Get Your Family and your Home Business on board like a pro.

There are a lot of myths about starting your own business, and even more about working from home as a mom. One of which is that it’ll be easy to always spend time with your family and your business will just run itself.

While eventually, you can set up a situation where that seems true, at first it might be a little tricky. As long as you go into it with your eyes wide open you’ll be able to create a business that works with your family situation. You really can have it all when you have your own business, but maybe not all at the same time. Just find a way to make it work, and you’ll be glad you did.

Whether you start a service-based business or a product based business working from home can be the answer to many of life’s problems associated with lack of work-life balance. You won’t have to miss parent-teacher meetings, family night, game night or anything else ever again if you have everything in place and your spouse on board with your idea.

Are you still thinking about how to choose the right work at home business that suits you, then you need to read my post on how to choose the right work at home business for you.

Here are some tips to help you run your business without jeopardizing time with your family and how to overcome obstacles that might arise.

-Rid Yourself of Guilt – One of the most important things you can do is let go of any type of guilt you have associated with working. There is nothing wrong with wanting to and needing to earn a living. It doesn’t matter if you start a business or work in a job, most of us have to work today and the children really will be alright.

-Be Realistic – Trying to work with a nursing baby can be hard in any circumstance. It’s best to schedule your work realistically around your family than it is to try to expect your family to accommodate you. There are times work has to come first, but if you set your schedule realistically you’ll find fewer times of having to juggle.

-Get Help When You Need It – Whether it’s an au pair, a nanny, a VA, or a housekeeper, get help when you are able and when you need and can afford it. There is nothing wrong with putting 2-year-old in part-time preschool either. If you really want your business to succeed you will take the steps necessary to see that it does.

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-Create a System – When you determine what you’ll be doing for a business from home, it’s good to create a system just like you would if you worked at a job. Have a system in place that helps you keep track of what you need to do each day in order to earn the income you want to earn.

-Have a Plan B – Sometimes emergencies happen so it’s good to have a plan B. If you thought you were going to put in 4 hours of work the day your three children come down with the flu, then you’re obviously going to have to put that off. If you build in extra time to every deadline you create you’ll easily be able to create a plan B.

-Schedule Everything – Use a good calendaring system to schedule everything including work and family time. If you want to have lunch with your girlfriends on Tuesday at 2 pm for a couple of hours, you must schedule in that time including travel time. If you want to spend the morning with your daughter watching movies, schedule in.

-Date night with your husband, schedule it. Everything from cooking meals, to laundry, and all that you do – schedule it in and add in some extra time to make up for errors.

-You’re Not Martha Stewart – Guess what, it’s okay that you’re not MS, in fact she’s not even MS; she has an entire staff to help her be amazing. If you don’t yet have that staff let some things go. Perfection is not necessary to be successful at spending time with your family and making your business work.

-Take Time for You – One of the most important parts of the happiness equation is to always take time for yourself. Just like you put the oxygen mask on yourself first in the airplane if something goes wrong you must take care of your needs before you take care of everyone else’s wants.

-Keep Your Focus – Avoiding shiny object syndrome is important when you work for yourself at home. It’s easy to get your mind turned onto the next big thing instead of focusing on the business you decided to start. Make it a practice to only devote about 5 percent of the time you’ve set aside for working on new ideas outside of your niche.

-Get the Family Involved – Having a home business can be hard on the family too sometimes. This is especially true when you spend long hours in front of your computer creating products and performing services. Your family wants to be involved. If they can’t help you directly with work, ask them to help with household duties. You can pay your children a larger allowance now that you are earning an income.

-Accept Your Children’s Ages – When children are under 4 years old it is much harder to schedule time for working a business without childcare help of some kind. Whether that is your spouse chipping in more or hiring a teenager to help is up to you.

-Make Your OfficeChild-Friendly– You can’t expect your children to stay out of your office at all times. It’s just not realistic for a family. Instead, make the office child friendly by making it safe and also friendly. For example, you might put a playpen in the office with toys for your toddler to play in safely while you work.

-Take Time Out – Young children cannot focus on one thing for too long, so asking them to be quiet for an hour might be too much. But, you can set a timer for quiet time, set up a movie, and then when the timer goes off spend some time jumping around and playing directly with your child. They’ll soon understand that if they’re good when the timer is on they get one-on-one time with mommy when it rings.

-Expect Sick Days – Be prepared when you or your children get sick. If you have deadline focused work, build in extra time and never put off work when all is going well to stare at the TV or play on Facebook. When you have a family you need to work when you can so that when something happens you can be there for them.

When you set an intention to do something and to make your business work you will succeed. Don’t just leave it all up in the air, instead, create a plan of action and follow through.

Change the Way You Think

To be successful in blending your family with working from home in your business there are many ideas you may have had that you’ll need to let go. There are many different work from home myths that you may realize aren’t really true as you work toward changing the way you think.

-Let Go of Pride – Never be afraid to ask for help from your family and friends. If you need some quiet time to get some work done you’ll need to ask your family to do it so that you can get the work done for the sake of your business.

-Let Go of Even Stevens – You’re not going to spend 50 percent of your time on your family and 50 percent of your time on your business. It doesn’t work that way. Some days you’ll spend more time with your family and others more time with your business.

-Let Go of Self-Sacrifice – You don’t have to put yourself last to have a successful work from home business and a successful family life. You need to put yourself first when it has to do with your needs. Some needs are exercise, nutrition, socialization, and alone time. If there are issues that you struggle with as a stay at home mom, then read this post on 6 things that a stay at home mom struggles with. You will get ideas on how to overcome such issues and get to the place where you are giving your best to your family and business.

-Let Go of Traditional Schedules – In most cases, when you have a work from home business you don’t have to work traditional hours of 8 to 6, instead, you can work full-time around your life.

-Let Go of Traditional Ideas of Work – When you start a work at home mom business the work that you will do may vary, you might earn as a blogger, a YouTube star, or as a fitness coach. The sky is truly the limit and only your imagination can keep you from making money online in your own business. Sometimes learning that a combination of different ways of making money online will help you to achieve your financial goals. For more on this read my 5 posts that teach you how to make money online

-Let Go of Distractions – When you first start working from home it’s difficult to let the distractions of home fade into the background so that you can get some work done. But, if you practice doing it every day it gets easier to accomplish. Just do it every day and before you know it, it becomes a habit.

-Let Go of the Idea of Overnight Success – While you will experience success quickly if you craft a plan of action and stick to it, it won’t be overnight. For example, it can take one to three years to earn money as a blogger, shorter to earn as a service provider such as a graphic designer or virtual assistant. Many people combine both types of business to get started fast. if you want to learn how to combine various options of business in other to get a successful business, learn how I did it by opening an online store right after I started my blog.

You can’t let any of the myths stop you from working your home business and becoming successful. Just because you won’t become super successful overnight, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to be as successful as you want to be eventually with the right plan of action.

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Getting Your Spouse on Board

Sometimes the biggest impediment to starting a work at home mom business is your spouse. Try to understand that your spouse may not have been exposed to the information that you’ve read and may only know about the myths of working from home and not the realities.

They may see it as just a hobby and not enough money to provide the family with what they need and that might scare him. It’s up to you to get your spouse on board with your new venture in a good way so that you have the support you need to be successful.

-Schedule a Serious Meeting with Your Spouse – The first step to getting your spouse on board is to set up a meeting without distractions. You can go out to dinner to a place that is easy to talk and has wireless, or you can do it during a time the kids are sleeping or with the grandparents. However you do it, you need to avoid distractions.

-Remember, Timing is Important – Don’t hit your spouse with a business idea when you’re in debt, when things aren’t going well for him at work, or when the timing is all wrong. Talk to them when they’re in a good mood and ready to listen.

-Secure Financing – For a home based business you’re not going to need as much money to start your business but you will need some. Get the numbers down on paper so you can explain to your spouse how you’ll accomplish your goals.

-Compile the Research – It’s important to do your research in advance and know exactly what type of business you want to start before approaching your spouse. Put it all in a PowerPoint slideshow so that you can show him how serious you are and exactly what you need to get started and the projected income.

-Put All Your Cards on The Table – Explain to your spouse how much money you can make, how many hours you will need to work, and how this will affect your family exactly. If you lead with doing it for the kids, and for the family, you may get him onboard faster. Some spouses get on board faster when you show them the money first though. You’ll need to be the judge.

-Plan Together How To Make It Work – When you get your spouse on board you can plan together how to get the business going in the early days. Perhaps he’ll take care of after dinner baths and bedtime while you get some work done.

-Set Priorities Right From the Beginning – The entire point of starting an at home business is having more family time, yet earning enough money to support that goal. Ensure that you and your spouse are on the same page regarding family time and the importance you place on things like childcare and housework versus quality time together and earning money.

When you come to your spouse with a realistic idea, set goals, and the financials all in place they’ll be impressed enough and take you seriously enough to give it a shot. You must be very precise about what you need to make it all work. Don’t take it all onto yourself to get the new business to work without any help from your spouse. Do it right from the start and you won’t regret it.

Working at home can be very rewarding and lucrative. You have to be realistic, but you should also dream big. Make big goals; keep them super specific, and then craft a plan to make it happen. Schedule it all in your calendar, then stick to the plan and soon you’ll be a very profitable and happy work at home mom.

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August 15, 2017August 15, 2017

3 tips that will explode your email marketing

3 tips that will skyrocket your email marketing — 3 tips that will explode your email marketing.

Every blog should invest heavily in email marketing, email marketing is a form of marketing that allows you to communicate directly with your audience while cutting out the middle man. Unlike social media marketing, you are not reliant on a third party to pass on your message and you won’t lose all your hard work if your members decide to delete their account.

Moreover, email marketing will help you to convert your readers far more efficiently than any other form of marketing and the simple reason for this is that email marketing is much more personal. These are messages that will end up right in your visitors’ inboxes – just as though they were messages from a friend or relative.

If you are wondering how email marketing works, there are companies that provide email marketing services, their job is to ensure that your emails get to your readers at the appropriate time. They have developed a software that helps you to capture emails from your subscribers and send them emails.

There are many email service companies out there, some include Mail Chimp, Aweber, Sumo, but I am particularly in love with SENDLANE,

Here are good reasons why they rank amongst the best as an email service company

-They have built in Landing pages which require little customization for a Newbie person and hence makes it easy to use.

-Their Landing pages are designed to convert and collect emails efficiently from subscribers.

-They also have built in email autoresponder series designed to help you deliver your opt-in lead magnets or freebies once people subscribe to their list.

-They have email built in email templates designed to deliver your emails beautifully and also convert your email readers to buyers of your services and products.

-Another function of SENDLANE which thrills me is your ability to use their workflow module to schedule emails well ahead of time, hence freeing up your time for more valuable work.

-The workflow module can also be used to deliver a free email course for your readers.

-They also consistently send you emails that will help you develop a good email strategy for your readership hence increasing your conversion.

If you want to make use of this email service click SENDLANE to subscribe.

Did I mention you can also try their services for two weeks for free, if you don’t like it, you can cancel.

For you to do email marketing right, there are a lot of things you need to keep in mind. Here are some of the most important pointers.

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Be Personal

Tip number one is to make sure that your emails are personal in tone. We have already just discussed that email marketing is more personal in tone – and you thus need to match that tone in your writing if you are going to make your emails more engaging and interesting.

But this has another advantage too – it will help you to get past not only the spam filter more efficiently but also the ‘social’ and ‘marketing’ email boxes found in Outlook and Gmail. Use the recipient’s name (most autoresponders include this feature) and make sure that your messages use a regular letter-type structure.

Maintain Your List and Target

Your ‘Sender Reputation’ is a score that is linked with your IP address and/or domain in much the same way that a credit score can be linked to a particular account. The idea of a sender reputation is that it will reflect the quality of your emails on a whole and whether or not you should be allowed to ‘get through’ to your readers.

There are many things that will cause you to get a bad score. One of these things is your bounce rate and if lots of your emails bounce, this can badly affect your score. Another thing is your open rate and if none of your emails get opened, this too will hurt you. The same goes for complaints of course.

So that means you need to focus on the quality of your list more than the size. Are these people who really read your blog and who really asked to be here? It’s why you must never buy contacts. Likewise, if you have people who never open your messages – delete them!

Use the Right Incentive

An incentive is a free gift like an ebook or report that you give away to new subscribers. This is a great tool for encouraging people to sign up but it’s important to be very careful when using it. The reason for this is that the wrong incentive can actually harm your mailing list. If it’s too valuable for instance then people will sign up only to get the free gift and then never open your messages subsequently – very bad for sender reputation!

To get on my email list, sign up on my mailing list and get a free ebook

Do you have more ideas on how to explode your email marketing efforts, kindly leave a comment below.

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Secrets to running a successful Re-sell of Used Items Business

Secrets to Running Re-sell of Used Items business — Secrets to running a successful re-sell of used items Business

Selling used item is one way which a stay at home mom can earn extra cash while staying at home raising her kids, however, this post will be dedicated to writing about secrets that any stay at home mom can use to make a living from successful re-sell of used items. if you have been considering starting a home business but don’t know how to choose the right business then consider reading my post on how to choose the right home business for you

Disclosure: There are affiliate links associated with this post, if you purchase from any of these links, I make a commission which does not in anyway increase your cost of purchase but helps me to keep this blog running.

Used items which command fair value is a market for people who want to shop close to originals without having to pay the price of brand new items. We often times buy stuff which we may not end up using or there may be items that the useful life has passed by in our own time, therefore, we need to sell it off in other to declutter our homes.

For anyone wanting to start up a business in buying and reselling used items, I would recommend to start with your own stuff. You can start by getting organized and sorting out those things which you no longer use and then categorize them into different niches and check which one of them you have good knowledge about.

For example, if you are a stay at home mom that has been having kids for some time, it’s inevitable that you will already have knowledge of baby gear that comes with that territory. Before I had my first child, I needed a breast pump that I will use, so I went and bought a particular brand which I liked so much because of its brand appeal, after I had my baby, I assembled the pumping gear and tried using it but it didn’t work for me.

My breasts were still engorged after attaching it and using for some time, so I had to return the pumping gear which was quite expensive by the way, the next one I bought was way less expensive and It worked. With that, I learned that brand may not always be the thing to consider when buying baby stuff.

Because I have 3 kids, I have gathered some invaluable knowledge about baby gear which I believe will be of tremendous use to me should I choose to start a business of re-sell of used items. For you, it may be something else, but whatever it is, it is always better to start with a niche you are knowledgeable about since it’s a new business, that way you can grow steadily.

Facts to consider before starting the Re-sell of used items.

-Start with a Niche that you are already knowledgeable about:

I have already written a little about it above, choose a niche that you are much more comfortable with and which you have a good knowledge about, this will enable you to pick winners in the business of re-sell of used items.

-Buyers want a good value for the money they pay for items even if it is used:

Most people who shop for used items are those who are usually on a budget but have good quality taste, just because they are shopping in the fairly used market does not mean they will buy any trash available. Therefore your knowledge of that product will make it easier for you to know the likely places where there are scuffs on a product and avoid buying stuff that will be hard to re-sell.

For example, people will want to buy an almost new baby stuff, remember because it’s baby stuff, their emotions may be involved so if you are selling such stuff, make sure that in buying from those who are selling to you that you buy items that are almost new, this will make it easier for people to purchase.

When I had my last baby, I went to a garage sale to get some items for my baby, It was going to be my last baby so I didn’t want to buy baby stuff that I will end up giving away in a few months to come.

So I got there, and saw this beautiful baby play pen, I purchased it and when I was about to leave I saw an almost new baby mattress because it was almost new, I purchased it too. I guess if it had been weather beaten I wouldn’t have considered it.

The reason I bought it was because I could fit into the Play pen and make a baby bed with it. It solved the problem of buying a brand new baby bed and mattress which will have cost me more.

-Shopping in the high-end neighborhood and mobile areas will give you better margins:

In the business of re-sell of used items, shopping in a high-end neighborhood is a must. it’s always better to go to areas where a lot of rich people live, this is because they tend to acquire stuff that they no longer use in a short time and will be willing to offload from their garage to make space for more.This means you get good quality of products from willing sellers at a low price.

The second option I talked about earlier is that you are likely to get a load of free stuff to re sell from areas where there is a lot of moving and resettling going on.

You find this in places where there is a high number of rentable apartment buildings, this because most people that live in apartments are either there for the short time or are young people who often move with a short notice. Because they don’t want to incur storage costs or transportation costs, they often throw away valuable stuff, from furniture to electronics.

If you are someone with a good eye, scoring that kind of area can give you free stuff to resell for a profit.

-Check for the ongoing price of Goods before you buy:

The reason you are in business is to make money, this means it will not make sense to spend all your time running around to get goods that will just occupy your garage space without moving.

Hence be sure to check the price of the goods you are about to purchase for a re- sell before you pay for it. The easiest places to check is Ebay. That’s one of the oldest platforms for re-sell of used items. Ensure you know the going rate for that product you want to buy at the flea market or garage sale before you buy it. It pays to do your research at home before moving out, that way you are more focused on what you want to buy, how much you are willing to pay for it and how much you will make from selling it.

-Shop on heavy discount days

With re-sell of used items, the lower you can keep your costs, the better, that is why it’s advisable to shop on discount days when you know that thrift stores will be trying to empty their stores in other to make room for new ones.

It’s not only in thrift stores that you will find such deals even real stores sometimes sell unused items at ridiculously low rates because they need to clear out their stores for a new season. Therefore having this in mind and taking the time to research when it will happen will help you attain some good deals which you can flip later for a good price. Unused items with their tags on is always a winner because people will like to purchase it given that it is still new.

-Beware of shipping costs:

Most times in our rush to buy used items for a little amount with a good re-sell profit we forget that we have to ship those goods, ensure that you factor your shipping costs into your sale price before you start purchasing. A low-cost item which is heavy may not be a good deal at all when you find the shipping cost alone will take almost all your profit if not all.

Categories of Used items you can re-sell

-Baby Goods: e.g baby clothing, toys, strollers e.t.c

-Clothing and accessories: Designer wears, Shoes, Bags, Jewelry, hats etc

-Furniture: Bed, couch tables, chairs, wardrobe.

-Gadgets: Games consoles, phones, camping gear.

-Crockery and ware: Dinner plates, cooking pots, pot stands, grill gear

-Electronics: Tv, Radio, speaker, etc.

-Antiques: Rarely seen items that had value, vintage items that are no longer in production.

-Books

-Tools and Hardware.

In this next section of this post, we are going to deal with how to start off, where to get your goods from and the tools you will need for your new business.

How to start:

As I always reiterate, start from what you have, at the beginning of this write-up, I mentioned how you can start with selling your own used stuff. Looking at all the categories above, there are hardly families which do not have some unused stuff in some if not most of these categories, so you can start by organizing your own garage sale in other to test the market and see how buyers who buy from you are likely to behave. This will give you a good idea of how your intending customers will look like and what are their most likely buying habits.

If you find that you don’t have enough used stuff to sell, please tell your friends and ask if they have stuff they want to dispose of, you can go collect it from them and see how you can sell it. If you tell them that you want to do market testing with it, am sure you will likely get if for free from them. Remember that if your business starts succeeding you may not always get it for free. So be ready to start bargaining with them the next time you want their used stuff.

Places you can get goods on sale

Garage sales: you can scout for garage sales that take place around your area and know when they are likely to open so you can go check out their stuff. There are a lot of apps you can use to check for garage sales that are in your location, some of them are: Garage sale finder, varage sale, Vendu, Glicking garage, yard sale treasure map, these ones are mainly for Android phones, if you have an iPhone then you may consider these ones: Garage sale rover, garage sale by map, Yard sale mapper.

Consignment stores: consignment stores are shops where people go to keep their stuff for some amount until it sells, so you can also find good deals there

Flea market: Flea markets are absolutely the place to hunt for treasures because you can find goods which you can re- sell at a very good price. I believe the apps above also apply to flea markets too. To add to the list above you can check these apps out Listia, 5miles, carousel. The good thing about these apps is that it’s a two-way thing, you can buy from them and sell somewhere else or you can also sell on it.

Community market sales : sometimes you can go to a community market and get a good bargain which you can re sell online for profit, the key is to look out for good quality products that are being sold at very low prices because of change of seasons, you can re sell such when a new season arrives.

Thrift stores: Thrift stores are also a major place where you can get a good item for sale.

Friends and Family: Sometimes you may have some friends who have a lot of stuff lying about in their garage which is occupying space for years. You can ask to go through them and see the ones that are of good value which you can re- sell for a profit.

Rented apartment Buildings: I made mention of the fact that sometimes people who are mobile are often reluctant to pay to ship furniture that they have lived with when they are moving, so they often dump them.

If you look carefully you may sometimes find very good furniture thrown away which you know will command a fair price in the market. Taking them up and cleaning them can give you a good amount of money when sold, The cost of acquisition being perhaps your transport and cleaning costs.

Walmart:( Look for sale items only.): Seriously one wouldn’t take me serious when I say that you can get a good quality stuff at Walmart for a sale price. I have once bought a nice kids pants for a dollar at Walmart amongst their sale items which I knew I could re –sell for 6-7 dollars when the season for that clothing type comes around.

Places to Re-sell your Used Items.

The good thing about all that apps that I mentioned above is that they are two functional, you can buy and sell on them.But to give you more options for online sales, here is a list of places you can sell your used items

Ebay Like we are going to miss this one out, it’s the king of market places where used stuff is sold. People make a living from selling on eBay once you understand how it works. I will do a post on this one one day.

Varage sale: Varage sale is an app that allows you to buy and sell locally. I had try this if I am just starting out on selling used stuff, that way you might save on shipping costs for your goods.

Ebid; This is also an online marketplace for buying and selling that has been around since 1999. The good thing about this platform is that there are no listing fees and your selling fees will range from only between 0-3 percent of your final sale amount. This means that if you list a product and it does not sell. you don’t have to pay anything.

Decluttr : A place to sell your used phones, CD’s, game consoles, DVDs, books. If you had like to sell your stuff to them click on the icon below to get to their website.

Bonanza : This is also an online marketplace that features different kinds of categories from women’s fashion to home and décor too. They were named America’s best entrepreneurial company in 2016.

Etsy: Etsy is a marketplace for handmade goods, they are quite popular and people do make a good living selling stuff on Etsy. I believe that you can sell used stuff there that are handmade.

Facebook marketplace: The Facebook marketplace is also the go-to place to sell your stuff, there is hardly anything we can sell or buy or market without Facebook so get at it and use it for your business. The good thing is that you don’t have any listing fees involved.

Offer up: This is an app that makes listing goods for sale by sellers very easy, it has an integrated messaging system that helps the sellers to manage multiple messages from buyers. It’s been rated well by the iPhone users as very good.

Online shop: Finally if you are willing to put in the work of building your own platform for your Re-sell of Used items business, you can start an eCommerce store using Shopi fy an online e commerce platform that enables you to sell goods from anywhere in the world.

This last option is about the best of the above options because you have your own platform and you control what happens there. The only snag is that you have to do extra marketing to drive traffic to your site, but in the long run, it pays off when you establish your business securely and you are earning a steady income from it.

Of course, there are scores of other market places and apps that you can use for your selling, but this few above should help you get started.

Tools you need for this business

-A laptop

-Camera for taking pictures you will use for listing your stuff

-Phone and internet connection( if you have an iPhone, the better because some of the apps mentioned above are available on iphones alone.

Do you have any other ideas on how to turn Re-sell of used items into a good business, please leave a comment below.

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July 26, 2017August 20, 2017

How to Start an Online Baked Goods Business

Today, I will be sharing steps on how you can start an online Baked goods business. Because my intention is to get anyone who reads my Blog to the point of starting a home business, I always try to simplify the method of delivery of my posts so that you can get going as soon as you finish reading my post.

I also always try to use the simplest and easiest medium available to propose my home business ideas, so you can understand why I have a bias towards online businesses, it is because they are easy to start and you can start from where you are to grow.

Having said that, I will like to say that Baked goods business is an evergreen business that will be here with us till the end of time. This is because for as long as man lives, we must eat, and if we must eat someone has to do the cooking right?. This is the reason why I know that if all you know how to do is to cook you should never have to look for what to do. For so long as people will eat your food, you are in business.

In this post, I will dedicate my time to teach on the various steps you can follow in starting a Home based baked goods business. I am always for starting a home based business because my primary audience is people who want to run a home business. They are tired of the 9-5 and will like to ditch it for more control over what they can do with their time.

Steps to starting an online Baked Goods business.

1 Assess your Skills

Before you think of starting a baked goods business, you must have an interest in cooking. If cooking does not give you pleasure in any way then perhaps this is not the best home business for you. For tips on determining what home business suits you please read my post on how to find the right work at home business for you.

Your assessment of your skills will determine what kind of baked goods business you want to go into. There are people whose expertise is basically cup cakes, they can whip up all manner of flavors of cupcakes, they are not willing to make birthday cakes or big size wedding cakes, that’s not their expertise.

If you watch food network a lot, you will notice there are people who specialize in different kinds of baked goods, the reason it’s important to note what you are really good at is that it will help you to zero into your target market, kind of like finding your niche market.

If you find that you have an interest in baking but you do not know how to bake, then you can ramp up and watch recipe videos and learn how to make various baked goods, you can learn at your own pace and keep trying out your ideas until you perfect it. If you meet me up in person, I am a doer, meaning that if I want to do something and I don’t know how to, I will find a way to learn it and perfect it until I learn how to do that stuff so well that you will think it’s in my DNA.

Now if this post is the answer to your question of starting a home based business and you are passionate about cooking, then this might be the right fit for you. A little personal story here, my younger sister when in college, needed extra money which wasn’t always forth coming because of the fact that my Dad had to cater for a lot of us, we are 12 in my family, talk of a full house. She got tired of waiting for my dad to send her money each month, so she got together the little funds she had and learned how to bake a meat pie.

She sold those pies and made so much money that she replaced her monthly allowance which she used to wait so much for. My dad only knew about her business venture when he called her to ask how she had been coping, only for him to hear that she was doing fine, talk of when you want to come out of a bad situation you do what you must.

2 Assess your market:

Since you are not baking for your pleasure, you have to check whether there is a market for what you are about to go into. Baking is a type of cooking, I always feel that there will always be demand for food, but you have to take your time to research what kind of demand there is and what is trending in your food niche at these times. This will enable you to match your idea with a demand that is on hand, once you are able to do that you have a business.

To find out what is trending you can use Google Trends and Google key planning tool to determine the moving trend of the baked goods business you want to specialize in. if you are like me, I like to mix things up a lot, I will probably offer a variety of small sized baked goods to see which of my offerings got peoples attention better. To learn how to use the Google Keyword planner, check Backlinko.com . You can also check www.americanbakers.org. For your baking research.

3 Determine which Niche you want to play in

Baked goods just like any other food now have various varieties, paleo cooking, gluten free, nuts free, all kinds of categories, ketogenic compliant and even diabetic friendly cooking. We have various health concerns now when it comes to eating so getting your niche market right from the start will ensure that you know those you are going to serve. For ideas on Paleo cooking, check this Ebook on healthy cooking

Start from where you are; This is my favorite mantra as a home business championer permit me to use that word, it’s a word I often repeat because it helps you cut all the chase and get to doing what you want to do. You can even find it in the bible, remember when Abraham was talking with God when Lot left him to go to greener pastures, he said from where you are, look to the north, south, west, and east all the land you see I will give to you. God wanted him to use his inner eyes and see the possibilities before him.

Okay, enough of the preaching, back to what I was saying, start with what you have, a kitchen, perhaps some baking equipment start. Remember you are starting out small, so you do not need to buy expensive equipment to start. Start with your kitchen and make samples that you will use for your taste test.

Get your baking recipe out and begin to bake, it may be a recipe you have in your family that only your family members eat on special occasions, you may be surprised that, that is what will propel your success, so whip out that recipe and start making your first taste batch.

Writing this post reminds me of the story of Bama Pie that I read while attending Business school. Bama pie went on to become the number one supplier to Macdonalds. That story so inspired me and I bet it will inspire you too.

4 Get your One-page Business Plan done and keep it simple:

The word Business Plan often evokes some shivers down some peoples spine, especially if you hate numbers. Well, you don’t have to worry, I have a post that simplifies what your business plan should look like, get it here. That said, write out your biz plan and figure out ways you can make your business profitable by selling your products at the right price. Remember that because you have to invest in buying your condiments, you have to learn to keep your costs low.

5 Get your licenses and permit:

I am all for doing business the ethical way, I will advise you research ways of getting your licenses sorted out before you start out. A good place to start will be the American small business association. It’s a site that offers a whole lot of small business resources to small business owners.

You will also need to check your state laws to see whats obtainable and whats not. While writing this article, I learned that Wisconsin is yet to pass a law that allows home baked goods sale, so you have to be sure of what is obtainable where you live before setting out. While at it, remember that once you have your permit you are a small business and you will require to file your taxes, for consultations on that you can contact e -file .com, they offer such services.

6 Marketing & Promotion:

Now that you are all set up to go, you have to learn that marketing is the key to getting your business out there. The next thing that matters about promoting especially for your online baked goods business is that your promotions will basically be two pronged.

-Offline

-Online

For the offline marketing activities here are a few ideas on how to proceed.

Plan a Tasting party and create a Buzz about it

Now because you are going to sell a product which people will eat, you will have to be willing to start by having a tasting party, a tasting party is basically an occasion where you give out free samples of your products and get people to give you their honest opinion about what your product tastes like and what kind of improvements they had like to see.

It’s like a prequel to your launch day for your business, wait a minute you were not thinking that you will start an online business without some kind of launch date, scratch that, not in these days. You have to make people hunger for your product even before you have started selling, that is the new kind of marketing these days, you sell it before the day arrives. Especially if you are planning to have an online baked goods business you can’t afford not to pre- sell your products. Here are a few things to note

-Your ability to presell before your launch date will ensure that the orders come rolling in before your due date. You can post videos of your prelaunch activities on your online platform to ensure your online community is aware of whats going on.

-You can also involve your online community in the tasting party by sending them samples before your party date, that way they can join in and taste and post their own opinions online as you hold it in your physical location.

– Ask them to take a short video describing what it tasted like and their recommendations, you will find that those videoes may become the testimonial you need to draw in sales for your baked goods business.

-Hold a Bakesale in your community or find out the nearest on going Flea market near you and find a way of opening a stand for your business there. Even though your business is geared towards an online platform, connecting with people offline is a must since people can relate with what they have tasted before. Getting your bake sale sorted out can help you connect with your immediate neighborhood people who will spread the word about your goods.

While at the baked goods sale, do not forget to hand out your cards with your online contacts or you can choose to collect peoples emails as they approach your stand, this will help you to develop or start up your email list in other to ensure your marketing and promotional efforts are getting to those who already know you.

-Offer free samples to friends and family and ask them to give you their sincere feedback

Get Corporate clients through this means:

Offer free samples to places where there are likely demands like restaurants, coffee shops, schools and Gas stations, shopping malls. The intent of approaching these groups is to see if you can secure a contract that allows you supply to these set of people at certain times in the month.

Online: Marketing online will require these platforms:

–Instagram

-Pinterest

-Facebook.

-Blog.

In marketing to the online media, pictures, videos and words will be used as your marketing tools. Your ability to describe peoples experience with your products will go a long way to help showcase your products. Write the best description for your products to ensure that your site easily comes up during searches.

-Facebook: In considering the above-mentioned platforms, my key advice will be to start with Facebooks groups that engage in sales in your area, join local Facebook groups to market your goods via posting in such groups and your Blog.

-Instagram is based mainly on pictures, so make sure you take cool pictures of your product and leave your details for people who want to reach you.

-Pinterest: Pinterest also deals with pictures and is also a search engine for products so make sure you are able to make pinnable images of what you sell and post it in group boards for maximum exposure.

-Blog: Finally, the killer online medium that ties all these marketing efforts together is your Blog where you get to talk about what you do and how you do it.

For someone who probably has never had a home business before this may sound scary but it doesn’t have to be, remember that blogging can be fun too, and can also be an income channel too. By blogging about your products, you could sell training on how you produce or run your stuff

You can also make it place to connect with your customers not only to take orders but to listen to their preferences and complaints as well. A blog is a platform that unifies all the different aspects of marketing together. If you are tight on cash, you can start with the free blogging platforms like wordpress.com and so forth but as you grow, you may want to move on to paid platform, in moving to a paid platform you can consider using a professional online store application like Shopi fy

If you would like to blog about it, I have got your back, here is a post about how you can start a blog when you are not a techie. You will find in that post resources that can help you start your Blog in as little as 2 hours.

Finally, know that promoting and fine tuning your business strategy will help you run a successful online baked goods business.

To learn more about how to start a home business please sign up to our mailing list here. For signing up you will get a free ebook and a free affiliate check list, plus a 5-day free training on Blogging for profit.

Do you have any other ideas on how to start an online baked goods business, leave your comment below.

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July 19, 2017July 28, 2017

6 things a Stay at home mom struggles with

The struggles of a stay at home mom — 6 things a stay at home mom struggles with

The word stay at home mom evokes a lot of different pictures in peoples mind, for some, it’s a word used to describe women who don’t like to work but prefer to sit at home and watch movies all day in the name of looking after their kids. I really wish it were so but I do know now it’s not so.

Stay at home mom is a woman who wears all the hats there is in the home plus some more without having the attendant payment to show for it.
When a woman chooses to be a stay at home mom, it’s often a huge sacrifice she has to make in other to see that her home is well run or in other to see that her kids have the kind of training and nurturing that she desires.

Some women have been known to leave lucrative careers to become stay at home moms because the effect of leaving their lovely ones in the hands of other people to care for became too much to bear and therefore they chose that off the career ramp option to care for the most important people in their lives.

For some people it may make sense for others, it may not because after all is said and done, it’s the investment you put in your family that matters most.

Children don’t care if they are in the most expensive house or car or wear the best clothes, as long as their parents were there for them when they needed them most.So today I am going to share with you the 6 things that stay at home mom struggles with because I have been there too and I know what it feels like

–Feelings of Inadequacy:

If you are a first-time mom who just chose to stay at home, this may resonate well with you, that feeling of do I know what I just did? I mean I just left my well-paying job to stay home to take care of my baby. Sometimes you may even feel like even the mom job you are not doing so well at it. The truth may also be that at least for your paid job you were well trained but to become a mom, you had no prior training and yet you are expected to be perfect at it.

You feel inadequate because you are trying to cope with having to leave a career that once defined what you could bring to the table at home and then you also have to cope with the fact that your new job does not have any job description attached to it. There is no end to where your job stops, you are the nanny, caregiver, nurse, housecleaner, and any other thing that comes in between including cook, driver, encourager and the list goes on.

While you struggle with coping with all these issues, guess where your report card is shown, at places where you get some judgmental looks or comments for not getting your act together as a mom. From those who think that by giving your child the bottle, you are just being lazy, “every hard working mom should be able to breastfeed exclusively for the first 6 months of a babies life”, does this sound like a familiar jab?, well for me I tried it but it didn’t work, in fact I got sick before it dawned on me that everyone has to find what works for one in this journey of mommyhood.My first son loved the bottle, my daughter liked breastfeeding a lot, in fact, she refused the bottle and went straight to eating solids.

So what do you do with all these struggles that you are facing?.I would like you to know, that the first time you start as a new stay at home mom, it will seem strange to you just like when you resume your post on a new job, but with time, you will find your rhythm.From then you can then begin to try out new things and see what works and what doesn’t work, you can then decide to throw out what doesn’t work for you and choose what you are comfortable with. And who says that as you go along you won’t acquire the experience which you can package and sell out to new moms like you for a fee. For how to do that please read my post on how to turn your life experience into a money printing online business

Overworked and Underappreciated:

The interesting thing about being a stay at home mom is that you don’t have a specific work time, from the time your feet hit the floor in the morning time, assuming you had all night sleep which is often a mirage when your kids are between ages of 0-4 years.

Your work is almost like a round the clock work from fixing breakfast, lunch, and dinner to cleaning the home, running errands and shopping. You are practically at work even when others are having a break, no wonder you sometimes feel overwhelmed and overworked.

You may also feel underappreciated when you are not being praised for the work you do at home. Some husbands have been known to come home and say, “ honey what were you doing all day that my dinner is not yet ready”?.

No one understands the many times you have to calm a crying baby or break up siblings quarrels or even act as a judge and jury. It can make you feel like your energy is being sucked out daily, my little advice about this is to find that time to rest during the day, if it means putting the kids to nap in the afternoon and taking your own nap too to get your energy back please do so.

Of course, it may mean that some things won’t get done perhaps a scattered house or unfolded laundry, but like I always say, a grumpy mama is no good to anyone. So always find the time to tune off during the day and just relax. It may not necessarily be sleep, sometimes I find that just sitting and watching cartoons with my little ones helps me to relax. You can also choose to quit trying to have everything in the perfect place in other to feel alright.

Now if you are a hubby reading this, know that appreciation goes a long way to make a stay at home mom’s day better. A night off duty will be nice, a back rub here and a foot massage there will make a world of difference.

–The baby company only:

When you are a SAHM with a baby at home, the only company you will have is that of a kid, while that is lovely I mean who hates the company of her babies, but sometimes you want to have adult conversations. Where you to be working outside your home, you will often meet new people or at least converse with people like yourself but for a stay at home mom, it’s often baby talk all day long until hubby comes home. This might look good some days at least you have some time to think things through and strategize for any project you have on hand without any distractions. Unfortunately, this may not be the case always because the same distractions can come from children too.

So what does a stay at home do in this case, I say in any case be involved in online forums where you can discuss issues that bother you or vent on what you are going through. When time permits, pick up the phone and call a close friend or family member with whom you can spend time discussing with or exchanging ideas with, this will make you feel a lot better. If you are working from home as a blogger or doing any form of online business, belonging to an online group of people of the same challenges as you can help you gain a better perspective of issues you may be dealing with at that particular time.,

Finances:

This aspect of the struggles of a stay at home mom is very controversial, for some, it’s the constant struggle to stretch the money available to cover all the household bills, for some it may be that you didn’t even have enough to last you throughout the month. For some, It may be that you just have just enough but not excess to take care of some niceties that you are used to when you were working outside the home. While for some people finances may not be the problem but just the feeling that you are not earning anything at all and so you are a one income household.

Whichever divide you fall into know that there is a way out of it, working has been redefined so much right now that you can earn your income even while staying at home, if finance is a major issue for you, then consider ways of working from home to earn extra income.

Here are a few options to earn extra income from home. You can start a home business, offer your services as a freelancer from your home by signing up on platforms such as Fiverr, upwork or you can choose to work for other people from home which may entail applying for online jobs that you can do. Which ever way, you choose to do it, there is a way out you don’t have to feel like your finances took a nose dive and you can’t change it.

Sometimes you may discover that starting that home business was what you really needed to take your family off the 9- 5 rat race. If starting a home business is your thing, then consider reading my post on how to choose the right home business for you.

Feeling Left Out:

Have you ever gone for an outing where you bumped into an old school colleague or work mate and you started discussing especially pertaining to your field of study or work and you felt left out because a lot has changed without you being aware? This happens particularly when you are a new mom, for the first one year and especially the first 6 months its like you are underwater, your life is practically buried within fulfilling your babies needs, first-time moms can resonate with this better. If you carry on discussing you may feel like you don’t seem to know the trends that are even going on now, thanks to your new job, stay at home mom Lol, but seriously those feelings of being left out if left unchecked can begin to make you resent your decision.

But before you go feeling sorry for yourself or getting angry, understand that you need to remind yourself the reasons why you made your choice in the first place, and make peace with the fact that you may not know a lot of things that are currently going on in your former field of work due to your new position but you can begin to make amends by building and connecting with people who are on the same journey as you are and understand the challenges.

Keeping up with colleagues from your former field of influence may not be useful to you if you are not planning to continue in that line of career. Realize that you have changed career and focus on what you must do in the now to get you quickly ramped up on the new journey you are on.

It may mean taking courses to get you ready if you want to start a home business or even starting out without training at all that way you learn the hard knocks your own way.

Either way, you are gathering knowledge that will aid your journey as a stay at home mom who wants to work from home. If you have been brainstorming on ideas about different types of home businesses you may need to read my post on 5 posts that teach you how to make money online.

The truth is that being a stay at home mom doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize your skills in other ways to earn money. With the advent of blogging these days, all forms of knowledge are now monetizable.

For example, who knew that you could sell your knowledge on how to organize your home, take care of a new born, keep yourself fit e.tc. In fact, information that used to just sit with you doing nothing has become sources of income.The online media has made it possible to be able to share such information’s now and make good money from it.

Do you consider Blogging as one of the avenues to sell your knowledge online, then hop on over to my post on how to start a blog when you are not a techie and learn how to start a blog in as little as 2 hours.

–Need for time out

As a stay at home mom, there are times you just feel like you really want a leave, I mean people who work 9-5 have that opportunity of taking a leave to just go home and relax and recharge before going back to work. But for the stay at home mom, she doesn’t get to get that time off.

There are no leave days, where are you leaving to? , your home is supposed to be your leave escape but now you get to stay in it every day and it doesn’t look like it will make for a leave escape anymore. The good thing about this situation is that you don’t have to apply for your leave in other to take one. or technically you can apply to your hubby to take a leave from work and stay home so you could take the much-needed leave in other to refresh and recharge.

You can choose to go out that day with friends and just have a girls day out or better still visit a close family member whom you can relax in her house and feel like you are in your own home and on holiday without the attendant stress of having to care for your home.

Maybe you can go for a mini holiday to a nearby tourist attraction and just spend time alone, pampering and recharging yourself. Of course, there will be a time and place for family vacation but this little time out is for you alone, so you can be a better mother to your kids and give your best to them. Thinking of taking that mini vacation then try using Booking.com, they have excellent services for your vacation needs they have budget hotel rooms if that suits you.