Sound counsel for small businesses: Founding Moms provides practical advice to female entrepreneurs

Twelve years ago, Jill Salzman was a mom and entrepreneur who needed help. In seeking it, she accidentally launched a business.

Salzman, who was pregnant with her second child at the time, managed bands and sold baby jewelry while also caring for her toddler.

Overwhelmed by running the businesses and caring for her family, she attended a meeting organized through a social media platform. Expecting a handful of women, she instead encountered about 18 fellow business owners.

And The Founding Moms was born.

Its purpose is to provide fellow female entrepreneurs with practical advice on sales, marketing and branding.

"It was not a support group," Salzman said. "We didn't talk about kids."

Within a year Salzman closed her music management company and sold her baby jewelry business. She started a Founding Moms newsletter and online platform from which members can access monthly video courses, attend live workshops, listen to podcasts and participate in forums.

Founding Moms has about 30,000 members, of whom about 1% are monthly subscribers whose subscriptions include additional content. For $55 per month, members can access video courses, the newsletter, online chats and other information. For $65 per month, members get all that plus access to live video events and webinars and one-on-one strategy sessions. While some members still meet in person, most members of The Founding Moms converge online.

Members include consultants, graphic designers, lawyers, accountants and a construction company owner, Salzman said. About 70% of the businesses are service-based, she said, but some are product-based, like the woman who created a nail product now sold in retail stores like Sephora.

After attending a TED talk Salzman gave in Naperville seven or eight years ago on the subject "Why Moms Make the Best Entrepreneurs," Kim Cook joined the group and began attending meetups.

"What drew me was the opportunity to talk to other female entrepreneurs," said the St. Charles resident, a former elementary school nurse and sex educator who initially drove to Oak Park for monthly meetings.

"We'd share ideas, have conversations," said Cook, founder of Teen World Confidential and the Sex Education Alliance, an association comprised of educators who provide sex positive education.

"I felt I was not alone" she said. "Here we are as women trying something new and being supported."

It took only a couple of meetings to convince Cook to become a Founding Moms member.

Salzman "is so inclusive and positive and enthusiastic ... she made you feel like you're doing good stuff, and we all need that in our life," Cook said.

Salzman offers webinars on such topics as increasing visibility and pricing. She's adamant about the latter, about women pricing their value and their worth, Cook said.

"People hear the name (The Founding Moms) and assume we're all 23 with a baby in one hand," Salzman said.

Actually membership skews older, between 35 and 60, she said. Most members have already established a business they want to refine or improve. These entrepreneurs join the group because they need the support of like-minded women or because they need help, Salzman said.

Typical questions include how they can better understand their clients and how they can attract new clients.

"We make them realize business doesn't have to be boring," she said. "None of this is rocket science and no matter the answers, it helps to come in and talk to other women."