I know! But three months later David came home from work and I announced that I had just paid that month’s mortgage payment. And he said, “With that skincare business you started?”

Suddenly, David was interested. We sat down and he really looked at my business and he asked me what did I need from him to keep on growing my business. My answer was time.

Our roles shifted, during the day David went to work and I looked after our kids and then in the evening, David took over making dinner, putting the kids to bed so I could host online events, connect with my team on Zoom, or do onboarding calls with my new team members.

Initially, I just wanted to be able to work less so I could spend my time doing what I wanted to do: be with my kids, ride my bike more, ski more… The money I made signified that. If I made $300 that was one less night shift as a nurse I would have to pick up.

I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture, just taking baby steps to achieve each goal.

Within a year and a half, we grew from a business of 1 to over 200 people.

I remember discovering I was pregnant with our third child while still on mat leave with Emerson (it was a surprise!), and thinking I need to step away from nursing and replace my full salary  with network marketing.

Childcare is so expensive and I wanted to be with my kids, I couldn’t face the idea of going back to nursing, having to take shifts at all hours of the day, on weekends and holidays. I love nursing but I wanted to be able to choose the shifts I wanted, when it worked for our family.

Once again, the one thing I needed to keep on growing and running my business was time, but I had run out of hours in the day.

Fast forward and suddenly I was in the hospital after the birth of my third child, Rosalee. I was surrounded by notebooks on my bed, our company had just launched in Australia and so I was juggling time zones as I supported my Australian team. And to top it all, Rosalee was premature so I now had three kids under the age of three.

And I said to David, there must be a better way, an app or something that can do all this.

We tried so many apps, looking for a way to give me back my time, get rid of the ten notebooks which followed me around, so I could be a mom to our three kids and feel confident that I was running my business well, looking after my customers and my team.

Eventually, at wit’s end with the latest app, I said to David, “I need an assistant, can you just build me one?!”

And so he did.

I was sleep-deprived and just had so much to do, I couldn’t stop. I ran on frantic energy.

I started the business so I could be at home with my family, and yet I felt like I wasn’t present. Showering was optional. Laundry was optional.

Penny gave me back my time. I could be an awesome mom again, taking my kids to ski school, preparing lunches, listening to them with my full attention and not worrying about my business. I had time to do laundry and go to the gym or ride my bike. It may sound like small things, but Penny gave me my life back.

Penny is me, or at least in the first version, she was. Laughs. The problem with all the apps I tried was that none of them were customer-centric. I ran my business by looking after my customers. I never sent out a cold blanket message, everything was tailored. It was the same with my team, I was there for them every step of the way, helping them and cheering them on.

My business was growing so quickly, a laptop would arrive when I reached the next level, I won trips to go on holiday. But, I wasn’t doing it for that, I was taking one step at a time so that I could get to a point where I could sit and read stories with my kids while knowing that we were financially secure.

It wasn’t until I had network marketing and Penny working together that I had the life I dreamed of having.

Cut out the noise.

When I was first starting my business, around seven years ago now, it was very much learning as I went with one of my friends. My company had just launched in Canada so everyone was relatively new and most of us were busy moms juggling full-time jobs. There were no podcasts, Youtube videos or blogs to help us, and if there were, we didn’t have time to read them.

Now, there’s an information overload. I remember being called by a friend in the early days saying, “Wow, you’ve almost reached Level V” and I was left wondering - what is Level V? I was running my business for me and my customers, I had to quickly look up what the different levels meant.

My advice is to just take one step at a time. If someone told you to run a marathon, you’re going to balk at the idea, but if they said, just run to the end of the street, that’s a lot more manageable.

With my business, it was, talk to one more person, give out a sample to another friend, followup with them, get one more sale and with one more sale we can pay off the utility bills.

Certainly! Some days I look back and think I was a little naive about how hard it was going to be to build a network marketing business from scratch. I had never done sales before and as a nurse I never had to take care of customers so the whole process was a huge learning curve.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, building a business is hard. It doesn’t matter what type of business it is, it is hard. Penny changed everything for me. Before I stopped, when new people joined my team, I saw them using Penny and I was so glad that they didn’t have to experience what I went through to find a way to build my business.

Originally it was all me. I kept on telling David, Chris and Andrew that they needed to make it prettier. My notebooks were all colour coordinated and carefully organized so I knew that Penny needed to be highly functional but also a pleasure to work with. I live for the ‘Woohoo’ GIF telling me I’ve done my day’s work!

As the app evolved I reached out to other people I admire in the industry to ask for their insight. The team at Penny have expanded the app to include the best parts of their workflow too. It’s shocking how all of us were battling the same problem of how best to organize our business (which didn’t involve a million notebooks and spreadsheets), I’m just so glad I have Penny now.

But, back to my favourite feature. I love them all. When I sat with Andrew (Head of Product Design) and Chris (CTO) they would suggest something (they’re both very smart) but it wouldn’t be how I would run my business and I think that’s the most important thing about Penny. This was built for network marketers and the team is incredibly good at listening. It’s not someone external coming in with a great idea, Penny’s workflow is exactly how consultants in the field have built their businesses.

So Penny is designed to give you all the information you need at a click of the button, it makes sure you can give a personalized experience to all of your customers as well as your team. Most people who start don’t come from a sales background (myself included), but Penny teaches you how to build those authentic relationships with our customers. Penny is for purpose-built for consultants.

Thank you. For me, building my business was like pretending there was only one step on a never-ending staircase. I took one step at a time. If anyone is starting out in the industry I really hope they find Penny, if they could see a before and after shot of my life (before Penny and after Penny) they wouldn’t hesitate to download the app.