Today’s post is by Claire Hughes, co-creator of the Handmade Horizons marketing e-course, which launches next week.
If you run a craft business, take a look at Handmade Horizons between now and the launch on 16th January for lots of free training on marketing your handmade products.
Over to you Claire!
How was 2011 for you? Personally, 2011 was a year of big development in my business and personal life. I learnt a lot – the hard way – but made it through the other side! Here are some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past twelve months about growing a business with kids. I hope some of these will be of use to you, and help set you up for 2012! Continue reading “Growing a Business with Kids: 5 Things I’ve Learned in 2011”
Today I’ve got a guest post for you from Meagan Visser, business coach for creative people. Over to you, Meagan!
Hello. My name is Meagan. I’m a wahm & a recovering multi-tasker.
Okay, too AA meetingish, I know.
My point is that most of us out there who have creative businesses, whether we’re a WAHM, SAHM, or we have a day job, feel that there’s not enough time during the day to get everything done we need to. We end up trying to multi-task life & business & you know how that ends up. We’re overwhelmed, frustrated, & we feel like we’ve not accomplished a thing!
We want fun, creative, successful businesses. We want time with our friends, family, & by gosh some me-time. We want to make money. We want to make a name for ourselves. We want a spotless house. We want to enjoy vacations. We want to indulge in our hobbies.
It doesn’t matter what our wants are, the fact of the matter is, in today’s world we have a lot on our plates. If we’re going to be successful, we have to get it together, figure out what works for us, move our booties to a different beat if necessary & make it happen. Success & money aren’t just going to come knocking at our door.
So what’s the first step?
Like I said, I get that you’re a mom & you may or may not have another job, let alone all the other responsibilities in your life to take care of, but in my opinion, the first step in not only getting it together, but keeping it together is time management. If you can’t manage your time, then you’re probably wasting it & that’s no good for business. Got it?
Last week I found myself in a twitter debate about the word ‘mumpreneur’. Personally, I’m not too keen on that word because I’m not sure it gives a good impression of mums in business.
(I thought long and hard about using the ‘m’ word in my e-course Earn What You Deserve as a Mumpreneur, but we live in a keyword-driven world so I decided to just go for it).
Whatever people think of the word ‘mumpreneur’, there are loads of hard-working, creative mums out there doing amazing things with their businesses.
So today, I decided to stick up for ‘mumpreneur’. It’s only short but they say that YouTube is one of the best places to be found on the internet, so that’s where I did it!
Mum Plus Business is a unique free online service for mothers of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience to form local business partnerships. The website offers a secure search and messaging system to find a local business mum partner in a mutual field of interest. Our unique service is very practical and efficient – offering busy mothers the opportunity they need to find a suitable business partner in a specific industry sector and location in a safe and convenient manner at any time of day.
What was your job before starting your business?
After graduating in Communication Science I worked in PR and Marketing.
Ready to get our of the house and meet some business mums face-to-face?
It’s hard to believe sitting here at the beginning of August, but it won’t be long until Autumn. And that means it’s conference season!
(Well, if you’re a mum in business, anyway!)
So here’s my list of the conferences coming up in 2011/12. If I’ve missed any, please drop me a comment and I’ll add them to the list. I’ll also post more details about each when they are closer.
Mumpreneur Conference – Sunday 25th September 2011, Heart of England Conference Centre, Meriden Road, Fillongley, CV7 8DX (near Coventry)
BusinessMums Summit – Monday October 10th 2011, Thistle Hotel, Brighton, East Sussex
In the last year I’ve been to the Mumpreneur Conference, the Cambridge Business Mums Conference and of course Cybermummy. It makes such a difference to get out and talk to like-minded mums and to put faces to the names you meet on Twitter and Facebook. So if you’re wondering whether to go, definitely give one (or more!) a try.
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