Sarah Benken – Founder & CEO of the Metro’s Other Woman; Not fitting in with corporate; Leaping to Entrepreneurship; Fulfilling her life’s purpose; and more . . .
Segment 1: (Length :04:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Sarah Benken and her journey as an entrepreneur; Not fitting in the corporate structure; Starting Metro’s Other Woman
Sarah’s finer points:
Fourteen, I'm pregnant and I made a tough decision. I knew I was never going to be a victim of my circumstance. I think that's the most important take away here is you can do whatever no matter what life hands you
“Knew that I needed to stand up and be an adult even as a baby and had a really great opportunity to jump into the accounting field, and so I started my career at 17, worked my way through college. It actually took me ten years to get a bachelors degree, but you know.”
“That just shows perseverance too. Working my way through college, working my way, I knew I had this life to support so I was really fortunate enough to kind of jump in to situations and jobs where I was often the youngest person.”
“I was very blessed in that fashion to be able to learn a lot very quickly but being so young I had this thirst and thrive to achieve more and was able to run through these small companies and get to the top pretty fast, which I think totally inspired the jump into entrepreneurship.”
Most of my family members are actually entrepreneurs, so hard work and hustle isn't hard to come by just by looking around.
“Well I was 25. I was probably in my fourth company where I had risen to the top very quickly. At that time I was an accounting manager for a national company and there’s really no where to go so I spent a year just kind of figure our what’s next for me.”
“Well, it was very funny because it (Metro’s Other Woman) was birthed out of a conversation over the phone with my mother. She had said ‘Well Sarah, you know what I always really wanted to do is run errands for people’ and that pause you just heard that was me like “What?””
“Can we make a business off of this, and that’s’ really, that was the idea, and so I move very fast. I move very very quick. I get an idea in my head like most entrepreneurs and I’m out. I was off developing and planning and within a couple of weeks I had already developed this website.”
“I think it was probably about February 1st (2009) I was finally ready to go. I said I have no idea what I’m going to do. I have no idea how I’m going to launch this.”
“I have this career. I was paid very well, but I was tired of that commute. Tired of working for someone else, and I really wanted my own paycheck. I said “I’m just going to stick this out. We’re going to see what happens.”
Segment 2: (Length :04:00) – Talking with Sarah Benken; Getting her first customer; Taking the leap to entrepreneurship; serving different markets of customers; managing time effectively.
Sarah’s finer points:
“We started this with no cash. I mean no credit, no nothing. We just said let’s just see we have labor and let’s see what happens, and so we put out a couple of Craigslist ads . . .”
“I actually was able to land one really amazing client who’s still a very good friend of mine today. They owned three of the largest local magazines and they were looking for a book keeper and I negotiated an awesome deal. I said I’ll come in ten hours a week. I negotiated half of my salary of what I as making and traded out advertising in all of his magazines.”
I'm committed. This is it. If I'm going to do this I'm all in, and so that's the type of person I am naturally.
“I’m all in. I’m committing to this and I’m never going to go back and work for someone else ever again and it doesn’t matter what I have to do. I remember summers where we were short on staff and we had to clean toilets that summer.”
“You do, whatever you have to do to make it work, to make it happen, and so my initial leap into entrepreneurship it was just enough to make sure I could cover my bills because that’s the beautiful part of this.”
“We have two very distinct divisions. We have a household division, and we have a business division, and our number targeted client is going to be the entrepreneurs. There’s a lot of crossover with entrepreneurs because at often times need help in both the business and the household side.”
“What we say essentially is that we’re a boutique personal and business assisting firm and we lend a hand to anything you may need.”
“Let go of the mundane. I mean essentially too many entrepreneurs because we’re strapped so thin . . . You can’t just stay alone doing this.”
“We help the soloprenuer and a lot of these side hustlers too because they can’t grow and actually leap out when the time is right because it’s just them and they need to lean on people like us.”
“For me, I am huge on goal setting, and if there isn’t something that I am going to attain from that action, then I’m not doing it. I guess number one thing is I’m trying to look at my day and I’m saying all right, what do I need to do.”
Segment 3: (Length :04:00) – Scaling her business; Non-Franchising; Fulfilling her life’s work;
Sarah’s finer points:
“We knew very very quickly that this concept needed to be everywhere, but we knew that we weren’t going to be able to take it everywhere.”
“We thought well how do we expand and we did. We looked at licensing, we looked at franchising, we looked at okay do we want to own all of these? How’s that going to work? How do I own them and put managers in place? No, number one these people need to be vested, right.”
“They need to make it their own, and we didn’t want to franchise, and let me tell you why I hate the word franchising, and it’s because I’m a little bit of a rebel. I like to think outside of the box. I don’t like to be put into a corner, and with franchising it’s . . . And I didn’t want to be put in the business of having to now manage franchises.”
“I thought what a great way to expand into some of these metro areas that I know I personally can never go into but find women, millennial, or empty nesters or whom ever they are, find these women who always to create something for themselves, but maybe they’re too scared . . . I thought well maybe we could partner with women like that. How about I find someone who is really passionate about just creating and making it happen.”
“I think that I just believe in organic growth and if something great is laid out on my plate then I’m going to take it and I always say this. This is funny but it goes back to just really being smart about it.”
If something is amazing and it's here, and it makes sense and it follows the dream, and the goals, and the vision, then we'll do it.
“We’ve been in eight years now and we documented everything. We positioned ourself for growth. Last year we had a lot of growth.”
“Sometimes you got to take a step back and say ‘All right. Where are we now? Let’s reevaluate. Are we where we want to be?'”
I think that sometimes you can't plan too much. You just got to let life take its course.
“What is this life’s work and the life’s work is helping and empowering women of all kinds. I mean from the bottom to the top. Every demographic, every race, everything.”
“Just being a women is amazing and that’s really my life’s work but in thinking through everything you’re doing what is your why, right.”
Segment 4: (Length :04:00) – Entrepreneurship & her ‘give back’: Grit & Hustle
Sarah’s finer points:
I fell into something that ended up being amazing. I knew I needed to jump in be an entrepreneur wasn't sure what it was.
“How fun is it that we get to serve people and make money off of it, so that in itself is life’s work serving others, and we make a nice penny off of it, and on top of that, we’re helping other women and other markets become entrepreneurs and mentoring them.”
“I think I opened with it and said I could have been a victim of my own circumstances. When people look at this young little girl and they see ‘oh gosh, she’s pregnant. What’s she going to do, right.’ I remember people just kind of looking at you and there were so many expectations of me going the wrong way and not going the right way.”
“Who would have thought that some little girl form Raleigh North Carolina who was 14 and pregnant, that any of this would have happened. It’s true. You can create whatever you want and that was one of the things that my mom always told me.”
“If anything you put in more grit and more hustle and more. Dig your heels in and go and show them what you can do. It doesn’t matter what you’re given or what life hands you. You can always come back.”
“You can come back from anything. I think I have and I think that there’s so much truth and beauty in that, and life is this beautiful mess, and while we make mistakes along the way, anything can be forgiven “
I just hustle in a different way. You change your perspective. You change your life. Where you are today is not where you're going to be tomorrow and it's all about that mindset. Once you change your mindset then you can create anything.
Segment 5: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:
I advocate for women and the hustle. No matter what cards you’re dealt, you can create and overcome. - Sarah Benken
GENERAL NOTES:
Sarah Benken – Founder & CEO of the Metro’s Other Woman
- A graduate of East Carolina University and Founder of Metro’s Other Woman, Sarah Benken, founded Metro’s Other Woman.
- Sarah was a teen mom who worked her way thru high school and college, then started her accounting career at 17.
- Worked her way up in several companies through acquiring leadership positions until she got tired of working for others and wanted her own fat paycheck.
- She jumped and promised never to look back no matter how hard it got.
- In 2009, overwhelmed with managing her work and home life, Sarah founded Metro’s Other Woman in Raleigh.
- Metro’s Other Woman (MOW) offers top-notch personal and business assistant services. The goal is to help clients find balance between busy careers and even busier lives, and it’s a goal Sarah is passionate about achieving. The idea for MOW was born out of a need Sarah saw in her own life.
- In 2010 she expanded to Charlotte, and in 2014 has opened 4 new national locations: Phoenix, Greenville, Wilmington, and Denver.
- It’s a non-franchise. She owns them all and shares equity with women that are looking to become entrepreneurs but lack skill, confidence, knowledge or funding.
- A 2014 recipient of the Triangle Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” award, Benken has spent most of her professional career in Accounting and Business Management.
- In 2014, Metro’s Other Woman was a Winner of Triangle Business Journal’s 50 Best Places to Work. Benken was also recognized in 2014 as a Mom of the Week by Charlotte Moms and Charlotte Observer; and both she and MOW have been featured in several print magazines.
- Check her out at http://metrosotherwoman.com | SB Instagram & MOW Instagram | Facebook
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