Self improvement, working at home, mental health, cooking, hobbies, gardening, wellness, health, fitness, motherhood and raising families

As a home business owner you do not have the luxury of having clients popping in for a chat as you do with say, a retail shop.  A quick chat can often lead to another sale, or your client sending someone to you because of what you may have been disucssing.

When you are working at home you need to keep a list of everyone you do business with, or even talk to regarding your business. 

USE AN AUTORESPONDER TO DO YOUR WORK - IT IS SO EASY!!

The best way to keep in contact with these people is to set up an autoresponder and send out regular emails with news on your products, or anything else you can think of that your contacts may be intereted in.  You may have a list of retail buyers, your wholesalers, and prospective buyers.

This type of contact is a great way to foster trust.  You will find that by having this type of contact you will get many more repeat purchases.

WORK AT HOME BUSINESS CAN FEEL ISOLATED

This is one of the problems a work at home person has to contend with and come to terms with.  Some do that easily, but others find it quite a struggle to spend hours at home on their own.

Twitter.com has taken the world by storm and it is possible to get very valuable information through a Twitter contact.  I would suggest that if you want to use Twitter as a chit chat site then set up a separate account for your business and keep it business orientated.   Twitter can serve both purposes equally well, and can be a lot of fun.  There are some very humorous people putting up posts.   I personally love to have a chuckle at some of the humor.

You can only use 160 characters to your post so you will not be on there forever trying to make your mark.  It is known as the mini blogging site.  Quick relevant posts.  I guess that is why some of the humor is so funny, because they have to be precise in what they say.

Check it out for your marketing, and also for getting some ideas when you get stuck.  People love sharing their information.

In the internet world there is Facebook, Utube, Twitter and loads of other social sites that you can help grow your contact base for your business. 

I know people use this medium for the offline business too, but the internet businesses really push the use of these methods to market their businesses.

In the offline world your marketing has to be just as aggressive.  All business owners need to be a member of a social/networking group.  There is no quicker way to grow your business than through one on one, face to face contacts with future clients.  People get to know you so much faster, and they begin to trust you so much quicker.  Even if these contacts do not use your services, they will be some of your best referrals.

There are many skills that you need to develop as a home based business owner, and planning your total marketing strategy is a must for survival.  You never know when one method of marketing is going to dry up, so you need to have several methods that you use.

WHY YOU NEED TO DO A BUSINESS PLAN

If you have never done a business plan before it may sound rather daunting to be told to do one.

Why you need to do a Business Plan  is so that you can keep on track with what you are trying to achieve when you start your business.  To start out the right way, you have much more chance of being successful.  A Business Plan is not set in concrete and you may revise it as you go along, but at least you will have something to work to.  I

IT WILL HELP WITH:

• your setting up budget 
• keeping you focused 
• keeping within a budget, as that is part of a business plan
• keep in mind your buying market
• analyse your market area
• how you are going to reach your clients

There are many more details in a Business Plan that will help, but these are the main ones. 

Your marketing online and offline is just as important as each other.  Even if you have an online business you should create a presence in the offline world as well.

IT SEEMS LIKE 2009 IS GOING TO BE A YEAR WHEN WE HAVE TO WATCH OUR MONEY

I don't think there will be any escaping from the fact that trimming the family budget will be a must in the coming year.

Now is the time to sit down and look at everything you spend your money on and analyse how you can save money. 

Mortgages and food bills are usually the highest payments we have to make out of our weekly income.

After that comes credit cards, car payments, education, petrol, clothing, entertainment and more costs further down the priority chain.

With all these cooking programs on TV it is a bit of a misconception that you need to spend quite a bit of money to put up a tasty meal.  That is so far from the truth.  Keep an eye out for our blogs on cheap meals.

Electricity is another cost that can be better controlled.  For years we have had the luxury of using as much electricy as we need, and theoretically we probably can in most cases, but with careful management, the electricy bill can be reduced.

Work on these items and see where you can save money.  Plan for more Family Budget ideas.

Candle making is such fun and you can use all sorts of containers to make candles. 

For pillar candles you can use milk cartons, or other waxed containers like juice cartons.  If you have old drink glasses around that you no longer use you can use those for containers, but you need to warm them before pouring in the wax.

If you do not have any glasses on hand, visit the second hand shop.  If you make candles to sell, you may be able to a do a deal and let them find them for you.  Give them strict instructions, even diagrams of glassware they could find for you.

I USED TO OFTEN FEEL SO GOB SMACKED WHEN GOING WITH MY SON TO THE PSYCHIATRIST

Another situation which arises is that, the person with the illness may be quite lucid during the interviews, so the doctor may have difficulty making any analysis at all of an illness until he views the  symptoms at a later date.  Sometimes it can be weeks, or sometimes months and years, before a true diagnosis can be made.

AND I can understand why.  I have sat in on psychiatrists appointments and thought to myself, "his is not the same son that I have living with me"!   He has conducted his conversations well, he has answered all the questions and done a good job. 

This in itself is a part of the illness, well not a 'part' of the illness, but something that happens at times.  At times when lucidity is needed at their discretion, it is possible that they can maintain a level of lucidity that makes it very difficult for doctors to diagnose exactly where the situation is at, or in fact, even IF there is an illness.  It is a bit like 'selective hearing'. 

Sometimes too, I used to think my son was lying (and he rarely ever does), but then I realised that what he was telling the doctors was exactly as he saw it.  He often didn't remember incidents that I wanted the doctor hear about, and often had quite a different view of what happened, or was said.

It was over time with him, and discussions with doctors that I realised that his world was so different from mine, even if we lived in the same house.  We just saw things totally differently.  Me from a carer's perspective, and him from his own view on the circumstances.

For more insights like these perhaps my ebook on   Managing Mental Illness – Coping Strategies For The Carer would help you a lot.

AS TEMPTING AS IT IS, USING CHEAP WAX CAN CAUSE PROBLEMS

It really is a ‘cheap’ hobby, so don’t try and save more dollars by using a concoction of wax that has been lying around the house.  Use good clean wax that you have bought and handled correctly then the chance of any problems is much, much less.

There is more chance of wax spitting, of joins not holding together, and 'dirty candles', in other words, candles with dirty flecks in them.

In our ebook Candle Making - Start With Confidence we give tips on how to use your discarded or unused wax, so really when you buy your wax, and it is cheap, you will not have very much wastage.

TAKE PHOTOS - AND TAKE MORE PHOTOS!  BE READY TO MAKE YOUR CHRISTMAS SCRAPBOOK ALBUM

Get that camera out and be prepared for Christmas photos.  Starting looking for cheap embellishments, or wait til the after Christmas sales, and buy yourself some cheap trimmings for your family Christmas scrapbook.

If you are going on holiday, don't forget to collect things that you can add into your scrapbook.  Drink coasters, menues, tickets, sugar wraps, etc.  All small and interesting items to remind you of your holiday.  Post cards are great too.  The pictures are (dare I say it) often better than ones we take ourselves. 

Get some more great ideas at

http://ebooksnowonline.com/hobbies/scrapbooking/ 

Have fun!

BEING A CARER IS NO FUN, BUT THESE INSIGHTS MIGHT HELP YOU

One of the problems a carer faces is trying to find out what type of mental illness they are dealing with.  It can often be a very long period of time before a mental illness is diagnosed because so many symptoms can present the same and sometimes a person can suffer from several symptoms of several illnesses. 

Also, there are other issues, such as the person that is ill may not, at the time of assessment, be able to communicate that well and therefore the doctor cannot get a clear picture of what is happening. Because of this it may take several psychiatrist visits, or hospitalisations, to fully understand what exactly is happening.