Achieve your goals with Tara May 13th, 2012
Giveaway Monday – Review of a service for mums in business
Tara is a delight to speak to over the phone. She has a very natural presence that put me at ease. I will admit I was very sceptical of coaching over the phone as I generally don’t enjoy long phone conversations and had great success with face to face coaching in my past.
My problem that needed to be addressed was that I was really struggling with the direction to take career wise. I have a skill set in a number of different areas and was wanting to commit to one to move forward with planning an executing which business I would be most happy in. Each of them seemed to meet different needs and have different challenges.
With the hour-long discussion with Tara we explored where my true passion is and, although I have some past judgement issues to overcome with this choice, I believe it is the right step moving forward. Tara was excellent at bringing out why this is the best choice for me to follow my true passion.
I have since purchased my business name and website address and am looking forward to a July 1st Launch towards my true passion! Thanks Tara for your guidance.
I would highly recommend a session with Tara for the clarity it provided me.
A little more on Tara Mauger, Life Coach 4 Inspired Women:
Empowered with Tara helps inspire women to reclaim their natural & authentic power in their life with such things as business/work, relationships, health, money & creating their dream life.
Reviewed by Belinda Pritchard, Sexy Products Delivered:
Sexy Products Delivered is launching July 1st 2012. Our aim is to provide quality adult products at affordable prices including a free product consultancy service to make sure you get the right products everytime!
The giveaway:
Tara is giving away a 1 on 1 one hour Goal Achieving consult where Tara will help you gain clarity around which goals to aim for first and how to achieve them – big & small – so that 2012 can be your BEST year yet!
To win, leave a comment below on what it is a goal that you would just love to achieve?
Hosted by Three Lil Princesses
Should you put your face on it? May 10th, 2012
I was walking through the supermarket recently and these boxes jumped out at me. I just had to try the pad thai:
Up until this day in the supermarket I had never really thought about putting your face on a product, after all, how many people do it? But what a way to differentiate your product from every other on the shelf!
Not only did it stand out but it really made me feel that if she was willing to put her face on it – it must be good. After all, you wouldn’t put your face on just anything. Would you?
And I guess you have to have a nice face, one that really represents your brand, and some good styling!
One business I think is missing a trick by not having the face of their founder on their product (in this case a website) is Godfreys. Their site is very simple, pared back and really, so devoid of any character there is nothing to connect with:
I am guessing they’ve gone with this strategy for a reason but I, for one, would not choose them over any other vacuum cleaner business by the look of their site or branding.
However, I stumbled across a picture of their founder recently in a store and it changed everything I felt about the business in a mere second:
I absolutely love this pic of Godfrey Cohen, vacuuming his modest home with his little apron on! Makes the business seem so much more accessible now, homely even. I guess the Marketing Department have gone the way they have for a reason but if they had this picture of him on their site – I’d be in in a second!
So, should you put your face on it? For me, as long as your face fits with your branding and you’re not shy, I think yes! It’s just another way of connecting with your target market and a face says so much more than words on a box or a site can.
Cheers! Alli x
p.s. the pad thai was lovely! x
Regain your energy with Wise Healthy Living May 7th, 2012
Giveaway Monday – Review of a service for mums in business
Last week, I was giving the opportunity thanks to Motivating Mum – ta Alli, to experience a Naturopath Consultation and give a review on it afterwards.
All I can say is – Oh Poor You Naturopath Nicky – I didn’t realise and you probably didn’t realise what you had taken on! I bet you needed several Yoga poses after our little session – that was supposed to run for an hour and ended up longer after the fight with the Skype and the loo breaks! But I do feel a little better! So thank you!
Nicky Wood, Wise Healthy Living
As Mums, we tend to take on so much, and even more so over the school holidays. I usually find a school holiday with a significant Holiday weekend attached to it (ie: Christmas or Easter) usually are a teensy bit harder to cope with as you have all that HOLIDAY CRAP as well.
With this in mind – our consultation was long, it was involved and as I probably need a counsellor, as well as a chiro as well as a naturopath at the moment – ended with me feeling a teeny bit better about me – but with a bucket of direction that I want to follow through with. The question is HOW? ( PS: I also need to brush up on my time management skills and ability to say NO)
I do have my Blackmores Magnesium Supplements, I am looking forward to some Adrenal Support and I do need to take care of me – I KNOW this – but when you get to the point where even when you shout it at the people around you – they point and stare at you call you INSANE for not coping and admitting it , so you bottle it up and can’t be bothered. Oh its a vicious cycle that I want to break, and I’m scheduling a follow up face to face with Nicky The Naturopath – as GUESS what even though she is based on the Gold Coast she does come to Charlestown once a month YAY!
She was a concise as Skype would allow, she had many valid points, and she spoke the truth and from the heart. I believe that she does have something to offer me – and as sometimes the wine does not work – maybe its time to extend the budget and take some me time and spend it with her once a month while she is close at hand? In ever increasing loads – I KNOW in my heart that its time to make me time. Yet, as a Mum, Wife, Nana and Business Woman – sometimes the ME time cap slips in favour of the others.
I’m thinking that Nicky may show me how to do this ( or even give me the diet and supplements my body screams for – yes yes yes – I DO AN EXCELLENT JOB of ignoring myself!)
Its also ironic I feel that the Chiro that makes me feel comfortable is Nicky, and now the Naturopath placed in my path is Nicky. Surrounded by Nickys! The universe is telling me something! So I guess I may just shut up and listen for a change.
So bugger off Rainy Days and Mondays – you’re not going to get me down! Nautropath Nicky has been placed in my path for a reason ! And ladies who read this – its probably for you worth a consultation ( go on give yourself some me time – you deserve it!) Even if its just to re focus you on your mission so you can have all boxes ticked on the road to success. Sometimes support comes in many forms, and if you are not getting it from your immediate surrounds, it may be time to OUTSOURCE and get a second opinion.
A little more on Nicky Wood, Wise Healthy Living:
Imagine the relief you feel when you finally find a health practitioner who actually listens to your health concerns and provides grounded Naturopathic solutions and programming that are adaptable to your current financial and time limitations. Naturopath and Corporate Speaker Nicky Wood of Wise Healthy Living offers this service to her patients as a minimum standard of practice.
Reviewed by Lyndal Johnston, Insanimum:
Lyndal Johnston is also known as Insanimum and you can follow her here www.insanimum.wordpress.com or on Facebook as Cuppy Cakes and Yummy Things or as her other alter ego as a business partner in www.letssave.com.au where the mission is to save local and online businesses – busting a butt to make it in the real word and help them navigate the marketing involved – yet at the same time putting consumers in touch with retailers and giving back to the local community.
Mother to two, wife to one, Step Mum to three and Nana to 4 – Aunty, Sister, Friend and Mentor. Life gets crazy and sometimes you need to wear your undies on the outside and laugh. Thus insanimum.
The giveaway:
Giveaway Monday offer from Nicky is an hour skype or phone consultation on how to increase your energy levels and fight fatigue. In this session you will not only learn where your current lifestyle can improve to increase your energy levels, but will also give you a great understanding of the difference between adrenal energy and natural energy production in your body, which will equip you with better skills on how to handle stress for optimal energy preservation.
To win, leave a comment below on what you could power with the amount of energy you expend in a day – and what do you expend it on?
Hosted by Three Lil Princesses
How to do your own SEO April 29th, 2012
Giveaway Monday – Review of an eBook for mums in business
Thank you Motivating Mum for giving me the opportunity to review “Talk about Creative – DIY SEO: The Small Business Guide to Free SEO”.
This ebook provides great insights about SEO and has a lot of great hints and tips. It certainly opened up my thought process about SEO and the importance of making sure you get it right. Importantly, it talked about the process taking a long time and how crucial it is to chip away at it.
Some sections need concentration for the novice, particularly ‘No Follow’ and ‘Deep Linking’ but reading it through a couple of times helped. I was concerned that the ebook might be targeted more towards web designers rather than the DIY small business owner, but trying the suggestions helped clarify the tips.
In a nutshell, good SEO takes time, it is not a quick fix solution, but it can be beneficial for your business.
If you use a third party to build your website then it is worth a phone call to them to discuss SEO with them, and reading this ebook will help you talk about what you need a much clearer understanding.
A little more on Talk About Creative:
Talk About Creative brings more visitors to your website and then converts them into buyers. We provide strategic SEO Copywriting, Social Media Marketing, SEO Content and Branding services and we specialise in small business.
Reviewed by Anne Clark, First Step Virtual Assistant:
First Step Virtual Assistant works alongside business owners and managers’ allowing them to focus on their bigger pictures, whilst I diligently work behind the scene attending to their administration needs. With a 20 year background as a Corporate Personal Assistant/Office Manager, I pride myself on maintaining strict confidentiality, building trust, a strong attention to detail and forward planning.
The giveaway:
DIY | SEO is a step by step, plain English guide for small, local and WAHM businesses to improve their Google rankings without paying expensive monthly SEO fees. Talk About Creative is giving away two copies of the ebook. To win, leave a comment below on what you would do to get your hands on a copy of this ebook!
Hosted by Three Lil Princesses
A great accountant for WAHMs April 23rd, 2012
Giveaway Monday – Review of a service for mums in business
I am a creative soul. Numbers, figures, equations and record keeping are not my strong points. In high school I did “special maths” and to this day I still get the jitters when someone asks me to work something out without a calculator. I was thereby thrilled with my good fortune to win a session with Sarah Willoughby from Willoughbys Finance Accounting & Taxation.
Sarah Willoughby, Willoughbys Finance Taxation & Accounting
I had encountered bad accountants in the past who either avoided calls or were very sketchy on details when it came to small business. It made me wonder whether I was not big enough or important enough to be their priority.
When you are starting your own business more often than not more money is going out than coming in and it can be daunting to face that reality, let alone document every single expense. Tax time has not been something I have looked forward to since I left the security of a full-time wage behind.
I had suspected for a while that I had been “neglecting” the administrative side of my business and pushing a few things under the proverbial carpet. I admit I was a little nervous before my call. Sarah however put my mind at ease and never made me feel embarassed about my current state of affairs.
Sarah specialises in accounting services for WAHM’s and was more than knowledgable on every question I threw at her. And there were many! She gave me a few simple strategies to implement (Excel spreadsheets I can manage) so that tax time was not going to be something I dreaded. Suprisingly I was pretty much on the right track and with a few suggestions from Sarah I don’t feel anywhwere near as out of control I did before speaking with her.
Sarah really knows her stuff and provided some great advice on business deductions I was not aware of even though that is the one element of tax talk that I don’t mind so much!
Business lunch anyone? If you are after financial/accounting advice from someone who is extremely knowledgable, practical and sympathetic to the challenges work at home mums face, I would highly recommend Sarah. I will definitely be getting in touch with Sarah come tax time as I know I will be in very good hands.
A little more on Sarah Willoughby, Willoughbys Finance Accounting & Taxation:
Our aim at Willoughbys is to provide individuals and small businesses with sensible affordable finance, accounting & taxation solutions. We specialise in assisting individuals meet their financial goals by minimising tax, providing budgeting advice and implementing bet
ter spending strategies.
Reviewed by Sarah Garbuio, Spin Baby:
Spin Baby specialises in cycling jerseys for kids aged 0-6 including the signature “Mini King of the Mountains” polka dot jersey, along with bikes, helmet hats, safety gear and product reviews.
The giveaway:
Sarah is giving away a budgeting and cashflow advice including an excel pro forma OR tax planning including general discussion of business deductions and business entity structure session.
To win, leave a comment below on what’s something you’d rather be doing than your accounts!
