Traci Bisson: A Mother to Mom Entrepreneurs
by Christina Lee on March 23rd, 2009
Traci Bisson had to leave three jobs in one year to find enough reason to become self-employed. Since then, she has made a living out of creating support groups for others and herself, as a mother of two and president of her own firm.
And of course, there is The Mom Entrepreneur – an online hub of resources for women in any stage of trying to run their own business and family at the same time.
In addition to marketing and public relations consulting through her firm, Bisson Barcelona, The Mom Entrepreneur offers copywriting, sponsorship and advertising services.
But the heart of its operations is its support group, in which Bisson and others can speak freely on any issue regarding their business. While how-to topics range from potty-training to Twitter, the biggest discussion revolves precisely on what Bisson had started searching for years ago: how to achieve that ideal work-life balance.
Bisson first considered entrepreneurship after spending five years building up marketing and sales at Olde Port Candles. She left temporarily in 2000 to have her first son Jacob, only to find the company ready to collapse when she came back.
“I was expecting a commission check to be there waiting for me, and me being there for quite a few more years,” Bisson said. “Unfortunately, that was my last day there.”
With just $14.89 in her savings account, her 401k soon to be drained and no health insurance, Bisson considered freelancing, though instead she started a four-month contact at Converse Network Systems. But with its office located 60 miles away from her Barrington, N.H. home, she turned down a full-time position in favor of seeing her son for more than 30 minutes a day, before he went to bed.
“Being a first-time mom and not being able to be there, to see all of the different developmental changes that occur during the first few months, definitely became some of the biggest [issues] for me,” she said.
By August of that year, she had left her third job at Communications Management International and founded Bisson Barcelona. With the firm, she hoped to both build up the images of authors and entrepreneurs and spend more time at home. But for six years, up to five other women worked from Bisson’s dining room.
“It was hard on days when my kids were sick here with employees, when school was closed, when they were on vacation,” Bisson said. “I had to have the kids down in the playroom when I was upstairs working.”
And along with two two growing boys, the firm also faced one overwhelming list of clients.
“Basically we had people calling and e-mailing. There was no shortage of clients and we would just do anybody – on fiction, on poetry, didn’t matter,” Bisson said. “I continually threw bodies at the problem, more employees, without taking a closer look to see if they were the right client for us.”
By 2004, Bisson wanted help – but after searching online with keywords “mom entrepreneur” and “work life balance,” then poring through sources like SCORE and the Women’s Business Center, she could not find any.
But in 2008, after launching The Mom Entrepreneur blog to chronicle her successes, Bisson sought advice again, though this time via two local news channels. This time, she received over 1,000 tips via 400 e-mails sent in less than 48 hours.
Such replies have since become the foundation of the current Mom Entrepreneur. Bisson had also since hired a business consultant to analyze her firm, to figure out how it could hone its focus. With the discovery of these niches, both Bisson Barcelona and The Mom Entrepreneur have since grown.
In January, Bisson opened The Mom Entrepreneur’s co-op shop to the public, which offers special discounts on products and services created by its subscribers. The support group currently has over 600 subscribers, all of whom Bisson has even turned to for advice – most recently, on figuring out how a math teacher could rein Jacob, being “an intelligent child that was bored,” she said.
At the same time, The Mom Entrepreneur’s growth still demonstrates the stability Bisson has achieved in the eight years that has passed since she first became a mother and entrepreneur.
“I don’t think there’s any perfect formula, but I have found that wealth of knowledge off of our current members,” she said. And with a firm and family still thriving under her watch, Bisson appears to have learned some things of her own.
For more information, visit The Mom Entrepreneur.