Sunday, December 31, 2006

Sponsored post by Premium Seats USA

It can be difficult to find good seats to a concert or sporting event. Site like Premium Seats USA can get Event Tickets for a good seat for their customers by "providing a huge selection of first-class tickets to all concerts, sports and theater events nationwide." Which is to say that they bought all the good seats as soon as they went on sale. I don’t have proof that it‘s actually done that way, but you have to wonder about it when you can’t find a seat on the event website, but broker sites have front row seats for sale. Premium Seats USA says: "Just about anything you can think of, this premium online ticket broker makes it happen; if it's a comedy show you crave or a fabulous show in Vegas, consider the tickets in your hands."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been a paid posting sponsored by Premium Seats USA

Arrrrgh

Okay, the version of Microsoft Word on this new puter has officialy annoyed me now. It went and, without permission, started putting an extra quote mark in links so that the link showed up as phantascene.com Relly annoying when you find out that you have all these links to fix and it wasn't even your fault but a dang Microsoft messup. I mention yet that I want to get my programs such as Open Office on here ASAP!!! Open Source programming RULES!!!!

Shutting up now. They just annoyed me obviously.

A good home office - sortta

I am happy that I have found myself a good home office, but it does have its drawbacks. It is cold as all hell in the basement. I'm not sure what the exact temperature is, but I am sitting here in a flannel robe, cotton nightgown (thick cotton), long john pants, thick wool socks, and wool lined moccasins and I am freezing my tailbone off.

I’d put a heater down here, but to get the computer to work down here a few years ago I had to drill a hole in the floor upstairs and run the power cord for the surge protector down through the hole. I can’t wait for summer when I can be nice and comfortable in here.

Kissimmee hotels - paid post

You want to go to the beach, the kids want to visit an amusement park, and your husband wants to play golf. How do you make everyone happy and still sit down to enjoy a great dinner together?

Orlando Florida has over fifty theme parks, beaches less than an hour’s drive away, and more top rated golf courses within a 40 minute drive than anywhere else in Florida.

OrlandoVacations wants to help you find out about the best place to give the entire family the vacation they want and still have fun as a family. Check out their information on Kissimmee hotels and then start planning your summer getaway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been a paid posting for OrlandoVacation.com

Do you have what it takes?

I know that it sounds like a no brainer, but seriously, think about it for a few minutes. Do you have what it takes to run your own home-based business? Particularly one based on-line?

It seems like the dream job, right? Sit at home and type away on your computer and rake in the cash. Websites, advertising, affiliate programs... it's all there just waiting for you to grab your share. Right?

Not exactly.

First you have to work. And I mean work. Just because you are your own boss does not mean that you can stop punching a clock. Well... in ways it does mean that, you don't log in at 9 a.m. and log off at 5 p.m. and smile when every two weeks or thirty days a check pops out of the old 3.5 card drive on your computer.

It would be nice if it worked that way, but it is hardly realistic to expect that to replace your day job, much less pay the bills, put the kids through college and let you save for retirement.

In a lot of ways working ay home is like retirement. The other day a radio guy was talking to someone about how much they had to save for retirement (was something like 70% of their current income), but what caught my memory is his description of why you needed less money when you retire.

Your car is no longer likely to be kept to the latest model, you'll find it is perfectly fine even if it is a few years past its prime. You may even replace it with a used car rather than the new car you always used to replace it with.

Your no longer in need of taking expensive suits to the dry cleaners, shoot, you don't even have to go out every few months and buy new expensive suits for work, just one decent and casual suit will probably do.

You may eat out less so you don't have such a high expense on food. You may or may not travel less. Might travel more, but you probably have the freedom to buy tickets in advance and can therefore get them cheaper.

Most all of the things that apply to retirement apply to working at home, but, you are still working. You are still earning a living.

If you don't think that people that work at home full time don't have insane hours, consider this. It is 7:49 a.m. in Alaska going into New Year's Eve and I am still awake working on the computer because I have some advertisements to write for some people.

That's what I have determined I am. I am a freelance Internet advertisement copywriter. I am also a freelance writer. A magic realism fantasy writer. And first and foremost - a family caregiver.

The last is a non-paying job however.

But you can see that if I want to make money, I have to work insane hours. So here I sit, in my blue and white cotton nightgown, my moon and stars blue flannel robe, and my sheepskin moccasins typing away on my new computer and trying to provide useful information to you in between what I hope are, to at least a few people, semi-useful advertisements.

I do have to admit one thing - the disclaimer that is now part of every post I have been paid in any way for is a very liberating thing. I can now post things that I may not normally have posted and get paid more because I am no longer simply targeting all posts to my blogs based on usefulness. That is still a major factor when I can manage it, but if I have a choice between making nothing and making $100 I am sure that you all will forgive me for making you skim past the advertisements on the blog to find the articles like this that I hope are of genuine use. (even if they do ramble)

Thank you if you read this far, I'll shut up now.

Easy Money! $350 Per Week Guaranteed! Only two hours work a day, at home, stuffing envelopes!

Interested in making easy money at home? Think that you can do two hours a day stuffing envelopes? $350 a week, that's a good income, why pass that up? You could be making an easy $25 an hour, working at home, on your own timeframe.

This is just too good to pass up!

And it is also too good to accept. People see advertisements for scams like that, get e-mails, see it on the Internet. A guaranteed way to make money in little time from home stuffing envelopes.

Normally when such an ad is answered, all you get is a promotional packet that asks you to send money for information on the money making plan. I feel for one of these scams myself years ago. Me and my mom sent them $35 for the "Get started today!" pack that would guarantee us to make money. What we did not realize was that the packet we were buying was not a box of envelopes that someone wanted flyers tri-folded and stuffed into. No, this was a packet that told us to go out, find newspapers and magazines to run ads in (even gave a few addresses to get us started), and post the same exact ad that had suckered us in.

By just finding ten people, as gullible as we had been, a week to sell our information to we could make $350 a week.

We tried to get our money back. No surprise we were unable to. We never even looked into running the first ad because there was just no way we were going to do something so underhanded to someone else. Didn't know or care if it was legal or not - it was wrong.

The Better Business Bureau has a lot more information on these kinds of schemes to help you spot this scheme and others intended to prey on those seeking to work at home.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Hayfield Dental Care - Paid Post

The dentists at Hayfield Dental Care have all received advanced or specialist training in dental procedures. This allows the Hayfield Dental Care office to provide its customers with quality care and perform almost any procedure without a need to refer that patient to an outside office for care.

And let's face it. We all hate to go to the dentist anyway, so do you really want to then be told that you have to go to another dentists office because the one you went to cannot perform the needed service?

I know I don't want to.

If you are in the Alexandria look up charles brown dds pc at Hayfield Dental Care.


The preceeding Post is a paid advertisement for Charles Brown DDS PC
Although I have no idea why he sent the post to a site I can't find him
or Hayfield Dental Care listed on

Need a new computer? I suggest Rent To Own

I just got back from my local Rent To Own store. I love them folks. Got my laptop, that I am working on now, from them a year ago and love it. I'm getting a fancy HP from them now, was in a hurry so rather than wait for them to disconnect it I told them I'd be back in the morning to pick it up from them.

It's not everywhere that a self employed girl with bad credit can walk into a store and walk out with a computer on a payment plan.

Filmator.net - portfolios, documentaries, videos, animations, presentations and new media art.

Filmator.net allows users to upload pictures, videos, Flash films, and sounds - then use those uploaded images and sounds to create a portfolio, documentary, animation, online presentation - whatever you need for sharing your ideas or creative efforts with others all across the world.

Please note that Filmator.net provides their service free to artists, but businesses (commercial users) are charged to make and distribute their Flash presentations.

Interested in seeing how this site might be of help to you? Don't worry about complicated programs that take years of college courses to understand, there is no need for any software or programming knowledge to create videos and Flash presentations with Filmator.net, and users can embed their creations into their own websites. See - (not my creation, just a demonstration I got from their site to show you how it looks) -



Imagine being able to create a demonstration of how to assemble the hand crafted furniture that you make and have to ship in sections. Maybe create a painting tutorial for your website that highlights your artwork? Make OOAK doll creations? You could include on your website a tutorial on how to make a basic polymer clay figure (my plan for my OOAK dolls site). Maybe create a stop motion animation story for your website to help get readers interested in your novel, or make a interactive comic book for your comic illustrations business?

The ideas for both artistic and commercial uses are unlimited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: The original size of the player is 550x770 - I had to make it half that size to fit it onto the Work @ Home Newsletter pages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The preceding Post is a paid
advertisement for filmator.net - a
redirect site for documentary-art.net

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Five tips for working at home

I figured that I would offer up a few tips that I have figured out over the years when trying to work at home. They are not going to be amazing revelations, just a few things I have found work for me.

1. Go to bed early, but stay up late. People tend to leave you alone if they think you have gone to bed, so say that you are going to bed thirty minutes to an hour before you actually get in bed and go to sleep. This can often give you a little while of uninterrupted work time.

2. Get up early. If you are fortunate enough to be able to rise an hour or so before the rest of your family, you can use this quiet time before the televisions are turned on to get some work done. I love to work early in the morning since I do not have the distractions of noise from other parts of the house.

3. Take small tasks with you when you have to go somewhere. Need to write a series of blog posts? Revise a list of things you need to do over the next week? Double check your appointments calendar? Take it with you take someone to the store or go to the bank or visit the doctor's office and work on it while you wait.

4. Keep track of everything with a good filing system. Get in the habit of entering expenses and earnings into a ledger and recording when you expect a payment or what you need to get done and who you need to do it for. To Do lists are one of the most useful things you will ever master.

5. Roll with the interruptions. Learn the skill of multitasking and if possible get as much of a thought down as possible before you have to go deal with something else. Even if it is cryptic or typed with mass typos. Even if you jot it on your hand while you walk down the hallway. The important part is to remember what you were thinking and be able to get back into the groove as smoothly as possible after the interruption has been dealt with.

Gold from the Monex Deposit Company

Have you considered what your retirement will be like? Will you have the money you need to retire? Investments are the perfect way to save for the future and the precious metals experts at the Monex Deposit Company can help you invest in gold bullion or coins.

Gold is an investment metal that has a long history of stability behind it, the beauty and lasting value of this precious metal making it one of the most sought after metals for investors. The hard asset professionals at Monex Deposit Company can help you pick the right investment for your needs and arrange for immediate personal delivery or arrange for your investment to be safely and conveniently stored in an independent bank or depository.


The preceding Post is a paid advertisement

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Redesign of my office

Part of my Christmas present from my parents and others in my family is to help me get a new desktop computer so I can stop using my poor abused laptop as a desktop. This means that I am going to be working on redesigning my home office to accommodate a desktop computer once again.



Hopefully we'll be going to the local Rent To Own store within the next few days to pick one out. Between now and then I am going to be revamping the office area and tossing out 99% of the things that are getting in my way and have no business being in my office.



I'm also going to be redesigning my work space to be more user friendly in hopes of making it less painful on my low back to be sitting at my desk for long periods of time. Changes I have in mind include:



  • Adjust the level of the work surface so that it is at a comfortable height
  • Find a chair with good lumbar support or use a lumbar support cushion
  • Design the office so that I can easily stand up and move around in it
  • Arrange items to encourage me to get up and walk across the room - printer across room maybe?
  • Kick out all the junk food and replace with good for me things, and set up a place for a pitcher of water

  • Find a low stool to rest my feet on


Saturday, December 23, 2006

Looking at my sites from an SEO standpoint

I'm looking into marketing for my websites - still not happy with them but the way my life has been lately I am going to be lucky if I get even one of them where I want them by New Year's. So, I'm trying to take things slow and figure out what needs doing as I go along.

My first focus is going to be to organize them and decide which one is the most important to me and focus on that one first. I am also going to focus my SEO marketing on Google and let the other engines fall where and how they will, since I know from my researching that Google is the one that matters the most in the SEO game - if you can get them to notice you the other engines will fall slowly into line.

Don't count the others out though, I'm not going to. I plan to check them each out and see what they have that makes them unique and target that as part of my activity. Don't worry, I'll share anything worth sharing. ;-)

Friday, December 15, 2006

Basic office supplies

Okay, you're ready to set up your home office and have been trying to make sure that you have everything you will need on hand to start making money. But what exactly is it that you need and how can you be sure you're not missing something important?



Relax. The first thing I figured out when I started configuring work at home spaces, back when I had a pet Stegosaurus, was that there is never an item so important that it is worth panicking when you realize you forgot it. Nearly anything can be worked around in a home office. Forgot to buy a good writing pen? Write with a pencil or Sharpie until you can get a better pen on the next trip to town. Forgot ink for the printer? Determine what things you really have to print and spool them for printing when you get the print cartridge.



A basic list of things that I like to have on hand when I sit down to work are:

  • A computer
  • A printer (with ink and paper)
  • Labels that can be used in a printer
  • A good writing pen
  • A notebook
  • Loose leaf college ruled paper
  • A binder for the loose leaf paper
  • No. 2 pencils and a sharpener
  • Highlighters (yellow, orange, pink, green and blue)
  • Dry erase board and marker(s)
  • CDs for backing up information
  • Thumb drive
  • Clip boards - one standard size and one small
  • Legal pads - standard size and small
  • Envelopes (letter size and manila)
  • Digital camera (optional)
  • Date book or calendar
  • CD player and easy to listen to music
  • Paperclips, binder clips, stapler staples
  • 3x5 and 5x8 index cards
  • Dictionary and a local phone book

There are other things that generally fall into the realm of project oriented needs, but I think that most of the things I find a need for are covered in the above list.



Take a moment, and a sheet of paper or three, and make a list of things you can think of that you will need for your office. Include things as extravagant as surround sound stereo systems if you have to have them to things as mundane as pencil cups and trash bins.



You could even, and probably should, create more than one list. Things you need before you can start, things to buy after the business makes some money, and things to set up a savings account to get from the business expense account (like a new computer).

Business forms and blog themes

I've been working on my forms for my office so I can track what I am doing with my blogs and advertisements on them and keep a record of ideas that I get for things I want to talk about on the blogs.



One of my biggest frustrations is I get an idea for something I want to talk about and by the time I get around to updating the blogs I have forgot what it was that I had meant to be discussing.



So, I now have a small notebook that I am logging ideas into so I can keep a record of what I am discussing on the blogs.



I also have a record for a monthly blog index in the works but not sure just how that is going to be formatted other than a vague idea that I want to keep a basic idea of what I am discussing on the blogs such as this one my Family Caregiver blog, my diet blog and A Writer's Life so I can kind of give them a little bit of a theme from month to month. This is also going to end up having a yearly section I think so I can see the themes as they relate to one another.

Tokyo Drift damage estimates - oh the possibilities of HD DVDs

Have you seen the HD DVD edition of the Universal Studios Home Entertainment movie: "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"?

Progressive Direct has done the math on just how much it cost to bust up all them cars in the Universal Studios Home Entertainment movie. You have to choose to turn the calculator labeled "Progressive Direct: Insurance Damage Estimates," but once you do you will be treated to a running total of damage estimates such as: "Roof repair: $209, taillights: $451, fender: $618."

This is the first in what Universal and other studios hope is a stream of branded interactive features on their new DVDs. The technology is possible because the new HD DVD formats have about six times as much data capacity as standard DVDs, giving extra space to the studios for not only high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also interactive features such as games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links.

I love it. The possibilities are endless for what could be done with something like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This information was brought to you by CarInsurance.com - their online insurance marketplace gives an opportunity to consumers and to insurance companies. "We offer the ability to shop for car insurance online. CarInsurance.com will meet the consumers’ requests and solve insurance companies' needs." Consumers can receive an auto insurance quote from many insurance companies, in some states you are able to purchase your insurance instantly, online. You don't have to drive your car to buy car insurance. Buy online...anytime!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paid advertisement for CarInsurance.com

What to get someone that works at home for Christmas

I figured I would suggest what to get someone for Christmas to help others with answering the question "What do you want for Christmas?"
  • A thumb drive
  • A stack of rewritable CDs
  • A "do not disturb" sign for the office door
  • An office to hang the sign on the door of
  • A gift basket of healthy snacks
  • A easy to care for plant (realistic silk maybe?) for their office
  • A promise to babysit or do the dishes or run mail to the post office or.. etc
From there my mind goes to desktop computers and such, so I'll such. O;-)

Dual monitors for your computer

A dual monitor setup is worth getting. If you have not got one yet, look into it. I have set my computer up for dual monitors after seeing my brother's setups. I'd always wanted one since like the late 80's or early 90's something like that when I saw it in a videography magazine - I can tell you what, it's a great asset for doing research on the internet and talking to your friends in chat or writing on a article and reading source material.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Business Forms

You can either go out and buy forms that are made for tracking a business and tweak them around so that they kind of work for your business, or, you can make your own.



For a long time I bought forms made by others and tried to work them into working for my business, but I have realized lately that doing it that way is actually making things confusing for me in the long run. I've now started determining just what the specific requirements of my business (writing online) are going to be and what forms I need for running that more smoothly. I see the creation of these forms as being as necessary to my business as creating a business plan - in fact, as kind of a part of that plan. Printing them is also a business expense - just as much as I would figure I would be making a business expense if I had to buy forms.



So, stop and look at what the forms you use are and ask yourself - "is this the right form? Could I make a more accurate form for my business needs myself?" With desktop publishing programs there is no longer any need to use forms that are "Kind of right for the job", just make your own.

Got Page Rank?

You have been looking into marketing your business - right? Have you considered how a good Google Page Ranking can help? Page Rank is a Google term that defines how popular a website is with other sites on the Internet.



How does Google know how popular a website is with other websites? They look for the link popularity of the website that is in question - that is, they look for other websites that are talking about and linking to that website.



Google has codes that they use to examine a page that contains a link to another website. This code will scan a page, searching through it for keywords. A second list of keywords compiled from the linked to site.



The two lists of compiled keywords are then compared to determine just how interrelated the words from the linking page are to the page that is linked to. The better the two lists of keywords match up, the more value the system gives to the linked to page and therefore the higher that page's Page Rank is.

When do I get paid for this?

"But wait - I'm doing all this work and work and work and .... where's all the money going?" If you have found yourself wondering that, wondering just where your salary is at, you're not alone. Every business has expenses and as a small business owner it is a sad but true fact that one of the last expenses to be paid is the employee - you.



With all of the things that you have to pay, from Internet to supplies to shipping, it's hard to find the funds to pay yourself. Some tips for estimating when you can pay yourself:

  • Expect that you will have to go six to twelve months before you can start paying yourself for working.
  • Understand that if the business is not making money, you will not be being paid: work in + work out = paycheck time
  • Pay yourself only what you can afford to take away from the business. If you can't afford to buy ink for your printer, or your Internet has been disconnected for non-payment of the bill, but you have a lovely new jacket - you're paying yourself too much. Put some back into the business and take a cut in your pay.

Working at home is not a get rich quick scheme. Some people do get rich quick, but as a general rule you need to keep in mind that most small businesses fold up before the first year is over, and it takes at least a year to start making money at a small business.

Home business and stress

Anyone that works as family caregiver knows that it is almost impossible to try to get a home business figured out while you are a full-time caregiver. I have been trying and it is about sooooo close to driving me over the deep end into mass insanity. Today alone I have been *very* tempted to start screaming and beating my head against a wall no less than a few dozen times.



I need to set up a workplace outside of the house where I can go and work and not have to be leaping up every few minutes to see what someone else needs me to do for them - usually things that either they could have done easily themselves or that I just flat can't do.





Hopefully after Christmas things will slow down, but I doubt it since the stress is not holiday related.

Capella University - Online Master Degree

You work from home, did you know that you can earn an online master degree from home as well? Capella University has become a regular sponsor of the Work at Home Newsletter and would like to remind you of their high-caliber academic excellence.



Capella University is an online school that offers graduate degree programs in 76 graduate and undergraduate specializations as well as 16 certificate specializations. A national leader in on-line education, they currently serve 16,000 students from all 50 states and 63 countries.



Isn't it time you looked into the opportunities of taking classes online, whether you pursue one of the classes offerd by Capella, or another accredited on-line school.





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



This post has been a paid for by

the Work At Home Newsletter

sponsor Capella University

Small Business Planner at the SBA

Check out the Small Business Administration's Small Business Planner for help on writing a business plan for your business. They have links to resources to help show you sample business plans, walk you through the steps to creating a business plan, and information on finding a mentor or how to handle finances as well as many other resources, articles and information vital to the small business owner.

Do you have a business plan yet?

Did you know that, even when you are working purely online, it is important to define a solid business plan? A business plan can help you keep on track and build up your business in a structured manner that assures steady growth and a continued customer base.

A business plan can help you define your business, including your reasons for starting it. It can define what your operating procedures are and how you intend to conduct business. What amount of time you expect to dedicate to your business and where you plan for the business to be in three or five years.

Take a few hours to sit down and write out your business plan, then be ready to adapt it as you learn more about your business and how it functions. Your business plan needs to be flexible and ready to change to suite your particular business needs.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The work at home gym

As a family caregiver I find it hard to get out of the house for a lot more than just work, I also have difficulty with things such as getting to the gym. Because of this I have been setting myself up a home gym. I cut a lot of corners on cost of the things I have got, such as a second hand bike one of my sisters gave my brother and then he gave me, an Ab-Roller I got for free from the toss out pile at a thrift store, and a second hand (but barely used) treadmill off eBay.

One place I did not cut corners, although I did get the most inexpensive model I could, was on a heart rate monitor. Heart Rate Monitors are an important part of a home gym since they are used to help you monitor your ideal workout range and can warn you if you are working out too hard for your level of health.

The preceeding Post is a paid advertisement

Holiday Clip Art - Free

I'd commented on these folks on one of my blogs for Thanksgiving, and here they are again. HellasMultimedia. They impressed me with their images for Thanksgiving and I think you'll find they have some goodies for Christmas there as well. I found some lovely greenery that I plan to use on my websites including golden mistletoe sprigs and a mistletoe swagging line with red bows.

I want DSL ::sniffle:::

Any serious online work requires DSL. I've been running on dial-up got years now, and let me tell you, 48.8 kpbs is NOT very fast. I usually meander through the house for a while waiting on pages to load up because they just WILL NOT load as fast as I need them to.

I'd like to have DSL and try getting around online with that for a while, see if I can get my work done faster. Maybe I should put that on my holiday wish list? I been good Santa, really I have... as long as you don't listen to the fictional characters I abuse in my writing. O:-)

You don't really work alone - say thank you this holiday season

Just because you work at home does not necessarily mean that you work alone. There are many others that often work in support of you. Perhaps you hire a local bike courier service that delivers packages all across town for you? Do you know the mailman's first name? The names of his wife and children? How about the guy at the local printing shop?

This holiday season say thank you to those people that support you in your business with a gift basket or a bouquet of field fresh flowers. You can find the perfect ideas at www.dotflowers.com and you can get same day flower delivery on flower arrangements designed in your local florist shop or field fresh flower delivery straight from their growers' farms.


The preceeding Post is a paid advertisement

Set up a good studio

I've been trying for a while now to get myseld a good home studio set up. Something where I can work on my crafts when I feel like working on them but not have to stuff things away in boxes. As a multi-interest person I have boxes of things for bookbinding, paper making, polymer clay work, doll making, quilting, scrap booking, ... well, you get the idea. I like to dabble in a wide range of crafts and have actually done professional work in a few (egg carving, polymer clay dolls, re-born dolls, candle making, and bookbinding).

With my egg carving case currently dismantled it has been a couple of years since I could work on that craft, and my book presses are slightly scattered. All very disappointing for me since I desperately want to bind some books and have some ivory I want to inlay in the covers and can't work with until I set my vented egg carving cabinet back up.

Anyway, I highly recommend dedicating a shed, section of the garage, spare bedroom, attic, whatever space you can find, to your assorted crafts and spreading them out as much as you can so that you won't have to gather things up and tuck them in corners between projects. This will also allow you to better decide just which of your hobbies you might have more than passing interest in and could turn into a business.

Do what you love

The key aspect to working at home is usually the chance to do what you love. For me, working at home means getting to write, getting to work at writing and find ways to make writing work for me to earn me an income - large or small - that will help to pay the bills.

What do you love and how could you make it a business? Are you an avid painter? What about selling paintings on the side and see if you can make money? There was one fellow I saw that was selling paintings that was a simple flat colored canvas with a different color paint used to make a dollar sign and a number. He started at $1 and then painted $2, $3, etc and so on - selling each for the price on the painting and they're still selling and pre-sold into the hundreds. And not just dollars, but about three or four different currencies.

How about working with clay? Do you know one of a kind polymer clay dolls can sell for hundreds to near thousands of dollars each?

Figure out what you love, and see if you love it enough to make money doing it.

The Importance of Website Content

When you are designing your business website, one of the primary points of your focus should be on marketing the site to potential customers. You should take as much care in making up your marketing plan as you take in designing your website's content.

In fact, the two are in many ways the same thing. When you create website content that is of interest to your target audience, you are defining how you want your website to be indexed by search engines.

Whether you take the job of search engine optimization for your site on yourself, or you hire an internet marketing firm, you will need to focus on content that will meet and satisfy the needs of your target audience.

The preceding Post is a paid advertisement

Website - a journey in building one in real time

Building a website for your business is an important step in getting your business ready for the world. I'm in the process of helping to create a business website and will be discussing the process here as I go along.

The first step is to be sure of what is wanted. What will your website be saying about your business and how do you want your potential customers to see you? You want to be sure that you represent yourself in a way that will be both appealing and attractive to potential customers.

Today as I helped get the website started I realized two important things.

1) if your background image is not loading, consider the possibility that it's BIG and will take a moment to load up rather than waste a long time assuming you got the code wrong. ::pounds head on desk::

2) make the background color compliment the image so that it a) is not jarring to see load up and b) displays the text while the image is loading.

I also added META tags for description and keywords to the site.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

E-mail and your business

E-mail is quite often the first connection you will have with potential clients and/or customers for your small business. It is, in effect, your resume for soliciting good will and repeat business.

In my feedback at eBay, the feedback reads like:
Great email and .....
A++++ Buyer. Very Very Nice & .....
......Friendly in emails,......
Excellent Communication, ...............
NICE Lady!! Great correspondence! ..........
........and Great Communication AAA+++
Note that I have removed the payment comments, since this is just about the correspondence. The point in the above is, when you write a friendly and concise e-mail that is business-like and polite, people notice.

How do you get people to notice? The first thing I do is consider the first e-mail to be my handshake. I do not want it to feel like a cold uncaring shake where it feels to the recipient like I have better things I would rather be doing with my time than dealing with them. I also don't want for them to get a feeling that they need to wash the sticky sweetness of my kid's jam sandwich off their hands.

Like any business correspondence, an e-mail should be polite and to the point. It also needs to take into account how busy the other person may be. You want to refresh their memory of why you are writing to them in the first paragraph, then explain the details for why you have sent the e-mail and provide any needed information. Close the e-mail with a polite thanks in advance for their time and, if applicable, consideration of the matter, and any pertinent contact information they may need for you.

Make certain that you proof read your e-mails. There are a lot of mistakes that are not seen by spell check, such as: properly spelled but improperly used words (two = too), typos that leave a letter off a word but still form a proper word (now=know), typos where the wrong letter is hit creating a proper word that does not belong in the e-mail (work = word), words left out of a sentence, and many other reasons why your spell checker may see it as a proper e-mail but your reader would be left confused. When I write, whether it is an e-mail or a blog post or any other kind of writing, I write it without spell check and proof read as I go along. Then I send it through spell check and double check suggested changes, then I reread to be sure it makes sense the way I want it to.

Look at all e-mail as a reflection of your company and the way it does business. You want your customers to leave feeling as though you have greeted them warmly and seen to their needs in a professional manner, honestly caring about them as individuals without trying to make them like you through idle chatter, amusing anecdotes, or unnecessary flashiness.

Before you hit send, you should reread your e-mail at least one more time and pretend that you are the recipient. Does it convey the right information, could the tone be misinterpreted if the recipient has been having a bad day? Is there any chance that the SPAM filters might toss your e-mail into the junk mail box? The subject line is an important place to watch for that problem. Try to be sure that the headline is a brief recap of why you sent the e-mail. Such as "Re: Purchase #535767 - Sony Walkman" not something vague like, "hey" or "re: purchase".

I'm sure there is a lot more to be said about e-mail communications, but this will hopefully get you started on thinking about the impression your e-mails make on your customers and developing a style that will leave your customers feeling that they have been greeted warmly, made feel welcome, and would be treated fairly and kindly by your business.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Article © December, 2006 by Sandra Fikes
Reprint authorized only with link back to this
blog or to http://www.phantascene.com
This footer must be included in reprint.

Trying to develop waking early habit

I started seeing working on my blogs as a major part of my working from home. Now that I have done that, I have found that it is much more productive to my ability to work if I wake before everyone else in the house and get my work done.

This has me waking up anywhere between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. and sometimes collapsing back to bed by 11 a.m..

They say that it only takes 21 days for something to become a habit and for you to do it without thinking about it, hopefully within another ten to fifteen days I will have developed the habit of early rising and be able to hop out of bed at no later than 8 a.m. and maybe as early as 5 a.m. every moring to get in some exercising and writing before the rest of the house wakes and I have to split my attention between work and family.

What'd your secret to getting in a little work? Do you wake early too? Or do you stay up late? Is naptime your most productive hour in the day? Maybe you get out of the house or have just developed the skills to work in the midst of a family setting?
Business Blogs - Blog Flare
Privacy Policy