Archive for the My business Category
Written on June 24, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: Journal, My business
Thanks to all who commented in my last post. As you may have realised it was a particularly bad day for us both.
He’s been a bit better since then and so have I.
Moving on then. It’s his birthday on Friday and he’s having a party on Sunday which I’ve been stressing over. Really it won’t be that stressful and I’m sure it will be fine on the day. We’ve got a list or three of what games to play, what I need to buy, and what we need to do. I tell you, being a mum makes me even more super organised than I used to be. I often think that if I go for a job interview and they ask for examples of my organisation skills, not only can I use work ones, but I can use motherhood ones also.
So, back to the party, we’ve got about five children coming over for two hours and we’ve organised some games for them to play and I’m hoping that we have enough to occupy these little rascals for that time. So any ideas for fillers are very welcome, especially ideas for things to do inside.
Bless my son’s heart, he’s so excited about his party and he’s gonna wet himself when he gets his Nintendo DSi on Friday. I’m gonna have some great leverage when that comes into play.
In addition to the normal parenting, work and home duties I have a three more things that are going to be on my plate, and already are to some extent. They are extra work outside of my paid work.
Firstly I agreed, in a weak moment, to do a website for a friend’s business. I’m going to do a Wordpress site for her rather than build from scratch. We met about it in March and it should have been done and dusted by now but it’s not. I’ve told her that I’ve got some other things coming up and I really want to get hers out the way. I’m going to have to lay down the law and say I won’t do it if she doesn’t hurry up. I’m being paid with treatments from her (she does shiatsu).
The other thing is that I do some freelance work through work and they’re doing a big website revamp which will involve a lot of work on my part. I’m being paid handsomely for it but there will be a fair bit of time involved.
And lastly, a business opportunity has come my way. I’ve been approached by a friend to join him and two others for a web-based startup. I can’t say too much about it at the moment but they’ve really done their research and it sounds quite promising. Naturally there’s work involved there too so I’m quietly panicking.
A while back I’d started playing with the idea of starting my own business but was really hesitant because I would have to do it all on my own and I know my own limitations. Working with others can have its pitfalls but also its strengths. I’ll definitely keep you posted on that one.
Anyway, time to go, lots to do.
Written on April 7, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: My business, Parenting
- Today’s (although the posts are out in my evening time so should it be tomorrows?) challenge for Problogger’s 31 days to a better blog is to write a list post.
- I’m going to take the list challenge literally because I’m in that sort of mood tonight.
- Lists allow writing to be readable and flow, but it means being succinct.
- And succinct suits me.
- Lists help me through the day, whether they’re mental or written down lists.
- But the list doesn’t allow for children.
- My child tonight was particularly painful to be around.
- I think tonight I was probably particularly painful to be around too.
- Tonight we’ve both cried and we probably both regret some things we’ve said to each other.
- Tonight we’ve been the best of mates reading Snugglepot and Cuddlepie together. They’re great stories and I’ve made him promise to read him more.
- Tonight we’ve hated each other’s guts but deep down we both really love each other.
- Tonight as I kissed him goodnight and chatted about tomorrow, I left him laughing.
- That laughter made me smile.
- Thank God.
I don’t think I could have done this post in any other way than a list.
Written on April 7, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: My business, Weblogs
As I write this it’s ten days off my five year anniversary for this blog and I’ve been ambling along without any real direction here for that time. Sure I’ve done things along the way and my blog has grown but I still don’t have any clear direction.
If my blog were a roadmap I’d have one major road with some minor roads and lots of little roads off them, some of which would be dead-ends. The main road would be the blog itself, the minor roads would probably be the categories within this blog that I contribute to the most and the dead-ends would be little things I start doing that I stop for various reasons.
I wrote recently about feeling a need for my own business. I keep thinking of things that I could possibly do but all I really want to do is develop this blog. But to do that I can’t keep ambling along dead-end roads.
Then along comes Problogger with a challenge to build your blog in 31 days. Heck, why not I say. I can’t say that I will do my ‘homework’ every day but so long as the tasks don’t take too long I’ll give it a go.
The first challenge is to have a go at writing an elevator pitch. This is very much first draft and if my more regular readers have anything to add, or any other comments, please feel free to do so.
“Semantically driven is a largely personal blog written in an engaging and honest style, where you will read about what life is like as a working, sole parent to one child, and you’ll also go on a photographic journey as I take photos to feed my artistic habit. Recently I started reviewing products that my readers might like because I believe in word of mouth marketing more than businesses marketing fluff.”
I’d like to revisit this pitch at the end of the 31 days to see if it’s changed at all. I’m sure it will – first drafts are just that.
I do have an idea that I hope to ‘launch’ as part of this blogging challenge. If anyone puts their hand up to be guinea pigs I’d love to test it on a few people.
Written on February 13, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: My business
About a week ago I wrote about having my own business. I haven’t written anything since because there’s not been much to write about.
I downloaded and read the Teaching Sells report and decided it wasn’t for me. It involves deciding on a niche and setting up a website and forum etc to sell something that you can teach people and make them pay for. I’ve never wanted to be a teacher in a really explicit way like that so while it was interesting reading, it’s not for me. Plus it was going to cost nearly $1000 which for something I’m not sure about made it definitely not for me.
Other research has hit a stumbling block too. I tried to get the book I mentioned in my earlier post called ‘What’s next’ but none of my libraries (yes I have more than one) had it. I have to go to the library this weekend to return some books so I’ll look in the career/small business section.
As for websites that talk about starting up your own business I haven’t really found any, nor really been looking that hard to be honest.
So it’s going really well isn’t it?
However, I did meet with my friend to talk about creating her website and she left with a list of tasks, ie getting content to me. So that’s on hold until she writes the content.
I’ve also been busy reviewing a fantastic product, the first post I’ll add over the weekend. It’s been loads of fun to do, and has involved some great quality time with my son which for me comes first anyway.
But I continue to write about this hypothetical business of mine in the hope that something might come of it.
Written on February 6, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: My business, Photos
The other morning when I took the photo of the morning sun reflected off the gum tree I also took some other photos to try and capture a word – Action. This is for my go at the Shutter Sisters One Word Project.
The subject of this photo – my son – is nearly always active. Even if he stands still his mouth is still very active. I’ve learned to switch off sometimes otherwise my head will explode.
I drag him out on my morning walks and he starts off with great reluctance but it’s the only time that I can walk my dog, or that I will walk my dog. And in this hot weather it’s the best time of day to do so.
I chose the word action, not to take photos of my son in action, but to remind myself that I need to take action with my life too.
I did this in part today when a friend came over to discuss me doing her website. She left with a list of tasks and now the ball’s really in her court. The action I’ll have to take will happen once she gets her content together but we gave her a deadline. We looked at similar websites (where we could find them) of her field and they were mostly shite and/or had hardly any information on them. She’s a health practitioner and obviously these people rely more heavily on other forms of advertising themself. So it will be interesting once her site is up and running to make sure her search engine optimisation is up to scratch and to see how many new clients she gets from her website. That will be a good tick for me anyway.
I know when I’m looking for a service, the first place I go to is the web. What about you?
Written on February 1, 2009 by Jen
Filed Under: My business
Have you noticed that when you want to find some information about a particular thing, that you start noticing that thing all the time and you hadn’t noticed it previously?
For instance, you want to buy a car, you start researching and you narrow it down to a particular model. You’d never really noticed this type of car before but now you see it everywhere. You’d never realised there were so many of these cars around.
For me at the moment it’s not cars. Mine is ten years old this year but doing perfectly fine at the moment (hope I’m not jinxing things by saying that). For me at the moment it’s having my own business. I mentioned this a while ago on this blog and it was really only a thought then. It’s still pretty much a thought but if I don’t start doing something about it, all I’ll ever do is sit here and think about it and not much else.
So with this hypothetical (at the moment) business of mine I’ve kind of got an idea that that’s what I want to do. The thought of going to work at the same office every day for the next 20 years or so frightens me silly. Having said that I’ve been at my current workplace for 15 years and I’ve accrued a great amount of long service leave. As a friend in a similar position has said to me she doesn’t know whether it’s a blessing or a ball and chain. The ball and chain being the safety net of having this leave and not wanting to give it up. This is part of what’s been holding me back.
But, I figure, I work four days a week and I theoretically have one more business day each week to concentrate on something else. I also have other time I’m sure I could make if I put my mind to it.
So, back to this business idea. I haven’t got an exact plan so I thought I’d start researching things on the internet and I’ve found all sorts of things to read. Of course, I haven’t read them all yet. This heatwave is taking it’s toll – see – already I’ve got excuses.
This hypothetical (at the moment) business idea is of course internet/web based and that’s as far as I’ve got. My initial thought was that I could build websites for people but that’s not really want I want to do. My experience with people wanting websites thus far is that they usually want it for practically nothing and the value of building a good website is really undervalued, especially when it comes to the content.
So I’m conducting my research to see if I can come up with any other bright ideas. I’ve already got my business name decided and while I won’t say it yet because I haven’t registered it, it was so obvious in the end that I wonder why I didn’t think of it before.
There is a wealth of information freely available out there that I’m starting to delve into. Yaro Stark’s blog – Entrepeneur’s Journey is a good starting place. As he writes, being an entrepeneur is hard work but it’s doable if you really want to. Am I an entrepeneur? Don’t know really but I’d like to try.
Via Problogger, I’ve also downloaded the Teaching Sells report on how to grow your online business. I realise I haven’t even started an online business yet, but thought it might have something useful for me.
Last, but not least, I read a book review by Shai Coggins about a book called What Next – The Complete Guide to Taking Control of your Working Life.
My task for this week – because as I told someone recently, I work better with deadlines – is to read more of Yaro Stark’s website, read the Teaching Sells report and see if I can get hold of ‘What Next’. I’ll report back next week.