Stay-at-home mom, six-figure salary

Posted at June 23, 2009

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julie_trade.03 When job openings are few and far between, some are finding the best road to employment is starting their own business.

Julie Trade became her own boss after her husband was laid off in 2007. With a background in marketing, the former stay-at-home mom, 40, launched her own marketing communications business from a spare bedroom in Scottsdale, Ariz., drafting advertising and press materials for her clients.

Since her husband struggled for nearly a year to find another full-time job and they had a young baby, “I figured the best solution was to work from home.”

“I thought I’d get a couple of clients to make ends meet while he was looking for work,” she said. “But what happened was my business kind of went crazy.”

Trade got up to speed on email and IM and learned about new marketing techniques, such as search engine optimization.

“I started to think about ways I could offer a variety of services, learn new technologies,” she said. “I found ways to make myself appear larger than just a stay-at-home mom in a back bedroom.”

Soon she was writing press releases and ads for established companies including British Telecom and Argent Software. “Companies that I never thought in a million years would need my services suddenly did. I was a cost effective source,” she explained.

Trade estimates that she now makes twice what she did when she was working full-time before having children.

cnn.com