Today on Women On Business, I’m happy to welcome guest blogger Jacquelyn Butler of JackiesBizBlog.com who brings us the following guest post, “Raising Entrepreneurial Children.”

I recently was reading a post on a forum about raising children to be entrepreneurs and I was grateful for the fact, that I, myself as a parent do NOT want to raise my child to think that she has to go and work for the Corporate world in order to make a living.

For those of us who were not raised to be independent from working outside the home, we now have that opportunity to mold our children into thinking for themselves and living their lives passionately and freely to do whatever it is they are set out to do. Educate them not only through school or what is right or wrong, but educate them to actually live their lives free from 9-5, time away from family and the morning commute. Continue reading »

Ever since I left the corporate world in 2004 to be a stay-at-home mom to my triplets, I’ve wondered something.  It’s not rocket science.  In fact, this thought seems so simple to me, so obvious and makes such sense that it’s beyond my comprehension why more companies haven’t considered it.  Ready for my genius?  Here you go:

Why don’t more companies hire stay-at-home moms as consultants, freelancers or as telecommuting employees?  Many of us have an enormous amount of experience and knowledge in our respective fields garnered from our years working prior to choosing to stay at home with our children, and if you let us work from home and make our own hours, we’ll probably be willing to work for a lot less money and produce superior results.

What?  Mr. CEO says that he needs employees who are available to be in the office during business hours.  I call bull! 

What?  Mr. CEO says that he can’t trust someone with kids around to complete work on time.  I call major bull!

I could go on and on with the arguments against hiring stay-at-home moms to take on management and executive roles in companies from the comfort of their own homes, but I’d have a counterargument for every single one of them.  It just makes sense to leverage the knowledge and experience of these women.  What an incredible, untapped talent pool!

And I’m not talking about hiring assistants and customer service representatives here.  I’m talking about hiring experts in their fields.  The women who left their careers by choice when they were working in management and executive level positions in order to be at home with their children.  Most of these women are very capabable of meeting the needs of a corporate position around their duties at home if given the opportunity to telecommute with a flexible schedule.  I work until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning many nights each week to complete the necessary work for my business - the business I started to meet my unconventional schedule but that I run professionally and successfully despite my odd hours.  Imagine what a corporation could get from me or other women like me if they let go of their traditional ways of thinking that work has to be done in the office during conventional business hours.

So again I ask, why aren’t more companies noticing this pool of talent available to them at a lower than expected price if they were willing to make some concessions in terms of telecommuting and scheduling?  I just don’t get it.

Of course, there are some companies who are catching on.  Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal to learn the details.  It seems to me that the companies who tap into this pool of talent sooner rather than later will position themsevles quite well in the short and long term.

What do you think?

If you agree, please Digg this post, Stumble it, write about it and link to it.  Do anything you can think of to spread the word!

Small and medium-sized business owners might not know how to get celebrity endorsements for their products, services or companies.  I read a great article today on WomenEntrepreneur.com by Margie Zable Fisher, president of Zable Fisher Public Relations and author of the Do-It-Yourself Public Relations Kit that explains how anyone can get celebrities to endorse their products by using five simple tips.

In her article, Margie suggests you do the following to secure celebrity endorsements:

1. Send free samples.
2. If you see an opportunity, grab it.
3. Just ask.
4. Barter.
5. Donate to the celebrity’s charity.

You can read all of Margie’s suggestions in her complete article, You Can Get Celebrity Endorsements.  It’s enlightening and makes you realize that it securing a celebrity endorsement doesn’t have to seem unattainable.

Time for another round of Women’s Words Weekly where I take a look at what businesswomen bloggers were talking about during the previous week.  Sorry for the delay this week.  I had some Wordpress issues that put me behind schedule!

Lahle Wolfe of About.com’s Women in Business gives us Job Fields Business Women are Dominating In and it’s not a pretty picture when it comes to bridging the gender gap.

Roberta Rosenberg of The Copywriting Maven tells us that Copywriters Aren’t the Only Ones Getting Dissed - a great look at marketing professions that are underpaid.

Shai Coggins of Just Make Money Online shares How to Get Focused Traffic to Your Blog - great tips you can use on your business or personal blog.