How to balance family and franchise life

Date: 9:35am, 24 Feb 2010

Karen Sherr set up Musical Minis in 1989 when she couldn’t find a music group which catered for young children and made learning fun. A psychology graduate, she had been working on the cardiac wards of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, where she was a play specialist, until 1988, just before her first child Matthew was born. Musical Minis became such a success that Karen has now franchised it and it provides fun-time music groups for babies and toddlers of ages ranging from birth to preschool.
Based in North West London, where she lives with her husband Rob and her children Matthew, Alex and Emily, she will be writing a regular blog on workingmums.co.uk on what it’s like to run a franchise and bring up three children, starting next week. In fact, two of her children are now at University and her youngest is in the 6th Form. She says they have grown up alongside the expanding network of Musical Minis franchises. “It’s been quite a journey!” she comments.
As growing numbers of women look at the positives of being a female franchisor, she talks about how she set up Musical Minis and gives some tips on balancing family life with setting up a franchise.

When I established my business, Musical Minis, over 20 years ago I was keen to fit my business around my family. As a Mum of 3 being a Mum is still really important to me. In fact, I set Musical Minis up for my son, Matthew, when I couldn't find a suitable group to take him to.

Before having Matthew I had studied psychology at University and then became a Play Specialist at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. When Matthew was one year old, I was beginning to miss being surrounded by a ward full of children and being at home with just one. This mixed in with my inability to find a suitable music group to attend (and knowing some of my friends were also interested in finding a music group) led to the launch of Musical Minis.

With time, I decided to franchise the business and now have a number of franchisees throughout the UK. Expansion with Musical Minis was purposely kept small, on a level I could manage, as I still wanted to be a full time Mum.

Over the years I have come up with various tips which I have used to enable me to be both happy working and happy being a Mum. I really do feel as if I have the best of both worlds. Some of these tips don't necessary just apply to Mums with their own business they can also apply if you are a working Mum.

Here are my top ten tips:

1. Research the market and competition.

2. Start small, let the business grow as and when you can cope with expansion.

3. Have a clear idea what you want out of the business.

4. Try to separate work from home. If your business is based at home have a second phone line installed.

5. Have back-up. If your child is ill what will happen to your business?

6. Know your limitations. For example, if you have problems with accounts get someone to help you.

7. If there are not enough hours in the day to do everything, do the bits you like (with both work and home life) and get help with the bits you don't.

8. Work out the balance between work and home that you want.

9. Keep time to be a Mum.

10. Set time aside to deal with administration, household tasks etc. If you keep putting it off the task will become huge (for example, hours of paperwork, loads of ironing) - regular manageable chunks of mundane but important tasks will help things flow smoothly.

For more information on Musical Minis, go to www.musicalminis.co.uk and see Karen’s Musical Minis blog at http://learningmadefun.typepad.com/learning-made-fun/.
For more information on franchise opportunities, go to workingmums.co.uk's FranchiseZone and see Musical Minis' entry there.

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Related tags: Female franchises | Franchises | Musical minis