How becoming a business owner can ease parenting pressure

Speaking on an episode of the ifa Show, the founder of My Money Buddy and The Savings Squad podcast, Adele Martin, said becoming a business owner allows for greater flexibility at work and can be a good option for working parents.

“I’m super passionate about helping more female advisers become business owners because we all know that there’s very few female advisers and even fewer business owners,” Martin said.

Sharing some of her own experiences as a business owner, Martin said when looking at productivity, mothers outperformed some of their colleagues due to increased efficiency despite working fewer hours.

“I can tell you from having hired many people, some of my best-performing people have been mums,” she said.

“They get more done in two or three days a week than what someone working five days a week have done for me and that’s because they’re outcome focused, not hours based.”

Delving further into advisers and motherhood, Martin said becoming an adviser business owner can prove beneficial for some as they juggle multiple responsibilities.

“I’m working with an adviser at the moment that’s got four kids, all under the age of 13. I have another one that’s got three kids, one just went off to daycare this year,” she said.

“So they’re young families, and they have loved the control and flexibility they’ve had from starting their own business.”

She added that the increased flexibility of working for themselves allowed one of them to build a thriving business while being a parent of young children.

“She signed 46 clients this year with 26 more in the pipeline. She’ll be nearly up to 100 clients ongoing within that 18 months, two-year period,” Martin said.

“We can create these $500,000 to $1 million worth of revenue businesses for mums that are at home because now financial planning is virtual.”

The same way that technology has made it possible for advisers to work remotely, Martin said these improvements can help parents continue to work without sacrificing their salary.

“You don’t have the cost of an office, you can outsource stuff overseas and with all the AI and automation, you can be virtual, you can do it from home, you can choose your hours and you can choose your money,” she explained.

“I would love to see more females get into their own financial planning businesses because of the control and money that they make and the impact they can have on their environment and their people.”

Martin also expressed how important she believes it is to increase the number of women in CEO roles in the finance industry, but noted there are other steps to take that will also benefit women in the field.

“What I think would be easier to do right now to have an impact is for more female advisers to have their own business so they do have that control, they have that flexibility,” she said.

“They also then attract and help other women to have confidence with their finances. So I think there’s stuff that we can do in that space.

“I just would like to see more female advisers, women business owners.”

To hear more from Adele Martin, tune in here.