Jasmine's Place Issue No. 10 - March/April 2014 | Page 33

Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Thank you for the opportunity! What is your background? Is it in Marketing? My background is not in marketing! I majored in Biology in college, and worked in the healthcare industry before I became a stay at home wife and mom. How did you get started with MBM? My mom has her own business which I helped her with, and we advertised with MBM in its very early stages. When the founder of the company, MariLee Parrish, asked for coordinators in major metro areas, I knew I wanted to be a part of the business. I started with the company as a coordinator for the Philadelphia Metro area. Christina Maas, who would later become my co-owner, started around the same time in the Denver Colorado area. You work with a great team. How did you meet your team members? We advertise the job opportunity on social media and sometimes in print form and we get applications from moms around the US. Our team is like a family to us. We absolutely could not exist without our team. We also could not do without our VP, Nicole Elliott and our National Sales Director, Danita Drake. I cannot stress how amazing the ladies are that have stuck with us and built up successful, thriving territories. It takes time and patience to build your presence in an area, but when you stick with it, our coordinators have found that the events come to them and so do the clients! We found local businesses to advertise in our Mommy Resource Bags, and we found local events that would distribute the Resource Bags. We were both asked to be on the leadership team, recruiting others across the US to join our team. MBM covers 13 territories across the US. Which territories did you start off with? Mommy Bag Marketing started in Colorado, and it became so popular that it expanded into Texas, Philly Metro, and North Carolina. One thing to remember when starting your own business is that you will often have to grow *with* the business even when you don't plan to. Some time later, when the owner gave us the opportunity to purchase the company, we prayed and discussed it with our husbands, and accepted the challenge! We have found this to be true over and over. The specific needs of our clients encourage us to grow, spread our wings, and off \