It could be any one of a number of reasons why a woman may be working from home before becoming a mom. This does not mean that she will always be working from home. Once a working from home woman becomes a mom, she may need to look for a fulltime job, even if what she really wants is to continue working from home fulltime.

The work a woman has been doing from home may not be earning her all that much money, and now that she has become a mom, she realises that her and her husband need to earn a little more money each month.

Jobs can be scarce, however, and the new mom may want to continue working from home because it’s what she enjoys and because she is comfortable staying at home. She also wants to be home with her new baby for more than just 2 or 3 months.

Things can get ugly, though, if the work she is already doing from home is not earning her all that much, and if she can’t find a fulltime job. She also really wants to stay at home, and finds it depressing to be looking for a job. She already knows that if she gets a job, she will not enjoy it. Her passions lie elsewhere, and she wants to continue doing what she has already started, and not only on evenings and weekends. She wants to enjoy working from home fulltime, but needs it to bring in enough money for her needs.

A woman who is already working from home before becoming a mom needs to start preparing and planning for “what ifs” even before she finds out that she is expecting a baby. It’s no good only realising that she needs to earn more money just before her due date, or only after the baby is born. She needs to try and reduce stress ahead of being pregnant, and ahead of having her baby.

Three things a working from home woman can try to do to increase her income

1) Getting existing clients or customers to spend more money:

Instead of thinking of an entirely different work from home idea to either switch to or to do in addition to what she already does, she can think about what else she can offer related to what she already does – and already enjoys doing. If she already has a fairly good client or customer base, she needs to think about what else those same clients or customers may find useful, may want, and may pay for.

2) Broadening the target market:

Since she knows she is going to have a baby at some time in the future, even if she and her husband have not yet started planning when that should happen, exactly, she can think about how her existing service or product could somehow be incorporated into being something moms or babies or children may need.

Soon being pregnant or being a mom, will get her meeting other pregnant moms or moms with babies and young children, and she will be learning about products and services that moms find useful. She can get ahead of the game by researching products and services that moms find useful, before she even falls pregnant. She can ask herself if she could change something about her existing service or product (even if it doesn’t already relate to new moms or babies). Could she alter her existing services or products so that they can be something moms or babies might need or want? She can still keep selling her original product or offering her original service too.

3) Getting more clients or customers:

She can also look at not only offering her existing clients or customers a wider variety of services or products, and at how she can target a different market by changing her service or product a little, but also at how she can get more clients or customers (if she can cope with the extra work that this may bring in). She can think about other ways to advertise her business that she hasn’t already tried, as this advertising may reach people who don’t even yet know she and her good services or good products even exist.

Conclusion:
If a woman who works from home spends a little more time on planning, and on planning ahead, she may not have to go and look for that fulltime job that she doesn’t want, after her baby is born. She may be able to continue working from home.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2014