Taking A Sabbatical

A time comes in everyone’s life and in every business when you have to step back and reevaluate what you’re doing.

Starting shortly before the new year, I started taking a hard look at what I’m doing at Watersweb and considering different ways that I can help other women business owners, both online and in my local area.

During this time, I’ve made a few decisions:

1. I’m consolidating several sites, including this one, into one site.
2. I’m developing a new buiness model that will enable me to help local business owners who are too busy to run an online business, but need to do so. I will be offering full service website design, maintenance and promotion packages to Oklahoma business owners.
3. I’m spending more time speaking to local organizations and business groups such as the chamber of commerce.
4. I’m spending more time improving my DIY website tools so that they’ll be beneficial to more online and local business owners.

After reading this and seeing my extended absense on this site, you may be wondering if I’ve disappeared and if Michelle Waters Online or Product Sellers Talk Radio will be back.

1. My Michelle Waters Online blog posts will be moved to the Watersweb Shops site. Most of my blogging though will take place at Sparkplugging, where I am the new Ecommerce author.
2. I will move the Product Sellers Talk Radio podcast. Once I know for sure where it will be, I will let you know.

If you have any questions, just let me know here. And if you’d like to continue following me, just ckeck me out at Twitter and subscribe to my feed at Sparkplugging.

Spring Into A Better Business Starts Now!

Spring into a Better Businessdistributed raman amplifier webinar starts now…it is FREE to attend. Go here:

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Your Green Business Adviser

Michelle’s Note: Below is a biography of my friend Amie Nguyen. I first met her in 2004, which she chose to host her Earth Friendly Goods site with Watersweb. We have kept in touch over the years though instant message and through the Green Country Eco-Expo that she hosted in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve invited Amie to share her green business wisdom with you.

Read more

Benefits of Friendly Competition

If you thrive on challenges and hate to be outdone, you may want to find some “friendly competition.” By nature, “friendly competition” is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. It is there to create motivation and to help people reach goals.

You can generate a few friendly competitions by:

1. Visit your favorite business message board or forum and create a post that explains your goals for the next month and ask other members to reply back with their goals. All of you can keep adding updates each week on what you have accomplished.
2. Put together a more formal, tight-knit group of a few selected people that correspond via a yahoo group or private chat room. You can update each other daily, if you wish. You can even take this a step further and meet weekly on a conference call; as it may be easier to discuss problems and brainstorm with each other via telephone.
3. If you find yourself connecting with one person more so than with the others, ask that person to be your accountability partner. You can even give each other a quick call every morning to pump each other up, or at the end of the day to talk about what you had accomplished and what you plan on doing the next day.
4. Aside from going over each person’s individual goals, you can also create monthly “contests.” For instance, if you are in direct sales, you can meet with other people in the industry and have a contest over who can book the most parties, sell the highest dollar amount, or recruit the most people.
5. If you are an internet marketer, your group can have contests such as who can write and distribute the most articles or press releases. If you create information products, your group can hold a contest over who can develop the most new products in a given month. The possibilities are endless when it comes to creating motivating contests.

The simple fact that you are letting people know your goals, and meeting at designated times to cover your progress, can be very motivating. No one wants to admit that they haven’t done anything and that they are not even close to accomplishing their goals. This is especially true if the other people in the group have worked really hard and have accomplished several things.

Knowing that other people are going to hold you accountable for your actions and “kick you in the butt” if you need it, can drive you to work hard and accomplish your goals. However, friendly competition can take a downturn if the competition turns vicious or mean. If you are working at your best level, and attending your meetings makes you feel bad or “not good enough,” that group may not be the one for you. Look for a supportive, fun spirited group that inspires you.

Thrilled To Be One of The Top 100 Best Small Business Podcasts for 2009

It’s amazing what you can find when you’re analyzing your website traffic.

One click of a back link and I realized that Product Sellers Talk Radio has been listed as one of the Top 100 Best Small Business Podcasts at SMB Trend Wire. Wow!

I’m honored and humbled to see that this podcast is serving its purpose — to help women business owners learn sell their products online.

You can find my listing under the Marketing and Sales section — the very first one. And while you’re there, check out the other great resources.

CPSC Looking For Tracking Label Comments

The Consumer Product Safety Commission released a request for comments today. What does that mean?

Basically, in case you’re a bit behind on the crisis, The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act will require the manufacturer of a children’s product to place a permanent label on the product and packaging that provides information such as location and date of production, batch number or other identifying information, starting Aug. 14, 2009.

You can send your comments to TrackingLabels [at] cpsc.gov with a subject line of “Tracking Labels.”

If you prefer to snail mail your comments, give them the same label, make five copies and send them to:

Office of the Secretary
Consumer Product Safety Commission, Room 502
4330 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814

Send comments by fax to (301) 5040127.

If you have questions about this, please contact:

John “Gib” Mullan, Director
Office of Compliance and Field Operations
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
4330 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814

Or call Mr. Mullan at (301) 504-7626.

Additionally, CPSC has released information regarding exclusions.

What Would You Do If You Could Start Again?

If you could start your business over again today, with a clean slate, but knowing what you do now, what would you do differently?

Personally, I would start my mailing list much sooner. I’d spend less money on information products. I’d trust my instincts more. And I’d have said, “No” more.

How about you? What would you do differently if you could start over today?

Startup Nation: Leading Moms 2009

Have you entered your mom-owned business in this contest?

Startup Nation: Leading Moms 2009

I entered PSTR and would love your votes every day. If you’re entering, please share your link in the comments below so we can all see and consider the wonderful businesses you have created.

Vote for PSTR here:

Thank you for you’re help. We’re looking forward to seeing all the wonderful mom businesses out there!

Simplify Your Customer Service

When you first start your business, having a customer contact you with a question is thrilling. Wow! Someone is interested in your product!

A few years and several hundred customers later and it’s not such a thrill. Sure, you still enjoy talking about your awesome product with anyone who will listen — but these days there just aren’t enough hours to get to everyone.

And then there are the customers who aren’t so happy — and sometimes it’s user error.

So what can you do to simplify your customer service and keep it from taking over your life?

Here are my tips:

1. Set office hours. Unless you are running a time critical business (like web hosting) you need to set office hours and stick to them. If you need to, you can set some hours in the evening, but stay consistent and always consider your personal and family needs as well.
2. Create a system and stick to it. It’s easy to just answer questions in email, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and Google Talk. At least, it’s easy until you have 10 people instant messaging you at that same time that you’re trying to finish up a project. Yikes! So, setup a system, such as a helpdesk and train your customers to seek help there. This way, not only are you protecting your time, but you also have a saved record of the conversation and you are less likely to miss a message, unlike with email.
3. Get help. When you get to the point that you dread answering your email, it’s time to seek help. Fire yourself from customer service and outsource that task to someone who loves people and your business. Now, this doesn’t mean that you’ll just hand it over and never think about customer service again. It does mean that your assistant will be able to handle the basics and contact you when the situation requires your attention.

What are you going to do this year to simplify your customer service?

What Is The Biggest Struggle You Face In Your Business?

One of the biggest struggles I face in my business is figuring out how to organize my books, magazines, paper and other physical items that end up lying around all over my office. It drives me nuts.

But when I sit down to organize everything, the whole mess overwhelms me and I start looking for something else to do.

Like load the dishwasher. Or walk the dog. Or clean my grout with a toothbrush.

So let’s share. What’s the biggest struggle you face in your business?

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