Today's the day.

It was one year ago today that I began this blog, not having a clue whether my business would take off.

It took several months before the question “should I keep doing this?” finally left my mind and I was confident that the business was truly worth the time it takes to develop it.

What built that confidence?

1. Daily interaction with a number of people I've met through the business, a fraction of which includes a valuable community built through Facebook.

 

2. Figuring out the whole marketing part of the business, and finding that I'm better off with an extremely narrow niche... I advertise through blogs that I enjoy reading, specifically, moms who create an environment of tranquility, education, and healthy living for their families. Here's a snapshot of two months showing where sales come from:

3. Sales.

Below shows a quick graph overview of year-to-date in monthly sales – the last three bars show the summer months of 2010, which is encouraging since in most industries, sales tend to slow down in the summer:

4. An added value has been knowing that with very little professional business help, and working as a bootstrap business, the knowledge I've gained over the past year is transferred to my children, who are developing their expertise in various areas which will eventually turn into mini businesses for them.

And so, my efforts will turn away from this business blog and toward my other blog, which talks (via podcast and writing) to my growing customer base about dry skin issues, eczema, and all the natural ingredients that make up the hard lotion bar.

… maybe next year I'll be back to give another report on the business.

 

 

 

This one's for you, Doina :)

It used to be that every time I saw the "sent from my iPhone" at the bottom of someone's email signature line, I wanted to add my own signature line... something like:

Sent from 28,000 feet on my way to the Coast for brunch

or

Sent from the white sands of Barbados

Then my new 32 GB iPhone 4 arrived yesterday.

Not only do I get the "sent from my iPhone" sig line (which, really, I'll probably see if that can be taken off) but the coolest feature I'm seeing now for my business is the ease of creating short videos that I can immediately upload to my business site. My inspiration for writing a post usually comes while driving, so having the ability to pull over, do a quick podcast, blog or video, and upload it, is very, very cool.

I am not a fan of the telephone.

As far as I'm concerned, we should have gone straight from the Pony Express to the internet and just skipped Ma Bell altogether. The ring interrupts my day, forces me to give my children the look while trying to hold a pleasant conversation and then I have to be the bad guy to end the call because my two year old is chasing the cat across the street. That's hard to do if you're taking a business call.

But, Google once again saves the day with Google Voice. I now have a phone number on my business website for people to call and leave a voicemail, which is the system I'll use until I can justify hiring a virtual phone assistant.

Here are some features:

• the voicemail automatically gets saved in audio and text form and is emailed to me
• there's a search box online that allows you to search all past calls using a particular keyword
  
• the telephone number is transcribed so I have it in print
  
• I have the option of having the phone ring on my cell so that I can answer the phone, or have it go straight to voicemail (that's what I do)
• I can cater different telephone greetings for different web pages, so I can use the same phone number for various businesses (or home vs. business)
• it's free
  

Most importantly... I can return the call during nap time.

My boys made today's post easy.

I took them to Chuck's Coin Shop in Redding yesterday. Today they blogged about it.

Here's Caleb's experience:

"The value of Gold has lately been steadily rising. And yesterday we were at "Chuck's Coins" (a shop in Redding thats sells some Jewelry as well as Coins) and while were there, (My brother Jonathan was buying some Coins) I inquired about some Gems... " (click to read rest of blog)

And Jonathan's:

"Chuck's coin is the coin shop I buy my coins at, it is a very nice shop and the best I have gone to..." (click to read rest of blog)

Here's the business lesson: 1.) when you have a good business, people blog about it and there's some free marketing for you, and 2.) Jonathan did what SEO nerds call link love.  According to blogossary.com,  "link love is posting a link to sites or blogs, usually unsolicited, that you enjoy, admire, or find useful." It helps the website's SEO to have websites link to them.

Now, go blog hop over to my boys' sites and leave 'em a comment ;)

10:15 a.m.
I've got a couple hours to kill while I wait for our mechanic to work on our van, so rather than make my business to-do list on paper, I thought I'd make it into a blog.

I'm at Safeway, off Cypress (Redding), where I've got my free internet hook up, a comfortable table to work at, my hot vanilla latte, tall ice water, bag of Rainier cherries and tub of cottage cheese (a healthy dose of protein/carb/caffeine/sugar).

My list:

• reply to business-related email (Alice, Sherry, Salesforce lady, Stephanie, check for old emails that need to be addressed) Done.
• create new labels for one of my products Done.
• change the web page of my website to be "tighter": work on paragraphs and move a poll that's beginning to annoy me Done.
• add latest blogger to media page Done.

My only distractions:

• slowish internet connection
• the elderly couple talking about their house on the market and a couple of guys mentioning a 3/2 for 130K that happens to be in my neighborhood (I'm a sucker for eavesdropping on local economy discussions)
• the guy's sandwich at the table near mine- it's 11:14 and I'm tired of cherries and cottage cheese; my coffee cup is empty but my water glass is full
• the Starbucks cashiers telling other customers they've got a coupon code for free coffee on their receipt (hey, where's mine??)
• a chirpy alarm sound that goes off when an elderly woman drives her motor-driven cart out the store

12:01 p.m. Bryant's Automotive calls: my car is done (passes smog! Yay! No other problems with it - Yay x 3!), cherries are gone, cottage cheese half-gone and I still need to finish my ice water.  I finished my to-do list. Not a bad morning so far.

If you've already been Twittering since the 80's, you can stop reading now because you've probably read posts like this a million times.

But for those of you who have yet to write your first Tweet, you're in for a treat, especially if you're a business owner wondering why you'd even bother.

I finally "get" the Twitter thing. Tip: use Tweetdeck or it'll take forever to figure out the @ and # (those aren't offensive, by the way). Just mute it or the bird chirps will drive you bananas.

One of the bloggers I sponsor is at a blog conference in Colorado. I supplied her with personalized lip balms to hand out to the bloggers with both her blog web address and mine. Within minutes my Tweetdeck had an announcement from her about the lip balms, and a few follow up Tweets made it obvious to me that others were trying and using my product.  I followed a few of their Tweets to screen through some of the profiles and I quickly located a few leads for new blogs for me to market with. Using both email and Twitter, I was able to connect my sponsored blogger with a few new leads and I now have some quality bloggers with my product in their hands.

So what did Twitter do for me? I found new leads by following some public conversations taking place 1200 miles away at a conference.

At the end of a recent visit with my midwife, Nora McNeill, she announced the birth of her new website. She's been in business in Redding for years and years but didn't have a web presence until now.

She chose the name: ReddingMidwife.com

From what I've learned about CEO and domain naming, it was very wise of her to go with common, definitive words in her domain choice and not necessarily name a domain after her business name. If someone new to town did a search on Google for a midwife, her search keywords would most likely be "Redding" and "midwife."  That search in Google put reddingmidwife.com as 4th on the list. Not bad for a brand new website!

It also makes it easier in the future to sell your website along with your business - the new business owner can't do a whole lot with a web domain like norathemidwife.com.

While I'm at it, something else I enjoyed about her site was the image header of the Turtle Bay Bridge, the testimonies, the press page,  the complete list of services, and even the forum (using the domain name momandmidwife.com - another brilliant choice and I'm surprised it wasn't already taken). The only thing missing is a photo of Nora (particularly one that includes a newborn) but with all the babies that she delivers, she'll have plenty of midwife-with-baby shots she can add later.

I was at the part where Goldilocks tests the comfort level of the mama bear's overstuffed bed when my six year old son interrupted me in frustration, "why doesn't she just stick with the baby bear's stuff?!"

And then it hit me - Goldilocks knew from the first taste of the baby bear's porridge, that his stuff was "just right."  So was his chair, and so was his bed.

I asked my daughter to draw me a picture of the story. I hang it by my work table to remind me that I don't need to keep testing over and over again what doesn't work. I'll stick with what works.

edited: my comment below follows...

My children have figured it out that when they want something, they have a much better chance of getting it if they think through all the potential roadblocks and make it easy for us to say yes.

So last month when my older two boys presented us with a request to go camping, along with a carefully crafted packing list, a shopping list with estimated cost per item, a handful of dollar bills gathered from all their siblings, and a tent demonstration to prove that they could do the work, it was easy for us to listen.

I found the same to be true with the bloggers that my business sponsors. They are my most valuable marketing source right now, so I think of their readership and their own personal needs when I touch base with them. One blogger may focus on nutrition, another on the outdoors and a third on family life, so rather than only purchasing ad space and asking for a product mention, I find out which of my products best fit their needs (and their audience's needs), and then offer additional information and feedback throughout the month(s). Their excitement about my product comes through and it's a smooth transition for their audience to come visit my website.

And... yes, we're going camping this weekend.