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Wednesday's Woman: Meet TodaysMama CEO Rachael Herrscher

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 08:03 PM ET

When I was 16, I had an afterschool job as a telemarketer for the Fort Lauderdale News. Whether I ever made my quota is long erased from memory (read: never), but what I do recall is after a few months, I knew I couldn't stand selling, and one more shift spent sitting on my butt pushing a paper was another four hours of my life I couldn't get back.

Rachael Herrscher experience was the total opposite. In fact, the 30-year-old CEO and co-founder of TodaysMama, which targets women with personal, professional and parenting resources, thinks everyone should spend a year as a telemarketer. "It was the best experience," she told me. "Trying to catch someone on the phone, keep them from hanging up and then trying to sell them something refines your communications skills-- I thought it was great."

Herrscher was 19 at the time. Fast-forward seven years, a marriage and two children 20 months apart later, and the well-spoken Herrscher finds herself at the helm of a start-up that cut its teeth from publishing a resource guide for fellow Utah moms. (You can read the history here; it'll change the way you view an innocent trip the mall.)

Long story short, the success of that guide--20,000 copies of Utah's Mama Handbook sold--set the stage for a revenue-generating licensing model that has taken the Mama name to more than 15 areas across the country. Along the way, Herrscher has never been shy to ask for help, be it from lawyers who taught her about franchising licenses to consultants who advised her about how to set up her partnership with co-founder Stephanie Peterson, who recently cut back on her role to care for her family's newest addition.

These days, Salt Lake City-based TodaysMama employs 15 part- and full-time contractors, all of whom are home-based. That leaves the very driven and caffeine-free Herrscher balancing a career she's passionate about with a family she's even more passionate about.

GK: No coffee? How do you keep your energy level up? Are you always "on"?
RH: I take care of myself. Yoga keeps the blood flowing. I take vitamins. I go for massages.

GK: What were your expectations when you launched Utah's Mama Handbook?
RH: I figured we'd pay off my husband's students loans, and there you go. But within months, we had people calling us all around the country who had seen the book. Other moms wanted to do it.

GK: How did you manage growth?
RH: You're on a lot of adrenaline. The two things I'm obsessed about in life is my family and this business. I've had to make concessions--my house is a mess.

GK: How did you even know how to get a business off of the ground?
RH: The key is just starting. The how looks so complicated until you start. We have had to learn as we go. If you start and put the balls in motion, the right people start to show up in your path. Every step of the way we've found amazing people to work with us. Our motto used to be, "We're the queens of winging it."

GK: How many hours do you work, and how do you balance it with having young kids?
RH: I work 40 to 60 hours. Some days I'm 100 percent about the kids. Then there are what I call "business suit days," where I focus to get work done. I'm lucky in the sense that my husband has his own business, so we work our schedules around each other. My kids are also good sleepers.

GK: What's the best part of running small business?
RH: This might sound hokey, but I'm obsessed about my family and business. I feel the same way about my business as I do with my kids. You take something that didn't exist before, raise is, refine it, and let it move around in the world and affect people. It's so creative, a total rush and learning experience. It takes on a life of its own, and you're along for the ride.

GK: What's the toughest part about running a small business?
RH: Building to be strong enough to endure whatever comes your way, to prepare your business for the world. Having the foresight to look ahead, but also to be reactive so that when something comes your way, you can be flexible enough to handle it. That gets harder as you get bigger. Small businesses are more agile.

GK: How would you describe your management style?
RH: I'm very much a delegator. I believe that the people I hire are incredible, and I have a lot of trust in them. I'm very open to everyone's input, feedback and ideas. Our collective IQ is a whole lot higher than mine. There's also something to be said for being young in business. With more of your career behind you, you feel like you have to be more polished, where we have more flexibility. You have to have a sense of humor about yourself.

GK: What do you do when you feel "off"?
RH: On days I feel overwhelmed, I step back and reorganize. I don't believe you have to push through resistance. It's there to move you in another direction, to tell you something is off, and you have to listen to it. So much of business is about a gut feeling.

GK: What tech tools do you rely on?
RH: Open source, instant messaging like iChat, Skype. I use 37signal.com's BaseCamp to set up projects and coordinate communications, documents and things like that. I also use Google.

GK: Who inspires you?
RH: Meg Whitman [eBay's former CEO]. I met her a few weeks ago at a lunch in Utah. She's been one of those sole women in the tech world who shines for her management style. She was down-to-earth and said to me: "Oh, you young ones. When I started in business, there were few mentors for us. I'm always happy to talk to people like you and to help." She was very real.

GK: What surprised you about running a small business?
RH: Things are easier than I thought--doing your own PR, for example. You have to jump in and start doing it. Once you do, it's not as hard as you thought.

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