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How One Woman has Successfully Balanced Work and Motherhood
December 10, 2008
I love to hear true life stories about how women have overcome hurdles and have been able to successfully balance work and family life. Success stories provide the rest of us with an opportunity to learn how they accomplished this and possibly use some of those learnings in our own lives. Katherine Sampson from Australia is a great example. Here is her story as told in the Sydney Morning Herald…
At the age of 27, Katherine purchased a sandwich shop but didn’t want to miss out on motherhood when she went back to work. Her goal was to create a business that would work with all the demands placed on a working mother. She created the Healthy Habits sandwich bar in Melbourne, Australia and within a few years she had four shops as well as another child (raising them as a single parent). The sandwich shops were doing well and she believed she was onto a winning idea of franchising them.
In less than 10 years, Katherine has the fastest-growing sandwich franchise in Australia with the goal of achieving 40 shops by the end of the year. How did she do it?
- She says she didn’t start out trying to tailor the Healthy Habits franchise around women but realized it “fits in with where women really are, with their healthy attitude. It is almost about the future – their health and that of their children.”
- She understands the extra demands placed on mothers who work. “There are far more expectations on women in business. They still need to be mum, wife, social organiser, but I am a mum and I also run a household as well as being a business woman, so I understood what was needed.” She works with her employees and the franchisees to help ensure work/life balance.
- She realized that women are very food focused and also very customer focused and worked to capitalize on that. Not surprisingly, “the majority of her franchise partners are women.”
I believe a key ingredient to Katherine’s success has been her ability to see a healthy food need, understand how women play a part in the healthy nutrition of their families, and understand the need for women to find fulfilling business work that also allows them to achieve work/life balance. She was able to successfully pull all of this together to create a franchise business that not only appeals to women as consumers, but appeals to them as business owners (franchise partners). Way to go Katherine! We can all learn from and be inspired by your success.
~ Lisa Quast
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald article retrieved October 19, 2008 from:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/mums-get-the-balance-right-20080815-3wcr.html
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