Entrepreneur Interview: Kat Gordon, Maternal Instinct

Business Name: Maternal Instinct

Website URL: www.MaternalInstinct.com

Year Founded: 2008

Number of Employees: 1 Full-time, 3 Part-Time

What does your company do:
We help brands who want to connect with the mom market. Our core offerings center around advertising: positioning, strategy, copywriting, art direction, direct mail and social media. As the founder, I also speak on the subject of marketing to women and write a business blog on the subject.

Was there a specific turning point when you realized your business was moving to the next level?

Yes. When after meeting someone at a conference, he asked for my email address. When he went to enter it into his phone, it auto-filled in for him. He realized his business partner had sent him one of my blog posts a few months prior. This kind of recognition among strangers made me realize my hard work blogging as a thought expert was finally paying off.

What processes or procedures have you implemented that have helped grow your company:

A vigilant focus on one niche. An active presence on several social networks. Attendance at conferences. Delegating time-intensive tasks to a virtual assistant. Reading one business book a month.

What is most rewarding about running your business?
Freedom from countless atrocities of corporate America, including (but not limited to): vacation-request forms, fluorescent lighting, undeserving bosses, time sheets, gray cubicles, and inflexible work hours that don’t always align with when inspiration strikes or accommodate school play performances.

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?
The biggest challenge is time management. Having just enough work, but not too much, is difficult to pull off. I overcome this by outsourcing overflow work to freelancers, as needed. I also say no to unreasonable deadlines. I feared this would make clients not call me again, but the opposite happens. Clients want people who are in demand and have standards for quality work.

If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?
I would get an office outside the home right off the bat.

What advice do you have for other business owners?
Share what you know. Don’t be paranoid about your wisdom being appropriated by others. The more you give, the more you get back.

Please list any favorite books, tools or resources (software, website, etc.) you would recommend for others:
Books: The Ten Faces of Innovation, Unmarketing, The Art of Possibility, You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader, Mindset.

Tools: Linked In, Twitter

What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you?
That a gymnastics coach offered to train me for the junior Olympics when I was 6 years old.