Home at last
Wendy Kaufman reflected recently on springtime in the world of corporate training and work-life balance: “It”™s like tax time for corporate training.”
Yet, the busy founder of Balancing Life”™s Issues Inc. in Ossining still made time to relocate her entire business operation into a historic home ”“ now company headquarters ”“ on Croton Avenue.
“It”™s not the ideal time to have done it (relocate) but it is what it is,” Kaufman said as she surveyed a stack of boxes on just-gutted floors.
Like this mission of her company, which she founded nearly 20 years ago, Kaufman too realized the need to find work-life balance.
“I think it will give me the privacy that every business person needs and I think there”™s just something about being able to close a door,” she said of her move away from the Ossining home office Balancing Life”™s Issues inhabited. “But I think the other thing that”™s important is that it”™s a dream. If you”™re a business owner, you have to set your milestones. You have to have your dream.”
As a small business owner, it”™s important to know your finances before taking up a commercial space, Kaufman said.
“I run my company losses every morning,” she said. “They”™re in my face. I know them. It”™s like getting on a scale. I think some of the mentors I”™ve had have drummed that into me. People in small business talk revenues. But if you”™re spending more than your revenue, that number means nothing.”
In gutting, renovating and redesigning the three-story, circa-1890s home, Kaufman said that “some of the stuff we picked up was from people going out of business.”
She estimated that the total relocation and renovation costs were more than $50,000.
Kaufman began Balancing Life”™s Issues with 20 corporate trainers on her staff.
The number has grown to 524 nationwide.
E-learning services were a training method Kaufman employed 12 years ago and today, it comprises some “70 percent of our business.”
“Having said that, it”™s interesting because we have a mix, and technology is more complicated in that way because it”™s not just webinars today,” she said. “There are tons of different technology that companies have.”
The majority of Kaufman”™s business stems from corporate training work and nonprofit clients; she has a set goal to do more small business training projects.
“I think sometimes small businesses underestimate how important their employees are,” she said. “It”™s actually more devastating if you have an employee leave at a small business than, in some ways, a big business.”
In fostering work-life balance within her own small business, Kaufman said that each of her corporate trainers “has a connection to the story that they”™re telling. So, for instance, if you”™re doing a parenting seminar, you have children. There”™s a direct relationship.