One Woman's Story: From Severance To Six Figures

Professional women are changing the rules on balancing work with life. Now more than ever women are finding great success at running thriving businesses and also enjoying healthy and happy personal lives with their famiiles. They're doing it by working from home.

Ann Levine is a good example. She had been going full tilt as an attorney whose specialty was business litigation at a law firm. Just four months after having a baby she lost her job.
"You can imagine I was devastated," said Ann. " My whole self worth was wrapped up in this great job. We had just bought a house. We had a new baby."

She was able to negotiate some severance then started thinking about her next step.
One day she was out walking her baby in a stroller when an idea came to her.

" All of a sudden I thought, I should help people who are applying to law school."

She had some experience as a law school admissions counselor, and of course her years as
an attorney behind her.

She went home. She spent a week researching things like how do you start a business, how do you have a website, how do you take credit cards, how do you get a business phone. It was all new to her. Her father was a tenured professor and her mother was a nurse. "I did not have an entrepreneurial bone in my body," said Ann.

She came up with a figure for how much she thought it would take to get started and came to $1400. The exact amount of her unemployment check.

" At first I did everything as cheap as you could do it. I used a template for an awful, basic website. I used Paypal for people to pay me. I was using the most elementary tools.

" And I didn't tell anybody I worked from home."

What made her think she could do it?

" Well, one of the tendencies of a work at home mom, or I think of most women who are working, is to undervalue the services they provide in the marketplace and I think that was my first struggle.

" I knew I had something to contribute. I had experience as a law school admissions director. I felt I was good with people. I'm a good writer and editor. Also I knew I had to work. I wanted to work. I'm one of those people that it was never a question for me.

" And I told people I was doing it. I committed to it mentally. People asked what I did and I said I'm starting a company or I own my own company. I started using that language. I was going to make it happen.

" You can't really dabble in starting a business. The key for me that really led to the success was I was committed to doing it.

" So I knew nothing about how to start a business so I needed to use tools that were easy to use that didn't take a lot of time to learn how to use because I was working while my 4-month old baby was napping.

"I did a lot of research online. There are so many wonderful tools online, especially now; websites that support entrepreneurs, that give great advice.

" Starting on the cheap I had to self-educate and use my gut instincts as to what I thought would work. What words did I think people would use to search online.

"My first approach was to offer my services very inexpensively to get testimonials. This would give me credibility the following year. It proved incredibly valuable and those testimonials have proven to be the reason people do come to me."

And the business just started growing.

" It just grew exponentially from year to year. I think my first year I worked with 60 clients. The next year I was working with over a hundred, the third year I was working with almost 200 and now I'm at a place where I've really been able to control that.

"So now I focus on delegating. I have someone else do my website. I have some else run my advertising. Someone else mails my books out for me.

"Personally, we have an au pair and I choose the ways I want to be involved at home. I want to be the one to take my child to school and meet the teachers and the other Mommies. But I don't need to be the one who does the errands or gives the bath at night. It's not important to me to bake cupcakes for school, I'd rather write a check to the PTA."

So how does it feel being on the other side of that struggle and making well into six figures and having the kind of work/life balance she craved?

"I am so thrilled. I could not be happier with my life, and that's a really neat thing to be able to say. I can't imagine being happy if I stayed doing what I was doing and I would have stayed doing it forever. Life is funny that way. I would have stayed being an attorney who litigates forever and been very proud of that career. But I would have missed out on so much.

"Our family is so much closer because of what the business has become.

"I think a lot of times women are very scared to go out on our own. We're not conditioned to think we're worth someone paying us to do something.

"So many people are being laid off and it's important for them to know it's not the end. If you can think outside the box and find something that is unique to you even if someone is already doing it, it doesn't mean you couldn't do it differently. I felt I had a voice to offer that was different and unique."

If you build it they will come?

There's a lot to that," she said with a big smile. "there's a reason they say these things in movies."

To learn more from Ann's experience, check out her website:
www.LawSchoolExpert.com