As more and more mums quit office-based jobs and turn to setting up their own businesses, three mumpreneurs have come together to organise The Business Mums Conference this October, a unique event for the region. I met two of the three organisers at Baby Expo last month to find out more.

With the sun beating down at the racecourse, not even the cool sea breeze floating up to the top of the hill could cool us down. Resourceful as ever, Nicky Chisholm and Antonia Chitty gathered us all around picnic benches in the shade with glasses of water. The pair were running an hour long seminar to listen to our business ideas but also to talk to us about their forthcoming conference and the networking groups in Brighton and Hove area. Nicky runs Mums-in-Biz seminars for mumpreneurs but also co-runs the Mumpreneurs Network. Already supporting 400 mums across the region and she estimates that in their last session they generated business transactions through networking totalling £5000 across the group. Not too shabby. Antonia Chitty is a writer of business books and is also the PR and marketing brains behind Mums-in-Biz and the conference, “So many mum’s are pregnant and are in jobs where they are thinking, ‘My old job just doesn’t work for me any more’, we’ve got the solutions for them.” says Antonia and that’s why they were at Baby Expo. Their third musketeer is Suzanne Borall who organised the Baby Expo and is busy co-ordinating the hive of activity inside the Racecourse exhibition hall.

I’m immediately struck by the positive approach each has to each of the ideas presented by the aspiring business mums in the seminar. Nothing seems impossible, you just need to have a thorough business plan and realistic timelines. Nicky enthusiastically offers contacts already within their network who can help facilitate the business concepts, it’s a very free flowing but productive discussion.

So what is the biggest challenge for mum’s starting up their own business, “I think it‘s believing in yourself enough to take the first leap,” says Nicky, “and then logistically managing how you are going to run it around your children. But the answers are out there with regards to your support network”. Antonia adds, “It’s about time, money and resources. Every mum I know running their own business is short on time and resources because you never really know what you should do with it. Should I run this advertising campaign? Should I exhibit here? That is why at the Baby Expo, we have teamed up with eight businesses and run the stand between us. We‘re stretching our budgets by clubbing together.”.

All the networking these ladies have been engineering has snowballed into The Business Mums Conference, 5th October 2010 at the Thistle Hotel. It’s designed to be the ultimate networking event for mums in the south who are either already running their own business or thinking about starting up. The list of speakers is awesome, already ‘mum business’ celebs in the blogging community, Mel McGee ‘Supermummy’ and Nicky Backshall to name a few. The highlight of the event will most surely be child nutrition writer and chilled food brand pioneer, Annabel Karmel. Love or hate her concept, she will no doubt be an interesting speaker on how she’s built up her empire. This is the biggest joint venture Antonia, Nicky and Suzanne have undertaken but if it’s a success they very much hope the event will be a regular fixture on the mumpreneurs circuit.

Book your early bird place on The Business Mums Conference: www.businessmumsconference.co.uk

Want to meet other business mums in the area? Book a networking session via: www.agoodgossip.co.uk