Today meet South African mom blogger Cindy, who also co-owns and insurance brokerage. She shares how this job becomes full time because of the nature of the work and how she keeps her head above water both at home and at work.
- Tell us about yourself, a bit of background.
Hellooooo. I’m Cindy. I know there’s a lot of ways to introduce yourself but for me the most important thing is that I am a wife and mom of three. Other than that I co-own an insurance brokerage in Cape Town and I also blog on the side on my parenting meets lifestyle blog – 3 Kids, 2 Dogs and 1 Old House.
- What were you doing before you started this business?
Believe it or not I started this job basically straight out of school. I finished matric and then did a short one year course in Office Management. After that I joined Incompass in 2006 and I’ve been there ever since.
- Is your business full time or part time and why?
The business is completely full time – we never close. We employ about 15 people now around South Africa. We are an Insurance Brokerage so it’s impossible to close during usual working hours because people have accidents all the time. However because I am more in the management side of things now, I leave around 2pm and then work from home if I need to.
- How do you juggle the responsibilities of being a mom with your work?
It’s possibly one of the hardest things to do. When I am killing it at work then I am missing in action at home, if I am at home then I am missing something at work. It’s a bit of a vicious circle actually. But I try and make sure that I keep a balance of both. It doesn’t always work, but it does keep everything above water most times.
- Do you have a business plan? If so, can you share a bit about your strategy to make it successful?
Incompass has been going for about 13 years now. We literally started with my partner on his own then I joined and since then we have grown it to employing 15 people. Our business model is great because it is recurring business, unless someone cancels you are guaranteed that premium every month. The only thing is then to keep growing the amount of clients we have and not loose any.
- How do you get clients/ market yourself?
Surprisingly we do a lot of our marketing by word of mouth actually. However we are currently redoing our website later this year and trying to bring it into the now. It’s embarrassing actually, considering how involved I am on social media for my blog my own website should be incredible but it’s not.
- What’s your biggest challenge right now?
Getting the work/ life balance right. I think that might be my challenge forever though.
- Did you need a lot of money to start off? And how long was it before you made a profit?
It was a lot of slog work those first 3 years before I joined and even the couple after that, but then things got so much better. And it was all worth it.
- What makes your business unique from other brands?
We specialise in guest house insurance – in fact we’re one of the biggest insurance brokerages focusing on this niche in South Africa. We know everything about the products suitable to this niche, as well as being able to manage our own portfolios with the biggest guest house insurance company and so it makes us a market leader in this field.
- Share with us your social media links and website.
I follow Cindy and had absolutely no idea about this other life lol agree with Melissa!
It’s nice getting to know what Cindy does behind the scenes – besides the momlife and blog I mean. Cool interview.