Category Archives: tales of a small business owner

Meme-vertizing

As a small-business owner on a budget, I’ve started using viral marketing referred to as an internet meme on Facebook and Twitter to advertize my seamstress services.  1) It allows me to show potential customers the type of services I can provide.  2) It’s “sticky”.  People connect with the images and hopefully remember me when they end up in a similar clothing situation. 3) People are sharing this stuff with their friends.  Pictures are getting more views and shares than anything else I have shared on my business’ facebook wall.

Here’s a slideshow of my low-budget advertizing…

Knowing when to do what, when you are the person in charge

It’s hard to remember when to do what when you are self-employed.  There’s no boss telling you what your daily/weekly assignment is.

I find it’s best to keep a to-do list that has dates assigned to tasks (I use google calendar’s task feature.  I can access it on the web and on my phone).  I also use monthly happenings like the day that bills/bank statements arrive in the mail or specific days of the week as a reminder.

For example.

  •  I try and make time to do bank reconciliations in QuickBooks the day that I get my bank statement.  USAA sends me reminders via email.  If I can’t get to it that day, I will star the email and leave it in my inbox as an action item.
  • My business week ends on Monday.  On Tuesdays I take care things in QuickBooks.  I enter in my mileage for the week, along with entering the receipts from my business wallet (I keep a 2nd wallet in my purse for business transactions).  I also go through and take care of deposits, figuring out what invoices are over due, etc…

Since my business is service based,  I try and get to projects in the order that they were received, unless there is a specified deadline involved.  Rather than invoice on a specific day.  I invoice customers as I go and notify them that their project has been completed.  If I wait around, there is a high probability that I will forget to invoice them.

 

 

 

the day I stop learning…

Live everyday with purpose of learning something new.
Evan Carmichael

I try and learn something new EVERY day.  With the internet at my fingertips this is pretty easy.  I took my QuickBooks classes online.  I’ve taken social media classes online.  I’ve brushed up on my accounting terminology online.  I am not sure why people complain about taking classes when most of them can be taken in the comfort of one’s home in one’s pjs.

Once you start surfing the web, it’s pretty easy to get sucked into various time sinks.  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc… While they are necessary evils for small business, you have to just back away sometimes in the interest of getting things done.

During the week I nanny.  Watching kids is a great lesson in time management.  When the kid is napping, I had better be doing something productive if there are items lingering on my to-do list.

Last week I learned all about QuickBooks 2013 and I took the certification exam.  This weekend I brushed up on my web design skills.  This week, I will start taking the Quickbooks advanced certification class and finish cleaning up the two web sites I built.