Business Plus Baby

September 16, 2013September 16, 2013

Five tips for getting your product manufactured

Many mums have found that a baby isn’t their only new creation and go on to invent a new product too!

Often, inventor mums find themselves frustrated with the baby products on the market and invent their own product to fill a gap – just take a look at the mumpreneur profiles here at Business Plus Baby for some great case studies. The trouble is that the next stage – getting your product manufactured- is daunting, especially as most mums have never done this before and it usually involves working with manufacturers overseas.

Here are five tips to help you along the road to getting your product manufactured:

1. Start with the internet

As with most things these days, the internet is a great place to start learning about getting your creation manufactured. For many product inventors, Asia is going to be the best place to find a manufacturer, especially if you want large numbers and your product’s design isn’t likely to change much over the next few years. But for items with a design that changes regularly where you need smaller batch sizes (e.g. fashion), a local manufacturer might be the right choice. The internet can help you weigh up options like these when you’re in the early stages of your project.

2. …but don’t rely on the internet alone Continue reading “Five tips for getting your product manufactured”

September 12, 2013September 12, 2013

Interview with Simon Burckhardt, Managing director of Vonage UK

The biggest difference between starting a business from home today and when I first started in 200o is the technology. Back then blogging hadn’t been invented, many people were nervous of using a credit card online and most hadn’t even heard of Paypal. Thankfully, technology has made life for small business owners much easier and cheaper than ever before. So when I got a chance to interview Simon Burckardt, managing director of internet telephony service Vonage UK , I said “yes!”

Here’s what I asked Simon…

1. Internet phones have made life so much easier and cheaper for home businesses, I remember when I first became self employed you had no choice but to get a second phone line physically installed in your home! But I find many new home business owners still aren’t aware of how much things have moved on. Can you tell us what Vonage offers to home businesses and freelancers?

When starting up a business there are so many things to think about, plan for and organise, that often the simplest things like setting up a dedicated second line does not get much thought. As a result, home-based business owners tend to go for the options they already know: getting a physical second line installed or using their mobile. Continue reading “Interview with Simon Burckhardt, Managing director of Vonage UK”

September 9, 2013March 4, 2014

First Business Trip? How To Conquer Homesickness

No matter how many times you have to say goodbye to your loved ones, it never gets any easier. When you are in an unfamiliar environment, and especially if you are travelling on your own, loneliness can sink in quickly and put you out of spirits – which is neither good for your state of mind nor your business acumen.

If you are only going away for a couple of days, you are likely to be busy preparing for and giving presentations as well as meeting clients. While this can be stressful, it also means you will probably be too busy to realise you’re missing people at home. However, if you are travelling for longer, homesickness can be a problem.

Whether you are going on your first ever business trip or your fiftieth; whether you are leaving your partner for a few days or an entire brood of little ones for a week, here are a few tips on keeping homesickness at bay while travelling for business.

Time’s a healer

The first thing to understand is that the opening few days are going to be tough, especially if this is your first business trip far away from home. However, you’ll find as time passes that you get accustomed to your new surroundings and begin to make the most of them. Continue reading “First Business Trip? How To Conquer Homesickness”

September 8, 2013

Back to school for kids and mums…

Today’s guest post is from Nicola Semple. Over to you, Nicola!

Supergirl is about to start school.

On the one hand I am massively excited at the prospect of having a bit more free time to devote to my business and to the things that I want to do.

On the other hand it breaks my heart to think that my teeny weeny precious person is going off into the jungle of full time school and having to fend for herself.

But, quite frankly that’s the way it is and there is nothing I can do to change the situation.

As much as I love having my children around I know that I am not cut out to home-school (patience has never been my strongest virtue!). As we approach the end of a seven week break while we have both had a fantastic time I think we both agree it is time for a bit of space.

In an effort to take my mind off the fact that Supergirl is going off to the big bad jungle I have decided to launch The Business Success Bootcamp. The Business Success Bootcamp is aimed at business mums just like you.

Are you incredibly busy, trying to keep all the balls in the air and trying to do it all by yourself?

Are you so busy making your amazing products or providing your top quality service to clients that you often neglect making time to work on your business rather than in your business?

In that case, your time is now! If you have school age children then you will have a bit more time available to devote to your business.

Even if you don’t have school age children there is something about the ‘back to school’ feeling of September that makes us all want to sharpen our pencils, pull up our knee high socks and get cracking!

To help you on your way, you can access some amazing FREE training at The Business Success Bootcamp. I have lined up some fantastic industry experts who can help guide you through the minefield of sales and marketing, copyrwriting, social media, time management, the legalities of business and also provide you with lots of tips on how to make the most of your time and importantly take some time out for you.

The Business Success Bootcamp is only available during the month of September so make sure that you don’t miss out. You can download just one or all of the training materials provided and you can access the majority of them anytime, anywhere.

Pop over and take a look and start the journey to being more profitable and productive.

Nicola Semple is the Founder of Social Media Mamas and Life After Maternity Leave. Voted Work for Mums Marvellous Mumpreneur 2013 she is passionate about helping mums be the best they can be in work and in life. She has recently set up The Business Success Bootcamp to provide free business training to mumpreneurs.

August 30, 2013September 1, 2013

How to pick a domain name

Starting up a new website is an exciting time, but it’s also a time when you need to make some important decisions.

If you’ve ever wondered “what domain name should I pick for my own website?” you’ll know choosing a name is not as easy as it sounds. Should you use your own name, e.g. firstnamelastname.com? Or go with your business name? Or even a name based around keywords because that might have an impact on how easy you are to find on Google? Read on for some pointers.

First, your domain name must be straightforward to spell, type and (if possible) easy to remember too. Many visitors to your site will arrive there by clicking on a link and if so having a domain name that’s easy to spell isn’t that important. But often they’ll read about your website in print or you’ll say it out loud so they can make a note of it. The harder it is to spell or remember, the easier it will be for them to get lost on the way to your site.

Hyphens in domain names also make them harder to remember and type, so these are usually best avoided. For example your ‘virtualassistant.co.uk’ is better than ‘your-virtual-assistant.co.uk’. Also, it’s a pain to say these out loud and write them down correctly, for example “your hyphen virtual hyphen assistant dot co dot uk”. But what if the non-hyphenated version of the domain you want is already taken? It’s still best to avoid the hyphenated one because people could easily forget your hyphens and go to ‘yourvirtualassistant.co.uk’, which means you’re sending them straight to your competitor!

Another common question is whether to go for a domain name with keywords in it or not. Up until a few years ago, there were big benefits to having a keyword-heavy domain name. For example, if you were selling affordable coffee makers, it may have made good sense to buy the domain name ‘cheapcoffeemakers.com’ if people were typing ‘cheap coffee makers’ into Google. So many people created low quality websites based around keywords like this that Google got wise to it and started measuring the value of websites in different ways, meaning that keywords in domain names carry far less weight than they used to. It still makes sense to squeeze a keyword into your domain if you can, but in most cases you need to do far more than this to get on page 1 of Google for that keyword.

The alternative to a keyword-based domain is to pick a name and make it part of your brand. Make your brand memorable and remarkable so people tell their friends and keep coming back for more. A good example is Google itself. The word ‘Google’ is really just a made-up nonsense word. But now everyone knows it’s the biggest search engine in the world and probably uses it multiple times a day.

So what about choosing between ‘.com’, ‘.co.uk’, ‘.biz’, ‘.net’ or any of the other letters you could pick for the end of your domain name? These are known as top level domains (TLDs). Often you’ll find the ‘.com’ version of the domain you want is already taken so what’s the best alternative? In terms of SEO (search engine optimization), choosing a domain that ends in ‘.co.uk’ is perfectly OK if you live in the UK. The situation is the same with ‘.au’ for Australia. So it’s not a problem if the ‘.com’ is already taken from this point of view. In fact if you’ve got a business where all your clients live close to your business such as a bricks and mortar shop in London UK, it would make more sense to have a domain that ends in .co.uk.

Opinions vary on the other TLDs such as .net, .info and .biz . Some of them had a bad reputation as they were used by spammers in the past, but this seems to have improved in recent years. Generally you’re better off with the .com or the TLD for your country (e.g. .co.uk) if those are available. If you’re thinking of buying a domain like .biz, .info or .net, ask your clients or prospective clients what impression it gives them. Would they buy from a .biz website? Also, keep in mind that visitors would expect a .biz site to be a business and a .info site to be providing information. It’s wise to make sure your domain meets your visitors expectations.

Photo credit: samazgor