAYS such a huge branded network of mums out there who are always willing to help other mums in business succeed. Supporting one another is one of my core values, and currently with so many women and mothers in business – most working from home – that shines inspiration to me.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Well, this one is a toughie! I was definitely more under the pump during the final lead up to launch than what I was throughout this whole journey! I launched back in late June; however, I was supposed to launch in mid-May so it was a bit of a bumpy start. The majority of work I had put in was organised and completed by the end of April, although there were a few delays with manufacturing. This really pushed the next planned launch date back further than I had anticipated, which was hard and stressful. Once that date came, I certainly felt a lot better because it started to feel real and I knew that it would get better.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
The biggest (and best) breakthrough for my business was the opportunity to attend a series of mumpreneur workshops, put together by my local council. These workshops were also child-friendly, which was fantastic as it meant my son could come with me and there were lovely helpers there for them too. These mumpreneur workshops were so beneficial to me, as I was able to reflect on what was and wasn’t working within my business, what I could do to constantly improve my brand (and myself) and be truly successful with it. I had learned how to understand what it was, what I truly wanted my brand to represent and the steps I needed to take in order to make that happen. The workshops taught me that sometimes things don’t always need to be changed in order to make a difference, it provided clarity on the things that are working and reassurance that tweaking things from time to time can also be beneficial. I met some amazing other mumpreneurs who were happy to help or offer some advice or suggestions and it was a great way to meet other like-minded mums and share our business journeys together. We all still keep in contact and have mumpreneur catch ups (when it’s possible to do) and share tons of new ideas, ask and answer questions if we need help or need a new view on something and, of course, always do what we can in supporting each other’s businesses.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
My work and family balances really change from day to day. Some days my son is having a tough time or we have appointments and I don’t get the opportunity to do much and that’s ok! I make up for it either at night or sometimes it can wait until the next day. Some days I am more focused on getting content for social media, other days I am filling orders or I am viewing reports and doing the tweaking. I really don’t put the pressure on to work to a specific schedule and I think that is definitely the secret to being a work-from-home mum. Some days – and/or nights – we have to bust our butts a little bit more to get things done because there is a deadline and other days – and/or nights – we can just plod along with bits and pieces, and it all still gets done. I always aim to set a small time slot every day or night to get work done. Even if it’s only 15 minutes! A little can always go a long way if you break it up into achievable time slots that work for you. We all know Rome wasn’t built in a day, so why apply pressure to yourself to get a huge amount of work done in a very short time?
