The Results of That Survey…

My New Year’s Resolution is to bring you the most useful content I possibly can. That’s why I launched my survey a couple of weeks ago and I’d like to say a huge thanks to you for taking part.

I started Business Plus Baby about 18 months ago because I had problems finding the information I needed when I wanted to start my own business while on maternity leave. I had a hunch that there were quite a few mums reading this blog with older kids and older businesses, but I was surprised just how many! Most readers have children aged 1 to 3, but there are lots of mums of school-aged children too. Very few of you are actually still starting up, with the vast majority being in your first or second year after launch.

That’s why I’ve just changed my tag line to ‘Growing a business around a young family’ from ‘Starting a business as a mum to a baby or toddler’. Having a niche is great, but I had been thinking my niche was a little too narrow and this survey confirmed that for me. I will, of course, still write about starting up as it’s one of the toughest stages to work through, but I’m going to write more about being a year or two down the line too.

Finding good childcare isn’t an issue for most readers and affording it is only an issue for a few. I guess that reflects the fact that most readers have children who are older than three years. Self confidence, motivation and isolation aren’t big problems for most of you either. Not surprisingly, your biggest problems are lack of time and the conflicting priorities of your family and business.

You’d like to know more about most aspects of running a business, with marketing of all kinds being top of your lists. Ecommerce, SEO and website issues were also subjects you want to know about, but that’s bound to be because many of you are running on-line businesses.

The big lesson for me here is how important it is to keep asking your audience what they really want. It’s so easy to assume you know what people want but the only way to be sure is to actually ask them. Fortunately, with tools like surveymonkey.com, Facebook and Twitter it’s never been easier to get feedback – plus it’s fast and usually free.

So keep reading for more on promoting your business (on-line and more traditional methods too), running and growing an on-line business, managing your finances, time management and more coming your way this year.

Have an exciting and successful 2011!