WAHM Expectations
By Darina • Jun 11th, 2007 • Category: For WAHMsI recently carried out 2 small surveys on the visitors and members of my site. Well actually one survey but sent separately to 2 different groups. I was interested to see if there would be a noticeable difference in the results.
The survey had 2 quick questions about the preferred working hours and the income goals of work at home Mums.
The first group it was sent to was mainly made up of potential Work at Home Mothers, those who would like to work from home or are considering it and looking for their ideal route. Here are the questions and the results.
1. How many hours would you ideally like to work each week
36 or above 6 %
20 -35 45 %
10 to 20 46 %
Less than 10 3 %
The same question was then put to a list where in theory most are already working from home or are very close to it and know what they are going to be doing. here are the results
36 or above 7 %
20 -35 40 %
10 to 20 49 %
Less than 10 5 %
So not a huge difference in results there, I know the sample sizes were a little different but I think it gives us a good overall picture. Most people don’t want to work full time while working from home, I can understand that one - there have to be some benefits !
That question was about their ideal number of working hours, it doesn’t show what the reality is for those who are working from home, I’d say somewhere well above the preferred number !.
Ok the second question was on income goals. First up the results from the “wannabe” WAHMS
2.What is your monthly income goal (gross) for your work from home opportunity ?
100 - 200 9 %
201 - 500 30 %
501 - 1,000 26 %
1,001 - 2,500 27 %
2,500 8 %
Now the same question to those already working from home.
100 - 200 9 %
201 - 500 20 %
501 - 1,000 19 %
1,001 -2,500 34 %
2,500 + 19 %
I thought those results were really interesting ! Look at the high income goals up from 8% in the wannabe WAHMs to 19 % in those already working from home !
What does this tell us? That those who are just thinking about working from home don’t really believe you can earn a full income ? That those thinking of working from home don’t really want to earn too much money? or that working from home is still seen as the poor man’s cousin to getting a “real job” or having a real business ?
I have to confess before I started working from home I did feel a little bit like that, I felt that by choosing to stay at home and earning an income I would only be able to earn enough to contribute to a few bills or christmas presents, that that was the end of my genuine earning power. However once I started, and learnt more about the options as well as coming across some very succesful work at home Mums I realised the greater potential and now I probably have higher income goals and dreams than I ever did when I was working for a pay cheque.
I think the disparity in the figures is actually encouraging ! If those who are already working from home have higher income goals I believe it shows that the reality actually exceeds the expectations, it would be worrying if it was the other way around !
Frank Fullard of Mayo County Enterprise Board refered recently to the growing band of WAHM’s in his blog. He believes (as do I ) that the WAHM world has the potential to become a significant part of our economy with many kitchen table enterprises becoming substantial businesses
from Frank’s blog
“Given time many of them will develop and grow, some into very significant businesses. Undoubtedly the US has been ahead of us in this particular field, but I believe that we are catching up fast”
Frank mentions the US there and I’m going to throw something else into the mix here which I think is both interesting and relevent.
I actually got the idea for the survey from my pal Kelly McCausey of WAHMTalkradio she posed the same earning goal question to her listeners, most of whom would be existing work at home Mothers and when it came to the choice of 2,500 and above (in dollars this time !) the result was a huge 58 %.
What does this tell us? Are American women more ambitious than those this side of the pond? - I don’t believe so. What I do believe is that yes they are ahead of us, and they’ve had time to realise the genuine potential of working from home, having more control over your schedule and your earning goals.
You may say that they have a larger market to target so their earning potential particularly for direct sales type businesses is much greater. However with the technology available to us today, there’s no reason why we can’t increase our target market and look at opportunities that allow us to do that.
I know not everyone want’s to earn a full income, that many do just want the “pin money” and that’s one of the great benefits of working from home, you have that flexibility, it can be whatever you want it to be !
So if I felt that the low figure of just 8% wanting to earn 2,500 or above a month from the wannabe WAHM’s was simply because of that I wouldn’t worry about it, but I don’t believe it is, and I think this shows because of the increase in the 2nd group but it also shows we still haven’t fully realised the full potential that we as work at home mothers have ! (why aren’t we at 58% or above)
What are your views on it? I’d love to hear some comments and some feedback. Did you find the results interesting, surprising? Have you changed your views on the work at home world at any stage? Are the Americans just more ambitious ! (Kelly what do you think !)
Darina
I too am delighted that so many women are looking to earn over E2,500 pm (which isn’t a huge amount of money after all). Hopefully that figure will rise even further in the future.
The whole WAHM movement is so interesting to me. I’ve long thought that it’s totally wrong that women have to choose between their parenting and their contributing. That choice is a new phenomenen (in human history terms), and I think that we’re in the middle of a huge social experiment regarding raising our young outside the family; in many cases, to be blunt, in institutions.
WAHMs are voting with their feet to reclaim their right to be full-time (or nearly full-time) mothers AND make a contribution/use their brain. I think it’s an amazing social phenomonen, and to be applauded. (Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I!!)
Tracy
Carlow
Tracy I was actually surprise at how low the higher income goals were, especially when you compared it to the US figure. I do think as I said that it’s encouraging that the actual wahms have higher expectations than the wannabes ! cos hopefully that shows that it’s worth it
My financial goal has always been to earn ‘enough’ for bills and family life … and that was based on what I earned at work - £2,500 pcm (or $5,000)
But, since I don’t have as many work-related expenses (travel, lunch, clothes etc) the amount of fun-money in that £2,500 has increased!
Regarding how people see a WAHM…it is often hard to stand as proud as we should in the face of negativity, such as from those who ‘have to go to work’ and have a ‘real job’. My favourite saying is, “I treat working on my websites as a real job, and so does the tax man!”
Adele
Darina, thank you so much for doing this. What a fascinating peek at the differences in expectations among Moms in different areas of the world.
I agree - it is about having your eyes opened to what is possible. Five years ago I would have told anybody that I wanted to make $200 a month from my ‘little home business’ and now I’m regularly earning $4000 or more each month and can see that I can be earning double, triple or more than that.
I’m very glad that there are awesome WAHMs like you reaching out to other moms in your part of globe, sharing the possibilities and lighting fires of hope!
HI ,
I FOUND THE SURVEY GREAT.WE IN IRELAND MUST REMEMBER THAT WE ARE JUST GETTTING STARTED.IM IN NETWORK MARKETING, THIS HAS BEEN AROUND FOR 50 YRS AND ORGINATED IN THE US.AT THE END OF THE DAY MYSELF AND MY HUSBAND HAVE TO REAR OUR FAMILY THE BEST WAY WE SEE FIT. NO ONE OUT THERE IS GOING TO PAY OUR BILLS. WE ONLY GET ONE CHANCE AT THIS LIFE LETS GO FOR IT.
I WORK 10 HRS PER WEEK INCOME 500 PER WEEK.CONDUCT MY BIZ 2 HRS EACH EVENING MONDAY TO FRI NO WEEKENDS.
HAVE THE CONFIDENCE IN WHAT YOUR DOING LESS THINKING MORE ACTION — IF YOUR NOT IN YOU CANT WIN.HAPPINESS IS KEY TO EVERYTHING BE HAPPY.
VERONICA LOUISBURGH MAYO
Great timing with your survey Darina as when I was filling it out it hit me that I don’t reach high enough for the stars (financially!) and I’ve been battling inner demons wondering if WAHM life will ever reap its monetary rewards. But I’m encouraged by this blog tonight to stretch that bit higher and keep motivated.
I think E2,500 a month isn’t a huge salary by any means, but I’m wondering what is the key to bringing the bigger salary in? Is the service/goods you offer the key, or is it in the way you ’sell’ yourself or how you tap into different markets? Or is it simply all about attitude?
Just a few thoughts
cheers
Louise!
[…] It is great to note that we now have some objective facts emerging from a recent survey conducted by Darina Loakman and published on her blog. Darina asked two groups, one comprising potential WAHMS, the second comprising actual WAHMs, two questions: Â […]
Interesting question Darina! Yes I think we Americans do tend to be a bit greedy… when I lived in Ireland everyone thought we “Yanks” lived like the people on Dallas or the Cosby show.
But part of it has to do with our culture here, we value productivity almost to a fault. After all, month long vacations are unheard of here and workaholism is the norm, but my British friends who were middle class thought nothing of going to Spain or Morocco for a month (!) which noone here but the extremely wealthy would consider. But for them it was a priority.
To clarify - I’m not saying that wanting to earn $3000 or more a month makes a Mom greedy at ALL…. just making a general observation that many Americans probably do want more money than many other cultures.
qoute from Carrie: “just making a general observation that many Americans probably do want more money than many other cultures”
I don’t know if that’s true Carrie, I wouldn’t say we are too far behind you in that LOL, but I think in this case that the low expectations were not from a lack of wanting more money, but more an expectation that it’s not possible to earn a decent income ( and as Louise pointed out above, 2,500 a month isn’t a huge income by any means, often not even meeting mortgage payments) while working from home. I think we are not as well established as you guys are with opportunities and even role models.
I probably should have included a higher bracket also. I wanted to compare it with Kelly’s so I used similar bands. I wonder of those who chose 2,500 and above how many were really talking 2,500 or 5,000 or even more?
I’ll probably redo the survey in a few months and raise the bar a little, see if there are any noticeable differences
Aloha Darina and all,
Just wanted to add my 2cents to the discussion. One of the reasons we don’t expect much of an income starts from childhood. How we were raised and what we were taught to believe in. In the US as well as Europe we all have to go to school. I’m not knocking school but in school children are taught in such a way as to “go to work for someone else” and produce effectively for their employer. If a child is late for school there’s a disciplinary action and that is because when they get older if they are late to work it costs the employer a certain amount of money. It may seem like I’m getting off the subject but the reason the numbers are low income wise is a deep issue.
It’s great that there are WAHMs like you and Kelly that are helping to change the course for WAHMs and I applaud you for your efforts and for your examples!
Have A Great Day!…and…
StayMotivatedForever!
Yolanda Crisostomo
Maui,HI
P.S. Have you guys signed up for Kelly’s Hot Seminar Series? The call with Lynn Terry was AWESOME! and I learned so much!
I agree with Kelly. My expectations have increased as my “hobby” started to bring in more money than hubby made.
All of a sudden I realized that the dabbling I’d done.. and all the hard work I’d put in had created a monster of a company — and I was then in the position of trying to figure out how to run a business — with assistants who depended on the income (which became scary as hell).
My goal is now $15,000-20,000/month. I think we have to keep challenging ourselves — pushing ourselves past what is comfortable — and then it can become reality.
Plus, if you do plan your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks with those goals in mind, you can keep your eye on the prize.
After being a WAHM for several years, my goals keep on increasing. I hope other work at home moms realize that they don’t have to settle for “paying the cable bill” and that they can reach for the stars as well.
Nicole
[…] much yet, because I was thinking it’s been a while since we’ve had a survey here, the last one showed some very interesting comparisons when we used the US so I thought it would be interesting […]