CREATING A PERSONAL BRAND

Create a personal brand and use your resources that you currently already know.

• Network with people that you know and spread the word slowly.
• Remember, nothing happens overnight. Building a business means you have to start with a good foundation.
• Keep your word...if you say that you are going to do something, then make sure that you do it. There is nothing people in business dislike more than a flaky person or business that they are dealing with. You want others to know that you are reliable, otherwise you will loose business so fast.
• Make sure all of your public images (Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Shop, Logo, Brand, Labels) have the same company message and theme. You want everything to look cohesive as one company and not having a bunch of confusing and conflicting themes and messages. You want to articulate a CLEAR company message and product offering.
  
• Organization and simplicity in your idea and images are key.

ANOTHER VERY INSPIRATIONAL STORY: 2 FRIENDS DOING BUSINESS TOGETHER

2 FRIENDS DOING BUSINESS TOGETHER. These 2 ladies, having very different personalities manages to work together to build a successful jewelry line in London. They gave very great business advice. One of the owners said that Don't be mistaken that if you make something great that that is enough. Because that is not enough, you really have to work at it.

VERY INSPIRATIONAL STORY

I stumbled on to this video online and LOVE it so much that I want to share this with ALL of my readers! This is such an inspirational story. These 2 sisters started their business by themselves (being young and on their own). They also have their business operation in a very small 1 bedroom apartment in New York that they both share together. It so reminds me of so many of us young women entrepreneurs struggling to make it work and we will, just like these 2 girls! Enjoy!

WHEN WILL YOUR STORE START TO TURN A PROFIT?

This blog post was inspired by a post in a team forum (Etsy Entrepreneurs Team). One team member today had a thought of when she can expect to start to quit her day job and be able to run her shop full time. And then I had a question that came up..."When can we expect to turn a profit?"

It takes an average of 3-5 years for a physical store to turn a profit. There is a lot of costs associated with start-up costs. Equipments purchases, materials costs, and inventory costs.
I have a lot of items in my shop, so I have to hold a good quantities of inventory on hand. That means, my inventory cost is pretty high. My start up cost is pretty high too because I had to buy in materials and equipments to start my shop.

In the beginning, these are my start up costs:

• I bought a brand new camera to take good pictures with.
• I bought a brand new apple computer to run my shop with because my PC keeps getting viruses and crashing.
• I bought new lighting for pictures taking.
• I bought new equipments and tools to hand make my crafts.
• I had to have enough samples to start a shop.
• Office supplies
• packaging materials

etc...

Advantages of having an online shop:

• No monthly rent (saves thousands $$$)
• tax write off (everything above)
• No landlord that you have to answer to
• No employees to pay yet (in the beginning)
• You are your own boss
• Doing what you love (priceless)

When can I expect to earn a profit?
Here is a simple way to measure how long it will take you to make a profit:
(Start up cost + inventory cost) divide by your average monthly profit (subtract your costs from the total sales)= the number of months it will take you to break-even...and then after that, you will start to turn a profit. **but this is an estimate because it does not take into consideration marketing costs (relisting fees, etc...)
But it should give you an idea.

It is faster to turn a profit with an online store than it is if you have a physical store. But that is not always the case. Some online shops rents out warehouses to house their inventory; but most of the smaller shop owners use their house or an extra spare bedroom to house their craft business.

BUSINESS LICENSE & TAXES

I have had a few readers who have asked me to write a tutorial on the benefits of having a Business License and taxes.
****I am not a CPA or an Accountant. Any tax or legal advice that I share here are from my own experiences doing business and dealing with these issues. You should ALWAYS consult a CPA or an Accountant for taxes and other business licenses advice. I hold no legal responsibilities.****

You should research your City, Town, and State Business License tax info on the IRS website or go to the chamber of commerce. Some states you can even file for a business license online. Go to your state website, usually there is a link there for the IRS department in your state.


Getting a Business License usually only costs anywhere from $18 to $50 (depending on the state) to file (it might be a little bit more now, since I have filed a few years ago). But you have so much more tax benefits, which means that you will get more money back on your income tax returns.
Having a business license means that EVERYTHING that you buy, spend, cost you, and use on your business is a tax write-off.
Here is a small list of what you purchase that can be written off on your taxes as a business expense:
Books
Magazines
Classes
Materials
Shipping materials
product cost
internet
Part of your home rent/mortgage (because you are using your home as a studio or an office)
Gas
PayPal expenses
Etsy fees
Craft fair cost/fees/expense
Your internet bill
Employees salary (if you have employees)
...you should have a trusted CPA (accountant) to talk to and consult you more on this matter.

***Also, if your business do not make any money or if you break even, then you do not owe any taxes, you most likely will get money back at the end of the year.

An easy way to keep your business expenses organized is to have a separate Bank Account dedicated just for your all of your business expenses and use. And you should have a credit card or a bank card that is to be used ONLY for business expenses and use. This way, you can just go online, and see all of your expenses in one place. This makes tax time a whole lot easier and less stressful. Having your business expenses separated from your personal expenses means that you save a lot of time when tax time comes around. You do not have to dig through and sort out your business expenses from your personal expenses.

The BEST way of getting a license is to contact your CPA/ Accountant. They can do all of the paperwork for you...all of you have to do is Sign! Isn't that awesome. Now, for all of you "do-it-self" girls out there, you can go to the IRS department building in your state/city (look it up on google by typing in your state, city, and the "IRS department building"), and pay for the license and fill out the forms there. However, I absolutely advice that you get a CPA/Accountant to do the paperwork for you. Either way, you are going to have to tell your CPA/Accountant because they have to know to do your taxes at the end of the year. Now, Your CPA/Accountant may or may not charge you a fee for the paperwork filing.
Just between you and me: My CPA did NOT charge me for the paperwork filing. It was a 1 page form that he electronically filled out for me. And all I had to do was sign on the dotted line.

Oh, another business tip: Make sure you know how to file your business license.
What??? there are more than one way to file????
Yes, there is!
Okay, here is a quick Summary...
choice 1: File as a sole proprietorship (owner, doing business as yourself).
Filing as a Partnership is the same as a sole proprietorship (except with more than 1 owner).
Choice 2: File as an LLC (Limited Liability Company)
Choice 3: File as a S Corporation or a Corporation
I am sure there are other ways as well, but these are the 3 most popular ways that people file for businesses.

Pros and Cons for Each type:
sole proprietorship: YOU are liable for EVERYTHING. So I don't really recommend this. But it is the easiest form of business filing. Filing as a Partnership is the same thing. Except there are more than 1 owners to go after if something goes wrong. Lawyers loves this, because there are more assets involved. yikes! Plus, if things don't work out, you have to sever the business partnership by dividing business liabilities and assets that are involved. This can get very very tricky if you have a lot of business assets and liabilities.

Filing as an LLC (Limited Liability Company): This is my FAVORITE. You get so much more protection for your personal and professional assets. **I will explain more indepth in a different thread since this can get very very long). However, it will require a little bit of money. It costs about $250 to file for an LLC. you can do it on Legal Zoom for about $70. I don't recommend doing it on Legal Zoom because they DO NOT do everything for you. Okay, here is how the LLC process works: You have to reserve your LLC name (cost money). Then after that you fill out a form. Mail the form. After your LLC has been accepted, you then have to declare your existence by publishing ads in a few State/Local, and National Trade Publications (newspapers/magazines)....I know, this can get confusing! Pay the ads fees to the media publications. (Fees varies per publications). This is why I recommend finding someone to do it for you. Hint: your CPA can do all of this for you! After a few weeks (usually 3 weeks), your LLC is official!

Filing as an S-Corporation or a Corporation:
Great protection for your personal and business assets. But it does require a lot more work than an LLC. You are required to declare tax filings per quarter/semi annual/ect...(Talk to your CPA for more detail). Unless you have more than 50 employees, this is not really recommended for small home base businesses like ours.

***If I am incorrect on any of the above topics, please let me know and correct me***

Please NOTE******
****All of the info here-in are based on my own personal experience doing business and what I have heard from my CPA and other business individuals. Before you do anything, you must consult with your CPA/Accountant for YOUR specific business needs. I take no responsibility for these information.****

4 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS FROM MARTHA STEWART

I stumbled upon this little tid bit of information and was so happy because I am a HUGE fan of Martha Stewart. I love her and everything that she does. When I was little, I told my mother that when I grow up, I wanted to be a Martha Stewart! All of my friends call me a little "Martha Stewart." So naturally, when I stumbled on these advice from Martha, of course I'm going to post it and share it with you guys.

So Martha Stewart Claims that she spends 5 minutes a day on twitter. Of course she has an assistant who does the typing for her, but when she can't type the message herself, she dictates it over the phone. Gosh, I wish I had someone who I can dictate the blogging and Facebooking stuff for me. But to this day, Martha has accumulated about 2 millions loyal fans and she has about 72,000 facebook friends.

In New York City, during an interview/marketing event, Martha shared her business advice (specifically social media marketing). Here are her advice (the following are taken verbatum from another source, because I didn't want to distort the message coming from Martha herself):

1. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. At its core, Stewart said, social marketing is about finding your own voice and communicating your brand’s personality. “Authenticity is extremely important in all social media,” she explained. That means no ghost-writing, but it also means that you shouldn’t feel pressured to comply with other people’s ideas about how you should express yourself. An example: Stewart likes to write in unpunctuated streams, and sometimes even in block capitals, though some tell her it’s against the rules. “Who the heck made these rules?” Stewart said. “That’s the way I type. It’s charming.”
2. Find yourself a good co-pilot. Throughout her keynote, Martha Stewart tossed questions and remind-me-later asides at Eliad Laskin, her all-purpose technical guru. Laskin helps Stewart with everything from captioning photos to using technical tricks to grow her following on Twitter, and Stewart has even been known to dictate tweets over the phone when she’s unable to reach her iPad. That streamlines the process and leaves Martha with her hands free to focus on the really important stuff — like figuring out how to simmer a complicated recipe down to 140 characters.
3. Go where your customers are — and remember that everyone’s a customer. Different social platforms attract different crowds, and they’ve all got something to offer your business. Instead of picking one platform, Stewart advises finding ways to adjust your pitch to reach the different communities that form online. Stewart has found that her Facebook fans tend to be most interested in fashion, while Twitter users love recipes and the sense that they’re having a real conversation with her. The most important thing, Stewart said, is to be responsive and respectful, and not to sneer at groups you’re not actively involved with. “You have to say that everyone’s fabulous,” Stewart said.
4. Let the tail wag the dog. A good social strategy involves a willingness to experiment and an openness to letting your business follow wherever those experiments lead. Stewart points to the Daily Wag, a blog she runs that features photos and first-person updates from her beloved French bulldogs, Francesca and Sharkey. The apparently frivolous site’s reception led Stewart to run sponsored webisodes featuring the pups, and eventually, to develop a pet-products line in partnership with PetSmart. “That all started with a blog,” Stewart says. “If it’s there, try it — that’s my motto.”

(source: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2010/06/15/4-social-marketing-tips-from-martha-stewart/)

JUGGLING BUSINESS AND YOUR PERSONAL LIFE

It is so difficult to squeeze everything that you need to do all in 1 day. After all there are only 24 hours a day and about 8 of it is already accounted for when you sleep. So how do you finish all of the chores on your list? This is a question that many of us (women entreprenuers) face each day. Here are some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your day and squeeze every productive minutes out of it. Here we go!

Make a daily schedule: Divide up your day by the hour. Write out your daily schedule, including the chores that you must do everyday or every week. For example, My day starts at 8am. I would get a cup of coffee and browse my emails, facebook, blog, and check out my etsy shop for about 1 hour. Then I would check to see if I have any orders from the night before, and package those. At noon, I have to go to the post office. And my day job takes over from noon to about 8pm at night. So I have to make sure to write down my routine and cross off the hours that are taken out for me to do my routines every day.

Now the little extra minutes or hours that I have free in between my schedule, I would fill it up with things that I could be doing/should be doing for my business. Example, pick up postage supplies on my way to work or on my lunch break. Answer emails and blog while I wait at the doctor's office (and usually you sit in the lobby for a really long time, so make use of your time).
Organize your list of things to do according to priority. So Chores and tasks that are the most important and have the earliest deadline, you would make those at the top of your list. Chores that could wait a while, will be towards the bottom of your list.

And of course to cut distractions while you get your business done, do not have the TV on. Studies show that people who have the T.V. turn on while they work or while they are at home, on average ended up wasting at least 3 hours of their day watching whatever was on the TV. So you could use an extra 3 hours to finish up a lot of very important things that you should be doing for your business...like Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Etsy forums, ect....

Make sure no matter how busy you are, that you schedule at least 1 day out of your schedule for you! On your Off Day, you can use it to do the things that have put aside for too long, spend time with your kids (family). If you put 100% of your time into your business and nothing else...you will end up very drained. And at the end of the day, you will have nothing left to give to yourself. Before you can take care of your business or other people, you must take the time first to take care of yourself. If you are not well, then you cannot be the most efficient as you can be. And if you cannot be there for you, then you will not be able to be there for your business, friends, and family.

One of the most important thing that I have to stress is that you MUST take time to tend to your health. My mother works a 14+ hours work day for the last 21 years as a chef. And she feels that she cannot take time away from her business because she thinks that it will fall apart without her being there all of the time. And she failed to make time to see a doctor for her annual checkup and mamograms...and sadly to say, that one day, when she was doing a self examination (in the shower), she felt something abnormal in one of her breast. Went to get it checked out and to make a long story short, she had to have surgery. Lucky for her it was not malignant, it was benign. So ladies, please please please no matter how busy you are, you must make time for yourself and put yourself first.

Women are giving naturally and we are selfless by nature. We give so much of ourselves to our business, our customers, our family, our friends, but not to ourselves. And I know that it is very difficult to juggle being a mom, running a business, being a wife, and having a day job. But if we have an organized schedule, organized list of things to do, and cross it off as you finish each tasks, prioritize your list, allot a specific amount of time and deadline to finish each task, then you will get it done in a timely manner. Now don't stress out...take a deep breathe...and take one thing at a time.

The most important thing is to be organized. I don't know how you are, but for me (and most other women that I know and have talked to) if my workspace is disorganized, I cannot function until it is somewhat under control. Organize your inventory, work area, desk, and schedule. Have a set place for everything, especially your everyday tools that you use the most. I label everything. And I also put everything back in the same place each and every time that I use something. I have trained my brain to get used to where everything is. That way I can save time when I am not spending my valuable time searching for things. I also hate loosing things because it frustrates me when I can't find something that I need, and it is usually when I have a very close deadline when I can't find what I need to finish my project...sounds like you? Then you need to get organized.

Organizing your workspace: start in one corner and work your way to the other side of the room. I always start with the small chores first before I attack the big stuff. If you attack the small stuff first, you will finish off things rather quickly. This will get you motivated to finish organizing the rest of the area. Some people make the mistake of attacking the bigger task first (thinking that it will make them more efficient), and after many hours of spending their time on it, they will get discourage, because they see very little results or no difference at all. This is why I like to start with the smaller things first. Get it out of the way, and you will feel good when you are able to cross things off your "to do" list.

If you are so busy with your business that you cannot keep up with the orders...that is telling you that you need to bump up your prices. And don't worry if you notice the number of sales decreasing; you will make up for it because you will make more money per sale, so you will end up making the same amount of money but doing less work.

Procrastination: many of us, fall into this category. Don't feel bad, you are NOT the only one. I have struggle with procrastination for years. It is so hard not to procrastinate when you feel overwhelmed and out of control. We procrastinate because when we feel a lot of anxiety and pressure to do something, our fears start to take over. When you fear or dislike to do something, you either don't do it, or you procrastinate. Most of the time we choose to procrastinate because we can't just escape the task at hand completely...so we let it linger on and on...But there is really no escape from the task, so why don't we just finish the task first and get it over with? Don't you agree with me that most of the time when you procrastinate on something, when you are done with the task, feel that it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be. Sounds familiar? The fears that we create for ourselves is the worst, it is not the task.

Work Smarter, not Harder. Remember that. Just do it! Nike got this one right! The longer you wait to get something done, chances are it will not get done. So just get the things that you can get done out of the way first and then you move on to the next task. Making a list of things in the order of priority, will help you tremendously. These are tools and tips that most people already know and it is mostly common sense. But how many of us know something and don't do it? Yes, you see my point. I know that there are a lot more tips and tricks out there to help you stay organized, more efficient, and not to procrastinate. And if you want to share any of your tips and tricks with me so that I can add to this blog, please feel free to email me or send me a comment. Thank you!

1. Pursue a business or service that you are good at or an expert at.

What do you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies? What are your strong point? What craft do you see yourself doing for the rest of your life? These are the questions that you should be asking yourself. Do a very thorough analysis of what it is that hearts desire (professional). Don't lie to yourself. I have always enjoyed starting businesses because it was the journey and the new adventure into the unknown that excites me. But I have realized that until just recently. That is why I am writing this blog and sharing all of these information with you. Most people will try to sell you these information for money...but here I am giving it away for FREE. I know that I could write an E-book on these topics and sell it online and probably make a lot of money. But money is not what I am after. I am after educating and helping others. This is my heart's desire. I desire to live creatively, live honestly, and enjoy myself making beautiful things while helping others at the same time. These are more enjoyable and meaningful to me when I am not focus on making the money. All I ask is that you appreciate my advice on here and write me a few positive comments and share with me your experiences after applying my principles. All of the principles here-in have been tested by Me! Yes, I have used all of these principles on myself, my own shops, and my creative products. And because it has worked so well for me, I have decided to let the cat out of the bag and share it with you. I believe that God have made knowledge freely available to us. However, most people when presented with these knowledge to help them, do not know what to do with the given knowledge. And those that know what they should be doing with the given knowledge are sometimes too lazy to apply the given knowledge and make it work for them...so you see my point. I may be providing these principles, tips, tricks, and know-hows for Free; but that doesn't mean that people will follow my tested methods and make it work for them.
Anyways, don't just venture into a business because you fancy something. I like metal smithing (gold and silver) jewelry. But I'm not going to open a shop and try to sell gold and metal jewelry made by hand, because I am not an expert at it. I know nothing about the skills required, materials, costs involved, and other good stuff about it. So I will stick to what I do know. I also mix media collaging but that is not what I am good at. Other people can do it better than me. Don't focus on things that you are not good at. Only focus on what you are good at and build your shop from there. What I am good at is setting up businesses. Wheewww....I got one difficult thing out of the way. And I am pretty good at being ahead of the trends before it hits mainstream...another good thing. And I do like pretty, girly, and sparkly things. I know that I have always had a passion for anything creative. And I absolutely love jewelry. Not just any jewelry, I love Big, Bold, Loud, Look-at-me, Statement, and Vintage jewelry. So here I am. Now that I know what I am good at and I know what product/service that I am passionate about...I have myself a business idea!