Category Archives: Small Business

Big Changes to my business and blog

2 Comments

For the past few years, I had a local storefront in addition to my website. Mostly, it served as a place for me to meet my customers for party planning services and to have a storage facility for my party supplies and other business related products. However, last summer the opportunity arose to move my products and open as a fully stocked toy store. I was pretty excited about the idea of carrying more toys, and after much discussion with my husband, we decided to go for it!

Right before we started moving things over to the new location, we had an exchange student join us for a month, and I spent most of that month showing off the area to her, playing with the kids, and just relaxing more. When it finally came time to move things over, I had the thought: Is this what I really want to do? I dismissed it as pre-moving jitters and carried on.

Then I got pregnant. Before the miscarriage,  I was this whirlwind of energy, wanting to get things ready, wanting to be organized, and wanting things to take off. In the back of my head though, I kept thinking: How can I keep this up? What is going to happen after the baby is born?

If you have been reading my blog lately, you know that I have had a lot on my mind and that I am spread very thin. Therefore, when my husband came home unexpectedly last week, he and I had a long discussion about the future of my business, my blog, and my future in general. We would like to try again to have a baby, and I want to be able to make sure I don’t burn myself out.

I want to keep my business. I want to see my business grow, and I want to continue to help parents plan fantastic parties on any budget. I want to see my blog take off as well. I want to have more energy to share with all of you about how it is possible to run a business, homeschool, and make everything work. And I want to be real and honest about it too.

However, in order to do that, I have to be honest with myself. I am spread way too thin. Perhaps having a storefront as it is right now locally is not the best way that I can achieve those goals. Therefore, we are closing the local storefront by the end of the month.

If you are local, don’t worry, you can still get your toy fix! I have had many of my products at another local business for the past two years and will continue to carry many of the items from my website there. I am still going to offer party planning for birthdays. I am not going away. I am just changing the way my business operates.

My short-term goal is to get this blog hopping again. I want to post more party ideas. I also want to post more products on my website and continue to serve my customers and help parents plan great parties! One of the first decisions I made to help achieve this goal was to find a babysitter to watch the kids so that I can work uninterrupted, which is something I could not do before.

This decision has definitely been an emotional and difficult one. However, I look forward to continue serving all of you as a resource, a shop owner, a party planner, and friend. If you have any questions, please ask me. I will be happy to help!

Giving the Gift of Play

Leave a comment

Here is why I am excited to be bringing a full line of toys and becoming a toy retailer in the upcoming months in addition to a party planner!

I am finally putting the finishing touches on my new place where I will start out the next year as not only a party planner but a toy store! However, I am not your ordinary toy store. The toys I will be selling are soft or wooden. Some of them are ones that the child gets to wear. There are no bells and whistles to them. They don’t require batteries or an I-Pad to use. They are the toys that inspire imagination!

I carry stuffable friends that a child can dress for various adventures! With their imaginations, they bring the animal to life when they stuff it, and they can use their animals in all sorts of scenarios, whether it is a friend to snuggle at night, or a Superhero that helps them save the day! The sky is the limit where a child and his stuffed buddy can go!

I also carry well-made toys that will last for generations to come! They don’t require batteries and don’t make noise, but they provide hours of entertainment for little ones! I want children and parents alike to come into my store or visit my website and be inspired to play, imagine, and create.

My desire is to have a place that is not your average toy store. I also hope that if you use my party planning services online or locally, that your child has a whimsical and wonderful time. If your child still has a toy or a stuffed animal from my shop years later, and it was his/her favorite or if you had a party with me and your child has wonderful memories of it for years to come, then I feel like I have done my job.

If you live in or near Schuylkill County and visit Schuylkill Haven, I invite you to check it out, have fun with your child or just have fun letting your own big kid shine through!

Things Every Mom Should Know When Starting a Business

Leave a comment

I started my business four years ago when my youngest was still a baby. As a novice momtrepeneur, I was so excited about my ideas and hopeful for business. However, over the past four years, I have made many mistakes, learned many new things, and had my share of heartaches along the way. I would like to share this with any of you moms starting a business, not to scare you, but to give you a bit of ammunition before you start your new career path.

First of all, have a clear idea what you want to do and try to keep it specific. Don’t try too many things at once. You may end up suffering from burnout or may have trouble marketing it all. Try to keep to one specific area of interest. I am not saying you can never branch out, but you want to establish a good presence and customer base before branching out into other areas.

Second, not everyone will be as excited as you are about your business. For me, I was a stay at home mom before I started Bear Haven Boutique. Then I went to being a work at home mom then a full-fledged businesswoman. For a while, I had a hard time fitting in with friends. I wasn’t a stay at home mom, and I wasn’t a work outside the home mom. I was something different. Some of your friends and family may not be as supportive because they are afraid of what will happen if you fail, especially with the economy not being the best right now. If that happens, try not to let it bother you. Make sure you have your plans written and follow them. Don’t use your savings to start a business or put a large investment in something unless you absolutely know you will get it back somehow.

Third, be prepared for cattiness. For some reason, women with similar businesses can sometimes be catty to each other. I have had a few instances of this. In the past, I have had issues with another mom-owned business who sells similar products to mine. My website, concepts, and even products are different from hers, but I guess she somehow feels threatened. I even try to keep my blog content different just to prove that I am not trying to step on her turf. For the most part, I try to network with other similar businesses. We mom-owned businesses need to stick together, not tear each other apart.

Finally, be prepared to do a LOT of work. Even if you have the most supportive husband, family, and friends in the world, you will still be loaded down with work. I think it is the whole idea of working in the home. Not everyone quite understands it. So you may end up having all the duties you had as a Stay at Home Mom plus all the duties of your new business. When it comes to your business, what you put into it is what you get out of it. So if you want to succeed, you need to put a lot into it. For me, it is still a struggle. I love my husband, and he supports me. He knows I work hard at this, but sometimes I still do not get all the help I need because I think he still sees me as a Stay at Home Mom. Also, your children may not be completely on board with your work. You have to find a good balance between work and your children. It is not always easy, and I still struggle with it.

Owning my own business is a dream come true for me, and I encourage everyone to follow your dreams. However, I also want you to know that it is not always a piece of cake, and you need to be prepared for what may come your way.

If any of my readers are Mom-Owned Business Owners, I would love to hear about your experiences.

Mom in Business? Here is what has helped me!

1 Comment

Ok, so this November I relaunched my website after having a great number of issues with my other website. It has been a fantastic success, but I couldn’t have done it without the help of two fabulous resources: Living Your Moment and Marketmommies.

Both sites provide ways for moms to list their businesses and connect and shop from other mom-owned businesses. They provide ways to advertise your business, but they also help in other ways as well.

I have participated in Marketmommies Mom’s Night In shopping experiences. It has been a great way to get more followers on Twitter and Facebook and also get new customers. It is awesome because it showcases my business to the people who I am trying to market to: other parents. Marketmommies also showcases other mom-owned businesses which helped me share with others what my business is all about. Marketmommies is truly a great site to help get the word about your business to others.

Living Your Moment provides many valuable services to mom-owned businesses. From tips to services, Living Your Moment helps businesses like mine gain exposure and helps gain customers and followers for Facebook and Twitter. Living Your Moment also does fabulous Twitter Parties. When I relaunched my website, I wanted to do a twitter party but didn’t know where to start. I had attended a few, but I was nervous and confused how to do one for my business. Living Your Moment made it painless and fun. I gained new followers, more exposure, and I have been getting a lot of great customers. It has been awesome!

I totally contribute a lot of my relaunch success to Living Your Moment and Marketmommies. Not only do they provide free tools and resources to help mom-owned businesses, but their other services are cost-effective and have really helped my website grow. I am so thankful to the women who run these sites. I look forward to doing more marketing with them, and I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

Want your own website, let me tell you where NOT to begin

3 Comments

If you are a small business hoping to gain exposure, having a website is a must. However, there are several things to take into consideration so you don’t have to ever deal with what I have dealt with over the past six months.

I have hosted my e-commerce site through My Shop Kart for a few years. It was nothing special. Mostly I used it for my local customers who wanted to book a children’s party with me so they could check out the selection of stuff a plush for their big day. After much consideration, I decided I wanted to market my website to customers across the U.S.with my DIY Party Kits, and I wanted to expand a bit into educational toys and gifts for the family. I was told by a marketing person that I should consider moving my e-commerce site to something more Google friendly. I was starting to move up on my rankings, but I wanted to move up quicker, and if getting a more Google friendly e-commerce site was the way to do it, then so be it. What followed was such a disaster that cost me customers and potential business.

I chose to go with Homestead, an Intuit Company. They were supposed to be Google friendly and the price was inexpensive. I was familiar with the software and excited about my new venture. The first problem I noticed was that it was very difficult to put html codes on the pages. They ran two different codes on their site, and I was unfamiliar with the other code. Their solution was to hire them to do it for me. However, that was out of my price range. So I worked on the issue and figured out how to add a few basic codes to link up my blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Then I went to figure out how to SEO everything. When I couldn’t figure it out, I called for support and was told it was a service you had to pay for, and they would take care of it. I decided to try it and had a phone consultation with my representative. I was told everything would be ready in a few days. A few days later, I heard nothing. A week later, still nothing. I called. I emailed. After a month of nothing, I asked for a refund which prompted an email from the representative finally saying he was done. However, the keywords he gave were pretty generic and not related to my store. I got my refund and that was that.

When I was on the phone with them about a different issue, a representative  told me how I should sign up for an Intuit merchant account, how it would give my website more credibility,  how I could try it free for two months, and how they would set everything up for me. So I decided to do it. I got the account, and I called with the information. Nobody did anything. I gave up on the matter after several phone calls and emails asking to have it set up and thought the matter was closed.

Around this time, something else happened that was a huge deal. I had been contacted by NBC 10 to go on the news with a few other momtrepreneurs and talk about my business. I was nervous, excited, scared, joyful, and many other emotions as well. It was truly a wonderful experience. However, it was ruined by the fact that when I got home, I found out my website had pretty much fallen apart. It went down. When it finally went back up, it showed different things depending on what browser you used. The text was wrong. The html was wrong. It looked horrible, not professional at all. I called customer support. I was on the phone for hours. It turned out that it was a problem on their end. However, when I asked them to put everything back together like I had it, I was told no and that they charged for that. So what should have been one of the greatest experiences for my business turned into a horrible mess thanks to Homestead. I was angry and heart-broken. I put so much time into my work. I thought the news experience would be a wonderful boost to my business, but how could it considering that people either couldn’t look at the site or saw something that looked horrible and sloppy. The fact that not only would Homestead not make it right or try to console me with a credit or something,b but instead wanted to charge me to fix their mistake, just made it worse. There was a point at that time that actually made me want to throw in the towel.

I didn’t. A few weeks following the debacle, I was contacted by Lollipop Web Promotions about having a complete website redesign. There was an initial price for the design and then a monthly hosting and maintenance fee that included search engine submission and the whole works. After careful consideration, I decided to go for it. I needed to do something. This company had their own e-commerce platform. However, I decided not to go with it at this time because I wanted to move my products over to a new format as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to have to learn something new that would take time for me to catch on. So I decided to go back to My Shop Kart. I figured I would re-launch around the end of October. My new website turned out magnificent, and my new e-commerce site looked great as well. Then came the snag.

You see my domains were hosted through Homestead. I didn’t want to move them because moving them would mean moving my email accounts. Moving my email accounts would mean a big mess, and well, I was tired of messes. I figured I would just point them to the new site and be done with it. It should have been easy. However, everything kept getting screwed up on Homestead‘s end. Every time I called, I got a different answer. Each answer was wrong. Finally, I had my husband call, and everything was fixed just like that. That kinda made me a bit angry, but we will not go into that right now. Finally, I could officially re-launch and be finished with the e-commerce nightmare.

And that is where my story should end, but it doesn’t. First of all, due to changing formats and all that, I actually lost my place in my Google rankings from this spring. My rankings by moving to Homestead went down. So now, I have to work at getting them back where they were.

Finally, remember how I mentioned something about that Intuit Merchant account trial. Well right about the time of my re-launch, a new nightmare began.

Last month, I received a call from my bank that I had an overdraft. I don’t use that particular account as much as I should, however, it always has enough money in the account to cover things. So I went to the bank and tried to straighten the mess out. I had no idea where the charge came from. Finally, we figured out that it came from Intuit. I wasn’t even aware that the account was open because nothing was ever set up, and after calling and emailing with no response from Homestead or their parent company Intuit, for that matter, I assumed the matter was closed. However, they didn’t. So I called them. I was told by one person to submit a signed letter stating I wanted the account closed. I did that. Then I ended up having a conference call with a representative from Homestead and one from Intuit to discuss a refund of the charges and also money to cover the overdraft since it was caused by them. The representative from Homestead was kind enough to state that it was their fault, and they had dropped the ball on the matter, and I deserved a refund. After much discussion, the refund was approved. Finally, I was going to have some closure. Except that…

The refund didn’t come, at least not until I contacted them again. It took almost a month for them to process it. I thought the case was closed until I was doing banking the other day and saw a charge on the account that shouldn’t be there. Sure enough, they charged me again. Well I called and was told that my account was closed, and they weren’t sure why I was charged but I should leave a message for the person who handled the request and would receive a phone call on Monday (today). I did that. I waited all morning and heard nothing. I tried calling the extension. Nothing. I tried calling the other person who dealt with the issue. Nothing. I called the main line where the representative suddenly didn’t seem to have any notes on my file about this, kept putting me on hold, refused to let me speak to a supervisor, and just wasn’t helpful. I told him that I had copies of email conversations from this as well as the letter I submitted. I was asked to send everything out again. So I faxed it and left a note with my number requesting a phone call as soon as it was received. That never happened. So I called again. I finally got to speak to a supervisor who also said that my account which should have been closed was not closed. I emailed him the documentation while on the phone with him and am now waiting to hear back from him tomorrow. I hope.

The point of my story is this: just because it is a big company or a well-known company does not mean that they are a great company. I have never received such poor customer service in my life. Not only that, I lost potential customers and had a great opportunity ruined for me by the whole experience. I have just re-launched my website and am working at building my website presence. I am not writing this to slam the other company. I really debated on writing this at all, except that I don’t want any other small business to fall prey to them and lose money or time. If you are hoping to have your own e-commerce site, I suggest weighing your options and really shopping around. I am happy with the companies I am with now, and I hope to build a great business! Thank you for reading.

*Update*

It has been a few days since I wrote this post, and they still have yet to call even though I was promised they would call back the next day.

The light at the End of the Tunnel

Leave a comment

It has been a long day, but despite some frustrations, I can honestly say I am happy with all the progress made. It’s funny, but everything has come full circle with my website. However, it is not all bad. I have learned a lot in the past several months and will soon have a more professional website to show for it! So go me!

If you don’t know the website saga by now, I will give you the quick version. Please feel free to ask me for the expanded version. Basically, last spring, I decided to go with a different e-commerce site when my site was up for renewal. From the beginning, it was nothing but headaches. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my current hosting company. However, I wanted something more google friendly. I wanted to get more exposure, be more professional, blah blah blah. What followed next was nothing short of a nightmare. First, I had problems with my domain working. Then I found out that even though I could write some html codes, they would only show up on firefox. Also, I could not do my own seo work. I decided to suck it up and pay for the service which turned out horribly and ended in me getting a refund. I got an offer from another company to do a website. The website was all right, but I still had the e-commerce site to deal with because the other company’s e-commerce package was way too confusing for me. Then I had more domain problems, e-commerce site crashing problems, and just more headaches. So when yet another company called about website creation, I thought, What the heck? Why Not!

Well as it turns out, I absolutely love the new website that was finished last week (and no you may not see it yet!). They had an e-commerce package, and I was seriously going to go for it and do the training. However, after some more thought, I decided that I really liked the e-commerce format that I used to have this spring, before all the mess. So, I repurchased an e-commerce site with them and am now working on the linking part and adding the products. When it is all finished, I am going to have a sweet looking website and e-commerce package! Is it perfect? No, but you know what? It looks nice, and I like it!

While the whole experience these past few months has been a major setback, disappointment, and just a big headache, I have learned a lot. I wish I would have figured it out a lot sooner. I wish I would have just left it all alone in the first place. However, it is almost done. I am going to have a re-launch, and I think you will all like the changes.

So, the lesson learned here for any of you who might have a small business: do your research, and if a deal sounds like it is too good to be true, it probably is. Here I thought I was going to save money by going with this other company, and really all I really did was run around in circles. At least it is almost over!

Why Blog?

Leave a comment

I have been blogging for little over 6 months, and I still feel a bit new at this. However, I think that blogging can be a wonderful thing. I wasn’t sure I would like it. In fact, I tried it once before, and I just could not get into it. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to go about it. Okay, so I still have this problem, but I am okay with it now.

I began blogging because of my business, however, my blog is so much more. It is parts of me for all the world to see. It is like my little experiment. I can write about whatever I want. Sometimes I write about work, sometimes the kids, sometimes my weight-loss journey, and it is very therapeutic.

I used to love writing: short stories, long stories, poems, etc… However, I stopped mostly because after the accident I was in some years ago, I had some problems typing. I would really have to concentrate so that everything didn’t become a jumbled mess. It gave me headaches to write term papers. When I handwrote things, I would sometimes write things wrong and then get aggravated. I should have kept practicing, but I got frustrated and just stopped which is kinda sad because I loved writing.

So some months back, I decided to give this whole blogging thing another shot. I have found it very free-ing! I write about my business. I write about family. I am slowly writing the story about my life. While I am still learning, I hope that as I continue, I will hone in my skill. I want to save this for my kids to read as they get older. I want to keep writing.

If you have ever thought about blogging but haven’t, give it a try. You could do it as a way to make money, or you could do it just because you want to do it. You might find it a good stress reliever or a way to document important things in your life, like the early years of your children. Whatever the reason, it can be a great learning experience as well as a way to connect with others of similar interests.

The most Awesome thing happened the other day…

1 Comment

I should start off by saying that I am fully aware that I overuse the word awesome. I think it should be my word, but somehow I bet I probably cannot get a trademark for it. Oh well!

Anyways…

So Monday started off like any other day, and then I got this phone call from NBC 10 in Philadelphia. At first, I was hesitant to say I was indeed the owner because I get a lot of solicitations and thought it might be one. Then the lady on the phone said something about coming there on Tuesday to talk about being a mom in business because of being in the startupnation contest and to bring some of my products.

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think my heart stopped for a moment. I couldn’t breathe. I said yes and got the address and gave her my info. Then I hung up and had a little party/panic attack in my living room. I was so excited I could not breathe. I was scared to death about the prospect of being on t.v. What was I going to say? What if I screwed up on t.v.? What was I going to wear? Who was going to watch the kids? My mind was a whirl. Yeah, crazy huh?

Well, I got my act together and went down to Philly with toys in hand. There I found out how the whole thing came to be. Peggy, the owner of Comfy Cozy had written a letter to NBC10 and mentioned that there were other area moms in the contest as well like me and Baby B Designs. So all three of us got to be on the news talking about what we do. It was AWESOME! I have never been so excited/nervous/happy/scared to death in my life. It was exhilarating. Unfortunately, I had some website issues the next day, but most everything is fixed now, and I am so happy to have gotten some great publicity!

If you did not get a chance to see the video, here it is!

*If you would like to vote for me, Baby B Designs, or Comfy Cozy, please go here. Click on our names, and you can vote for each of us once a day! Thank you to everyone who has voted for me, and a special thank you to Peggy for setting it all into motion!

The adventures of the Not-so-super SuperMama

1 Comment

So… Sometimes I like to think that I can do it all. My husband has a job that pretty much leaves me as a single mom most of the time. I started my business a few years ago and am trying to grow it while taking care of everything at home and homeschooling my 6-year-old son. Everyone tells me that I need to slow down, that I am doing too much, blah blah blah. Believe me, I know I am doing too much. The problem is that I don’t know how to stop. So my body decided to do it for me.

I knew I was in trouble a few weeks ago when I started having dizzy spells, but I ignored it. After having a horrible month of sales in February, I have put a lot of energy into making up for it over March and April. I can happily say that I had my best sales month in April that I have ever had. While it looked like sales were doing better in my actual store, I decided I needed to make that happen in the online store too. That probably wasn’t my best decision. I did not ease into it or start slowly. I took off with it staying up late, losing sleep, and using every opportunity I could to work on tweaking the website, submitting it to search engines, researching various things all the while taking care of things at home and at the store which included doing parties as well. In my defense, I just want to do well. This is my baby. I have worked long and hard at it, and I want every aspect of it to do well. After the blizzards in February, I decided that my website needed to perform better because the blizzard made it almost impossible to do any business at the store.

Anyways, I have had heart problems in the past. It hasn’t really bothered me since I was pregnant with my daughter who will be 4 in a few months. I saw the warning signs, and I did not heed them. Well this week, I finally had to stop. My husband and I agreed that I would close my shop until next week. I still went into the shop a few times this week for customer requests, but for the most part, I have stayed at home and relaxed. I would like to say that I have seen the light and will not overwork myself this much again, but I have a hard time slowing down. So this is what I decided to do.

I am going back to the daily schedule system. I am posting a general schedule on the fridge or what we will do on every day of the week. I am going to try to only do certain things, like web work, during posted times. I am also going to find myself a hobby. Maybe I will pick up scrapbooking again. I don’t know, but I am going to find one! I am also going to try to read a book a week. I am a quick reader, and I miss reading for fun.

I really would like to not be such an overachiever, and know I need to take more time to relax. So I am definitely going to try.

Blogging: A Newbie’s Perspective

1 Comment

Ok, so this is kind of a part two as I wrote last week about Twitter. I have done this blog for two months now, and I thought I would share what I have learned.

First of all, this was not my first experience with blogging. I tried blogging just for my business last spring and didn’t do too well at keeping up with it. I also had a blog for my other online business that I just closed this past month which is another story for another day. Suffice it to say, my heart just was not into it. So that brings me to the blog you are currently reading. I started it back in March to give my store a voice. I thought I would do something like product reviews and party tips which I do have some in here somewhere. However, I quickly realized that I wanted it to be more than just a voice for my store. I wanted it to be a voice for me and for others who might be in a similar situation in different aspects of my life. I think I made the right decision in that because I am actually writing more frequently than I did in the last two blogs that I tried. I also am learning a few things along the way.

One of the first things I learned is that sometimes you have to look at the comments people write. With my last blog, I noticed I was getting tons of comments, but none of them seemed relevant to the post. So I looked at the websites affiliated with the commenters and quickly realized it was all spam. So far, I have had very few of those comments on this one. I moderate the comments and delete them immediately. (Incidently, I learned to include my blog web address in the website section instead of my actual website. Just a tip.)

I also have been reading more blogs. It helps because it gives me a confidence boost to write what is on my mind. It may be a little dry at times, but I am still learning and trying.

I would like to say that if you have not started a blog and are thinking of doing so, it isn’t that hard. I will say, however, you may want to think about what kinds of things you want to say. I say this because I am trying to keep mine family friendly partly because of my business and partly because I don’t want to feel embarrassed if one of my nieces or nephews would read what I am saying. I am not saying you should do the same, just keep in mind who you want as your audience.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any advice, I would love to hear it!