In this week’s Buzz a Mom that all the Moms Talk Network Interns are interviewing is Crissy Herron of Indie Biz Chicks. Growing up in Flint, MI, Crissy learned all about layoffs and plant closings and she has made it her business, her passion to help women take control of their lives by working for themselves. Let’s get to know Crissy a bit better:
How did you get started as a WAHM? When, where, why and how.
Well, I’m not a WAHM. I work from home, and I’m the self-proclaimed “world’s best aunt” which means I watch my nephews and know what it’s like to juggle a baby and a conference call, but I don’t want to mislead anyone, either. As for how I got started, well, I was living in Alaska and I wanted to find a flexible job that would allow me the ability to go home and visit my friends & family in Michigan whenever I wanted… and that’s how I got started on this path!
You obviously have a lot of passion for WAHMs, I love the slogan for Indie Biz Chicks “For Women who would rather work for themselves, than work for The Man” – so perfect! When and why did you start Indie Biz Chicks? What has been the biggest surprise in running a membership site?
Well thank you for the compliments! I started Indie Biz Chicks in the summer of 2007, right before my 30th birthday. I had wanted to create a website for awhile but I didn’t know anything about how to do it. When I turned 29 I told myself I had a year to learn – and so I started looking at every resource I could find and within the year, I had my site launched!
Did you have any role models or mentors that have guided you along the process? What is some of the best advice you have received from other WAHMs or internet business owners?
Oh, definitely! I really have to give Alice Seba, Kelly McCausey, and Lynette Chandler a BIG shout-out here! I don’t know if they will ever realize how much they’ve helped me! Before I found Alice, I had no idea how many ways someone could make money with content, Kelly taught me how simple it was to create a podcast and her FrontPage tutorials taught me more than any book I bought on the software. When I started working with WordPress, I was really intimidated to change the code (in order to change how the blog looked). Lynette’s tutorials taught me so much and really empowered me to dig into it and experiment. I would say that the best advice – and this comes from all of them – is to just do it! Whatever you’re thinking about doing, just get up and do it!
Do you hang out at any social networking sites? What are you favorite sites for business networking and please feel free to share your profiles.
I’m on Twitter a lot. I like it because it’s real time and you can tweet in so many ways – from the computer, from your phone, etc. If you want immediate feedback or need help with something, tweet it and you will have replies within a few seconds! That is amazing! I also set up a fan page for Indie Biz Chicks on Facebook.
Can you give us details about your upcoming conference? We want juicy, top-secret information!
The Indie Biz Chicks Conference will be on May 6 and 7, 2009. It’s a virtual conference, so people can dial in and listen to the seminars. And it’s free to register! Which is pretty much unheard of these days! If peole choose to, they can buy a set of the seminar recordings for under $35. Which is still a good price for a conference! I haven’t released the names of all the speakers yet, but I will be soon! I am very lucky to have such amazing women agree to come on board and lead a session. There will be something for everyone! So if you’re reading this, go register!
Thanks so much to Crissy for being our Buzz a Mom, well Buzz an Aunt this week :) To learn more about Crissy, please make sure to read the other Moms Talk Network blogs.
Wed, Apr 8, 2009
Working at Home