The WAHM Behind Sweet Greetings

I recently got the opportunity to do an interview with the woman behind Sweet Greetings, a business that provides lawn announcements for those who are interested in announcing to the world about the new bundle of joy in their family, and other occasions.

What type of business is Sweet Greetings?

Sweet Greetings is a Personalized Lawn Stork and All Occasion Yard Card rental business. We offer 4-7 foot personalized birth, birthday and other occasion lawn announcements. We also sell matching personalized candy bars. We rent our signs locally as well as sell business opportunities. We have close to 100 business partners who rent our signs all across the US and Canada. It’s a wonderful business to run from home (especially for SAHM’s… like myself.)

What types of things have you learned that you did not know before you started your business?

I learned A LOT while running my business! Which is actually why we now offer the business opportunities. We spent several years, a lot of money and a lot of trial and error figuring out exactly how to make high-quality products, run a successful business and provide great customer service. We finally feel that we offer all of those things and are very proud of Sweet Greetings.

What types of products do you offer? How many different types are there?

We offer over 25 styles of 4-7 foot signs as well as personalized candy bars (and business CD), marketing materials for our business partners and more! Some of the signs we offer are pink & blue storks, fairy princess, Noah’s Ark, Wedding, Graduation, Ballerina, Fireman, Cowboy, Baby Shower, Pea Pod, Mermaid, Airplane, Butterfly, Tractor, Train, Tea Party, Birthday Cake, Dinosaur, Sports, Animals and more. We are always adding new signs. We are just releasing a ‘Holy Mackerel’ sign, a ‘Martini/Champagne’ sign and a flamingo. Upcoming signs are going to include ‘team colors’ where you can personalize them to match local high school, college and professional teams sports.

As a work-at-home mom, how do you manage the time to run your business and caring for your family?

Working from home is a lot of work and additional responsibility… but worth every second of it!! I have 3 little boys (ages 5, 3 and 6 mo). You have to discipline yourself since there is no boss to make sure you stay on track. I worked as a Graphic Designer for over 10 years until I left to be home with my kids and run our sign rental business. I love having a job that allows me to be with my kids, make money from home and have a career that involves making people happy and helping them celebrate. There aren’t too many businesses where all of your customers are happy! I love talking to the excited new moms, dads, grandparents, family members and friends. I’m able to take my kids with me when I make deliveries - the older boys even love to help! I make deliveries during the day when it’s convenient for me. I require at least 24 hour notice for deliveries so that I can fit it comfortably into my schedule.

What inspired you to start your business?

I was reading a parenting magazine one day and they spotlighted a mom who worked from home and she rented storks. That’s when the lightbulb went off… It seemed like such an easy concept: people call you at home when their new baby arrives and you simply personalize the plaque, deliver it and pick it up a week later and you would gain a profit of approx. $70-$100 per delivery. I figured that with my background in design and marketing that it would be the perfect fit for me. I designed my own stork, my own brochures, business cards, post cards and website. Over the years I started to get requests for birthday and other occasion signs. That’s when we did a complete business overhaul: we changed our business name, hired a professional illustrator to design a new stork and 20+ other new sign designs and we started to offer business opportunities to share our years of knowledge and experience with others (esp other moms who want to work from home!). Over the years we learned what materials to use, the best ways to market and much more! We now make our signs and ship them to customers all across the US and Canada so that they can start their own business. I use my design background to design our business partners marketing materials (brochures, business cards etc..) We also offer personalized candy bars and sibling signs (when customers order a stork for the new baby, they often like to add a sign for the older siblings that say “___ is a proud big brother/sister”. We offer storks for twins & triplets as well! We deliver for free up to 20 miles and beyond that we charge $20 extra. Between the storks, the candy bars, the sibling stars and occasional delivery fees, we’ve had customers spend as much as $250 for one delivery! …but as far as a “true inspiration” - the inspiration to start my own business was to be home with my children while they were young. There are times when the days may seem long, but years pass by so quickly that I would hate to miss them by sitting in an office watching the hours pass by. Taking my kids to the library, baking cookies on a rainy day, taking a tour of the butterfly garden or spending the day at the park on a beautiful spring day are the main reasons I worked so hard to own my own business.

Do you have any advice you’d like to give other moms looking to start their own home business?

My advice to other moms who are thinking about starting their own business is that that they CAN do it! Plain and simple. It’s very possible to run a successful business from home. I talk to moms every day who are at home with their kids because they are able to make enough money from home to compensate for giving up their “9-5 income”.