Today we find out more about South African mom blogger Belinda’s day job of digital copywriting. She shares how building a lifestyle business of working around her family brings her joy.
- Tell us about yourself, a bit of background.
Hi! I’m Belinda Mountain, an Eastern Cape farmer’s daughter who now lives in Cape Town. I am married to Gareth and we have two kids, Rachel (6) and Ben (3) as well as two dogs, Juno and Buckley. We live in a house with a red roof at the foot of a mountain (haha).
- What were you doing before you started this business?
I was working in book publishing, which I did in both England and back home in SA. I worked mostly in the marketing and digital side of things, but also did some book cover design, publicity and various other publishing odd-jobs. It was after having my first child that I quickly realised that working for somebody else wasn’t for me and I needed to find an alternative. My future business partner Catherine was freelancing at the time and came and did some social media work for the publishing company I was working for. We hit it off immediately – sharing a love of good words and all things digital. We had the idea to start a small agency specialising in producing high quality digital content – and so the idea for Black Mountain was born.
- Is your business full time or part time and why?
I would call it full time, although I probably work a 6-hour day, as opposed to the standard 8 hours (but I get a lot accomplished in those 6 hours!). The difference is that lunchtime onwards is quite difficult in terms of working, as there is the school run to do and extra murals to arrange. So often I will work 4 hours in the morning (in the office) and then the other two hours at home in the afternoon or in the evening after the kids have gone to bed.
How do you juggle the responsibilities of being a mom with your work?
I don’t! It’s a constant challenge but I feel privileged to have the flexibility that I do. I pay rent for an office because I find that if I try and work exclusively from home, then my kids expect me to be accessible. My 3-year-old doesn’t understand why he can’t have my attention as I’m typing up an email – all he sees is his mom at home and he needs me NOW.
- Do you have a business plan? If so, can you share a bit about your strategy to make it successful?
We’ve been in operation for four years now and have got some incredible clients along the way. In terms of my strategy to make it successful, I think it depends on how you measure success. My business partner and I have already decided that we don’t want to build an empire. We still want to do the actual writing and we don’t want to end up managing a team of 20 writers instead (although we do sometimes use trusted freelancers if certain projects require it). We call this a “lifestyle business”, where we can do what we love, make a decent living, but still fit our family lives around our work. I believe that in this regard, we have been successful.
- How do you get clients/ market yourself?
Word of mouth has been our biggest marketing tool. We also invested quite a bit in our website recently (www.black-mountain.co.za) and this has paid huge dividends –many clients find us this way and are impressed by our previous work.
- What’s your biggest challenge right now?
Our biggest challenge is consistent cash flow. Because of the nature of what we do, much of our work is project based, which means that after a few months, that project will end. But we still have to pay our salaries and other expenses! So finding retainer clients who pay a set amount each month is what are always aiming for, but this is easier said than done.
- Did you need a lot of money to start off? And how long was it before you made a profit?
We started with no cash injection, just one client we had secured beforehand – who would pay us a very small amount each month. We had minimal expenses and so started making a profit immediately (although not paying ourselves very large salaries those first few months!).
- What makes your business unique from other brands?
We’re a niche content agency who specialises in digital copywriting. A lot of larger agencies offer the full remit of digital services, but not many people focus specifically on content like we do, ensuring the high quality of our work. Because we’re small, we’re also agile and have fast turnaround times. Our SEO expertise (my business partner is very experienced in this field) is also a unique trait of ours, as not many writers can offer this skill too.
- Share with us your social media links and website.
You can follow us on Twitter at @blackmtn and find us at
Belinda also blogs at Making Mountains
[…] For my take on it all, you can read the full piece on SA Mom Blogs. […]