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November 15, 2010November 15, 2010

Mumpreneur Monday Challenge: Create Some Fresh Content

It’s Monday again, so it’s time for this week’s challenge. (If you missed the previous challenges, here they are: Promote your blog, Get out there!, Get creative!)

Right, let’s dive in!

Content, content, content. You need it for blog posts, words to put on your website, things to link to on your facebook page, useful links to tweet about….

But how do you come up with all this stuff?

Your challenge this week is to….

Create some fresh content

More specifically, to take one step that will make creating fresh content easier for you from now on. (But that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue!)

Here are some ideas you could try this week… Continue reading “Mumpreneur Monday Challenge: Create Some Fresh Content”

November 10, 2010November 9, 2010

Finding it tough as a mumpreneur? You’re not alone…

You know how life has its ups and downs? Last week I was getting bogged down by everything – working, cleaning up after the family, not having much time off to myself. I still very much believed in helping mums get businesses of the ground, but all I could see was a long, hard slog ahead. The days here are getting shorter as winter approaches, I was tired and if I’m honest, a bit bad tempered too.

So I took a few hours off (steady on, Helen!), got stuck into a good book – fiction, rather than my usual business books – and tried to get things back into perspective. Then I got an email from Erica Douglas that sums up exactly why I’m doing all this. Here’s her story…

“In 2009 I was working part time as a waitress, a job I enjoyed but that was physically demanding. Events that year meant I had to resign leaving me with very little personal income (I was earning £100-£200 from my blog). A few months later I found myself well enough to seek work again, I attended the Job Centre every week only to be disheartened to find that the recession meant that opportunities were limited. With every week that passed and every visit to the job centre I felt more and more depressed and my self-esteem was suffering.

I’d been trying to make a go of things online but the small amount of income I was earning via my blog wasn’t really enough. In October 2009 my husband told me to stop looking for a job, just like that, just stop. He promised that he’d make up the difference between my waitressing job and the income I was making online in overtime (about £200-300 per month). I took his advice and, well, he never had to do any overtime. My husband is a sensible guy, he figured by taking away the barriers it really put me under (good) pressure to follow my passion and soon as I started taking it seriously I started earning an income. I ‘work’ for around ten hours a week now on various things but predominantly my income comes from training business women how to use the internet more effectively. I chose that niche as it’s something I’m hugely passionate about but there are a ton of different niches out there.

My target next year is to earn a ‘full time wage on part time hours’…

My target in the first six months this year was to exceed my waitressing income £400-500 per month. My target by the end of this year was to earn more than £1000 per month working just ten hours a week (I’m not lazy, I’m studying full time too!). Last month I exceeded my target, I know it’s not a huge amount (I’m not rich, yet!) but it was a big milestone. My target next year is to earn a ‘full time wage on part time hours’ and I calculate that as £1500 per month before tax.”

Why was Erica sharing all this? Erica, Antonia Chitty and I have put together a pack of books that will help mums start their own businesses. In Erica’s words:

“I’m sharing this personal information because I want you to know that this is accessible, but it’s not a get rich quick scheme. These books will teach you how to build a proper business that you can run flexibly around your children.”

Sometimes you need to hear someone else’s story to bring things back into focus. Erica reminded me why I started Business Plus Baby. I wanted to help women build a working life on their own terms, not to have to put their children into full-time childcare (unless they wanted to) and spend all their earnings on it. To earn a decent income but still have plenty of time to spend with their young children. To make use of their talents, keep their skills fresh and perhaps discover an entrepreneurial streak. To open up possibilities and opportunities.

I wanted to help women build a working life on their own terms

Because I’m passionate about my subject and also online, blogging is the perfect way for me to do that. But an online business is a long haul, it takes a lot of patience and determination.

So if you’re knee-deep in hard slog and flagging a bit, remember you’re not alone. Whether you’re thinking of starting a business and daunted by all the challenges ahead or you’ve hit a tough patch after starting your business, keep at it.

Keep taking those steps forward and make sure you’ve got the company of other business mums (we know what it’s like). From time to time reconnect with you reasons for doing all this. Take a little time out if it all gets too much.

Keep going and all those steps will add up to something really amazing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, please leave me a comment :0)

photo credit: joannapoe

November 8, 2010November 7, 2010

Mumpreneur Monday Challenge: Get Creative

It’s week three of the Mumpreneur Monday Challenge!

Weeks 1 and 2 have gone down really well, so if you’ve joined in don’t forget to leave me a comment to tell me how you got on. If you missed the previous Monday Challenges they were Promote Your Blog and Get Out There!

This week I’ve taken my inspiration from Business Plus Baby’s guest blogger Amelia Critchlow. Amelia’s an artist and workshop leader who blogs at 101 Bird Tales (fab blog, I really recommend going over there and having a look). Amelia really is making a living from being creative and that’s why she’s inspired this week’s challenge.

Recently I’ve got a bit bogged down in the logical, outcome-based side of business, so a quick read of Amelia’s blog was like a breath of fresh air for me.

True, you do need focus, planning and a firm grip on your finances to run a business. But if you lose your creativity you can get blinkered, miss opportunities and just stop enjoying what you’re doing.

So your challenge this week is to…

Get creative!

Here are some ways you could do this:

Go for a walk

Splash in puddles, crunch in the leaves, blow away the cobwebs, feel the wind on your face.

Be in the moment

Pick a time and just focus on where you are at that exact moment. Don’t think of the million things you need to get done before the end of the day, just pay attention to what is happening in that moment. You’ll notice things that would pass completely pass you by otherwise – perhaps that’s a feeling, perhaps something you can see, smell or touch.

Do a creative activity you haven’t done since you were a child

Play doh, sew, make stuff out of cereal boxes… it’s up to you.

Write whatever comes into your head

Sit down with a pen and paper and just write. Don’t think, don’t edit, just let the words flow.

Paint like a kid instead of a grown up

Do an art or craft activity with your children but be a child, not an adult. Don’t supervise or teach, just get in there and have fun together.

Something else?

Maybe this post has sparked another creative idea for you? Go and do it!

And after all that..

Has this task made you see you’ve got stuck in a routine? Or perhaps that you need to reconnect with why you started your business in the first place? Has it sparked some new ideas? Or maybe it has reminded you to have fun and take some time out?

I’ll leave you with a quote from 101 Bird Tales, which is taken from ‘How to be an artist’ by Michael Atavar

“It [creativity] doesn’t work to deadlines. It needs room to grow and that space can be a place of waiting. We assume that time on a bus, waiting for some-one to arrive, a train delayed is lost time. Perhaps it’s just the universe telling you that you need to do nothing.”

Please do leave me a comment to tell me how you got on!
photo credit: Siona Watson

November 7, 2010November 10, 2010

Business Mums Blog Carnival for November

Are you a mumpreneur with a blog? Join in November’s Business Mums Blog Carnival and get yourself more readers and comments!

You don’t even need to write a post for the carnival, just pick your favourite from the posts already up on your blog and send the link to the carnival host. This month your host is Accidental Business Mum Andrea Daly of www.andreadaly.com

To enter, email the link to your post to dalyandie (at) gmail.com by Friday 12th November.

The carnival will be posted on www.andreadaly.com on Monday 15th November.

If you’re not sure how it all works or what kind of post to enter, you’ll find everything you need to know on the Business Mum’s Blog Carnival page. And you can get your own blog carnival badge there too!

November 3, 2010July 4, 2011

Why selling your time by the hour is a bad idea (and what to do about it)

If you’re selling your time by the hour, you may find you’re working really hard but not earning as much as you want. Why? Well, if you’re working part time around children you may only have twenty hours a week to work. Once you’ve lost up to half of that time doing your admin and marketing you may only have ten hours left. You need to be charging a lot per hour to make much money from ten hours a week.

And even if you do charge a high hourly rate there will always be a limit to how much you can earn because there are only 24 hours in a day.

A big advantages of this type of business are that you can get paid faster than other businesses – you don’t need to manufacture anything – and you don’t need to buy or store stock, so it’s a great way to get a business off the ground. But to grow your business (and your bank balance) you’ll need to think of other ways of increasing your income.

How about setting up another income stream that doesn’t involve selling time? If you’re a complementary therapist, you could sign up with a direct selling company and sell health, beauty or environmental products, for example. It won’t cost you much to get started, you don’t need to buy much stock and the direct selling company will provide you with things like brochures, order forms and posters.

Can’t find what you want in direct selling? There are lots of creative mums out there, look around for one who makes a product that your clients would love.

Or how about selling an e-book or on your website? You don’t even need to write it yourself, you could become an affiliate for someone else’s product. Being affiliate means that you tell clients, or even friends and family, about a product and you get commission for every sale you make. Look at products you already use and like, then take a look at the seller or manufacturer’s website for how to ‘become an affilliate’ (it’s sometimes called a ‘reseller’ or ‘rep’ instead).

If you’d like to know about more ways you could boost your income as a mumpreneur, take a look at my e-course Earn What You Deserve as a Mumpreneur.

Photo credit: Katerha