The conference was organised by Kathryn Hocking from Reverie Coaching and this was the first year it ran and had an incredible two days of amazing speakers with an optional third day business planning session.
The speakers over the two days were so inspirational with their own stories and journey but how they had aspired to running their business as well as being mums and entrepreneurs.
It was really inspirational to hear some of the entrepreneurial mums speak about how they turned their idea into a multi million dollar business was rather impressive.
I am always quite impressed when I hear 'Multi Million Dollar Business'. Immediately I go into this day dream of what it could mean for me. Most of the time it involves dreaming about diamond rings.
The conference was held at The Beach house, Glenelg. It was this impressive indoor amusement park for kids. There was ferris wheels, dodgem cars, water slide, carousel rides and more.
We were upstairs in the conference room that had the most beautiful and distracting views of the beach and the ocean.
On the Tuesday 22nd October I decided I wanted to go shopping at Westfield West lakes as I thought I needed cocktail attire for a cocktail event the following day.
One of my all time favourite shops to shop at is City Chic, and I hate how the nearest one to where I live is a good 5 hour drive!
So of course I went shopping and found some amazing dresses, cardigans and formal shirts. My husband had said that "if there was something you could do in Adelaide that you can't do at home go for it and have fun". So I interpreted it as "Sure, go ahead and spend $400 on clothes at City Chic because we don't have one at home, so go for it".
Don't worry when I told him I went shopping at City Chic his response was "I know I saw the purchases on the credit card... but its okay I told you to have fun".
With advancement in technology like having your internet banking at the touch of your finger tips its so easy for husbands to track a wife's spending!
I decided to stay in Glenelg for a few days while the conference was on to save the commute in peak hour but because it meant I could sleep in longer and didn't have to wake as early!
I stayed in the Oaks liberty towers apartment which were across the road from the conference venue so a nice short walk. The apartment was so spacious and quite posh. I was impressed that the courtyard was three times the size of the one I had back home!
So we had to be at the conference nice and early to get a seat we wanted and of course to get our goodie bags!
At 9AM the conference kicked off with the event organiser Kathryn welcoming everyone to the event.
The first speaker of the day was Karen Gunton from Build A Little Biz. If you haven't heard of Build A little Biz you really should! Karen makes visual marketing exciting and fun! She really has a lot of passion and excitement for visual marketing and you can really tell from hearing her speak.
We got to experience the most delicious morning tea both days of the conference with gourmet yogurts from Moo Premium Foods. I have heard a lot of Adelaide friends rave about their products and were only available in Adelaide, so it was on my 'to experience in Adelaide' list. They generously provided morning tea both days of the conference. They have the most scrumptious products.
We got to hear Cindie Smart from Free Run Press talk about her business and experience and how it grew from an idea into having several successful niche magazines.
When you hear 'business plan' or 'create a business plan', do you instantly think "oh em gee, how boring"? Well I always have until Helen Roe from The Orange Lantern talked about how there is a creative business plan for creative minds. Was fun doing the activities and opened my mind up to different ideas I want to implement over the next year into Made With Love. As part of my ticket I won to the conference I got to experience the 3rd day which was a whole day working with Helen on creating a creative business plan. If you ever get the opportunity to do a workshop or class with Helen, I do reccomend it! She makes business plans fun!
After lunch we got to hear from Indy Hilditch from IndyVisual Designs where she talked about 'branding like the big guys' and the importance of creating a culture to go with your brand. She is having a branding masterclass coming up. So if you want to learn how to brand your business check out the masterclass here.
I loved speaking with Alli Price from Motivating Mum, she was just so full of energy and I loved how she spoke about networking and the importance of having a mumpreneur network. I am what some would call and introvert but she had some great tips on networking. If you are a mumpreneur and feeling alone in your journey being a business women and a mum check out her website and see if there is a networking group near you!
Another inspirational Mum Entrepreneur was Mel Sears from On The Gro. I had seen her business around the online world mainly in advertising on different sites but it was impressive to hear her speak about how she had this idea and went through the process of getting it manufactured to distribution and retail. She has quite an impressive set of awards as well to go with her amazing and innovating products she sells.
The last speaker for day one of the conference was Linda Chaousis who spoke about 'Dream It. Visualise it. Attract it'. It was a great session and introduced me to changing my train of thought patterns. She spoke about positive self talk, and positive affirmations.
To end the day 1 of the conference we had a cocktail networking function where we spoke to different attendees and learnt something about them. For those who know me really well would understand how hard things like that are for me. But I gave it a go and put myself out there, and I am proud that I could do that.
The next day was Thursday the 24th of October and was another day jam packed with inspirational and motivational speakers.
The first speaker for the day was Lucy Cornes, the owner and founder of She Shopped which if you haven't heard of her business yet, stop what you are doing and go to facebook and search 'she shopped'. Seriously what are you waiting for? Lucy talked about the importance of social media in your business and how to create raving fans! It does work as I rave about the she shopped experience all the time!
After morning tea (where I had a passionfruit flavoured Moo yogurt) we heard from Clare Fitzgerald about the importance of video in business and how we could incorporate video into our current business.
We heard from Paige Rowett who is the owner of Your Marketing Hub where at first she got everyone up and jumping around imitating a video on the screen- we felt like idiots but definitely helped in having everyone more energised and ready to hear about SEO. Search Engine Optimisation is about getting your website, business, name shown up on search engines. It is always preferential to be towards the top. We learnt lots of things about SEO we otherwise would not have known and I must admit hearing someone who has a passion for SEO speak about SEO does make you feel more excited in making sure your SEO is working for you.
Sam Leith was such a fun speaker to listen too with her story and most importantly her strategy of 'ditch it, delegate it, leverage it'. She spoke about how if there is something you hate doing- don't do it, outsource it. It was great listening to her ways to work smarter not harder.
When Amanda Daley from From Urban Wellness spoke about the role stress plays on our health the whole session I was sitting there saying in my head 'omg that is how I feel'. Everything she spoke about really resonated strongly with how I was feeling and I kept saying "I must get in touch and work with her". She has some amazing formulas for helping women to reduce their stress and I can't wait to work with her more closely.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Kathryn for giving me this opportunity to attend the conference and have taken so much away from it.
After the year I have had, I really deserved and needed this break!
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