A Tale of 2 WAHMs

Apparently the possibility of having the Unprofessional Business Acts  a “regular thing” here is a good idea!  I’ve had many requests to continue with this series and I’ll do my best to keep up with it.  I do have a few more stories to share but, if you really want it to continue, make sure you share your experiences with me.  Like one reader said:

I think you should make a series of it. Not only can us old timers learn and laugh about things but I think its a great learning source for newbies who are clueless. I would love to see a series on that topic so I am giving you my personal vote on it!

So, that said … let’s move onto today’s Unprofessional Business Act - Unprofessional Direct Sales Representatives

Kara actually shared this story with me.  
A friend of hers was invited to an ”adult company” party.  Her friend as well as many of the guests had been looking forward to it because these types of parties have quite a reputation for being a lot of fun.  Her friend had actually had every intention of booking a party and one of the guests had saved of $200 in cash just for this party.  Can’t beat that!  Ready made bookees AND sales - before they even got there! 

 Well apparently this particular representative had it in mind that it was all professional - meaning NO fun allowed.  This representative actually scolded the girls for giggling - saying “come on girls, let’s get serious“.  She told them not to make any jokes about it as it “is a serious matter and we all jsut need to get through this together“.

Of course as a result … the lady who had been saving money just for the party got up and left.  Two others followed behind her and Kara’s friend decided to not book a party.  Ouch!  Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

There’s definitely a few lessons to be learned here:

 - > Never, ever scold your guests.  Never - end of story.

 - > Yes, you DO need to maintain some level of professionalism at a home party, I agree.  However, the idea of a home party is to create a fun and inviting atmosphere. 

 - > We all know there are a few important messages to be heard at all parties.  This message of course would be to book future parties, make sales and hopefully do some recruiting.  So, when it’s time to hear the important messages, say something like:

I’m so glad you ladies are having such a great time.  This is what makes my parties such a success.  However, if you could please just give me 5 minutes of your un-divided attention, I promise we’ll get right back to the fun stuff.Your guests will appreciate this.  There’s not a single guest sitting in front of you that don’t already know you’re going to pitch the business.  They expect it.  With the promise of getting back to the “fun stuff” … they will give you their attention.

  - > You let your guests decide how the party is going to “go”.  I guarantee you this - Laughing, giggling, joking and story sharing WILL mean more sales and probably more bookings.  This is a guarantee for all companies but especially a company such as this.  When the guests are sharing stories - guess what they’re doing?  They are selling your product for you.

 - > Always treat your guests with the utmost respect - always.  Scolding and nasty looks is how you treat a kindergartener - NOT your potential customers, party bookers and recruits. 

There of course is so many more lessons to be learned here and I could go on all day.  However, a lot of these are just plain common sense.  Use it at all parties - yes, all of them.

Click here to visit our message boards to read the conversation of many others who had something to say about this matter as well as hear from the guest who didn’t book a party. 

So, what do you think?  Is laughing at home parties acceptable?

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If you have a story you’d like to be heard … feel free to send me an email to mommyshelperonline @ yahoo.com (without the spaces) with Unprofessional Business Acts in the subject line.  And no worries … if you’d like, we can keep it completely anonymous.

Please keep in mind:  I reserve the right to refuse any stories.  Remember, I have to draw the line somewhere.

I’ve been playing around a bit with the format of Idea Queen, trying to increase it’s bottom line over the last week or so. The most traffic comes from the recipe pages, so when I tweek the ads, I usually start there.

There are three ad spaces within the content of each of the recipe pages. I call them top ad (above all content and just under the title), recipe ads 1 (usually under the intro of the page), and recipe ads 2 (towards the end of the content, but usually not last).

First I tried some banner ads at the top. I know, usually not the best converting, but I figured I’d give them a shot. They were PPL ads (meaning I got paid per lead, or sign up) and for something free (didn’t cost them anything to sign up). I really thought they’d do better than they did, but I guess it just proves that most people are completely blind to banner ads.

That didn’t go well, so I moved my subscription box to the top. Still not bad, but my CTR for the Google Ads (which were near the box and on the bottom ad) was terrible. The sign up wasn’t all THAT great either - less than 10 subscriptions a day. For the amount of traffic those pages has, it really wasn’t that impressive.

So then I switched it to this order - Adsense at the top, banner ad second, then sign up box with another adsense code last. WOW what a difference it made! My subscription rate stayed about the same and still no response to the banner, but my Adsense CTR went from 1-2% back up to 4%.

Granted that’s not the best, but it’s BETTER. Also it’s only been a day since I changed it all, so it’s hard to say what the final stats will be. All I know right now is I got some instant results and improvements by just changing things around a bit. This was actually the way I had it set up before for the most part, and I probably shouldn’t have messed with it.  :oops: But how will we know what works and what doesn’t unless we try?

Over the years I’ve seen some nice looking sites. I’ve seen some pretty bad ones too. In fact, I think I’ve seen more bad than good. Why do you think that is?

Well for one, we know not everyone has an eye for design or has good web designing skills. What one might think is “really cool” may be completely ugly to the next.

But I also believe the reason we don’t see that many well designed sites is because they aren’t search engine friendly. I don’t get to see them because they aren’t ranking well for things I’m searching for. It’s unfortunate really, but Google is just a bot after all. It don’t know what looks good, it only knows what it can read.

Just today I was looking at a site that had a very nice looking navigation. Unfortunately because it was written in javascript, Google couldn’t read it. As a result, her internal pages weren’t even indexed. Nobody will ever see those page in a search result, and they’ll never see the well designed navigation.

So what good is pretty if no one sees it? It’s not really. However, there IS a way to balance “pretty” with “search engine friendly”. With use of style sheets, graphics, and basic SEO practices you CAN have a nice looking site which people will SEE. It just takes a bit of practice and knowledge.

I highly recommend Cricket’s free SEO class to get you started.

Are ya ready for another contest?  Sure ya are!  Who wouldn’t be?

Prize:  One lucky winner is going to win a copy of my ebook Kickstart Your Online Business - Easy to Follow Action Steps to giving your online business the boost it so desperately needs.

Timeline:  Starts - Immediately
Ends - Friday, March 27th @ 11:59 PM EST
I’ll be announcing the winner here on Saturday, March 28th

How to Win:  To enter simply leave us a comment here and let us know why you would like a copy of Kickstart. 
I will be placing everyone’s name into a “hat” and on Saturday my dear son, Cole will choose the lucky winner - randomly.

Wanna BONUS entry?  Make a blog post on your blog mentioning our contest and then leave a comment here letting me know where.  And I’ll throw your name in twice!

Please Note:  Before you click Submit Comment, put a little check mark in the box beside Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.  That way you will get an email on Saturday to see if you’re a winner! 

Soooo … what are you waiting for?  Leave your comment and enter!

I think sometimes the words “business professional” is just way over-used.  It often becomes a way to justify something that ends up being very unprofessional anyway.  I have to say this too … some people never cease to amaze me.

The past couple of days I’ve either been witness to or heard of some really unprofessional business acts which turned into some really good blog content if you ask me. 

It’s a fact, you can learn a lot from someone else’s mistakes and this topic is going to give you the opportunity to do exactly that.  (If not even a little giggle here and there because … yeah, some of it is just too darn funny!)

The first unprofessional business act I want to share with you happened to at least 3 good friends of mine.  I say at least because there were actually many involved with this but I only for sure know three of them.  I will also only share the name of one because she is the only one I’ve asked permission.

It all started when Shelly became the member of a particular parenting & pregnancy message board.  Now I do have to tell you upfront before I even go on that Shelly is a very upstanding message board member.  I can certainly vouch for her because she’s been a member of my own boards for I couldn’t even begin to tell you how long plus I’ve seen her at many other boards.  Long story short, she really is an outstanding member.   She starts new posts, helps fellow members - she even helps moderate and invites new members on a regular basis.  I’ve never once had a single problem and actually view Shelly as a very important asset to my community.  That said …

At this particular message board, Shelly posted an introduction and made a total of 17 posts - all of which can be proved to not being an ad or spam.  After a while she had invited a few friends as well as one of her direct sales team members.  A few days later she sent out an email to a few more friends as well as made an announcement at her own message board.  This resulted in quite a few sign ups.

Within these sign ups, there happened to be quite a few consultants from one particular direct sales company joined.  According to the owner of this message board owner, one of these consultants posted an ad.  (By the way, this has yet to be confirmed for sure anyway.)

Here’s where the story gets good …
Since one of these consultants supposedly posted an advertisement, the owner took it upon herself to not only ban this particular consultant but also every other consultant with this company AND Shelly (because she invited them) AND (yeah, I’m not done yet …) Shelly’s downline member - because she was in Shelly’s downline and because Shelly invited her!  Oh and I have to mention some of these ladies were banned before they were able to so much as post an introduction!  What?!?

And there’s more …
Not only did she ban all these ladies, she also decided to write Shelly a nasty email explaining that she banned her because she invited spammers and went on to call herself as well as the rest of the consultants horrible names.  She also stated that she tries to head off any trouble before it starts.

Hmm …
This by far is an interesting way to run an online community.  As a message board owner myself, I can totally respect her “wanting to head off any trouble before it starts” - however, this is not the way to do things.  There’s certainly a few lessons to be learned from this story …

 - > First of all, even if this particular person did indeed spam, you cannot hold another person responsible for their actions.  Could Shelly control what this other girl posted?  Of course not!

 - > Just because one person from a particular company spams a message board, it doesn’t mean that every single other person associated with this company is going to do the same.  Nor should they be punished for the other consultants acts.  They can’t be held responsible for what she did anymore than Shelly can be!  So one student in a class does something bad.  Do you punish the entire class?  Of course you don’t!  You punish the student who did the wrong doing!

 - > Do you ban a new member the first time they post something of spam nature?  Of course you do not.  Yes, you can have “No Spamming Allowed” posted all over the boards you want but you’re still going to have a new member who “misses it” or thinks they can get away with a little “sneaky spam”.  (Trust me, it’s inevitable!)  When it happens, you warn the offending member (only) and you delete the spam.  If it happens again - then by all means - give them the boot!

 - > Do you ban everyone else invited by a particular member because she invited someone else who spammed?  Need I really answer this one?

 - > Do you send an email to the person who invited the “offending member”, call her and everyone else who just happens to be in the same direct sales company nasty names?  I think not!

I can’t let this story end with out mentioning that after Shelly contacted the owner and complained as well as pointed out how wrong this was, the owner decided to re-instate her membership.  Uh, a little too late for that don’t you think?  If I were Shelly (or any of the others effected for that matter) I wouldn’t come back if she paid me!

Be sure to click here to stop by Shelly’s blog and read the whole story in more detail.

So, have you been treated unfairly or been witness to an Unprofessional Business Act?  I’ll be sharing a few that have happened to me over the next few days but I’d love to feature your story too!  Who knows - we could come up with a whole new regular feature here!

If you have a story you’d like to be featured … feel free to send me an email to mommyshelperonline @ yahoo.com (without the spaces) with Unprofessional Business Acts in the subject line.  And no worries … if you’d like, we can keep it completely anonymous.

Please keep in mind:  I reserve the right to refuse any stories.  Remember, I have to draw the line somewhere.

This is a plugin that I’ve wanted to add for some time now.  I believe a long time ago when we added a bunch of plugins we added something similar but it didn’t work well :(  This one came highly recommended as well as I use it one someone else’s blog often so cross your fingers!

Now you’re able to check a box before leaving a comment that will give you email notifications of any future comments.  According to the plugin site, this is to be one of the most popular WP plugins available mainly because it “helps foster a community around your blog by encouraging commentors to come back and stay engaged in the dialog”.  I can see exactly how this would happen!

The name of the plugin is Tempus Fugit and if you’re interested in seeing the rest of the features or downloading it yourself, click here.

We’re in the process of testing it … please let us know if you have any problems with it!

Yes I’m still keeping up with the Be a Better Blogger series over at Lynn’s blog. Although Monday’s post about brainstorming 20 blog posts has tripped me up a bit.

For this particular challenge I’ve been focusing on Idea Queen’s blog.  I left 2WAHMs up to Anita because I knew she wanted to join in on the challenge too. Plus my other blog needed some attention and improvements.

I thought 20 posts was going to be a snap, because I have several different ways to brainstorm posts. Also the idea about using an editorial calender helped as well (Actually I came up with a similar idea to make this work for me). I do have several posts for two specific days sitting in drafts. It’s the other days that has me stumped.

The problem here is not really lack of ideas for posts, but rather lack of GOOD ideas. Right now I’m thinking of all kinds of money making posts I could do, but nothing free and valuable. I don’t want to spam my visitors on a daily basis. The goal here is to build a relationship, get them coming on a regular basis, THEN spam them (HA! NO, I am SO kidding!). Seriously though, there is nothing wrong with a post designed to make some money - once in awhile. Lately I feel like I’ve been doing way too many spam posts.

I suppose if you look right now you’ll probably think the posts you see are pretty good free information. But my ideas for posts like that are dwindling. About all I have left in drafts of this 20 blog post challenge are for the “special days” (which I have two now - Frugal Friday and Monday Organizing) and posts designed to make money (AND give a little information of course).

What I think I need to do is come up with a few more ways to brainstorm useful posts. Sure I cook almost every day and that’s helped the recipe section, but even those ideas are dwindling. I think I’ve posted just about every meal I’ve ever made at this point. Here I thought I could ramble on forever, but 200 posts later I’m stuck.  :shock:

So the plan for today is to dig a little further into Lynn’s awesome post about brainstorming posts, and come up with 20 (or more) posts I can use on any given day. Once that’s out of the way, I can feel better about slipping in posts with affiliate links attached.  :wink:

Free and low cost advertising comes in all different shapes and form. It’s not limited to a text ad here or a banner there. There are all kinds of different ways to market your business online, which we plan to outline here.

Free Advertising

SEO
The best free advertising out there comes from organic listings in search engines. There is no better way to drive quality traffic to your site than from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This is no quick fix though - it’s hard work! Don’t think you can submit your site real quick and get any results. If you are serious about getting 100% free quality advertising, then you’ll need to learn SEO.
See Cricket’s SEO class.

Submit Ideas & Tips
Idea Queen is a large resource site that’s always looking for content. When you submit your ideas, stories, crafts, and other tips they appear on the site or blog with a link back to your site.
See Free Advertising at Idea Queen.

Submit Products for Reviews
Another great way to get the word out about your products is to send to places which offer product reviews. Mom’s Market is one of the sites completely dedicated to this type of advertising.
See Mom’s Market Online.

Directory Listings
Not only do directory listings help with extra exposure to your site, but they also help with SEO as well. The largest directory you want to be absolutely sure you submit to is Dmoz. If you do a quick search for directories on your nice you can easily find others to submit to.

Modest Clothing Directory also has free advertising available. There is an option to sign up to their newsletter for more advertising ideas and suggestion from the site.

Low Cost Advertising

Not everything in life is free, and it’s true for marketing as well. To get the best exposure and SEO rankings, sometimes you have to spend a little money. The following are sites which offer several forms of low cost advertising for your business.

A Tale of 2 WAHM - Yup, we had to mention the blog here! If you look off to the side, you’ll see our “Top Spots” listings. Add your link to the list for a little bit of nothing. It’s a great way to get a little extra exposure for a very small cost.

Idea Queen - Focused on targeted advertising with several different options available. Home page and section advertising included. On the Idea Queen blog, there is also the “top site” list like there is here. Very cheap links!

Mommy’s Helper Online - Features home page advertising, specific page advertising, and several other options. Targets moms in business or looking for a business.

WAHM Team - Target audience is men and woman who have a home business or are starting one. Currently receives about 3,000 unique visitors a month. Prices for advertising range from $3 up to $30. Includes both website and ezine advertising.

My Adorable Smile - If you have a family friendly site to advertise, this site would be perfect. Currently receives around 3,000 unique visitors a month, and the target market is moms with very young children. Prices for advertising range from $2 up to $20.

Towle Creations - Several sites offering advertising are listed here. All are geared towards women, mothers, work-at-home moms and potential work-at-home moms. Prices start at $3.50. Spend some time looking closely at all the options listed - there’s quite a few different options!

There’s enough on this list to at least get you started!

Hopefully you already know that Easter comes two weeks earlier this week … if not, here’s your official warning … Easter this year comes on March 23rd.  To me, it feels as though Easter keeps coming earlier and earlier every year.  During my search this morning, I found a couple of interesting facts. 

• Easter Sunday can fall anywhere from March 22nd to April 25th.
• The last time Easter fell on a date as early as this year was in 1913 and the next time it will be this early again will be in 2160.
• Seeing Easter fall on the earliest date possible (March 22nd)  has not and will not be seen by anyone alive today.  The last time was in 1818 and the next time will be in 2285.
• Your chances of seeing a late Easter are much higher.  The last time it fell on April 25th was in 1943 and will happen again in 2038.
• The actual date of Easter Sunday is supposed be calculated by astronomical observations (such as the moon).  However, since there is so many variables in these, the date is actually calculated by tables.

So, there’s your list of what are probably useless pieces of information for the day. 

And now onto my search for the perfect class snack for my son …
I often forget exactly how versatile the average cupcake is.  Apparently cupcakes are an easy choice for a school class snack and it’s even more apparent, they’re quite the easy choice for an Easter Snack for your child’s class snack.

The hard part is choosing which one you will create and serve!  Here are a few of my favorites.  Maybe you can vote for which one you like the best and help me with my decision!

Easter Peeps Cupcakes

Ingredients
cake mix or scratch cake ingredients (your choice)
white frosting
grated coconut
green food coloring
Marshmallow Peeps® (yellow, pink, white, blue or lavender)
jelly beans

Bake & frost cupcakes using the directions on the cake mix box. (Who has time to make cupcakes from scratch anymore?  I know I don’t!)

Sprinkle colored coconut on top of frosted cupcakes and place a Peep® in the center. Add a few jelly beans around the Peeps®, so they look like eggs.

Another option is to pipe a “nest” of green icing to encircle the top and place a Peep® in the center. Sprinkle with colored sprinkles for a finishing touch.

This recipe was found at Fabulous Foods and was submitted by a 7 year old boy!

Easter Basket Cupcakes
I edited this recipe myself.  This recipe include the ingredients & directions to make the cupcakes from scratch.  As I mentioned above - I don’t have time to create anything from scratch!  However, if you have more time than me and are a rising Betty Crocker (more power to you!) - you can find the full recipe at AllRecipes.com

Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) can creamy vanilla ready-to-spread frosting
3 3/4 cups MOUNDS® Sweetened Coconut Flakes, (tinted)
Assorted HERSHEY’s Easter Candies:
JOLLY RANCHER® Jelly Beans
CADBURY® Mini Eggs Candy
HERSHEY®’S Candy-Coated Milk Chocolate Eggs
HERSHEY®’S KISSES® Milk Chocolates
33 TWIZZLERS® Strawberry Licorice Twists

Bake & frost cupcakes using the directions on the cake mix box.

Immediately make ‘nest’ on top of each cupcake with tinted coconut; place assorted candy in nests.

For handle, insert wooden pick in each end of strawberry twists; press down into each side of each cupcake, bending to form handle.

Sidenote:  To tint coconut, combine several drops green food color with 3/4 teaspoon water; add to 1-1/2 cups coconut. Stir until evenly tinted. Repeat using blue, pink or yellow food color.

Cadbury Marshmallow Creme “Egg” Cupcakes
This one has to win the most unique prize!  Besides, for me … next to the famous Peeps - Cadbury Eggs are my favorite Easter candy!  Again, I edited this recipe to start with your own favorite cake mix.  For the full recipe, visit IHeartCuppyCakes.Wordpress.com

Ingredients
(For the marshmallow creme “egg”)
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/8 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup marshmallow creme
2 drops yellow food coloring
1 drops red food coloring
(She also notes that next time she’ll probably use 2 cups of powdered sugar or reduce the amount of marshmallow creme because this way, it was a runny and hard to work with.)

Combine the corn syrup, butter, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Beat well with an electric mixer until smooth. Add powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing by hand after each addition. Mix well until creamy. Then add marshmallow creme. Mix until well combined.

Remove about 1/3 of the mixture and place it into a small bowl. Add the yellow and red food coloring to the 1/3 mixture. Adjust food coloring to your desired “yolk” shade. Cover both mixtures and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until firm. (She thinks overnight is better.)

Prepare a well greased or parchment lined baking sheet. When the mixtures are firm, take about 1/2 tsp of white filling and place on the baking sheet. Using your fingers spread the filling out to the desired “egg” shape. (Its helpful to have a little bowl of warm water nearby to dip your spreading finger in to keep your finger from sticking.) Then take about 1/4 tsp orange filling and dollop in the middle for the “yolk” of the white filling. Repeat process. Makes 12-14 “sunny side up eggs”. Freeze for 2-4 hours until set.

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Be sure to click each of the links above to share the thanks for these great recipes!  And here’s a couple of blogs I found that show exactly how versitile cupcakes really are!
CupCakesTakeTheCake.Blogspot.com
IHeartCuppyCakes.wordpress.com

And it wouldn’t be a post about Easter goodies from me without more of a mention about Peeps!  These are my absolute favorite Easter goodie!  I found a recipe to make homemade marshmallow peeps.  I also found a page about the marshmallow peeps maker  (Yes, I am a true mashmallow peeps lover!  I DO own one of those!  lol!) 

Although, I have to admit - they’re not that expensive at all … it’s so much easier to rush out and pick up a box at your favorite grocery store 0r heck, you can pick them up at your local service mart or gas station too!  But yeah, there’s nothing like getting all sticky and messy when making them yourself!)

And I almost forgot … don’t forget to let me know what your favorite cupcake is above!

I’ve gotten in a bit of a rut. I finally caught myself today as I’m reading a really good marketing tip (BBAB Day 7, Guest Blogging) saying “hmmm yeah I already did that….next!”.

Hold on there, back up!

I realized I’m getting a little too smart for my own good. As I flip through useful information I get smug thinking “yup I’m so awesome, I did that MONTHS ago”. But I’m not too smart now am I? Here I am looking for NEW ideas, when I haven’t exhausted the OLD ideas yet. YES I already did it, but why can’t I do it AGAIN?

The guest blogging issue isn’t the only thing either. I’ve also done that with navigation link exchanges, Blogroll link exchanges, article writing, and so on. There’s also quite a bit of tasks I’ve done for some pages, but not all.

So why am I so stuck in the “but I did that already” rut? Do I think there’s something else out there that will skyrocket my business? Because I know better than that - marketing takes a whole lot of work, and it NEVER ENDS. Some marketing tasks should be done on a regular basis. Sure there are those things that can only be done once (starting a blog comes to mind - you can only set up the blog once!), but there is so much more than can be done over and over again (like article writing for example).

It’s time to change. I’m going to try to look at marketing tips like it’s brand new information regardless if I’ve done it in the past or not. How about you?