Mother-Daughter Teams Work Well Together

Sheron Harp and Cammie Harp Scott hadn’t planned on working as a mother-daughter team, but then, everyone’s heard about what happens to best-laid plans. Life often intervenes.

And that sometimes works out better than the original plans.

At least, that’s the way these women look at the situation.

“It’s turned out to be a blessing,” Harp says.

Harp and Scott work together from their Springdale office selling supplemental insurance to customers. Harp, who’s been in the business for about 16 years, is district sales coordinator for AFLAC while her daughter is an agent.

Scott, who recently married, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Arkansas. While studying for her undergraduate degree, Scott got her insurance license.

“I never intended to sell insurance on a full-time basis. I was going to be an engineer,” Scott says.

But just before finishing her master’s degree, Scott was diagnosed with cancer.

Scott recalls taking her final exams early so she could undergo surgery and recover over the Christmas holidays that year. “I was always a little bit of an overachiever,” she laughs.

But doctors told Scott she’d have to undergo radiation treatment. That sapped Scott’s energy.

“I was very tired,” Scott says. “I decided to go to work for Mama for awhile [thinking that] I could take breaks when I needed to. I already had my insurance license and I thought I’ll do this about a year.”

Six months later, Scott was hooked on the insurance business. “It’s very different from engineering [but there’s] a lot more freedom with this business.”

Now, nearly three years later, Scott thinks she’ll stick with insurance.

“I don’t know that I’ll do anything else,” she says. “I don’t see myself changing professions.”

Harp is happy to work with her daughter and believes their skills complement each other.

“It’s just a lot of fun to work with your daughter,” she says. “She’s young and her experiences are in different areas than mine. … I have more experience but she has more computer capabilities.”

Harp believes her daughter’s engineering training has been helpful since that gave her expertise in problem-solving. “It’s been a real blessing to us.”

Another mother-daughter team who work together are Barbara Roberts and her daughter, Kelli.

Kelli Roberts has been working with her mother in the financial securities business since moving back to Northwest Arkansas about four years ago. She’s currently working just part-time because of her own daughter, who’s a toddler.

But her mother, Barbara, “is being very patient with me. It does make [work] more flexible, but I still have all my workload to get done.”

The Robertses work for Prudential from their Rogers office.

“I think it’s been a real positive experience,” Kelli Roberts says. “You have to have an aptitude for this kind of work, and it’s been a real good fit for a lot of my skills.”

Kelli Roberts worked at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and for the Washington [State] Commission for the Humanities. It was her husband, who was studying for his architecture degree, who prompted the move back to Arkansas. “He really loves the area,” Kelli Roberts says.

While considering the move, she and her mother began talking about the prospects of working together. “She thought it would be a great time [to expand] and she was to the point of really needing somebody else [in the business.]”

Like Harp and Scott, the Robertses believe they complement each other.

“We’ve learned a lot from each other,” Kelli Roberts says. “Our strengths are a little bit different.”