The idea of being a working mom and a stay-at-home-mom appealed to you. You are lucky enough to have a skill that lets you work from the comfort of your own home and affords you the flexibility to work on your own schedule.
There’s just one big problem left to figure out, and that’s how to meet with your clients to discuss projects. Keep reading to find out how to make your client meetings a success when you’re working from home.
How to Have a Successful Client Meeting While Working as a Work from Home Mom
By Sienna Walker
Clean It Up
The first thing that you need to do regardless of whether you’re hosting meetings in person or if you’re using a web-client is to clean up your workspace and free it from your family’s clutter.
You’ll want to dedicate an area of your home as your home office. If you have a separate room that you can devote to being an office, that’s great. If not, you need to select a corner where you can set up some professional décor to create the feeling that you’re in an office.
Keep it Quiet
Tell family members to keep it quiet and leave the television or other electronics off. If you can, get your kids started on a craft project. If you have any pets that are prone to barking, put them in a crate or another room where they won’t be tempted, or if they are, they won’t be heard. Hang a do-not-disturb sign on your office door or somewhere near your workstation to let others know that you should not be bothered.
Have the Right Equipment
A good pair of noise-cancelling headphones along with a filtered microphone can help to weed out the background noise for both you and your client if you’re holding an online or remote meeting. If you have a home office, make sure that you have a few comfortable chairs and a clear workspace in which to share your project ideas.
Schedule Appropriately
Try to schedule any meetings that you have while your children are at school. If you have little ones, you can try to schedule any meetings during their naps, or see if you can find someone who can keep your child for you during the meeting, like another nanny in the neighborhood.
Try to avoid scheduling around arrivals and departures of family members; kids returning from school or trying to get your husband off to work tend to be chaotic and are not a good time to try and host a business meeting.
Focus
Once you’ve dedicated a time for a meeting, make sure that you have a clearly defined agenda so that you can hit all your important items as quickly as possible. Keep the meeting focused and moving along as quickly as possible so that you can wrap it up and let your household return to normal when you’re finished.
Remember that your home is just that: your home. And perhaps more importantly, it’s everyone else’s home as well and you don’t want to stifle their natural behaviors and routines any more than you must.
Take it Away
If you’re finding it difficult to work out a client meeting from home at all, you might want to choose to take it elsewhere. Especially if your kids are out of school for a spell and you just can’t seem to keep them occupied. Here are some options for hosting a business meeting away from home when you don’t have an office.
- Meet at a coffee shop
- Check your local library for community rooms
- Rent a small office space nearby that you can use when needed
- See if your bank offers a small conference room
- Become part of a co-op office space
How to Have a Successful Client Meeting While Working from Home
While holding meetings with clients can be tricky for the working stay-at-home-mom, they aren’t impossible. With a little planning and creativity, you can manage to hold successful business meetings while working from home.
