Family Planner Organizer For Moms And Busy Professionals - Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up Inc
By sandy.naidu | Category: Home & Work SuppliesWelcome back!
| My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, one of the founders of Buttoned Up Inc. Buttoned Up provides tools and resources to help women lead an organized life. Prior to starting this company, Alicia was offering her marketing expertise to various international and well known companies.Buttoned Up Inc’s products not only look very good but also serve the purpose. Their website has lots of resources to help you stay organized. The ‘newspaper columns’ (http://www.getbuttonedup.com/newsletter.php) on their website is a very good read. Alicia juggles motherhood with her successful business. | |||||
| Her organizers are the perfect solution for moms and busy professionals - you can plan and keep track of yours and your family’s activities. In this interview she shares with us her secrets to business success.Read and get inspired. | |||||
| How did you come up with the idea for your business? | |||||
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My business partner, Sarah Welch, and I started Buttoned Up in 2004. At the time, we were both in corporate American marketing to women and saw a real need for products and advice that would help busy women and mothers (like us) get organized but without making getting organized a full time job. Women have so much on their plates already. Most work full or part time. Most (73%) are also responsible for the primary care of the home and family. What we found these women wanted were ways to just get the most important things in order so they could make sure important things didn’t fall through the cracks and free up time to spend with their family or on themselves. |
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| What was your main motivation behind starting your own business? | |||||
| After spending 15+ years in the corporate world, I wanted something that I could build on my own and that I felt was really a differentiated product in the market place. A lot of my career was marketing packaged goods items like cereal and pasta sauce which are important but hard to get consumers excited about. In addition, I wanted to have a career that afforded my flexibility so that I could better balance my work and home life. I work more hours and travel more than at any time in my career but I do it on my terms and that feels great. | |||||
| How do you plan your day? What are your time management tips for mothers with businesses who are trying to juggle work and home lives? |
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I plan my day out the night before. I make a list of what needs to get done and what would be nice to get done. In our products and our advice, we tell people to focus on the most important 20% of things and give yourself permission to forget the rest. I try to do this every day and think it has helped keep me and Sarah focused on the critical items for the business not just the day to day emergencies that inevitably pop us. On balancing my work and home life, I wish I could say I was great at this. I am getting better. I try to stop all work when I am in town from 6 to 9PM to spend time with my daughter, Lucy (5 years old). If I need to do work after 9, that is fine, but those hours are reserved for her and are special to me. | ||||
| I love your website. Love the products you have on the site. All your products are so practical and useful. They also look very good. Can you tell us a bit more about your most popular products? | |||||
| Sure. All of our products, by the way are available at Target stores and The Container Store along with other fine retailers.Our first and most popular product is the Life.doc. Give yourself peace of mind - organize your essentials. Life.doc® makes it easy and fun to organize your life. In just a few short hours, Life.doc® Organizing Binder will guide you through the process of capturing your critical information so it’s ready when you need it. Take it with you when you travel, put it in your emergency preparedness kit, or just leave it at home in your bookcase. No need to worry, Life.doc® has been designed to capture your information safely and securely.The Life.doc® Binder has eight sections including: • In Sickness & Health • Dollars & Sense • Insurance • Legal • Emergency Plan • Family Basics • Caregiver information (babysitters, elder care, house sitters) • Home Sweet HomeAnother great product that is a companion to Life.doc is Valuables.doc.Staying on top of all of your valuables purchases is not easy. Unfortunately when something unexpected happens like a fire, flood or burglary, you can be left without the documentation you need to get properly reimbursed for the most valued and valuable things you own. The Valuables.doc™ makes it easy to catalog all of your items of value, record their purchase prices and replacement value and have the proper documentation in case you need to make an insurance claim.The last item I will highlight is our Collision.kit. Remembering and documenting the facts after you have been in a car accident is critical. But when you’re shaken and upset it’s easy to leave the scene without complete information. Collision.kit™ from Buttoned Up® ensures you have everything you need to record the details of the incident. We’ve included pre-printed cards to capture vital information for all parties involved, a pen, a clipboard, and most importantly, a flash camera - because a picture is worth a thousand words. Keep it in your glove compartment so you’re always prepared.Stop by Target or The Container Store or visit us at www.getbuttonedup.com for more information. |
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| What is your number one stress relief tactic? | |||||
| Taking 15 to 30 minutes each day to do something enjoyable just for me. It might be getting a cup of coffee with a friend, taking a walk outside on a spring day, running on the treadmill to my favorite songs for the 1990’s…..it really doesn’t matter what it is but taking that break just for me, seems to release all of the stress I have had during the day. | |||||
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| Ready, Set…File! The three tips below will help you establish a useful method and a daily habit to stay on top of documents. |
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| #1: Distinguish Between Papers that Require Action and All Others If you do nothing else, separating the things that require action from those that are simply for “safekeeping” will cut your headache in half. All you need to do this is a durable, portable folder or plastic sleeve for those items requiring action and a sturdy “inbox” that will hold those items you need to file away for safekeeping. |
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| #2: Stick to the Fundamentals Make your base classification as simple and broad as you can. Naming conventions based on purpose or function (e.g. “Insurance: Home,” “Child 1: School,” or “New Business”) will make it a snap for anyone to find the appropriate file later. Write down your entire list of file categories/names before you actually create them, so you can check for redundancies and inconsistencies before putting pen to folder. If you don’t have time to create a complete system on the first day try to add one or two new folders to your system each day until you have finished the set and keep extra supplies on hand so that it’s easy to add more later. |
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| #3: Establish a Habit Commit to filing for six minutes each day (2 at the start of the day, 2 at lunch and 2 at the end of the day). You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly those piles disappear. In addition, take the action-item folder with you wherever you go and whittle away at its contents as you have “down moments” throughout the week. |
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| As for how to reduce office clutter, the trash can should be your best friend. | |||||
| Finally, your five keys to success? | |||||
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| Sites Of Interest | |||||
| http://www.getbuttonedup.com | |||||
| This interview was published on 10th May 2007 | |||||
| To read more stories about women who make products for home and office click Products To Sell From Home. | |||||
| Visit Alicia’s website to get more organization tips and information about her family organizers for moms and busy professionals. | |||||
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[...] Home Based Business Moms - Get Business Ideas And Read Interviews With Successful Business Moms wrote an interesting post today on Designing and Selling Professional Organizers - Meet Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up IncHere’s a quick excerpt [ Alicia-Rockmore-Buttoned-Up] My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, … my work and home life. I work more hours and travel more than at any time in my career [...]
[...] Home Based Business Moms - Get Business Ideas And Read Interviews With Successful Business Moms wrote an interesting post today on Designing and Selling Professional Organizers - Meet Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up IncHere’s a quick excerpt [ Alicia-Rockmore-Buttoned-Up] My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, one of the founders of Buttoned Up Inc. Buttoned Up provides tools and resources to help women lead an organized life. Prior to starting this company, Alicia was offering her marketing expertise to various international and well known companies [...]
[...] Home Based Business Moms - Get Business Ideas And Read Interviews With Successful Business Moms wrote an interesting post today on Designing and Selling Professional Organizers - Meet Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up IncHere’s a quick excerpt [ Alicia-Rockmore-Buttoned-Up] My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, … to various international and well known companies.Buttoned Up Inc’s products not only look very good … my work and home life. I work more hours and travel more than at any time in my career [...]
[...] Home Based Business Moms - Get Business Ideas And Read Interviews With Successful Business Moms wrote an interesting post today on Designing and Selling Professional Organizers - Meet Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up IncHere’s a quick excerpt [ Alicia-Rockmore-Buttoned-Up] My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, one of the founders of Buttoned Up Inc. Buttoned Up provides tools and resources to help women lead an organized life. Prior to starting this company, Alicia was offering her marketing expertise to various international and well known companies [...]
[...] Home Based Business Moms - Get Business Ideas And Read Interviews With Successful Business Moms wrote an interesting post today on Designing and Selling Professional Organizers - Meet Alicia Rockmore Of Buttoned Up IncHere’s a quick excerpt [ Alicia-Rockmore-Buttoned-Up] My guest today is Alicia Rockmore, … lead an organized life. Prior to starting this company, Alicia was offering her marketing expertise … my work and home life. I work more hours and travel more than at any time in my career [...]
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]