Our focus this Mother’s Day is on the women who do it all: those business owner mums!

Our CEO, Remonda, is one of those fantastic entrepreneurs who manages to balance a hectic family life and running a successful business and we all want to know how. Here’s her story:

“In 2010 my mother got very sick with Cystic Fibrosis and my father had to take an early urgent retirement to take care of her which literally threw me into the deep end of taking over the family swimming pool construction business that has been iconic ally up and running since 1973.

Adding to things it was only a few short months after the birth of my first son and a few months in I then found out I was pregnant with my second child.

Knowing I was going to have another baby and already managing a 6 month old son I was terrified but at the same time I knew that nobody knew the business like me and no one wanted it as much as me – so I dived right in. I’ve never looked back. Today I continue to run the most successful, largest pool company in the southern hemisphere carrying out over 800 residential pool builds all over NSW Australia and the business continues to grow, mature and evolve.

One decade into business ownership and I am loving the freedom, discipline, opportunities, lifestyle, networking and lots of my customers have become like family. With construction and with business in general, there are good days, hard days and even harder days but one thing for sure is nothing stays the same – it’s continuously changing. I love that!”

What does balance look like for you?

Balance? What is that? Ha ha ha – ummmm personally I feel balance is overrated! I absolutely love what I do and am completely immersed in the world of pools, lifestyle, outdoors and business. I’m always learning and pushing myself to grow. I’m really competitive and constantly fight to better my personal best! I now have 3 sons with 2 of them in high school and they are always right by my side. Recently with the covid-19 we’ve been spending even more time together and I’ve been getting involved with their virtual learning and google classroom. It’s given me great insight to see what they are learning and what’s more interesting is what they are not learning!…. The knowledge and stories I’ve been able to share with them about business, people and communication has been so valuable and I love their questions. My personal time is usually early mornings when I love to run to the park, do some stretches and I also love boxing – a lot! Staying connected spiritually and creatively is also a very big part of our family routine but also for business. Because it’s all so connected it’s never out of balance but rather in alignment with the bigger picture of life and responsibilities.

What advice would you offer mums wanting to start a business?

I left school when I was 14 years old towards the end of year 9. Most of my friends went on to do higher learning. I always wanted to run a business and over the years I learnt lots about different businesses but having grown up in the pool industry I know I owe my success to my knowledge.

So my advice is – Learn everything you can about your field. Be the expert. Don’t stop until you’re the most knowledgeable and this will ensure you’re taken seriously and from a position of authority; not just a pretty face. Being a woman in business takes tenacity, risks and most of all it takes time. Build a system and document your daily routine so as your business grows you can start to delegate and form a structure. Whenever you have to do something for the first time make sure you save it, label it, file it well so next time the same thing comes up you can find it ten times faster. As the boss everyone will come and ask you things so this is another great reason why information should be stored well so you can share it and repeat the process a billion times over without wasting time… because we all know the best part about being in business is eventually the time and freedom that you can spend on the things you love like family and travel.

Fave business resource?

I love WhatsApp. It’s probably not what this question means… but for me in business I just love WhatsApp. It keeps all my team conversations, site photos, and information all in one place. I love the group sharing and it saves me so much time.

It’s great for training and contribution for and from the whole business team.

I hate emails……

 

Read Also:

• How our CEO Made It to the Top 100 Women in 2021 and The State of Women in the Construction Industry