Bottles, Bibs & Pumps Expo: The Vonna Matthews DMN Interview

Bottles expo cover

It’s a lifestyle goal that many women with children can find intimidating and unattainable: the successful, self-motivated and business-savvy working mom. Whether she’s juggling part-time jobs, moving up the ladder in corporate America or working the hustle from home, some wonder if their knowledge is up to par or feel that they have limited connections and experience to develop their start-ups to perform profitably at the next level.

Those common concerns and much more will be topics of discussion at Dallas’ first annual Bottles, Bibs & Pumps Conference & Expo, an event created to unite working mothers at interactive workshops to teach brand development, explore multiple avenues of social media branding, economic support and networking opportunities.

“I wanted to create a Dallas-based community that would become an asset to ‘mompreneurs,'” Vonna Matthews recently stated by phone. The event coordinator and marketing strategist believes that the career and motherhood struggle can become a more manageable one with the right resources and partnerships.

“Getting that extra industry knowledge, networking, maintaining a business while maintaining sanity—- those are unique challenges,” she says, “It’s for mothers of all ages who have a business, want to connect with other ‘mompreneurs’ or women with ideas that want to get updated on current trends before the business launches.

It’s important to build a network outside of the one you’ve grown comfortable with and for mothers to connect with one another, especially those who work from home, because others may not understand what it’s like to make a conference call with an 18-month-old in the same room, or to wonder if you’ve spent enough time reading to them when you’ve got a presentation due that you’re working on.”

In addition to topics like growth strategy and savvy social media branding, there will be a runway show, fashion advice and ideas from businesswomen across the globe, including those working in underdeveloped countries. Matthews believes that women’s abilities as multi-taskers can accentuate, as well as undermine, their career paths.

“We multi-task better, but we also have concerns and obligations toward family and children that men don’t have, as well as higher ‘guilt levels,’ and we can find ourselves not devoting the proper time to our businesses because of that aspect,” Matthews says. “Being a mother shouldn’t hold you back—in fact, it should inspire you because nothing is wrong with having dreams and passions away from the kids.”

Mompreneurship, marketing trends and skill polishing aside, what Matthews hopes to foster most of all is a group of locally-based women from multiple backgrounds and demographics who develop lasting personal relationships and meet regularly as a stabilizing force to one another while nurturing their own families, organizations and businesses.

“One of the biggest obstacles in becoming successful are women saying to themselves, ‘I don’t have the resources, I don’t know the right people, I don’t know if I have the time,” she said. “I want women to feel inspired and to believe that they can get their pursuits to the next level. We cannot get too comfortable in our already-established networks and we can’t grow successful businesses by ourselves. You may not have an in-house team of associates working under you at the very beginning, but you do need to have a team.”

The Bottles, Bibs & Pumps Conference meets on March 22nd from am to 3pm, $25-$60. Aloft Hotel, 1033 Young Street. Get more info at bottlesbibsandpumps.com

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