Category: Featured

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No motivation? Here are some tips to get yourself moving again…

However passionate we are about our businesses, however motivated we are to build a better working life for our own sake and for our families, we all have dips in motivation now and then.

When you think about it, that’s not very surprising.

People who work from home tend to be really hard on themselves. Working alone means that you can lose perspective and set standards for yourself that are hard to live up to.

Mums and women in general tend to be tough on themselves too. As most of us fall into all three categories, we’re bound to be giving ourselves a hard time!

If you’re self-employed, you don’t have a boss expecting you to get down to work at 9am every morning, you’re responsible for doing that yourself. If you’re like me, your day in the office begins at 8pm after a full working day of being a mum. Plus you have to resist the temptations of an evening in front of the TV.

So can we just agree one thing? To have got this far, you must be fantastic at motivating yourself.

Struggling with motivation every now and then is just part of life. You can’t be ‘full-on’ all the time. (Click here to tweet this)

So what can you do?

– Write a (short) list of what you absolutely have to do and just do those tasks. Remember the 80:20 rule? 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions, so now is the time to put this theory to the test!

– Put anything creative or new on the back-burner. Just focus on the stuff that has to be done. Sometimes trundling through some non-demanding tasks can give you a sense of achievement that helps get your get-up-and-go back.

– Is your drop in motivation trying to tell you something? Life moves fast when you have kids, maybe your business is a couple of years old and you’re ready to take it to the next level? Or perhaps sell up and try something new? Now is probably not the time to do anything hasty, just watch out for the signs and mull over what your next step might be.

– Do you need to reconnect with why you started this business in the first place? What was the spark that fired you up? How can you get back in touch with it?

– Try the simple stuff. Take a little time out and chat to a friend or read a good book. Sometimes we get so engrossed in our work we end up living in our own little bubble and eventually we get sick of it all. Step outside your bubble.

– Go cold turkey. Yes, social media is wonderful, but if you’re feeling low don’t you just feel overwhelmed by it all? Switch it off for a couple of days. Focus on your own stuff and don’t try to compare it to what other people are doing.

Give yourself a break for just a while and your motivation will soon return.

If you enjoyed this post, why not make sure you stay in touch by joining  my mailing list? I’ll also send you a copy of  my e-book Running a business around a family: 9 steps to success.

Photo credit: kirainet

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Social Media PR Strategy Simplified for Mumpreneurs

Introducing today’s guest blogger Prerna Malik of Social Media Direct and The Mom Writes…

Have you been struggling with a way to get much needed visibility for your business? Do you feel a limited budget means limited PR opportunities?

Well, let’s talk.

First of all, you don’t have to have a BIG budget to get visibility for your business.

Why?

Because we live in an age where social media rocks and learning to use social media can help you create a PR strategy that is simple, productive, effective and best of all, nearly free.

However, using social media to build, sustain and engage relationships can seem daunting to a mumpreneur who’s already juggling a LOT.

So, here are simple steps to take to create a social media PR strategy for your mom-owned business:

1. Know Your Goals

Begin by identifying what you’d expect to achieve from your social media efforts. You don’t want to spend your precious time and dedicated efforts faffing away on Facebook or Twitter. Do you want to build your email list, get media publicity, garner online reviews or land press mentions? Identify your goals and choose your social networks accordingly.

Twitter, for instance, is great for helping you connect with journalists via Muck Rack or creating your own Twitter Lists. The same is true for LinkedIn which can help you reach media professionals by doing a quick search and adding them to your network.

So, begin by writing down your goals for your social media PR strategy.

2. Know Your Audience

Once you know what you want your social media strategy to give you, take a good, hard look at where your target audience hangs out. You can do this by doing a quick survey of your customers if you have an existing mailing list, reviewing where your competition hangs out or monitoring the conversations on a few key social networks to begin with. Once you know where you’ll find your target audience, it is time for you to start creating a presence on those social networks as well.

3. Know Your Value Add

A strong social media strategy will include identifying how you would add value to your followers and network. What is your unique selling point or USP? Why should the media notice you? Why will reviewers want to test your products? Yes, this may take time but once you have it nailed, you’ll be able to cut to the chase and offer the media exactly what they want.

4. Know Your Resources

Finally, know your resources. If you’re a mumpreneur with a small baby and a growing business, you may not be able to schedule time on a regular basis for using social media. Could you hire a social media manager to help you do that? If blogging and guest posting is not your forte, do you really want to struggle with it? Outsource that and instead, focus on using Twitter and Facebook. Knowing your resources as a mom and business owner will help you trim the fat, avoid unnecessary overwhelm and create a targeted social media strategy that will bring you results.

Biography:

Want to chat about creating a strong and successful social media strategy for your business? Want to power up your home business while taking care of yourself, your home and family? Sign up for a FREE one-on-one session with Prerna or get her eBook, How to be a Work-at-Home Mom: The Happily Ever After Guide to Leading the WAHM Life and learn how to be a more productive, efficient and effective mumpreneur. Prerna Malik is the editor of The Mom Writes, a go-to, award-winning site for work-at-home mothers and the co-owner of Social Media Direct, a digital agency that offers affordable and effective social media and web content solutions.

If you enjoyed this post, why not make sure you stay in touch by joining  my mailing list? I’ll also send you a copy of  my e-book Running a business around a family: 9 steps to success.

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If your laptop was destroyed, would your business be safe?

Imagine losing all your honeymoon photos, emails from that special someone or the diary you’ve been building up for months! In most cases, modern gadgets and gizmos work brilliantly but, when they do go wrong, it can have dire consequences – including the loss of valuable and sentimental material.

Claire Galbois-Alcaix of online backup company Mozy

Technology has a much bigger impact on our lives than ever before – the average Brit now possessing more than four computing devices in their home – double the number owned ten years ago.

If you’re a ‘solopreneur’, the loss or damage of just one of these devices can be devastating because they contain both business and personal data.

Mozy carried out the survey of 3,000 consumers across the UK,  found that over three quarters of people say they rely heavily on technology every day while one in five people reveal they are never more than 10 feet from an internet-enabled device. This dependence means fewer and fewer people are using a paper-dictionary to look up how to spell a word (17 per cent) or learn times tables, while making mix tapes, paying bills at the post office and checking a map before or during a car journey are fading fast from everyday life.

The survey found as one in five shoppers no longer visit the high street to buy shoes. Other increasingly redundant acts include visiting a travel agent, with half of us researching holidays online, visiting car boot sales, or even ringing family and friends.

Viral video by ebuzzing

 

I guess we’re all aware that we make greater use of technology than ever before, but it’s not until we lose it that we realise just how important technology has become to us. The devices themselves can be replaced, but the data usually cannot.

To find out more about how Mozy can help you keep your data safe, just click on the video above.

Sponsored post

Image: Clare Bloomfield / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Easter activities to do with the kids

Are you fitting your business around your kids this Easter? Most business mums I know are scaling back their work for the next couple of weeks and spending the holidays with their children. No doubt there will be a few nights working late for some of us!

So I thought it might be a nice idea to list a few simple and inexpensive things you can do with your kids over the Easter break.

Outdoor fun

The weather can go either way at this time of year, but if we’re lucky we may be able to get outside. (*Crosses fingers* Please let us be able to get outside!)

  • Easter egg hunt – Grab a bag of mini eggs, hide them around the garden and send the kids off to find them.
  • Picnic – Wrap up warm and take a picnic to the park. Don’t forget a thermos of coffee for the adults! (Or even better, get some of these thermal mugs)
  • Two other ways to keep warm are to bounce around on a giant retro space hopper or chase bubbles!
  • Bug safari – the ladybirds are out and about already, so why not take a closer look at them with this Creature Peeper?

Indoor activities

  • Printables – Take a look at some of the fab and easy activities at Mr Printables. Kim at Boutique by Design has a cute label that will turn any bag of chocolate raisins into Bunny Poop or if you prefer you can turn your marshmallows into Bunny Tails.
  • Crafts – bunnies from cotton wool , Easter bonnets, spring flowers from tissue paper, Easter cards for gran and grandad. It’s a great time of year for arts and crafts.
  • Hide and squeak – Babies and young toddlers love these Tomy Hide ‘n’ Squeak Eggs – and they are much healthier than chocolate eggs, too!
  • Twister – For older kids, go retro and play Twister. I haven’t played it since I was a student (yep, that was the version with alcohol!), so I’m really looking forward to being able to play the original version when my kids are just a bit bigger.
  • Board games – my toddlers love a board game, especially Shopping List.
  • Going to a birthday party this Easter? – here’s a nice selection of children’s gifts.

Local activities

Don’t forget to check your local theatres, sports centres, swimming pools and libraries for special events over the holidays.

Other things you might need at this time of year

Lighter mornings mean a  blackout blind and a Gro Clock could make a real difference to how long your little one sleeps in the mornings. Which means you get more sleep too!

What will you be doing over the holidays? Drop me a comment and let me know!

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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