Friday, May 21, 2010

I ♥ Pac Man - Happy 30th!



Loving Google's banner today!  It reminds me of this old-school pac man board game my sisters and I had growing up.  You had to set all of these white marbles on the board, and there where plastic ghosts and pac men that you would roll over the marbles to pick them up.   




Tuesday, May 18, 2010

You Might Be Closer to Hiring Help Than You Think...

image from here.

Somedays, when the dishes are piled up all over my kitchen, and the bathroom is a little less than sparkly, and the dog hair starts to clump up in the corners, I think:  wouldn't it be nice to have a maid?

If you're like me, you associate hired help with luxury and wealth, a "someday" expense.  But if you run your own small business from home, hiring help could actually help you make money.

I came across this Freelance Writing Success Article, which is a great read for any small business proprietor, including all of you fabulous Etsy shop owners.  One of the author's tips for making more money is to hire people to do anything that can take valuable time away from your business. 

You are an expert at your craft, and that's why people pay you the big bucks you deserve.  But if you're spending time mowing the lawn, running to the post office, or vaccuming, you're taking away precious time from your expertise.  While you might have to fork over a little dough to eliminate these chores, you'll make up for it by spending that time honing your craft.

Say you design swim wear.  You've decided that you're worth $50 an hour.  If you spend one of your hours running to the post office, you've lost valuable time in which you could have been creating.  There is a multitude of people who have the ability to make a run to the post office, but no one has the knack for designing figure flattering swim wear like you do.  So call the kid down the street who's off for the summer.  He'll happily run your packages to the post for $10.00.  You've made $40.00 instead of losing the $50.00 you could have made designing. 

Awesome reason to hire help!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Why You Should Get Paid to Write Online

et
image from here.

To my mom's happy disbelief, people actually pay me to write online content.  It actually turns out to be a valuable skill because:

1)  You can't pick up and item when you're shopping online.  You can't taste, touch, or smell it.  But you can be transported with some good descriptive writing.

2)  Search Engines love content.  I admire good web design.  I'm jealous actually, as my artistic talents are limited.  Luckily for me, search engines don't care about design.  They crunch on html tags, keywords and links.

3)  It's difficult to think of new ways to say the same old thing.  Most of the content that's online is simply regurgitated knowledge.  If you want people to read your content instead of someone else's, it has to be clear, interesting, and compelling.