Business Plus Baby

November 1, 2010November 1, 2010

Mumpreneur Monday Challenge: Get Out There!

Welcome to week two of the Mumpreneur Monday challenge!

How did you get on with last week’s challenge? If you missed it, the Monday challenge was to Promote Your Blog.

The internet is a wonderful thing but nothing beats meeting real, live people in the flesh. Too much time on your own in front of a PC can drive you a little bit crazy, so this week your challenge is to…

Get out there!

Here’s how you could do it:

Go to a new networking group

Pick one that suits your style – structured, informal, for mums, for women… take your pick. Stuck for ideas? Ask people you know where they network and what it’s like. Also, ask if you can join them as a guest.

Want to take the little ones but there are no mums networking groups in your area? You could start one of your own! Take a look at Mums The Boss and Mums Business Club.

Have an informal meet-up (or a Tweetup*)

If you don’t want to start a networking group, you could just ask around if anyone knows any mums in business in your area, then arrange a time to meet up in the local park with the kids.

(*Tweetup = A gathering of people who use Twitter.)

See someone you know you should meet

Have you been bouncing emails around with someone when you know you should go and see them in person? It’s not always easy to getting around to meeting people face-to-face. This week, set the date and go and see that person.

Look for business events in your area

Sometimes you just need a breath of fresh air into your business. Look around for local business events and workshops where you can meet new people and get some new ideas. See Woman’s Work, you local Enterprise Agency or Universities, Business Link, or your local Chamber of Commerce.

Turn to Jelly

Have you heard of Jelly? It’s where groups of home-workers gather together and work in the same space for a few hours (but without networking). There are Jellies popping up all over the world and quite a few are in the UK.

If you’re a Twitter user, the hashtag #Jelly will keep you up to date with all things Jelly.

Go for a coffee, girls’ night out or whatever you fancy.

Between family and business it’s easy to forget that you’ve not been out just for fun for a while. So go out, enjoy yourself and recharge those batteries.

Drop me a comment and let me know how you get on!

October 28, 2010March 24, 2015

What’s on your business card?

I run an online business, so I don’t use business cards that much. But now the little Lindops are getting older I’m finding a few more networking events are coming my way. My current set of business cards have my old green-and-orange logo on them, so it’s time for a new set. Maybe even a nice printed lanyard, too!

I was cheerfully putting my new logo on my business card template at VistaPrint when I realised that I had no idea what my job title is!

I own a blog, so I’m a blogger. But I publish articles, so I’m a publisher. Hang on though, I’ve written a book – and I’m soon to be a regular contributor to a family magazine – so that makes me a writer. And I’m about to launch an e-course based on my e-book Earn What You Deserve as a Mumpreneur. That means I’m still a trainer, too.

Job titles for self employed people are not as straightforward as they first appear. So what should you put on your business card? Here are some options:

Be the boss

If you’re a one-woman business (and most of us are), you could give yourself any job title you want including ‘Director’. While that would be technically true, I think most people will quickly sniff out the fact that you’re director of a company of one. There’s nothing wrong with the fake it ’til you make it approach. Up to a point, anyway. You can make your website look every bit as professional as a large company, even if you’re just one person. But pretending to be a ‘we’ when you’re actually an ‘I’ is generally going a step to far.

I’ve seen ‘proprietor’ too. To me, that felt a little old-fashioned, but I guess it depends on your business.

Describe the job

You could keep it simple and call yourself a ‘web designer’, ‘tutor’ or ‘accountant’. For some professions, that could be absolutely fine and expected. In fact, for some it could be against their professional code of conduct to do anything else.

But if you’ve created yourself a job, why not create yourself a job title too? The aim of your business card is to get you business, so if creative works for you then why not try it?

Say nothing (and do something different)

Do you need a job title at all? Most of us have a business name/strap line, logo and URL that describes what we do.

Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income (a great blog if you’re into making money online, by the way) wanted to get a set of business cards printed for a big blogging conference. He wanted to stand out, so chose an unusual card size and picked an eye-catching graphic design. On the front he put his photo, name, Twitter ID and his blog’s URL, on the back he put a link to a welcome video and podcast he’d put together for the conference. You can see photos of the cards in his post How to be a business card ninja.

Of course, this approach wouldn’t work for everyone or every business. But that’s exactly the point – now that you can print business cards cheaply in small batches, it really is possible to print a set that will only be useful for a week. A business card is a part of your marketing literature so why not make it both stand out from the others and tailor it to your audience. The only reason traditional business cards look the way they do is because you had to get thousands printed at a time. The design had to last as you’d be stuck with them for a few years.

The photo at the top shows the design I finally chose. Is it the best one? I don’t know, but I only ordered the minimum number (250) so it won’t be a big deal if I’ve got it wrong.

*Update 21 August 2013*

The original photo of my business card in this post disappeared when I updated the WordPress framework here at Business Plus Baby. Since I’ve had at least three different business cards since I wrote this post, here is a photo of my most recent one…

Thanks for prompting me in the comments, Natalie!

What’s on your business card? Leave me a comment and let me know!

(This post contains an affiliate link)

October 26, 2010October 25, 2010

Have You Got a Gorgeous Baby?

Of course, haven’t we all?!

The NEXT Baby Boutique Model Competition, in association with Prima Baby magazine, is looking for Britain’s cutest and most photogenic infants aged from newborn up to 36 months (born 19th November 2007 or later) which will be split over two categories: from birth up to 18-months, and from 19-months up to 36-months.

Winners will receive £500 of Next vouchers, a 12-month modelling contract with Urban Angels and take part in a photoshoot for NEXT and Prima Baby.

To enter, upload your photo by 12 noon on the 16th November 2010 by visiting facebook.com/nextonline. Entries can only be made by parents or legal guardians and please be sure that the photograph you upload shows your baby fully dressed and wide-awake!

Be sure to ask all your friends and family to support your entry as they can vote on Facebook right up until 12 noon on the 19th November 2010. (Only one vote per person per entry and check out facebook.com/nextonline for full terms and conditions.)

October 25, 2010November 3, 2010

Promote Your Blog: Mumpreneur Monday Challenge

I thought it might be fun (and useful!) to post a Monday Challenge for the next couple of weeks.

If you like it I might make it a regular feature – let me know…

So this week your challenge is to…

Take one extra step to promote your business blog.

Drop me a comment and let me know how it goes (plus you’ll get a link to your blog, which is a little bit of promotion in itself!)

Here are some ways you could promote your blog this week:

Join a forum

Pick one that is visited by your target audience, make sure it allows you to put your URL in your signature and read the terms and conditions carefully. Then, staying within the Ts&Cs, help people and show them you’re an expert.

Maybe you’ve been a forum member for a while but have been just lurking? This week, become active in that forum instead.

Twitter and Facebook

Make sure every blog post is announced on Twitter and your Facebook page. You can do this automatically with NetworkedBlogs or TwitterFeed. Schedule some tweets with a link to your older but most popular blog posts using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck

Boost your content

How can you really add value to your readers? What do they want to know? How can you give that to them? Commit to stepping up the quality of your content this week.

Blog Carnivals

Enter a blog carnival (hint: Business Mums Blog Carnival!). Do a Google search on ‘blog carival’ and your key words to see if there are any on the same subject as your blog.

If there are no blog carnivals in your field, why not start one?

Guest Post

Draw up a list of blogs with a readership similar to your target audience. Check to see if they have a policy on guest blogging and make sure you follow it. If the policy is OK with this, email the owner if they would like to feature you as a guest blogger. Tell them a little about your blog and give them a list of possible subjects that you could cover. Offer to feature them as a guest blogger in return.

Comments

Set yourself a target of (say) 3 comments a day for a week. Comment on blogs with a similar readership to your own but make sure you add something to the conversation, rather than just saying ‘great post!’

You Tube

Record a video, upload it to You Tube and embed it in a blog post. It’s not as scary as it sounds – stand a video camera on a pile of books on your desk, speak your blog post into the camera instead of writing it, download onto PC and upload to You Tube. Your first video won’t be perfect (Yes, you’ll cringe when you see yourself in the video!) but you’ll have taken that daunting first step towards video marketing.

Be helpful

Help other bloggers promote their blogs and they will return the favour. Retweet them on Twitter, mention them on your Facebook page, ask if they would like to be guest bloggers on your blog.

Not got a blog?

This week, have a think about if now a good time to start one. Blogs can be great for getting fresh content on your website, telling customers about new products and increasing your search engine rankings. But keeping them up to date takes time and commitment, so you need to weigh up if it’s right for you and your business.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

photo credit: theinfinite