Tag: one person business

Create nice things for yourself

One thing I have learned while working at home is that it is hard to be motivated in the long run. Yes, I can get fired up for a week or two but how will I keep it going for the rest of the year right?

I try to follow all the trends and advice that comes across my home office desk but to be honest, I rarely put it to work. There is one trick though that worked for me so far – and that is creating nice visual for my vision board. I am very visual and I do really badly in note-taking. I have notes all over the place, handwritten, typed and even recorded on my mobile. Then of course, I forget that I ever made them.

This year I intend to be very organised and create a new, colourful and a very appealing roadmap. And I mean VERY. I am sifting through my ideas and putting them into colourful documents. The usual Google Planner or Excel sheet might be functional but they just don’t work for my brain. I do not know why but I don’t feel motivated to open them or to use them. I think it maybe the layouts, endless rows of lines…I don’t know.

Anyway, let me know if you are the same and what are you doing about it 🙂

Have a great 2021 dear friends!

organising small business plan, colourful and vivid for focus and motivation
Organising myself while staying motivated and focused.

This might help you…journaling for business

Something I have been doing recently and helped me a lot – journaling. I know it is not a new concept at all. I do my personal journaling here and there and find it very helpful. But this time I though why not do that also for my tiny business. The reason is simple – I just don’t remember every little thing. For example I make a tweak to the product but I forget about it. Then when looking at my analytics, I am wrecking my brain what have I done well that the product suddenly sells…

I have avoided looking at my social media analytics for ages. There are different reasons for that. Let’s say, I just looked at the curves and watched if they go up or down. Very amateurish, I know. For what I was doing – it was enough. At least so I thought.

When I started pinning on Pinterest, I was getting overwhelmed – by the sheer numbers, scheduling etc. I just did not remember what works and the analytics did not help me in this. Hence comes the journaling bit. After years of writing on Post notes and loosing them in a process, I started a simple journal with the following:

  1. what I’ve created
  2. when it became live
  3. what was the response
  4. sources that inspired me
  5. what details I have changed
  6. what was the outcome of the change

business journal might be the game changer

How is my business going in 2020

No, I will not be complaining. But I do need to say that it was not what I expected. I was hoping to really shoot up this year. Well, it did not happen. Now, when I look back, I am thinking about the positives. With regards to my products, I did see that the idea works. Or rather, yes, the product sells.

However, I made lot less than expected. That is going to be the next step. I will try to find out how to scale it up. So I still feel that I did not get very far, yet.

Here is my list to rethink my strategy:

  1. what worked and why
  2. what did not work and why
  3. how to scale up successful items
  4. find better platforms
  5. find products with better return on investment
  6. learn new skills that will help me to achieve the above

Happy Holidays dear friends 🙂

Balancing in 2020 and getting ready for 2021

How is the business going

Well, I know that most people write about their business when they have achieved something…anyways here are some notes on my own experience so far.  One thing I need to say – it is a slow process. And I mean really slow. My website is set up and I have sent out e-mails introducing my business. I have signed up with a countless websites and directories. After some hesitation I have started with social media, too. I have been avoiding Facebook for years and still did not give in. Instead I have opted for Instagram and Pinterest as I liked their vibe more.

Here is what I think about these two at the moment:

1. Instagram – I love, love Instagram. I have immediately got into it. Started to post, comment and like. The response was good and actually better than expected. I am slowly building following and loving it in the process. I give it an hour a day – just to like and comment. The comments won me most subscribers and interest. I post once a week. Sunday works best for me and on Monday morning  I usually have a new group of subscribers waiting for me. I like the positive atmosphere, people comment in a very nice manner. I did not come across any haters or trolls like you will find on YouTube for example. People there are creative and supportive. I hope it stays that way! I have read some articles about how to get new subscribers on Instagram but I have not really use them. Advice like: “Post every day.” is not practical for me. My own advice for this social channel would be – make interesting photos of your product, be consistent, supportive with your comments, follow like minded people and things will start to snowball pretty quickly.

2. Pinterest – because I have taken to Instagram I thought let’s try Pinterest, too. I have read how great it will be for my business and how many sales I will get from Pinterest alone. However, at the moment I am just at the stage of the building some interesting boards. With regards to followers, my numbers are way way lower than from Instagram and no sales, yet. I will continue with it as I am told by numerous articles that it takes some time to build it up. At the moment I am lukewarm about it. I think it is great for inspiration or getting ideas or maybe browsing when having free time. In some ways I don’t see much difference from searching something by Google Images. I miss the personal connection with followers and ability to comment on boards. The connection is not so direct and instant as with the Instagram (or maybe I still have not figure out how to do it).

I will keep on going. Not giving up 🙂

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