Latest / The Mami Collective / How a Dinner for 20 Moms Became My Smartest Business Move
Transcript
- Paulina: If you're a mom who needs just one night that's all about you, I need you at Mommy Name Easy, the Mommy Collective Summit on October 1st at the Mayfield in Chicago. We're talking incredible food and drinks, local vendors, live music, amazing raffles, inspiring conversations, and our signature panel featuring moms who are building careers, businesses, and lives they love. Plus, I'm excited to announce that Anna Belleval will be joining us as our surprise guest for a live conversation and audience Q<unk>A. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one. Grab your tickets now at theMommy Collective.com. I'll see you there. Welcome to the Mommy Collective. I'm Paulina Rowe, radio host, TV contributor, writer, and mom of one. This is where ambitious moms come to keep their identity intact while navigating motherhood. Here we talk about the real stuff: career, money, relationships, identity, and Everything that gets messy in between. You won't find sugarcoating or cliches. What you will find are unfiltered conversations, real resources, and proof that you don't have to lose yourself to be a good mom. The mommy collective is here to remind you you can be ambitious, you can take up space, and you can thrive in motherhood and in everything else that makes you you. Before we get into the episode, make sure you're following the mommy collective on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. And share this podcast with a mommy in your life who needs a little Inspiration or just a reminder that she's killing it. Also, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter and leave us a review so we can keep showing up and reach every ambitious mom out there doing big things. Let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of the Mommy Collective podcast. It's Paulina here. And listen, if you're new here, I am a radio personality here in Chicago, and I am also a mom of one. And a business owner of both the Mommy Collective and Same Bronze Spray Tan Boutique. And if you are an oldie but a goodie, welcome back. If you are new here, I love that you found us. So, really quick, I just wanted to talk about something today because I wanted to dive in more of the personal side of the business. And I wanted to make sure that I kind of gave you guys a little bit of a peek behind the curtain. I feel like I don't really do as much of that as I would like. So I'm gonna kinda start doing that. And I always take requests. Sound like a DJ, but I do take requests if you have things you want me to talk about or discuss. I'm more than happy to. And I want to talk about how I turned a dinner series for 20 moms into a very strategic business strategy. Okay. So a dinner for 20 moms may not sound like this big major business move. And Let's be honest, right? There were no thousands of attendees and no massive ballroom, blah, blah, blah, right? No crazy productions, just literally 20 women sitting at a table and they're eating dinner and having an honest conversation about business, motherhood, their careers, maybe they're pivoting, everything that we're trying to build, right? And I do these dinners every other month. So there's six of them that I do per year. And the thing that I've noticed is that this dinner has become one of the best and like smartest things I've done for the Mommy Collective, right? Because at the end of the day, it was really never just about a dinner, even though Red Barrel has bomb ass food and amazing ass food. So definitely go check it out. But it was more about market research, right? This all became content, market research, building community. And then of course it became a way to sort of develop relationships with brands, which a lot of you asked me about as well. And it most importantly became proof of concept. For something much, much, much, much bigger, right? So today I want to kind of break down how this happened. Cause I do think that there's a lesson here for anybody building a business, a brand, or a community, even events. Sometimes I've noticed that the smartest move isn't really figuring out how to reach more people. It's about creating a better experience for the people that are already literally in the room. So let's dive into it. So why did I create the dinner series, right? When I started the Mommy Collective, I knew that I wanted it to be more. Than just my podcast here and kind of more than Instagram, right? And of course we have our summit every year, and that's the big bang. That's the big event that we're doing. And I wanted this to also feel like a real community though. So what do we do throughout the year when we're not in summit mode, right? And there are already plenty of places online where moms can consume content. That is not new to me, that is not lost upon me. I understand that. So we can scroll, scroll, scroll through the parenting advice, business tips, all the quotes. And I love them too, so don't get me wrong. But I felt like something was missing. And that's why I wanted to create an actual space where ambitious women and moms could have the conversations that maybe we don't really get to have in our everyday busy ass lives, right? So conversations about money, growing your business, right? Going after a promotion at work, right? So like becoming a mother and then of course still wanting more for yourself is of course a big theme in the mommy collective community. So I just wanted us to create a space for these moms to kind of do that, right? So loving your family so much without pretending that motherhood really has fulfilled every single part of you. And I wanted these conversations to happen specifically in person. And that's where the mommy plug dinner series came from. And my idea was very simple. It was to bring a group of women together, introduce them to somebody with valuable knowledge of or even access, right? Create the kind of room where they could actually connect. So a lot of connecting going on in this room. So I didn't want it to be another networking event per se where you collect 30, 40 business cards, stuff like that. I kind of wanted it to be more than that. I didn't want another panel where the audience would listen for an hour and then leave necessarily, right? I wanted it to be much, much, much more meaningful. So for me, I wanted dinner, a real conversation, and then a room where people would ask honest questions and then of course leave. Knowing that someone didn't and then asking the honest questions and then meeting someone that they didn't know before, right? So why 20 people were a part of the strategy? So keeping the dinner to approximately 20 women and moms felt really small to me. I'm not gonna lie. So when you're building something right, small can really mess with your head if you're being honest, because you're like, what's the point of this? 20 people, okay. But we've been trained to think that bigger automatically means better. Like we just have. So more followers, more attendees, more views, more everything. And there can be this pressure to make every event look huge. So people believe that your business is growing, right? And I get it. I completely get that. 20 people became a part of my strategy, though. That's the thing. With 20 women, everybody can participate. Everybody. And people aren't just watching the conversation. They're like truly a part of it. So when you come in, you can really ask specific questions. You can tell us all the things that you're working on, because this floor is yours. You get to talk that you can share things you're struggling with, right? You meet the person sitting across from you and then you actually remember their name the next day. So that's the cool part. And I think this intimacy creates something a crowd of 200 people might not always do, right? And our summit is 200 people, yes, but this is something different. And then trust is the real currency of community, right? So I'd rather have 20 women that lead this event feeling seen, supported, connected, right? Rather than having 200 people every other month at this dinner without speaking to anybody. So the goal wasn't to make the dinner look impressive, but it was to make it really valuable. My next one is the dinner became market research. So important. So important as a business owner. One of the most valuable parts of these dinners is that I get to listen. When 20 moms sit around a table and they start talking honestly, you really learn quickly what they actually need, right? So not an Instagram poll, even though I've done those before, but they need more than that, right? Not what another founder tells you women want, not what you assume they need behind your laptop. It's so easy to assume that moms need this or this, right? So you hear the exact language that they're using. You hear the questions they're almost embarrassed to ask. And then you hear what's really keeping them stuck. And then you hear what they're also investing in, what they're avoiding, what they're frustrated by. And then, of course, the kind of support that they can't really seem to find anywhere else. And I think that information is so invaluable. So, so invaluable. So it helps me decide what topics we should cover on this podcast. It shapes the newsletter itself. It helps me think about future events and speakers and partnerships, resources, and even how we talk about the mommy collective. So the women at those dinners are constantly showing me what the community needs. And that doesn't mean I'm sitting at the table with a clipboard though and treating it like A focus group, but just know that I'm paying attention. I am so locked in and paying attention. As founders, we sometimes spend a little too much time trying to come up with the next brilliant idea, right? That we forget to listen to the people that we're supposedly building for. I mean, let's be real. So your audience will usually tell you what they need and you need to listen. So just create that environment where people feel comfortable telling you the truth and you'll be able to hear exactly. what they're missing and what they're looking for. Next is that one dinner created an entire content ecosystem, right? So this dinner really also became content, all the dinners, right? Not in a forced like every moment must become a real kind of way. Like that's not what I mean. I'm talking about a meaningful conversation that could become an episode, right? A podcast episode or topic. A question from an attendee could inspire a whole newsletter, especially a dear mommy, right? A lesson from the speaker could become a social media post. You know, I love doing that. Little tip. I record my fireside chat with my guest. And then what I do is I take that transcript and I make content out of it. So I put it into a AI tool. I forgot which one, but it produces a transcript. And then I take that and I make like a carousel out of it. So it's really, really cool. And I do highly recommend doing that. So the photos and the videos too could also show people what mommy collective actually feels like and they have a kind of behind the scenes look. The follow-up conversations could lead to collaborations, guest interviews, introductions, future programming, right? So one dinner wasn't only one event, but it was feeding the entire ecosystem of my brand. So that has been a major lesson for me. You don't always need to keep creating completely separate ideas for every single platform. So you can create one meaningful experience and then you have it live in multiple ways. So the podcast tells the deeper story, right? The newsletter really continues the conversation. Of course, social media, Instagram, TikTok shows us the energy in the room. And then future events build on what we learned. So everything really does connect. And when everything connects, the brand feels more intentional because it was more intentional. You see how that works. Next is that it created a very natural opportunity for brand partners. This is a big question I get asked a lot about. How do I get sponsors or partners and all of that? And I'm gonna spill it right now. The dinner series gave us a natural way to work with these sponsors, right? Brands aren't only looking to get into the largest possible audience, even though we think they do. The right brands are always looking for the right audience. And then, of course, a meaningful way to actually connect with these people. So a room filled with 20 engaged, ambitious moms and women that is incredibly valuable for brands and for sponsors. And these women are business owners, professionals, creators, decision makers, and of course they're consumers. So they're building careers, businesses, making major decisions for their families, their households. Like there's nobody better than this room. So the brand can't simply put its logo in the room and expect people to care. It's deeper than that. So the partnership has to add something to the experience. Can the sponsor introduce the women to a valuable resource? Can they provide knowledge that helps somebody make a better business or financial decision? Can they solve a real problem for the people at the table? These are the things we think about. So that's a difference between a logo placement and then of course an actual partnership. And the dinner gives brands an opportunity to like build trust through proximity and then conversation and value. So I think it really just kind of comes together very nicely. It gives the mommy collective too another way to create high quality programming without losing the intimacy that makes the event so special too. The dinner also built trust. My next one. Community is a word people use very loosely right now. We know that, we see it all the time. But a following does not automatically mean a community. And I had to learn that the hard way. And I'm gonna admit that. A group of people attending one event is not automatically a community, right? Community is built when people trust. That showing up is gonna be worth their time, especially moms. So that matters even more when your audience is made up of moms. We do not have free evenings that are just unlimited and we're just out here having a great time. Like we're having a wonderful time. That is correct, but we do not have the time to just be out here. So showing up requires childcare, transportation, rearranging your schedule, possibly leaving work early. I've seen that. Sometimes pushing through the guilt, right, that comes along with doing something for yourself. And I know a lot of you guys can relate to that one, the guilt, right? You're like, well, I should probably be with my kids tonight. Like, yes, the guilt. So if a mother gives the mommy collective one of her evenings, I take that very seriously. This dinner needs to feel worth it and worth the effort that it took her to get here. Okay. Every detail communicates something, every thoughtful detail. It says we considered your time. We care about what you're doing, what you're building. We want you to leave with something useful. We want you to meet people that you can genuinely work with, that can help you. So that consistency is what builds trust. And once people trust the experience, guess what? They come back. They bring somebody with them, which I love when you guys do that. They open the newsletter, listen to the podcast, attend the summit. They recommend this community when another mom says that she feels like she needs something that belongs to literally just her. And that's the kind of trust that you cannot manufacture through marketing. It really truly, and I mean this, it has to be earned. And my next one that I have for you is drumroll. It became proof of concept. These dinners also became proof that the mommy collective could exist beyond the internet, right? People were like literally willing to leave their homes and gather with us around the table. They wanted conversations, they wanted to meet other ambitious moms. People want access to speakers, resources, brands, opportunities that really could help them move forward. So this gave me proof of concept for the bigger vision, which obviously is our Mommy Collective Summit. So before asking over 150, 200 women to enter this big room in October, I learn from these 20 women around a smaller table. So what conversations resonate, what makes somebody feel welcome? What creates connection? What do attendees remember afterward? What makes them want to return? The dinners allow us to test, listen, learn, and of course improve. So they also show potential sponsors. This is a real engaged community and not simply an audience number like on the media kit. So they show attendees what they can expect from us. And honestly, this reminds me why I'm building it in the first place. And my bigger lesson here is the business lesson. So the larger business lesson for me is to stop underestimating the power of a small, well designed experience. And I say that to you as well with love, right? Because not every idea has to reach thousands of people. Be valuable. And that's just the truth. A dinner for 20 people can help you understand your customer. It can help you test an idea, generate months of content, create brand partnerships, relationships. It can turn followers into actual community members. It can lead to referrals, collabs, partnerships, bigger opportunities, and it can show what your business should become next. So small does not mean insignificant. Sometimes it means, you know, focus, premium. Sometimes it's exactly what people need to feel seen. And sometimes that room is where we gather and everything you need to build is in that room. So what founders and what you guys can take away from this is that if you're building something right now, I want you to ask yourself a couple of questions, right? Or start with this one. What is the smaller, more intentional experience that I could create for my audience? Right. Maybe it's a dinner like me. Maybe it's a workshop. Maybe it's a monthly call with like 10 customers. Maybe it's a private event, a listening session, a small community meetup. You don't need to wait until you have a huge platform, a huge budget, or thousands of customers. I want you to start with the people that are already paying attention. Invite them into the process. Okay. Listen closely to them. Give them an experience worth talking about. Okay. Then use what you learn to make the next thing just even better. So what began at the 20? Mom dinner became one of the clearest expressions of what mommy collective is truly supposed to be. So it's not just content, it's not events, it's not networking. It's creating rooms where ambitious moms feel seen, supported, connected to the people, opportunities, right? That can really help them enter their next chapter. So the dinner might be small, but the vision behind it was never small. And that's what I want you to remember, right? You don't always need a bigger audience. Sometimes you need to create something. A little better, a better experience for the people that are already in this room with you. So if you want to be in the room with us, make sure you're following the Mommy Collective on Instagram. Subscribe to our newsletter. We have our next dinner coming up. We have two left this year. If you're listening to this, I'm recording it in the summer of 2026. And you know, more to come, of course, for 2027 as well. But I cannot wait to see you guys there. We are going to also have our summit, the bigger, the bigger shebang. That's going to be October first. I want to see you in the building as well. And as always, I love you, love you, love you for listening. And please reach out to me anytime. I love you, mean it. Thanks for listening.