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Announcing the Business Mums Blog Carnival for January!

Are you a mumpreneur with a blog? Join in January’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  Alli Price of Motivating Mum

To enter, email the link to your post to alli (at) motivatingmum.co.uk  by 6pm on 24th January

The carnival will be posted on www.motivatingmum.co.uk/wp on 25th January.

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!

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I Started a Business With a Baby: Vanessa Blake of Dreamgenii

What do you do?

At dreamgenii® we sell a range of products that serve to make pregnancies, births and children more comfortable all over the world.  We focus on products that genuinely work to make parents’ and children’s lives easier, delivering products that are born out of genuine need – that genuinely work.

When did you establish your business?

2005

What made you start your own business?

“I was six months pregnant with my son and after weeks of tossing and turning at night I’d had enough.  I tried every pregnancy pillow on the market and none of them actually worked.  All of them woke me up in the night when I wanted to move and they usually ended up strewn on the floor by morning!”

“I bought a sewing machine and made a pillow myself, but it was pretty basic.  I showed it to my midwife at my antenatal class and everyone raved about it!  They suggested I should look into selling it to other women so I took it to a manufacturer and asked them to make up some proper samples.  I showed the samples to various midwives, healthcare organisations as well as many pregnant friends and volunteers.  The pillow was universally welcomed as a huge help for pregnant women, and we went on to launch it.  Five years later we now sell a range of award winning, unique products for parents and children that support their journey from pregnancy to parenthood.”

What challenges have you had to overcome?

So many challenges!  We faced significant financial challenges as we have never received any support from any bank.  Getting into retailers was tough to begin with – I had to demonstrate to them why pregnancy pillows were so important and that there was a real need for our product.  I also faced huge personal challenges with trying to balance becoming and being a parent (I now have two children) as well as setting up and running the business.  My husband and family’s support has been incredible.

What has been your biggest achievement?

There have been so many!  I think winning Practical Parenting’s Award for Pregnancy Product of the Year in 2007 was a fantastic milestone for us.  It gave us real validation that our product was of great quality, easy to use and valued by mums.  It was such an accolade as a pregnancy pillow had never won that award before.  We were so proud!  Also every time we receive a positive review or testimonial from a mum is a fantastic achievement.  You know we really are helping to make a difference to pregnant women around the world.

What do you love about working for yourself?

Being in control of my own destiny!  As well as being able to put our children first.  We never lose sight of why we set up the business in the first place and that everything we do is for our family.  We try not to sacrifice family life for the business – but to make the business fit around our family.  Even if it does mean some late nights working from home sometimes once the children are in bed!  We also try and make sure we have fun.  We are a small team and all enjoy working together.

Is there anything you would go back and do differently if you could?

Be more prepared for success!  We had no idea how quickly sales for the pillow would take off.  We had to learn new skills very quickly and scale up our operations to be able to supply customers like Mothercare.

Finally if there is one thing that you could tell other Mums who want to start their own business; what would it be?

I think to have the courage of your convictions, and to stick with it.  Trying to get something off the ground can be stressful, and I could never have done it without the support of my husband Stephen and all of our family.  I firmly believe if you can get through those first few months it’s well worth the effort!

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How to Make More Money From Your Website: Be an Affiliate

(This is the second post in my series on making money from your website. The first one is The Easiest Way To Earn Money From Your Blog and the third is Advertising and sponsorship)

If you already have a website or blog for your business, you could be making commission by recommending other products and services to your clients.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re a virtual assistant and do administration work for small businesses. Your clients will need to buy computers, business cards, printer ink, paper, business insurance and many other products and services. If you recommend one (or more) of these products/services on your website and include an affiliate link, you’ll get commission if a visitor to your site clicks through and buys the product/service you recommend.

An affiliate link it works like a normal link but it also tracks the clicks coming through from your website so you can be paid commission. Affiliate links can either be text links or adverts (ie a graphic image such as a .jpg file).

Who to recommend

Only recommend products that you have already tried for yourself and really like. Ideally, pick a product that’s so good you’d recommend it even if you weren’t being paid to do so.

It’s best to be an affiliate for only one or two of each type of product. That’s because if you’re recommending (say) ten different printing companies, it looks like you’re blatantly trying to make money out of your clients rather than recommending a product that you genuinely use and like.

Where to find companies to recommend

Most larger companies (and many small ones) have affiliate programmes. Small on-line businesses that sell e-books and e-courses often have an ‘affiliates’ menu at the top of their home page, but other businesses tend to be more subtle. Think about a company that you might want to recommend on your website and look at the bottom of their website for a link to their affiliates page. It may be called ‘affiliates’ or something similar like ‘trade’, ‘partners’, ‘resellers’. You may be surprised at just how many companies will pay you to refer clients to them.

Make sure you look at the percentage commission that the company pays to its affiliates. Some of the percentages can be quite low, so you’ll want to weigh up if it’s worth the effort before you sign up. Information products such as ebooks have the highest percentage rates – sometimes as much as 50% – because there isn’t a physical product to manufacture, store or ship. Tangible products can have commission rates around 10%.

Take a look at Clickbank for information products, or keep an eye on Business Plus Baby as I’m currently creating digital products with affiliate programmes.  The first one is Earn What You Deserve as a Mumpreneur and you can find out more about its affiliate programme here.

Or just Google the words ‘affiliate’ and the type of product you’re looking to promote e.g. ‘affiliate toys’

How to sign up to an affiliate programme

The company you’re recommending will usually use another company like Affiliate Window, Affiliate Future or Paid On Results (or Clickbank or EJunkie for information products) to manage its affiliate programme.  You’ll  need to set up an account with the affiliate company to get paid. Once you’ve signed up and been approved (which can take just minutes) you’ll be given access to a range of different adverts and text links that you can copy and paste into your website.

Once you’ve signed up with the affiliate company, you can browse through their clients to see if there are any others that you’d like to recommend.

How to get people to click on the affiliate links/adverts

Sadly it’s not usually as simple as sticking an advert on your website and watching the cash roll in!

To increase your chances of making commission you could:

  • Promote the product in much the same way as you would your own – put a link in your email signature, mention it on Twitter or your Facebook page and newsletter. Check the terms and conditions of internet forums though, as some don’t allow affiliate links.
  • If you have a blog, write a helpful post explaining why you use this product, why it’s better than the others you could buy and what specific problems it solved for you. Try to write it as if you were recommending the product to a friend in an email rather than as a sales pitch. This will get more attention than an advert in your sidebar.
  • Create a resources page listing all the products that you recommend and why.
  • Always be open about your affiliate links. If you’re recommended a product and later find out that the person recommending it was being paid to do so, it feels a little underhand and could be a turn-off.
  • Make your affiliate links/adverts very relevant to your target audience. Ideally, aim to solve a problem that they have rather than recommending a product they can easily find for themselves.
  • Experiment with the wording and position of your affiliate links/adverts to see what works best.

(This post contains an affiliate link)

Creative Commons License photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

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Five Reasons To Buy a Franchise

Many family friendly businesses can be started either by buying a franchise or from scratch. It can be tough deciding which way to go, which is why it’s great that today’s guest blogger, Pippa Highfield, is going to give us her own reasons for buying a franchise 4 years ago. Pippa is the Bedford editor of Raring2Go! , a local magazine full of ideas of what to do and where to go with children.

I recently completed a survey for the British Franchise Association and one of the questions they asked me was why I bought a franchise as opposed to setting up a business from scratch. It was an easy question to answer as starting up the Bedford edition of Raring2go! magazine, a local what’s on and where to go guide for families, really was the best option for me.

Having worked in the corporate world for most of my career, I was frankly terrified of going it alone.

Having worked in the corporate world for most of my career, I was frankly terrified of going it alone. Yet I knew that starting my own business was the only viable way for me to achieve the work/ life balance I needed with a young family. Running a franchise generated the income I wanted whilst giving me a much needed support structure whilst I learned how to run my own business.

Here are my top five reasons to consider buying a franchise:

  • Greater financial certainty: when purchasing a franchise you are buying into a tried and tested model for making money. Clearly nothing is 100% guaranteed, but the franchisor should be able to give you real-life examples of the profitability achieved by other franchisees or a set of accounts if you are looking at a franchise resale. If you need to earn a certain income to make the family finances balance this can be a great help.
  • Business support and training: your franchisor will be a great source of practical support and advice – it’s like having your own IT, HR & marketing team to call upon! Very few people have all the skills necessary to run their own business so knowing you have a team you can rely on takes the pressure off.
  • A recognised brand and business model: it takes most companies many years and a big budget to build a reputation. By buying into a franchise you are piggy-backing on a brand that has national backing giving your business kudos and credibility. As well as a brand, you are buying a business model or way of doing business. Most franchisors will provided a detailed operational manual showing you the best way of running your business. The manual will help you cut through a lot boring background ‘stuff’ and let you get on with making money.
  • Easier route to financing your business: yes, you need capital to buy a franchise, but then you need to invest money in most new businesses. The benefit of buying a franchise is that the banks are likely to put more store on the franchisors projections or an existing set of accounts if you are looking at a franchise resale.
  • Franchisee support network: often other local franchisees are the greatest source of motivation and support. In most franchise arrangements you are not in competition with fellow franchisees which means you have a group of ‘colleagues’ who really do know what you are going through. If, like me, you are used to working in an office environment the benefits of being part of a ready-made franchisee network can be really valuable.

After four successful years Pippa is now planning to move on to new projects. So if you think franchising could tick your boxes and would like an informal chat about taking on the Raring2go! Bedford franchise please contact Pippa on 01908 583232 or bedford@raring2go.co.uk

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