We’ve got a guest blog from one of our own clients today, Dean & Steph from Daddynatal and Bump, Birth & Beyond. They’ve had a brilliant week, going from teaching local classes, to national coverage via a TV appearance. I thought it would be really helpful for other people who have small businesses to hear that opportunities for national coverage are out there, if you’re prepared to work hard and make the most of the opportunities available….. 

While everyone else seems to be winding down for Easter things have never been busier at Bump Birth and Beyond Ltd. It has been a hectic week, but a very positive hectic week!

Our busy week kicked off on Saturday, listening to the first interview Dean had recorded for The Baby Show broadcast on Star Radio. The interview was focused on the role of the dad in pregnancy, and very exciting for us, as it was the first ‘official’ interview Dean had done, and it definitely was a great learning experience.

Then, Sunday saw us officially announce our partnership with Peterborough City Hospital at Peterborough Baby Show. Bump, Birth and Beyond are now running DaddyNatal and Active Birth Classes, on behalf of the hospital, free to parents. How fantastic to have a Head of Midwifery who is so forward thinking, she really is one of the first in the country to recognise that fathers/birth partners have huge antenatal education needs which have never (until now!) been met.

There was an excellent response to the news of the classes, with signups both on the day and since. Both courses are already 10% full, and we are still awaiting the formal press release and for the community midwifery team to start promotion yet!

Sunday also marked the completion of the first part of training for our new Daisy Birthing teacher, Alison. Courses have been so successful that Steph cannot keep up with demand on her own, so we are extremely excited about Alison’s arrival. She will commence teaching in June which will allow us to offer more courses in even more locations.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings, Steph was out teaching her regular Daisy Birthing classes in Peterborough and St Ives. Steph teaches classes to around 40 pregnant ladies a week, as well as managing all the bookings and day-to-day admin of the company. And she looks after our two toddlers full time as well!

Little did we realise what more the week still held in store… At 10pm Wednesday evening, Steph arrived home from yet another Daisy Birthing class to the news that Dean had been invited down the next day onto The Vanessa Show on Channel 5 to talk about fathers at birth. Turns out a producer had heard his interview on The Baby Show website and wanted him there for a discussion segment about birth! How could we refuse…?!

So scrapping all previous arrangements for Thursday, Dean travelled to London to record the show. To say he was nervous would be a major understatement! He was petrified to be doing his first TV appearance only a few days after his very first ever live media interview! But, of course, he was also really excited. The people were brilliant and he had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Pearl Lowe and Christina Hopkinson, as part of the segment on the discussion of fathers at birth. They were lovely and certainly put Dean at ease (although nerves kicked back in once the cameras started rolling!). You can see his appearance here and judge for yourselves how Dean got on at The Vanessa Show.

Feel free to comment as we would love to hear your feedback. It was a long day though – Dean left home at 11.30am, and didn’t get home again until 8.30pm (luckily Thursdays are Steph’s evening off!)

But there was still work to be done… Friday saw us at a meeting at Peterborough Hospital to discuss some of the logistics of our partnership, and then followed by an agreement that we would produce contact and reference packs for the community midwives, so that became our focus on Saturday!

However, the support and excitement of what we are doing, coming direct from the midwives is so refreshing. It really is a pleasure to be working with them all.

And finally, we finished the week on Sunday with one of our Couples Antenatal Workshops in Kettering. Our classes are jointly run between the both of us, to make sure that we cover all the essential points from both the mum and birth partner perspective. It was a really great class – we thoroughly enjoyed it, and then arrived home in time to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the garden with our two children.

So a busy week made busier by some unforeseen media appearances! A great experience though and we look forward to seeing what the next few weeks brings us.

So that was our hectic week how was yours?

It's a *sign*, I think...

It’s happening. Spring is on its way. DH has informed me that the daffodils are now sprouting. We planted them together as a family on the patch of grass outside the front of the house, so I’ve taken it as a ‘sign’ of good things happening.

The boys are both having a growth spurt too. They’re moving into the next set of clothes – and I feel proud that they are growing in size, strength and independence, but also a touch of sadness that they aren’t babies any more and we’re not the sole focus of their attention….

DH is changing too. He’s thoroughly enjoying the shed project that we’ve got going on at the moment and is really getting in his stride with the stay at home dad thing.

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And me, well, I think I’m having a growth spurt too. When one of my clients told me they didn’t think they needed me in January, I wasn’t surprised, because they too, are growing  and changing. It was the first client that I’d stopped working with, so I didn’t know what to do other than wish them all the best going forwards! Luckily, I’ve now got five new lovely clients either on board or coming on board, so everything is growing in the right direction.

My goals for 2011 were take start working with six new clients, get 12 linked in recommendations, and to grow the New Baby Guides and Young Families  Bump, Baby and Toddler Shows as and when opportunities came along. It’s February and I’ve achieved 83.3% of the first one and the others are progressing nicely too, but not in a way that I can put figures on…

So what’s happening with you? Was January the month you expected it to be? Mine was so much better than I could have ever hoped for – new relationships, new clients, new opportunities and lots of repeat business for the New Baby Guides.

I have to confess, that I’m finding it all rather strange, to be back in the sleepless nights phase again, it reminds me of when I first started out to be honest and was working like mad to get going. Then there was steady growth, primarily with the New Baby Guides, so I could outsource that and it’s working nicely. But with the Marketing and PR, I’m not sure what to do – there’s only a finite capacity I have, and what do I do when I reach it? Outsource and then give approval before it goes to clients? And who is marketing us, Weston Communications? I’ve not got time to at the moment, so that’s another thing to think about.

I’m sorry, I’m whittering. It’s 1.20am. I can’t sleep, there’s so much to do, that I’m loving working on. It’s hard to sleep when you’re having a growth spurt eh?

*image courtesy of Moving Right Along – don’t think it’s a good idea to go outside and take photos at 1am :)

I waited a year to find this..

I have wanted this calendar and weather chart, for our boys, for months, no, nearly a year. I have looked online, in shops, asked people to help me find it and had no  luck. Until today. So when I came across this today, in Jo Jo Maman Babe, I bought it. Quickly! For  £32.00. And as a bonus, I’ve learnt something useful on my relatively new “seo aware” road of discovery.

But what’s struck me about it is how hard it was to find it. And I don’t think of Jo Jo Maman Babe as being a place for this kind of thing – in my mind, it’s more pregnancy clothes and newborn stuff. Which I suppose is the core product range actually. It’s funny how something like this has set me off thinking about how you can best market baby product, toddler products and stuff to families. It’s even got me checking out their seo and how they are coding this, because I really had searched high and low for in on the old interweb…

http://www.jojomamanbebe.co.uk/sp+Pictures-Canvases-My-First-Calendar-Blue+A3252

This is the long link to it. There’s no baby, toddler, children’s, or child reference in this is there? Do you search for “First” of anything? I don’t. Wonder if someone in the baby marketing team @jo jo maman bebe would be  interested in this blog post? Probably not, but I’m going to send them the link to it anyway :)

So now, the outlook’s rosy – I’ve got the present I’ve wanted and learnt work stuff too. Good result all round…