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Clever Giving

October 28, 2010 By 1 Comment
A clever way to choose who to donate to

A clever way to choose who to donate to

Back in August, I did a post about choosing a charity for your business to support.

Yesterday I was looking at the Mm is for Me website and spotted something very clever.

If you’re not familiar with this business, Ashleigh has a great range of products based on the alphabet. If you have children, check them out, their t-shirts and other products are stunning.

Anyway, the page I was looking at is their Cushions and Quilts page, if you scroll down, you will see what caught my eye. Ashleigh has chosen to support some wildlife conservation projects, and has matched letters with the animals. If you look closely at the letters and their designs, you will see she has “W is for Wombat”, “P is for Platypus” and “N is for Numbat” designs, and these fit with the projects she has picked.

I thought this was a very clever way of choosing a charity to support.

Have you chosen a charity for your business to support? How did you choose that charity?

Filed Under: Business Mum, General, Growing your business

Saying “not yet”

October 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Sometimes you're just not ready

Sometimes you're just not ready

Most people seem to think the answer to an offer of help or an opportunity is either “yes” or “no”. Sometimes the answer is “not yet”. This is something I have learned the hard way!

There are so many great ideas and opportunities that can apply to your business, and it is tempting to say yes to everything. The problem with doing this is that it can leave you too busy, short on cash to pay for everything, overwhelmed, and generally not doing great things for yourself, your family or your business.

This is where you need to know where you are going with your business. For example, you hand make bibs for baby and an opportunity comes up to do a market in 2 days time, however you only have 5 bibs made up and enough material on hand to make another 10 bibs. You could either scramble to make stock for the market, or you could say “Not Yet” and book in to a market the following month to give you time to get your stock levels up. In this example, scrambling to make up enough stock in a matter of days can be stressful, leave you with sleepless nights up sewing and time away from your family while you are desperately finishing your stock. It can also reduce the quality of your product because you are rushing to get everything finished.

This may sound like an extreme example, however it is a scenario I have heard about.

Not everything needs to be done right away, and you and your business may not be ready right now. If you have a plan in place of how you are going to do things, you will have a better idea of which opportunities to take up, which ones to say no to, and which ones to say “not yet” to.

It is not a weakness on your part to say “not yet”, and can, in fact, count in your favour, especially if you are really not ready to do something.

When have you said “not yet” to an opportunity and have it pay off in the long run? Share your stories by adding a comment.

Filed Under: Business Mum, Customer Service, General, Growing your business, Looking after YOU

Do you write reports?

October 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Do you write reports?

Do you write reports?

When we were kids, we would get reports from school, letting up know how we were going with our school work. In our business, reports are a great way to help us know how we are going, what is working, what is making money, and giving some ideas on how we can do things differently and improve for next time.

I have just started writing reports on the events I’m doing in my business. The information I’m including is about money, what comes in and what goes out, the number of people attended, how many are already on my database and how many signed up on the day, any product sold (if applicable) and things I would do next time to make things better.

To do this while it was still fresh, I sat down the next day over a coffee and wrote it all out. I then typed it up and sent it to my business coach. The aim behind sharing it is my business coach can keep me accountable for how things are going and can suggest things on any of the issues faced. It is also something we can review in our next coaching session.

If you don’t have a business coach, find someone else you trust to keep you accountable for your activities by sharing your reports. You can do the same for them. Even if you don’t share them, it is a worthwhile exercise, especially if you file them and then look back at them after time. You can see how your activities are helping your business to grow.

Do you write reports for different activities you do in your business? If so, what activities do you report on?

Filed Under: Finances, General, Growing your business, Organisation, Planning

What are we teaching our customers?

September 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
What are you teaching your customers?

What are you teaching your customers?

This is a question I have been pondering for a few weeks – what is it we are teaching our customers about our business and about how to do business with us?

A while ago, I posted about sales and last week I posted about being too cheap. This post is along those lines.

So, what are you teaching your customers?

Are you teaching them to always keep a look out for sales or bargains? Are you teaching them that you offer a quality product that deserves a premium price? Are you teaching them that you don’t value yourself because you are charging outrageously cheap prices? Are you teaching them that business comes first for you, even before your family?

Have a think about this. Then consider what you want to teach your customers. How do you want to be treated by them. Once you’ve thought about this, think about the way you do business, how your website and marketing materials look, even review the packaging of your products to make sure this all reflects how you want your customers to treat you. Once you’ve done this, start making the necessary changes.

These changes don’t have to be drastic or expensive. They can be as simple as wrapping your products in tissue paper before sending them out, or redesigning your invoices so they include your logo. You may realise that your website doesn’t reflect what you want it to – if that’s the case, investigate options for changing your site completely or even doing some tweaking to get things started.

If you think your website, etc, is sending the right message, review its results, especially your cash flow and bank account. This will quickly tell you if your perception is matching your reality.

So, what is it that we are teaching our customers? Is it what we want them to know?

Filed Under: Customer Service, General, Growing your business, Looking after YOU

Choosing a charity

August 31, 2010 By 3 Comments
Choose the right charity for your business

Choose the right charity for your business

If you’re anything like me, you are constantly asked to give money and donate products for charity fundraisers both for your business and in your family life. There often isn’t enough money in your bank account to give to everyone who is asking, and the same with products.

So, what do you do?

The best thing is to choose a charity or two that are important to you and give to those. Then, next time you’re asked to donate something you can tell them that you have your chosen charity and give to them (it’s amazing how effectively this works).

The next thing is to work out which charity to support. There are so many worthy causes out there it can be hard to know what to choose.

For a business, it can be a good idea to choose something that fits with what you are doing. For example, my chosen charity is Opportunity International because they help people start up small businesses, so it fits with what I’m aiming to do with my business.

I know of some business mums who use their family history as motivation for choosing a charity. For example I know of one business mum who supports Mummy’s Wish because a close friend of hers had cancer and received support from the. And another who supports Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids because her parents had foster kids when she was growing up. These charities don’t necessarily match their business, not in any obvious way anyway.

If your business does support a charity, it’s a good idea to have a page on your site explaining why you chose this charity to support. I have seen some businesses who make a big thing about supporting a charity, however if it’s not a charity I am not passionate in supporting and I can’t see an obvious reason why they are supporting this charity, then it won’t sway me to purchase from them. However if I can see a story behind why they support this charity, it is more likely to sway me.

Some time ago, I bought a gift online. Inside the package along with the item I purchased was a sheet thanking me for buying from them and explaining why they had chosen their charity and how my purchase helped support their cause. Unfortunately I can’t remember which business it was (it was quite a while ago), but their extra bit of information has stuck in my head.

Do you have a charity your business supports? Do you let your customers know about it? Please add a comment and share your story.

Filed Under: Business Mum, Customer Service, General, Growing your business, Promoting your business, Publicity

Friday Five – Inspiration

August 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Inspired by a post over at BusyMum 2010 on inspiration, this weeks Friday Five is some of the things I do when I need inspiration and I’m stuck!

  1. Take a break – if I can, sometimes taking a break from what I’m doing can help the inspiration come. It can be as quick as making a cuppa and coming back to the computer, or it may be taking the weekend off.
  2. Read some blogs – depending on what I need inspiration on, sometimes reading some blogs can help. Sites such as Blog Whammy have great blogs to read.
  3. Music – listening to music can often help too. The sort of music I listen to depends on my mood and what I need inspiration for. Annette talks more about this on her blog.
  4. Watch TV – yes, sometimes watching TV can provide inspiration! Again, it depends on the sort of mood I’m in, what I need inspiration for and what is on TV at the time. For example, last week I did a post inspired by The Collectors, a show on ABC I don’t normally watch, it just happened to be on at the time. You can read the post here.
  5. Kids – as business mums, we have kids. There are times when things our kids say or do can provide inspiration, whether it’s for a blog post, new product or service, or even a business idea! Spend some quality time with your kids and pay attention, you never know when inspiration will strike. Just make sure you have a notebook with you to write down your ideas so you can continue having a great time with your kids.

These are just 5 things that help me, especially with blog posts, but also for other things. What things help you with inspiration, especially at times when you really need it?

Filed Under: Blogging, Friday Five, General, Growing your business, Looking after YOU

Happy 2nd Birthday to my blog…

August 23, 2010 By 1 Comment
2 years and counting...

2 years and counting...

Do you believe it’s been 2 years since I started this blog? OK, so it’s 2 years and 3 days, but who’s counting?

If you’re interested, here’s my first post on this blog.

Over the last 2 years, I’ve tried a lot of different things, different sorts of posts, and different topics.

It looks like we share an anniversary with Be A Fun Mum. To celebrate, they have shared 12 great blogging tips. Click here to check them out. There are some awesome tips there. I’m not sure I can add much.

One tip I could add is not to be afraid to try new things. These could be new sorts of posts, using guest bloggers, or even mixing things up a bit with pictures. Whatever you do, however, make sure you keep the theme of your blog in mind (for example, if you are blogging about owls, don’t suddenly add in a post about steam trains.)

For all our readers, thank you for reading and following this blog. I hope you’ve found the tips here useful.

If you have any other blogging tips you would like to add, either to the list on Be a Fun Mum or the one I added here, please add a comment. As it’s the birthday of this blog, there is a gift for the best blog tip.

Filed Under: Blogging, General

Friday Five – Cool blog add ons

June 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I have been looking around at some cool blog add ons that I’ve seen around the place. These can enhance your blog to help you promote your business and your blog. These are five I’ve been playing with recently.

  1. LinkWithin – This is one add on I’ve seen on a lot of blogs and have only just added. This goes through and finds related stories to recommend to your readers. It is very easy to add and activate and the plugin will do the rest. It will look at past posts and recommend them to your readers. All you need to do is make sure that any products you recommend or reports you have for sale are still current.
  2. Signature – A while ago I discovered a signature plug in. This works the same way as a signature in your emails or on a forum by adding a block of text to each post. I use this to promote my other sites & blogs, driving traffic from here to there. It is also useful if you are having a sale or promotion for your business. The one I am using is called FT Signature Manager.
  3. Akismet – this is a plugin that comes standard with WordPress and is a great one to stop spam comments. If you are using WordPress and don’t have this activated, then activate it. It saves so many spam comments.
  4. Biz Directory – I added a directory to my blog following last years Blog Awards. It is a great way for me to promote some of my favourite blogs as well as a place where other blog owners can promote their blogs. I’ve got it set up so that I approve any links before they are live, meaning I can make sure they are all blogs by business mums.
  5. InLinkz – If you want to do link ups or create your own blog carnival, then this is a useful site. I found it through the Childhood 101 link up. It’s free to use and you simply add in a bit of code to the end of your post so your visitors can add in their links in response to your question or challenge.

I hope you enjoy these cool add ons and find that one or more of them will enhance your blog. Most of these are for WordPress as that is the platform I use and know.

What are some of your favourite add ons for your blog? Please tell us about them, and when you add your comment, let us know whether they are for WordPress, Blogger or another blogging platform.

Filed Under: Blogging, Friday Five, General

Friday Five – reasons to choose hand made

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This post is inspired by a status update I saw on Facebook from Vintage is Beautiful last weekend. And yes, I did create this post when I saw it. Some of the points are the same and others are different. I hope the owner of Vintage is Beautiful doesn’t mind me borrowing her idea.

Here are five reasons to choose hand made products:

  1. You are supporting a small business – most people who sell home made products are small businesses, and many of those are work at home Mums. By buying from them, you are keeping these people in business and helping these Mums support their family.
  2. You are getting a unique product – even if the designer of the product has made 5 items the “same”, there are still aspects of the creating process that means no two items are exactly alike. For example, dress fabric is cut on a different place in the pattern, or flowers are placed in a slightly different spot on the front of a card. No two items are exactly alike.
  3. You can find them in unexpected places – have you ever been to a little craft market and found the perfect hand made gift for someone, or in a little nick nack shop somewhere? There are many places you can find hand made products – markets, on the Internet, in boutique shops, expos, and more. You never know when you will come across something that is exactly what you are looking for.
  4. Hand made items are made with love and attention to detail – the creators of hand made items are making them because they love to create. This love and attention to detail comes through in the designs and the quality of the products. It also comes through with the materials they use to make them.
  5. You can get things personalised - if you have a little girl who has recently become obsessed with a particular football team, or a friend is decorating their baby’s room in an unusual colour or theme, you may be able to contact some of the businesses who create hand made products and get things made to suit. Not all hand made businesses accept custom orders, and they will want a deposit up front and it will take longer to get to you, but there is no harm in asking. You will end up with a special gift or product that exactly suits what you are looking for.

So, where do you find these home made businesses? A great place to start is local craft markets. There are markets on almost every weekend and some week nights. Check your local paper for markets and fairs in your local area. You can also do a Google search for craft markets.

Other great places are Etsy and Made It. These are like online craft markets. You can search by item or by shop to find the goodies you are looking for.

Happy Shopping!

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Friday Five, General, Markets

Are you a WAHM?

April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Are you a WAHM?

Are you a WAHM?

I was on Facebook the other day, as I tend to do, following the groups and fanpages my friends like or have recently joined. Once I go to a page, I check out their URL, if they have included one.

On one site, a blog that has reviews and other information about sales and competitions, there is a statement saying the owner is not a WAHM as she doesn’t get paid for her services.

This got me thinking, what is a WAHM, especially in the context of running a website or blog?

The blog I saw certainly looks like a business, or has the potential to be a business, especially if the owner started charging for ads on the site as well as for the reviews she does and the sales she promotes. Although at the moment, she doesn’t charge for her services.

Many WAHMs I know don’t earn enough to get paid a salary for what they do – does that make them any less of a WAHM? Especially if they are building things up so they can earn a salary eventually.

Also, to be a WAHM, do you need to join an existing company? Certainly not.

So, what makes a WAHM?

I don’t have a definition myself, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

This also brings me to one of my favourite resources right now, the WAHM Manifesto from Melinda at SuperWAHM. If you are a WAHM, or considering it, this is a must read document.

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