Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

These are not the kind of products you would expect to hear about on this blog but seeing as Christmas is just around the corner I thought I’d plug a few of them. Especially as we would be purchaisng from Australian online businesses.

JOLIV Body and Earth - An exquisite range of chemical-free, environmentally friendly and entirely natural beauty and home cleaning products. The products contain absolutely no harmful or artificial ingredients.

At AUSSIE ORGANICS Everything IS 100% Natural & Organic. tHEY have a HUGE range of products. Baby Care, Skin / Body / Hair / Facial Care, Cosmetics, Men’s Care, Household Cleaning Aromatherapy Oils, Incense, Soaps, Even Pet Soap, Gift Packs & much more. They are also offering a free gift with purchases.

Here is a cute little stocking stuffer – Personalised Badge Buttons . There is no minimum or maximum purchase and they will print up your own designs.

Are you a coffee connoisseur? Then try Wine of the Bean – a boutique coffee roaster based in the Hills District of Sydney. They offer a rotating cycle of different varieties of single-origin arabica coffee. All coffee is freshly roasted on-site. They also have organic coffee beans.

Or how about more options for personalised gifts? At Personalized they have a range of products you can personalise – teddy bears with T-shirts, mugs, stickers … just ask them what they have.

Have a browse and enjoy your  online shopping.

Ciao for now,

Elena

What a lovely surprise I found out that EP designs has made it into THE INBOX  of the BUSINESS MUMS MAGAZINE, issue 9. My business activities have been fairly quiet of late so this will give it a nice boost.

The Business Mums Magazine provides practical, useful information to help Mums run a business? There are inspiring stories from business mums and WAHMs. Each magazine is written with business mums in mind, providing practical, down to earth information that can be applied to your business, no matter what that business is.

The magazine is published every 2 months and can be subscribed to at a great value price. Every month, they have goodies to give away in their email newsletter. To be eligible, all you need to do is subscribe to their monthly email newsletter. Check the site for the monthly promotions.

Thank you Business Mums for this great promotion.

Elena

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Sometimes I get carried away with some of the things I do. I came across another Auction site called Bid Mate Online, and without giving it too much thought I set up a store there. I’ve called it Timeless Treasures – which is what the above scroll box is all about – it links directly to this store. It’s a fairly new auctioin site and they are trying to build it up. It may take some time before we get good traffic coming through – but I’m willing to give it a go. Fees are only paid on the sale of an item. So if nothing sells you’re not left with empty pockets like some other auction sites.

I only have one item in there at the moment but will add more over the coming week.

I don’t know why I’ve done this but now that I have I’ll give it a try to see if I get any sales from there.

Ciao,

Elena

Customers are an important part of business. Without them there would be no business. OK, this is not breaking news but something I try to work on is looking after my customers. I find this is an ongoing thought process for me – ie. about service & care – and when I read a post at Pink Heels about Listening To Customers, it renewed my thought process again.

Pink Heels says

Through active listening, encourage comments, suggestions, and thoughts from your customers and allow it to soak. Do not become defensive of constructive criticism that you may receive. In most cases they are being honest in an effort to help you succeed. Take in all of the information obtained and reflect upon what they are telling you before determining how to satisfy their needs and wants.

This is so true and I believe this to be an important part to the success of a business. Being an active listener helps to build up trusting seller/buyer relationships. I also find myself taking note when I receive querires from potential buyers. Sometimes my first reaction can be “what kind of question is that?” But I now stop myself and go directly to my listing description ….. and usually find that I haven’t given enough detail or the description needs rewording ….. I find that I learn ‘something’ from the buyer and this helps me out with future product choices and listing preparations. I can be lazy at times and not take note but when Pink Heels asks the question -

What are your customers telling you? Are you ACTIVELY listening? What changes do you need to implement?

It made me realise that this is an ongoing part of business for business success just like doing the bookkeeping, research, planning and so on. And I certainly need to think about any changes that need implementing.

Ciao for now,

Elena

This article is so apt for me at the moment. There are some wonderful ideas for separating Home and Office …. which is a must if you run a home based business. What I like about this article is that it includes some nice decor ideas to help you along – simple, effective and won’t cost a fortune.

Separating your home and office

by Tash Hughes of Word Constructions (www.wordconstructions.com) 

Not everyone who works from home has the luxury of having a separate room to dedicate to their business. Yet, the more you can separate work and home, the easier it is to feel professional and work effectively.

The following ideas won’t suit every situation, may they may give you some inspiration on how you can run a business and still have a house that feels like a home.

H    Set up your desk and materials in a cupboard of some description so that it can be closed away at the end of business. You may be able to open up a built in wardrobe, enclose the space under the stairs or buy a desk unit that has cupboard fronts.

H    Use a decorative screen – it could be timber, cloth, a photo rack, a plant stand or lattice work. Behind the screen is your business and in front is your home.

H    Add in a temporary wall. Being at least shoulder height will be more effective as it will cover your desk and computer, but a lower one will still make boundaries. The front of the wall could be painted or be a new place to hang photos or drawings, or add shelves. On the business side, the wall could hold a white board or noticeboard for messages or be a set of shelves to store materials and references.

H    If you are working on the kitchen or dining table, get a nice cupboard or dresser to store business items nearby. Otherwise, set up a system of coloured boxes to store different items (e.g. stationary in a blue box, client paperwork in the yellow box and business magazines and articles in the red box.)

H   Keep one side of your desk for business and the other side for family and personal things so they don’t get confused.

H    If you have to move your business things around because you work in different places or use your work space for other purposes, a set of drawers on wheels may the solution. There are many styles available now, but the open mesh baskets make it easy to see what is in each drawer. Then just wheel your business to your work area when you’re ready to start.

H    Make use of tablecloths and runners if you are storing your business things in main living areas. They brighten the room up and help differentiate between home and business.

H    Make things reversible so that they are functional for business and attractive for your home. For instance, put a nice poster on one side of a notice board to hang in your lounge room; when it becomes your work space, turn it around to see your work notices and messages. A low filing cabinet can double as a coffee or side table out of business hours, as can covered storage boxes.

H    Set up a garden shed as office or storage space. Alternatively, is there room in the roof for a small workspace or perhaps the veranda could be enclosed? If you can find an extra room, remember that it might suit another purpose better and your work space can be in an original room. Perhaps the shed could become a cubby so the space near the kitchen can be an office instead of a play area, or the attic space becomes a new bedroom and you work in the old one.

H    Separation doesn’t have to be complete; it is more to highlight the boundaries between home and business. So you could hang some sheer curtains across the room to make a work space that is visible to the rest of the room. Sheer curtains look deliberate and attractive compared to just hanging up a sheet or old curtains as a visual boundary.

Tash Hughes is the owner of Word Constructions and is available to solve all your business writing problems! From letters to policies, newsletters to web content, Word Constructions writes all business documents to your style and satisfaction.

I hope you enjoyed this article By Tash Hughes and found it useful. I know it has me thinking about a few ideas.

Ciao for now,

Elena

Sometimes it’s hard to express your thoughts about a topic especially if it’s one you don’t know much about, or maybe you know a little but not sure how to go about writing on it. That’s where those lovely article banks come in handy. I’ve used a couple in the past and have had people comment on them.
THE REPOZITORY is one of the article banks I’ve used. They currently have 369 Excellent Articles in their Database from 120 Authors – that’s a nice selection to chose from.
WORD CONSTRUCTIONS also has a number of free articles for use on web sites, blogs etc. You can even commission them to write other articles as needed.

I believe it’s a great way to add good content to your blog especially if you’re having one of those ‘blank’ days. I know there have been times when I’ve started writing up a post and have ended up sitting there looking at the screen – not because I didn’t know what I wanted to write about but because my head wasn’t working, lol.

I had a comment from a Visitor to my blog here, who found one of my posts where I used an article form the Repozitory. The lovely thing about his comment is that it related to one of his post on his blog. So much nicer to receive those comments than some of those ’nice blog’ comments from blatant spammers.

…. Hmm, I think it may be time for me to search for some more articles to add here.

Ciao for now,

Elena

EP DESIGNS

Small businesses need all the help they can get …. it’s nice to have help when you need it.

HEART HARMONY is one of those sites full of good, small business tips. Heart Harmony are freelance copywriters who specialise in writing web copy for your websites. They write powerful web words that get you found in search engines, generate traffic and attract more customers.

A whole range of topics can be found here so if you’re a small business it’s well worth a visit to this blog. Sometimes business blogs can be overcrowded with inforamtion making it difficult for the eye to read through, but I find HEART HARMONY  easy to navigate and easy on the eye, which means you can read more and take in more information. It suits me because I’m not too keen on sites with a ‘confusion’ of material.

Enjoy your visit there.

Ciao,

Elena

Is your business part of the One In Five Club? So, what’s this club? Well, if you don’t want to lose your dream business then it’s not the club you want to join. What you need is then is a guiding hand to help you on the road to business success.

Business plans tend to ‘frightened’ away some business owners, for various reasons, but possibly because we usually don’t know where to start or how to put one together, or it simply may be that we don’t think we really need one. Planning plays a major role in determining whether your business succeeds or fails.  According to Donna-Marie Coggins from Jacaranda Business Support

Without a focused, tailored business plan your business is far more likely to join the One In Five Club – one in five small businesses fail within the first five years.

If business planning is one of those things you’d rather not think about then it’s always best to get the experts in to help, support and guide you along. Donna-Marie has a business support service and I’m sure she would be happy to answer any queries about business planning and the reasons for having one. Her blog Small Business Diva is also full of useful business tips which can help you in the everyday running and organising of your business.

Every now and then we need to do a check on how we’re managing our business and if it’s working. An ‘outsider’, preferably an expert can usually see things about your business that you don’t. It’s worth to have them help out even if it’s periodically and to point you in the right direction.

Make a note of Jacaranda Business Support - you may need them some day.

Ciao,

Elena

If you’re anything like me, you’ll need all the help you can get. Although, I prefer to think of myself as having organised chaos. A Good Sort can help you be a little more organised with some niftly ideas and good ‘organiser’ finds. There really is no excuse for mess and chaos. A good clean out is needed periodically as it’s just like a spring clean. You then feel refreshed and lighter. An uncluttered environment lends itself to an uncluttered mind. This is important too especially if you work from home. Running a business, a home, family …. you need some order. Anyhow, if you’d like organising to be made a little easier, pop over to A Good Sort and check their finds, ideas and their own products.

There are times during your business journey when you need to stop and take stock of how you go about your business. Just as it’s important to do a stock take count at the end of each finacial year it’s also important to do a check on yourself and how you manage each aspect of running the business.

Below are a couple of sites which are helpful with tips and suggestions and generally a sensible guide to keeping yourself on track with business matters.
Word Constructions is for all your writing needs, and has a helpful article discussing Crucial Planning Ahead For Problems
Modern Goddess Online Encourages and supports women in business, and currently has a great article Business Success Factor

Take a look through these sites, you’re sure to find them helpful.

Ciao,

Elena

It’s that time of year for the Gifts & Homewares trade show in Melbourne. Although I haven’t recovered fully from my ailments I couldn’t let this trade show pass by without making an appearance. It’s one of my favourite business activities where I’m on the lookout (along with thousands other retailers) for new products to add to my range at EP Designs.

It’s exhausting work and my feet may not forgive me for a while but it’s now over. I am so looking forward to recovering completely so that I can take up my creative work again and tackle my web site once and for all. I will be listing items on eBay soon plus I’ll be looking at trying out another auction site too.

Stay tuned for more EP Designs’ news.

Ciao for now,

Elena

 Since I started blogging I’ve come across many gorgeous blogs and chatted with bloggers all around the world. At ‘Me and Mine’ I discovered a post titled ‘Friends Around The World’. They are aiming to reach 1000 blog links – Come along and join in. Being added to the blog list will help your Technorati ranking plus you will get to discover many more blogs & make more blogging friends. Just follow the instructions below ….

::Start Copy Here::

Rule:
1. Copy from ::Start Copy Here:: through ::End Copy Here::.
2. Add your blog to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs. Just make sure to post this to each of the blog you added in the list.
3. Tag other online friends you know.You don’t need to be tag in order to join. If you want to join just post this one in your blog.
4. Let me know your blog’s name and url by leaving me a comment
HERE. I will add you to the master list.That way, everyone is happy and can meet new friends too!
5. Come back once in a while to get the master list! Let’s see how this makes our Technorati and PR goes up!
6. DO NOT REMOVE THIS: scrap page made by Yen. Using alphas and tapes from Kate H., flowers from Ida,paper by Catrine.

1. Me and Mine 2.Creative In Me 3.Little Peanut 4. Pea in a Pod 5. Sugar Magnolias 6.Because Life Is Fun 7. Piece o’Kaje 8. Mon a Bric 9. Celebrate Life 10.My Journey11. Deeply In Love 12. Pink and Brown Diaries 13. Happyheart 14. Wilstop 15. Fun|Fierce|Fab 16. Nita’s Random Thoughts 17. Nita’s Corner 18. Thomas Web Links 19. Thomas Travel Tales 20. Make Money Online 21. Great Finds and Deals 22. PRC Board Exam Results 24. My Wandering Thoughts 25. Nita’s Ramblings 26. Just Me.. Eds 27. Etc Atbp 28. When Silence Speaks 29. Juliana’s Lair 30. Juliana’s World 31. Juliana’s Library 32. Blessed Chic 33. Can of Thoughts 34. Hailey’s Domain 35. Hailey’s Beats and Bits 36. ISL family 37. Arbitrary Thoughts 38. D’ Cooking Mudra 39. My Big Picture 40. Dancing in Midlife Tune 41. Blessings In Life 42. My Colorful World 43. Dare to Blog 44. Life Realities 45. WebGeek Journal DotNet 46. WebGeek Journal 47. Let’s Travel Philippines 49. MY DAILY THOUGHTS AND MOODS 50. A Sweet Taste Of Life 51. My Life in this Wonderful World! 52. Denz Techtronics 53. Denz Recreational 54. Surviving Deplyoment 55. Ester’s Raptured Dreams 56. Nipa Hut 57.Picture Clusters 58. My Wanderings 59.Maiylah’s Snippets 60. EuLehKulit 61. Life Quest 61.Being a wife. Being a Mom. 62. MoMie SPace 63.Woman Xplore 64. PinayWAHM 65. Agring’s Simply Digital 66. Agring’s Home & Garden 67. Agring’s Homecooking & Baking 68. Agring’s Electronics & Entertainments 69. Scrap Addict Sundays 70. Mommy Talks 71. Aggie Scraps 72.Teacher’s Corner 73. My Drift 74. lancernews 75. My so called Life 76. See Me for what You Will… 77. kathycot.com 78. buhaymisis.com 79. All about Mye life 80. Everything has a Reason 81. Life’s Impression 82. Some Thoughts I have 83. Life’s Lessons 84. Just Let Go 85. Pieces Of Me 86. Winding Creek Circle 87. BOTH SIDES NOW 88. Happy Life 89. Blessed Sanctuary 90.Confessions of an Army Life 91. moms….. check nyo 92. Mommy’s Little Corner 93. Wanna Be SuperModel 94. Gandacious 95. Jo-Jo’s Place 96.My Quiet Zone 97. Proud PINAY 98. Simply Jen 99. Jenny Said So 100. A Slice of Life 101. My Blog 102. TIP OF AN ICEBERG 103. Coffee Cup Princess 104. Deranged Insanity 105. Just Another Day 106. Stev & Emz Journey 107.Runaway THoughts of Emz 108. Heart of Rachel 109. Nora’s Notes 110. In the Life Of Mne 111. In my Kitchen 112. Nyumix’s Blog 113. Everything’s Here 114.Out of Nowhere 115. My Simple World 116. Seek Health. Feel Great 117. Smile Puppies 118. Almanacqueen 119. The Life of an Outback Pinay 120. Dancing With Butterflies 121. My Treasures 122. Everything Green 123. 124. Memoirs of a Filipina 125. The Pit Gadgetry! 126. My Daily Life Experience 127. Married and Happy About It 128. My Discoveries 129. iCreate+iDeas 130. My Healthy Living Journal 131. Busy Moms Cook 132. Christian Weekends 133. Reflexes 134. Caramel Corn 135. Sunny Side Up Foodie 136. A Mothers Horizon 137. Bits and Pieces 138. Whats Up! 139. Simply Me 140. Life and Me 141. A Handful of Surprises 142. Anything and Everything in Between 143. from here and beyond 144. The Nameless Blog 145. Exploring Asia 146. Malaya 147. Swan Portraits 148. BUSYNESSWORLD 149. Sprawt 150. Thinking Consciously? 151. BLOGSILOG 152. Cherry’s Comfort Zone 153. DigiScrapz: Captured Memories 154. Buzzy Me 155. Thinking Out Loud 156. Wishing and Hoping 157. Jobs for Davao 158. Jobs for Cebu 159. Filipino Jobs Abroad 160. PRC Board Exam Results 161. Nakedminds 162. Personal 163. Interesting 164. squeeshies 165. Shenzee’s World 166. Geekyology 167. Swanportraits 168. Rumination Under the Clouds 169. In My Home by Ria aka Msculit 170. It’s my Party (and I’ll cry if I want to…) by Ria aka Msculit 171. Malaya 172. Cheese: Jherson84 173. Beans: Jherson 174. EP Treasures 175. Republic of A 176. Nora’s Family Treasures 177. Points of View (Discussion Blog) 178. Gala Tayo! 179. Lucky Peso 180. Buhay Pinoy 181. Pinay Mommy’s Love Blog 182. MOMEMO 183. OnlineBiz and Resources 184. Lourdes’ Mia 185. Pinay Mommy’s DigiScrap and Musings in Life 186. Pinay Mommy Online 187. ‘nna 188. My Sweet Escape 189. The Next Chapter 190. Painted Life 191. Petty Ramblings of a Petty Queen 192. The Real Deal 193. My Beautiful Life 194. Berry Blog 195. A Tsinay Blog 196. A Celebration of Life 197. My love.mylife.my everything. 198. Gamay and Dako Adventures 199. Ester’s Daily Thoughts 200. Choc Mint Girl 201. I AM KCAT 202. RanZ-Goodies 203. RanZ-Famous 204. A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh 205. Surviving the Circus of Life 206. The Nook207. Allen’Wifey 208. Fern’s Backyard 209. Amor’s Blog – My Place in Cyberspace 210. The Other Side of Me 211. Stylishbabe111407 212. The Inner Shopper 213. TheGeneralInfoBlog 214. my angels world 215. Pinoy Raket Online 216. My Life 217. BloggingInMyPyjamas 218. Baby Shern 219. Mariel 220. So Real 221. Okay, I am Arms and this is my blog 222.Lucid Creativity 223. Read my Mind 224.A Simple Life 225. My debt blog 226.1stopmom’s blog 227.Mommy Gamer 228. My First One Million Pesos 229. Mindless Thought 230. MommyandMe Boutique 231. My Life’s Labyrinth 232. 100% Kelly 233. Of Colors And Styles 234. KadusMama 235. The Maven 08 235. Rainbows 236. My freehand 237. Sentiments of a Effed-Up Man 238. Princess Vien 239. My freehand 240. Confessions of an Enchanting Princess 241. Marites-Pinay Heart Wanderings and Musings 242. Me, the Islands and the World243. Leaf In Deforest 244. MAX 245. Lhedy 246. Making sense..(somehow) 247. Our Life Together 248. The Chic Shopaholic 249. In Depth 250. That Blog 4 Me 251. A Nice Thought 252. Live it Up! 253. Chronicles and Tales Unlimited (RED) 254. Momhood Moments 256. It’s a woman’s world! 257. Forgotten 258. Esophoria 259. Pixel Dust 260. GladyGirl 261. Uncomplicated 262. Gentle And Compassionate 263. Kwentong Kengkay 264. Mind Juice In Full Throttle 265. Jo’s Precious Thoughts 266. Hobbies and Such 267.Jenny’s Wandering Thoughts 268. A Window to Our World 269. Let Them Eat Cake! 270. Live Love Life 271.Theif’s Stolen Collections 272. Panda’s Multiply 273. Kitty’s haven 274. lancerlord 275. The YTB Celebs Blog 276. Welcome To Earth David 278. Pinaymama’s Diary 279. Pinay Mom in Czech Republic 280. Ally And Allies” 281. Beauty of Life 282. Creations 283. Watchamacallit! 284. Nellypie’s Chatterbox 285. The Daily Matters 289. Bread & Butter 290. tazdogz blog 291. my 3 boys and i 292. Dabawenyako 293. Icelog 294. Days of Our Life 295. Precious Moments 296. Crissy’s Haven 297. Baby Jhari 298. The Maven ‘08 299. Our Growing Family 300. Confessions Reborn 301. SEWDELISH 302. Live from Waterloo 303. The So-Called Me 304. EP DESIGNS 305. Toni-Marie.net Excelling in Excess since 1988… 306. The Monotonous Life 307. Hit-or-Miss 308. Crazylicio.uS 309. Latina On Travel 310. MoneyGirls Blogging On the Internet 311. MsMoneyGirl Stock Magazine 312. Top College List 313. Free Personality Test 314. A Piece of Idea 315. Filipino in Canada 316. Aeirin’s Collections 317. Dear Me by Ivan Girl 318. BlogScope 319. Guardians 320. Complex Life (Jhelea) 321. A touch of Scrap 322. MeiYah 323. Free Adobe Training, Learn, Tricks, Tips, Beginners, How To, Adobe-Masters.com 324. Lights and Shade 325. Around the World 326. Bloghop 327. Just the tip of the Iceberg… 328. Vsk8shop 329. Honeysweet Learning Center 330. Vday Cagayan de Oro City 331.  MyDiffers.com – Dare to Be Different! 332. Pole Dance Videos – Watch Now 333. Lets Travel Philippines 334. WebGeek Journal 335. Room of Sphere Ideas 336. YOUR BLOG!

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Please NOTE that you are not allowed to change the “ HERE ” in number 4 to your own blog url. I am making this so that everyone can enjoy the benefit of higher technorati rank and who knows more PR! And being the author of this one, I’d appreciate if you respect that.