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- Landing a $6k/month Client was Her ‘What’s Possible Moment’, Now She’s Helping Other Moms Realize Theirs
Landing a $6k/month Client was Her ‘What’s Possible Moment’, Now She’s Helping Other Moms Realize Theirs
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This article is part of Fud’s Meet the Mompreneur series, where experienced and successful Moms share their entrepreneurial journey and offer personal insights on successfully launching and scaling a business while balancing family life.
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Meet Monica Banks, founder of Gugu Guru, a company that connects moms with brands through its community of mom content creators and influencers.
Monica was your typical corporate climber who then decided to do something for herself and form her own business to be present with her family.
In this episode, she shares her wisdom and tips from her 10-year journey as a mompreneur:
🏆Realizing your “What’s Possible Moment”
📆Prioritizing self-care
💫Making your business sustainable
💣Truth bombs of being a mompreneur
🔑Tips for aspiring young entrepreneurs
Let’s get to know her more.✨
What led you to start your own business?
The pivotal moment was having my son. At the time, I was working at an agency and doing a 3-hour round trip daily commute to New York City. I decided I wanted to figure out a way to stay at home with him while continuing to pursue my career goals.
I could not imagine myself being away from my baby for that long, a 3-hour commute and a full work day. It just wasn’t what I wanted for myself. Plus on top of that, I was also traveling a lot. It wasn’t a 9-to-5 thing, it was more a 9-to-9 workday.
What was the one moment in your digital marketing journey that changed your life forever?
Being able to stay home with my kids while bringing in an income has been such a blessing. One moment early on in my journey was landing my first big retainer of $6,000/ month– it really gave me the confidence that I could do this. It was my “What’s Possible Moment.”
How can you realize your “What’s Possible Moment”?
To get that “What’s Possible Moment”, you have to be very focused. Also when you’re a mom, and you're desperate to make it work for yourself, you can take on too much. You may want to be an influencer, content creator, affiliate marketer, and all these things, then seeing what sticks.
But that's not the way to go about doing it. Pick one lane, stay in that lane, put your energy and make a concerted effort at making that work and then your chances of getting that “What’s Possible Moment” rise exponentially. And when you have that moment, you then pour gasoline on the fire.💥
I want to help moms get their “What’s Possible Moment” because there are just so many moms out there who want to bring in an income, pursue their career, have a creative outlet, and stay home with their kid. Getting your “What’s Possible Moment” will make you realize it is possible to do all these.
Can you tell us what an average day in your life is like?
I wake up around 6am. I write down my goals for the day while I have coffee. Answer e-mails. Get my kids off to school. Hit the gym and then work for about 5 hours.
My biggest challenge is working from home. It’s very hard to remain focused when I can throw in that load of laundry or chat about the weather with my husband (he’s been working from home since COVID.)
I have made it a goal to create more separation between work and home – I go to the library now to do work and just try to get out of the house. It’s not easy.
How do you incorporate self-care in your routine?
I try really hard now to take better care of myself. That’s something new for me because at the beginning and early stages of building this business, I really stress myself out. So I try to get a full 8-hour night’s sleep.😴
I used to write down three things I wanted to accomplish for the day, but now I just do only one thing. I have a business planner that I use called dailygreatness planner that has four quadrants: urgent, important, delegate, etc. and I put nothing on the urgent quadrant unless there’s something that if I don’t do will shatter the business.📝
I want to keep those cortisol levels in check and keep calm and level-headed in my business. And then, i go workout usually about until 3 o’clock. That’s the time my kids get home from school, and at that point, I flip on mom mode and turn off everything else.👩👧👦
Moms tend to not take care of themselves because they’re caring for their kids, or for some, their parents, and they put themselves on the back burner. I did that too, as a regular mom and in terms of building the company. So, self-care is really something I’m building now, as an elder mompreneur.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/3ce3dc73-3f0e-4f21-bcce-2ea5988ceece/Monica-Banks-Lifestyle3.jpg?t=1717075436)
Mompreneur Monica with her kids
How do you make your business sustainable?
You’ve got to have an audience to serve. I think part of what makes any kind of side hustle fun or any kind of work you do fun is if you have an audience to serve.
When you're helping people in big ways or small ways, if you're serving people, serving your audience, it feels really good and it’s rewarding. Then it becomes more sustainable because you’re putting something good out there.✅
If it’s not somewhat fun for you, then it’s not going to be sustainable. So Whatever you pick, make sure it’s not just because it’s a shiny object you see somebody else having success at it. Make sure it’s something that feels authentic and good to you too, then you’re increasing your chances of success.✨
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What are your tips and tricks for aspiring mompreneurs?
Finding your Passion and Skills🙌
No matter what you’re doing, a shortcut to figuring out where you should put your energy is to think about the past version of yourself and ask,
“What are some things that I’ve done and achieved in my life, the successes, what do people go to me for help, and how can i use that expertise to bring somebody else success?”
I firmly believe that every single person on this planet, mom or not, has something to offer, has a special gift, and a lesson to teach.
Choose a niche to serve🌟
There are lots of ways I have created income streams for myself – from consulting to digital products to affiliate marketing. I think it’s important to figure out your niche, who you can best serve and then zero in on ONE revenue stream. Do not try to focus on more than one revenue stream at a time or else you may overwhelm yourself and not get anywhere.
Pick something that you think you can help people with. Start with that and focus on one thing to bring that to market. Whether it’s a newsletter, a social media account, anything.
It’s like a game of tennis, if you don’t serve well, you’re gonna lose. You have to serve.
Get email addresses 📩
No matter what, social media audiences are not your audiences, they’re owned by the platform. So, the biggest tip I can give anyone on that point is to get email addresses.📧
I’ve seen so many content creators pour their heart and soul and build that incredible social media audience and when their TikTok accounts get closed for some reason and they lose their followers, that’s the end of it. You don’t wanna build your house in somebody else’s land.
Do the unscalable at the beginning💪
If you have a small list, community, audience, that’s the time that you can do the things unscalable. When I first started, I have about 20 people using my services. That time, I could connect with them directly, respond to their emails, have conversations with them, and ask them for feedback. These are the people who have stayed with me throughout the years.🤝
I can’t do that today, as we have around 13,000 moms in the community at this point, and it’s very hard for me to have that kind of relationship with each one of them. So, in the beginning is when you can do the unscalable and that will really really benefit your business.✅
Mentorship and coaching🤝
I don’t call myself a coach, but I do love to teach and help. I'm also very bullish in coaching and mentoring as long as you are truly concerned about the person that you are coaching or mentoring.
I’m totally into it as long as I'm really the right fit for them. Have somebody to coach you and mentor you who has been in your shoes. The past version of me is who I like to coach and mentor because I know I can help them.
If you’re the person who’s coaching, you got to pay it forward by making sure you are the right fit for that person as well.🔗
How did you become comfortable doing content?
I was a theater kid and a theater major in college which inspired me to be an actor — that definitely helped. When I started getting into corporate life, I was presenting a lot for huge companies. So I had to get up in front of a lot of people and present things.💻
You just have to be confident, understand where you’re using verbal tics or saying uhm a lot, and stuff like that. So all these things have played into me being comfortable in front of the camera.
I do a lot of my content creation in the car or in the kitchen, or wherever. I’ll just flip on my camera and talk if I have something on my mind.📸
Any tips for those who don’t want to go in front of the camera?
If you’re not comfortable in front of the camera, you just have to practice, I suggest.
I found a really good icebreaker for a lot of the mom entrepreneurs that I train and work with. I ask them,
If you’re gonna be interviewed by a major publication, what are the 3 questions you would really like that publication to ask you?
Then record yourself answering these 3 questions.
No one’s gonna be able to sell your products like you are.
Nobody’s gonna be able to sell yourself like you are.
It has to be you. People want to trust the person behind the brand.
Being in control of your message is the best way to market yourself.
It’s important to do this in order to set your business up for the most possible success.
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What’s the number one mindset shift you made that helped you become successful?
The number one mindset shift is I constantly repeat the phrase, “everything always works out” and I practice gratitude every single day. I have been doing this for 10 years now; I have had many peaks in my journey but probably twice as many valleys.
It took a major life event of losing my Dad to realize that 99% of my worries don’t matter. If you have your health and your family has their health – that is what is most important. When I get really stressed about something, I think about the last time I was really stressed about something and realize that worked out and whatever I am stressed about today will work out too.🌱
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