Jenn Donovan of Social Media & Marketing Australia has been named as a finalist for the 2020 AusMumpreneur Awards in the Women Will Change the World Award, People’s Choice – Making a Difference (Business) Award and Regional Business Award categories.

The AusMumpreneur Awards presented by The Women’s Business School celebrate and recognize Australian Mums in business achieving outstanding success in areas such as business excellence, product development, customer service and digital innovation. The awards are designed to recognize the growing number of women who successfully balance motherhood and business in a way that suits their life and family.

Jenn Donovan lives on a farm, just outside a beautiful country town on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. Her social media and marketing business supports regional and rural organisations to leverage digital mediums to attract and engage their target audiences. Through workshops, webinars, Women in Business Networking, Masterminds, coaching and mentoring, she’ll point out the pitfalls, simplify the algorithms, motivate the messengers and, importantly, get results. Want proof?

Before Christmas, Jenn wanted to see more rural businesses succeed during a long drought, so she launched Buy from a Bush Business. Today, over a quarter of a million Australians (enough for a small city) use that Facebook group and it’s since evolved into an online marketplace place through collaboration with Spend With Us (www.spendwithus.com.au)

Jenn has built a name as the go-to for country retail, service and member organisations for modern digital marketing strategies.

When asked – What inspired you to start your business, Jenn said “I saw the success that making marketing a priority, getting outside your comfort zone and embracing marketing and social media had on my business, in retail and in law, so I wanted to share that knowledge with as many small rural business owners as I could.  So, I learnt to public speak at age 40 (prior to that I was SO scared of public speaking) and started a marketing and social media business.  Travelling far and wide hosting workshops and doing mentoring and coaching for small rural businesses in Victoria and NSW”.

Jenn is delighted to be named as a finalist  in all the categories and is proud of her achievements, particularly starting a Facebook group, Buy From a Bush Business, on a whim to help my clients and friends, back in October 2019 only to find it go completely viral in a very short space of time and membership currently sits at around 269,000 people. 

But the number isn’t the achievement, for Jenn, the achievement is that, that group is helping 1000’s of rural and regional drought, flood, bushfire and now Covid19 suffering small businesses that would be in a worse position financially and emotionally without this group to help with sales, community and friendship.  The group is now a newly launched marketplace Spend With Us, Buy From a Bush Business – www.spendwithus.com.au – helping more Australia rural and regional businesses.

There are many benefits to balancing business and motherhood as Jenn explains, “All my working life, since becoming a mum, my most significant goal has to be to show my boys (I have 2) what strong women look like and show my daughter that anything is possible.  I love that I am achieving that. 

As much as I want to change the world, one small business owner at a time, it’s my children I am really trying to inspire”.

It can be challenging to be a successful businesswoman whilst raising a family and Jenn gives this advice for others thinking about starting their own enterprise. ”Ready. Fire. Aim.  The world doesn’t need another person “aiming” to do something.  The world needs more action takers. 

So, don’t aim to get your business started, just FIRE.  Just start and work it out as you are going.  You don’t know what you don’t know – so put it out to the market, invest in yourself and let the market tell you if your business is a success or not.

And network.  Network like there’s no tomorrow!  Your network WILL equal your net worth”.

Read more at www.ausmumpreneur.com. The winners of the 2020 AusMumpreneur Awards will be announced at an online event in September.

For more information on the AusMumpreneur Awards visit: www.ausmumpreneur.com or contact awards@ausmumpreneur.com

For an interview with Jenn Donovan contact 0428 32 4149, www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au or email -jenn@jenndonovan.com.au