Pennington Perspective is a leading consultancy founded by Alisha and Maurice Pennington in 2020. The company was established in order to fill a gap in the market in terms of the services available to entrepreneurs and corporations who are looking to start, scale and shift businesses. With various mentorship courses that offer step-by-step instructions for small business owners, Pennington Perspective was designed to support the foundation (legal and logistical) of businesses, to optimize workflow and departmental development, help companies upsell and downsell offerings, identify new revenue streams, and nurture employee leadership—all with the common goal of scaling business ideas, models and structures. At Pennington Perspective, Alisha is the visionary and Maurice is the integrator. Together, they are committed to helping business owners build a cracks-free foundation, allowing talent to shine while Pennington Perspective takes care of taxes, contracts…essentially, the “not so sexy” stuff, to then have their clients achieve the “oh so sexy” results, as Alisha puts it. With over a decade of experience, they bring a whole new perspective to starting and scaling small businesses for new or established entrepreneurs, and corporations. Today, Pennington Perspective is a thriving business, respected and recognized as a leading consultancy; as featured on Forbes and Entrepreneur. However, beyond their massive industry impact, Alisha and Maurice sat down with us in an exclusive interview to share how being entrepreneurs is the most valuable thing that one can be, at the personal and family level.
Alisha and Maurice are living proof that being your own boss can free you up to pursue both a sustainable career and a fulfilling life—in other words, the perfectly balanced lifestyle every person hopes to achieve. Along the way of their decade long journey, they have had to learn how to balance being both, successful entrepreneurs and parents. They have two children, Tatum who is almost 3, and Sloan who was just born in March. Alisha and Maurice make an incredible team, when building a business and building a family. They share that this is not only their experience, but the experience Pennington Perspective advocates for with their services. Pennington Perspective funds a life of success and sustainability, one of freedom and flexibility; so that their clients are able to work on their craft, while living a life of balance and fulfillment; for example, in parenthood. To get a deeper understanding of what goes into being both an entrepreneur and a parent, we had to ask the experts themselves.
How do you balance being a mom and an entrepreneur?
Balance is elusive. Oftentimes, one aspect calls upon me and the other has to be momentarily sat down. On a day to day basis, I balance it with help; a supportive husband and business partner as well as mothers who are close by and take the kid(s) on a regular basis, and a supportive group of friends who are ready to step in with encouraging words or a play date, as needed. On the business side, I manage expectations with clients and set up systems to work on my behalf. Clients know they may not always get a response from me (the owner) but also that our entire team is armed with the information they need.
Is it hard to work around your child’s schedule? How do you do that?
As a family, we decide in any given season what the priority is. Sometimes the priority is keeping a routine for the child, and so we as parents have to sacrifice what we want to do. Other times, we have to prioritize business and so the routine of the child may be interrupted. My husband and I both work full time from home, so we have a lot of flexibility in what our daily schedule looks like. For the most part, both of us are available to do pick ups and drop offs, relying on our moms to step in and assist, as needed. We’re mostly able to get done what we need in a day since our kid(s) are out of the house.
Run me through a typical day in your life.
Since we just had a newborn (March 19), this looks a little different. I usually wake up about 6am to get myself ready or tend to the newborn. My toddler (3 in June) is up around 7-715am daily. I am mostly responsible for getting her ready and to school (dad helps, where needed). Before the newborn, I would stop at Barre class twice a week in the mornings after drop off, otherwise I come back home, make myself an Earl Grey Tea Latte and get to work. I am an early bird, so most of the focused work happens before 12pm. We run two businesses, so each day is focused on something a little different, but mostly all administrative. I work straight until about 2pm, only stopping to eat, but by mid afternoon, I need a change of scenery. I will either switch to working outside or in the living room or go for a walk or stop working altogether. By 5pm our toddler is being dropped off, so I prepare dinner, and we just hang out together as a family until about 7pm. Dad does the night time routine and she is usually down by 8-830pm. Before we had a newborn, we used to watch a show together, and I would be in bed/asleep by 9-930pm.
How do you manage maternity leave if you make the rules?
I do make the rules! And it looks very different from most. I prefer to keep a few elements of work while on leave; in an effort to maintain my own sanity, I need to be challenged intellectually and have something to look forward to (beyond childcare). My work, career, and profession are a large part of my identity, so even as a postpartum mom, I still need to hold onto those aspects. The work I have kept during this leave is mostly curriculum review, asynchronous client correspondence, and writing (blogs, emails, etc). I actually even took a local speaking engagement that had me on stage at 32 days postpartum!
Do you work from home, half and half or fully at an office?
Full time, from home, for myself.
Do you think your husband gets less scrutiny for being a parent and an entrepreneur than you do?
I personally don’t feel either of us receives much scrutiny. We’re quite transparent about the role that parenting and business ownership play in our lives, our clients never feel like they’re unaware of what’s going on, and any potential clients would be attracted to us for this balance. Neither of us has really been questioned or scrutinized for playing both roles in our lives and businesses. — all this to say, it’s less that he doesn’t get scrutinized and more so that I don’t.
How do you best optimize time and resources so that you can still allocate family time?
There are a few things we do to keep it all going:
- Schedule everything in a shared family Google calendar. This ensures we never miss an appointment and we can respect what each family member has going on
- Plan ahead: anything we want to get done (cars detailed, haircut, workout, date night, etc.) all gets planned well in advance — and then gets put in the shared calendar
- Communication: within our marriage and within our businesses, we make sure everyone knows the expectations. If we need time off for family reasons, we can take it. If we need time away from the kids for marriage reasons, we take it. And if we need to be away from the kids for business reasons, we take it.
