How To Have A Lifestyle In Business

Would you like to discover how to have a lifestyle in business?

What if there was a recipe for having a lifestyle in business… a step by step way to increase your profits and the outcome was enjoying a lifestyle with an abundance of time and money? There is such a recipe, which has virtually been a secret until now. A few have discovered it, and those who have are enjoying astounding time and money benefits.

James McNamara, founder of Impact Factory, will be sharing 5 Ways To Build Your Profits And Free Up Your Time at the Business Growth Session in Brisbane, Australia, on July 30th.

James McNamara

Full details are available here - bookings are essential. If you are in Brisbane, I hope you can join us.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Are All Business Mums This Helpful?

The Business Mums Network is holding their second annual Business Mums Conference in Melbourne, Australia, this weekend - July 12th and 13th. In a wonderful gesture of generosity and appreciation for what she gained from last year’s conference, Kylie Short from Tilda Virtual Services (and Business Mums member) kindly offered a Big Girls Boots Scholarship for someone deserving to attend the conference.

In a similarly generous statement, Lucie Battaini from MultimediART also paid another member to help her to be able to attend this weekend’s conference.

I think these two ladies have demonstrated wonderful acts of generosity and I know the recipients of their gifts are incredibly grateful.

In another act of generosity, I checked my mail today to discover a lovely gift - a bottle of wine from Mandy Stevens of Direct Digital. This was a ‘thank you’ gift for something I helped Mandy with last week - something that was very simple for me to do and really didn’t require any form of payment or thanks. Receiving the gift has really made my day (and will be very much enjoyed!) - THANK YOU! And yes, Mandy is also a Business Mum.

Here’s to your success in business,

Donna-Marie

Business Networking In Brisbane’s Bayside

Many of you who live in Brisbane, Australia, know about the Business Coffee & Chat Mornings and Business Growth Sessions I organise on the north side of Brisbane.

Due to popular request we now have a bayside Coffee & Chat Morning too. Full details can be found on the website. We meet at Victoria Point on the second Tuesday of each month and at Everton Park on the second Wednesday of each month.

If you’re in Brisbane and have a small business or are thinking of starting a business, why not join us? This is a great way to associate with other local business owners, forming lasting alliances and a strong support network. If you work from home, this is a great way to get out of the house and meet other like-minded people.

Here’s to your success in business,

Donna-Marie

Should You Hire Friends Or Relatives?

As you enjoy more success in small business, or you look for trustworthy and reliable partners for your venture, it might seem logical to look to those you rely on the most in your private life; often it seems that that the right thing to do is to help those who’ve been with your throughout the ups and downs of life, or to help those who’ve helped you.  However hiring friends and family is not always a good move for you—either for you personally or for your business.  Before you commit to it, you should consider some very important aspects of working with family and friends.

Strong Personal Relationships Are Not Guarantees Of Compatible Working Relationships

Just because you get along well at home and in your personal life does not mean that you will get along equally as well with friends and family once you enter into a working relationship with them.  Often the additional time spent together becomes a strain, even for married couples who’ve been together for years.  There is definitely something to be said for time apart and individual interests for friends and family.

New roles also cause tension between friends and family that start working together. It can be very difficult for your sibling, parent, relative, friend, or spouse to respect you as a boss, and even difficult for you to feel comfortable “bossing” them, regardless of how equitable an employer you may be.

Choosing The Right Person For The Job

Something else that is crucial to consider is how well suited or qualified your friend or family member is for the position he or she will hold.  Being a nice person or a deserving person does not make you qualified for a job—experience and expertise do that.  And putting an under-qualified person in a position could be detrimental to your company; it could be a liability, too.

Ultimately success in small business will depend on the abilities of qualified staff.  If you place the wrong person in a job that they do not perform well, you could very well have no business left to support any one of you!

Preventing And Managing Disagreements And Difficulties

Managing disagreements starts with prevention.  And that starts from the very beginning of the partnership or employment arrangement.

If you are entering into a business partnership with friends or family, you must clearly define the relationship, roles, and responsibilities ahead of time.  You should draft an agreement (preferably with the help of a solicitor or legal representative) that outlines who is responsible for what, who gets what percentages of profits, what happens in the event of a disagreement or business failure, and what the rights of each of you are.

If you are employing family and friends you will need to clearly define roles and responsibilities as well as the structure and hierarchy of the business.  Construct clear policies and expectations, and hold each person accountable as you would any other employee.  Be clear from the beginning that respect is a must, and that you will expect to be treated as any other employer would be and that in return you will be a respectful and fair employer.

At its best working with family and friends can be a very rewarding experience.  At its worst it can be detrimental to business and personal relationships.  Give strong thought to whether the arrangement is workable for you, and maximise the situation by being clear and open from the start.

Here’s to your success in business,

Donna-Marie

Helpful Ways To Remember User IDs And Passwords

Do you get sick of trying to remember all those passwords and user ids? I think I add a new one to the list every single day.

A great piece of software to help store all of these important details - securely - is Roboform. It’s free to download and not only securely stores your user names, passwords and other basic information for filling in forms (eg your name, address, company name), but once they’re stored, with just a simple click or two on your toolbar you can enter your login details for that particular site.

If you’re not keen on installing software on your computer, the girls over at A Good Sort have a great idea for how to manually store your user ids and passwords.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Useful Website

Browser Shots is a great website to visit when you want to see how your website is viewed on different browsers.

Simply go to the site… type in your URL… select the browsers you’d like to get an overview of… click on ’submit’ and wait for a minute or two. You’ll get an overview of how your webpage is seen by user’s of the various different browsers.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Do You Keep Up With Your Blogroll Friends?

This is a question raised by Elena at her EP Designs blog - some people have a blogroll list so long a kangaroo couldn’t jump over it… do they actually keep up with those blogging friends? Do they regularly read their posts and comment on them?

Well, I must admit that I’m one of those people. I don’t have all my favourite blogs listed on my blog because there’s just too many of them. And yes, I do like to keep up with them all (although I must admit, never as often as I’d like). 

Late last year I found myself really struggling to keep up with them all, clicking from one blog to another. Then I spent an hour or so and subscribed to all my favourite blogs. If you haven’t already done this, I highly recommend you do. You can use a simple program like Bloglines or Feedburner. Add all your favourites and then just log in there each day or each week. You can see all the new posts since your last visit and read them in one place. If you want to comment on anything, you can easily do that too.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

 

It’s All In The Location

In business, it’s often said that the ‘location is everything’… and in many cases, that can be true.

However with the wonderful technology we have available to us today, working from home is becoming more and more popular… and practical.

For many, working from home is the ideal choice. While this sounds great at first, it’s not always practical and not everyone is disciplined enough to do this successfully.

To decide if this is a suitable option for you, first consider:

• The age of your children, if you have them (this may work for or against a home-based business)
• How disciplined you are
• Whether you have enough space
• How your family feels about this
• What the Council regulations are
• If you will be employing staff and if so, if you are prepared for them to be in your home
• Whether you will have customers visiting and if so, can you suitably maintain your home? Do you have enough parking available?
• Whether you will affect your neighbours
• Whether you will have any hazardous chemicals on the property or excessive noise
• Whether you will be creating extra waste and if so, how you will deal with that
• What implications this will bring regarding security issues, insurance, clients visiting after-hours
• If you’re renting your home, will your landlord allow you to run this business from home?
• Do you need to be easily seen by customers or can you operate ‘virtually’ – over the internet/mail?

Mind you, just because things don’t look 100% rosy once you’ve been through this list doesn’t mean working from home is not an option for you. If you can’t have customers visiting for some reason, you may choose to offer a free delivery service, making sure you factor this cost into your pricing. Cafés are also great place to arrange meetings.

If you decide that working from home isn’t for you, make sure you read more information on how to choose the right location for your business, including things you should be sure of before signing any lease or contracts!

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

New Marketing Start-Up Kit

Diva Promotions have just launched a great marketing tool for small businesses… The Start-Up Marketing Kit.

This kit will guide you through the basics of knowing who you are marketing to, right through to creating a marketing plan to attract genuine customers to your business.

For a limited time only it’s available for just $22… I’m not sure how long it will remain at this price though.

Plus, you can request a free sample chapter so you can be sure that this is helpful for your business. Just click on the image below.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

How to Make Money While You Sleep Seminar

Last weekend I attended a fantastic 2-day seminar on the Gold Coast. It was the How to Make Money While You Sleep seminar organised by Brett McFall, as part of his promotional tour for his new book of the same name.

Brett has an amazing gift for teaching what he knows and always shares practical, useful information. Plus, he always over-delivers on content… and always lives up to his promises.

I know a lot of regular readers here are based in Melbourne… and guess what? Brett’s just announced that he’s heading to Melbourne soon. He’ll be there on 21-22 June and there is only a small fee, which is donated to a worthwhile charity. You can get the full details at Brett’s How to Make Money While You Sleep site.

For those who can’t make it to the Melbourne seminar, check out his book here - you can even get a free sample chapter.

Ethical Dilemma

My dear friend, Ingrid Cliff, posted an interesting question on her Heart Harmony Blog.

Ingrid lays the setting for a hypothetical business dilemma and asks for feedback on what her readers would do - whether they would make the choice to look after their customer’s best interests or the option that suited themselves best financially.

What I found interesting is that Ingrid mentions that the feedback to this post has been one-sided - most readers would do what they felt was in their customer’s best interests. Yet when she posed this very same scenario to a group a few years ago, the answers were fairly evenly split 50/50.

So… have people become more ethical over the last few years or does the difference in responses lie elsewhere?

If you have a minute to spare, visit Heart Harmony’s Business Ethical Dilemmas post and leave your feedback.

Here’s to your success in business,

Donna-Marie

May Madness

It’s May Madness at the Business Mums Network.

Every year, Business Mums Network run a special promotion for the entire month of May. These offers - some products heavily discounted, others with great bonuses - are not just from Business Mums. There are a whole series of businesses who have joined in the promotions.

Business Mums are offering a huge saving on subscriptions to The Business Mums Magazine (a fantastic magazine, full of practical information for parents running a business, and edited by Yours Truly).

Plus, there’s plenty more offers such as:

• Nuvo Maternity will give free express delivery AND a discount on purchases
• Australian Expo is offering a discounted annual booth
• a great offer from multimediART when you sign up for www.My-Shop.com.au

Here’s to your success in small business…

Donna-Marie

Don’t Let the Dreamtakers Steal from You

Throughout life, and particularly when you’re starting out in business, there will be numerous people who try to steal your dreams. I call these people Dreamtakers. Sometimes they are cleverly disguised as people who love you and care about you. Well, maybe they’re not disguised… they really do care about you and are often only acting out of concern.

These are the people who try to tell you why you can’t do something, or they only see all the problems you may encounter.

When I was writing my first book, Ready, Set, Go For It! (the complete women’s guide to operating a small business in Australia), there was one day that I remember so clearly. I was visiting one of my relatives and one of her friends was visiting too. My relative was telling her about the book I was writing and this friend then went on to tell me how hard it is to get a book published… how everybody has that dream and most people never succeed… and how there was no way I would get mine published. She carried on for nearly an hour, asking me questions then telling me why that wouldn’t work.

I went home quite disappointed and had almost given up. My son, then aged 11, came home from school and wondered why I wasn’t tapping away on the keyboard writing the next chapter, like every other day! When I explained why, his reply was: “So how many books has this woman written?” (None). “And how long has she worked in the publishing industry?” (She doesn’t). “So why on Earth would you listen to her?” He then pointed to my desk and demanded that I get back to work. (Yeah, I sometimes wonder who the parent is too).

The Dreamtakers tried to tell me I couldn’t run a successful small business… my business is almost 10 years old and has supported us this whole time.

The Dreamtakers tried to tell me I couldn’t publish a book… my first book came out in 2004 and that was just the beginning!

Now the Dreamtakers are telling me another project I’m working on won’t work… and I thank them for their words - that’s just the incentive I need to prove them wrong, yet again.

So, next time the Dreamtakers try to steal your dreams, hold on tight. If you’re truly passionate about something, by all means listen to their advice as there may be something useful in it… but do what you believe is right for you. And if your idea doesn’t work, at least you know you tried.

Here’s an inspirational video that I thought you might like, all about dreams.

So dream on… and here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Business and Christmas Promotions

Business Mums Network are currently running a survey all about businesses and their Christmas promotions, and they would love your input.

It will only take 2 minutes and the questions may even give you some ideas for your own promotions.

Please head over to the survey and share your experience… and on behalf of Melissa at Business Mums, thank you.

Here’s to your success in business,

Donna-Marie

What Makes a Good Email Subject Heading?

I just received 13 emails from an associate… all in a row… one after another. And I was so grateful she sent each one separately!

Some people may prefer to get one email with all the information, but these 13 emails, while on the same project, were each on a different section. When you have so much information like this, it’s actually easier to receive - and store - the different sections in different emails, rather than trying to search one endless email for that little snippet of information you may want at any time.

Tash at Word Constructions mentions this on one of her posts - email subjects - that’s worth reading. Plus, she shares several other great tips for constructing a good subject heading to help get your emails read.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Planning Your Trade Displays

Annette Piper has a post on her blog where she talks about planning to attend the upcoming Ironfest which got me thinking about expos.

Displays at expos and trade shows can be a great way to promote your business, products or services and to meet new customers and potential customers. They can also be a good way of meeting fellow industry professionals.

Many of these expos don’t come cheap so if you’re going to pay to be involved, you want to make sure you get the most for your dollar.

Before you start packing your display products, first decide what you want to achieve from the event. Do you want to sell lots of products? Maybe your aim is to gather contact details for leads… possible customers. Or do you want to educate the public about your products or industry? Knowing this will help you plan your display.

Here are a few tips for next time you have a display:

• If your main aim is to collect contact details of leads, consider holding a competition for people to enter, then ask if they would like to be added to your mailing list (always ask permission before adding people to your marketing list).
• Make sure your stand is clean, uncluttered and attractive to your target market.
• Have something on your stand to encourage people to come over to you - a bowl of lollies, giveaways, lots of colour and excitement.
• Don’t just sit behind your table and wait for people to come and speak with you… go to them, stand to the side of or in front of your display and smile while greeting people walking by.
• Check with the organisers as to whether they will supply quality covers for display tables. If not, make sure you take your own.
• Product samples or ‘Special Expo Discounts’ are a good idea too.
• Don’t forget to take a camera so you can get some great pics of your display - you never know when these might come in handy.
• HAVE FUN!

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Qld, Australia: Government Assistance for Small Business

Are you eligible for Government funding? How can you export your products to Asia?

Join us at the May Business Growth Session in Brisbane, Australia, for all the answers.

Terrena Burrows, Principal Regional Development Officer at the Northside Centre, Department of Tourism, Regional Development and Industry, will talk about the various resources available to assist small businesses - including general advice, funding, exporting and where to go for guidance. You might be surprised at some of the resources that are waiting for you!

Click here for full details. If you come along, make sure you say hello to me.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

Look before you link

On Melissa Khalinsky’s blog she includes a post about Links to Your Site, talking about five ways of attracting traffic to your site. I love a comment she includes in her first tip:

“…there are many sites who are happy to do a link exchange. Before requesting an exchange, look at the site closely to see if they do exchange links.”

Great tip Melissa. I would like to add to that by encouraging people to request to link only with RELEVANT sites. I have received so many requests from people to be linked to my site, either a reciprocal link or one-way. Unfortunately, most of these requests come from businesses that have absolutely no relevance to my sites - totally different products/services, totally different markets.

Link away… just keep it relevant and appropriate.

Here’s to your success in business…

The Essential Business Guide

Diva Promotions have just launched their Essential Business Guide, full of practical tips and information for running a successful business.

To get your hands on this, you can download it now for free from one of my sites - Jacaranda Business Support Services. It’s on the left hand side, under the heading Who wants some free stuff?

It contains great articles from various authors on a wide range of topics about running a business, including one by Yours Truly, explaining the basic differences between PR, Advertising and Marketing… and which is best for you.

Here’s to your success in business…

What Do You Trademark?

I just read a post on the Tonic Gifts blog about how their trademark application for their logo was recently approved, prompting me to write about the topic.

Did you know that it’s not only names and logos that can be protected by trademarks, but you can also trademark things such as colours?

There has been a huge landmark case in Australia in recent years where two different chocolate companies use the same shade of purple in their marketing. One company successfully trademarked this shade as apparently, it is distinctively used by them. The other smaller company, who had also been using this shade of purple for some years, was required to change to another colour.

Trademarks can be words, images, colours, shapes, sounds or a combination of these.

Here’s to your success in small business…