August Update: Its that time again…

…where you wake up and look back at the past few weeks and wonder “what the hell have I been doing?”

Yep!  That’s where I’m am right now.  Between my full-time day job, planning trips for August and October, taking a much needed mini vacation off during the 4 July weekend,  sick for most of the month of June and  dealing with little stuff around the house, time just passed me by.  Unfortunately, not much work with greenandchic.com was accomplished.

Something I did discover despite my lack of G+C activity: I had to get away from Joomla.  That Content Management System is just not working for me at all.  Its not that difficult to learn Joomla with all of the Joomla based websites, forums, YouTube and books out there.  The problem is, Joomla as a software, tends to be pretty buggy at times.  I added the VirtueMart shopping cart and while its  easy to learn and manage, its still a bit buggy the on screen format seems to be “off” in a way. It just doesnt look quite right. Maybe its me and my lack of experience with CMS because Joomla does get rave reviews, but  its a big headache for me.

I found a new one that I just started on - Pappashop CMS and Mal’s e-Commerce shopping cart . The formatting and interface is much simpler to use and for someone who before now has NO experience with websites, this is a much better option to start.  I’m am able to use one of the free templates and modify it in HTML (I use BBEdit). Now I’m no HTML expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I’m taking it one step at a time and doing well with it.

OK, so its not like I’ve done nothing, just not as much as I would have liked.

Its been a while

Its been a while since my last post so I will give you a brief update:

On June 21st, I attended another all-day Webeneur event that gave me the boost and ideas I desperately needed to get this operation off the ground. 

I recently downloaded the free VirtueMart shopping cart software to my website and spent a few days playing around with it. It seems easy enough to use once I got the hang of it, but we’ll see how it will be once the site is live.

Other tasks included contacting new vendors, deciding on which products I would like feature first, getting my business banking and merchant account in order, renewing my business license and other miscellaneous tasks. 

I need to start blogging on my Green + Chic blog more, add the blog feature to my site, get a new (or used) laptop so I wont be so confined to working at home all the time, schedule more time in the evenings to work at this and network more - on and offline.

My Start-up Process - Part I

I composed a list of greenandchic.com related tasks I have accomplished over the past few months (not necessarily in order). These are items I felt that I had to get out of the way before moving on to the next steps. Whether or not I took the best approach to some of these tasks is still up in the air. :)  But remember, starting a business is a learning experience and mistakes will be made! (Talking to myself).

The Legal Stuff
Business License - Which is obtained though the county in which you’re business resides/conducted
DBA or Fictitious Business Name for Green and Chic and www.greenandchic.com- Which is obtained though the county in which you’re business resides/conducted.
Business Entity - Obtained through the Secretary of State. I chose LLC. I’m not sure if that was the approach, but its done!
Tax ID or Employer Identification Number - That was the easiest to obtain. Just one phone call to the IRS and you will get it right over the phone.
Resale License- Obtained though the State Board of Equalization.

Website
Domain Name - It took me several weeks to come up with a name that I know I would love and one that’s not already taken. It was harder than I thought it would be.
Hosting - I use Hostway for now
Start-up website www.greenandchic.com- I’m currently updating it using Joomla! 1.5 on the backend. The updated site is not live yet.

Later, I will go into other aspects of starting the business, vendors/products, marketing, research, etc.

Resources for starting an eCommerce business

Here are some web based resources (publications and forums) that I find useful:

Start-up Nation - Contains a listing of articles, blogs, and forums to assist you with the start-up process for your business.

LinkedIn - More specifically, the Answers section of LinkedIn has Q & A on subjects ranging from blogging to business operations with tons of knowledgeable individuals to learn from.  You can do an search on their extensive Q & A archives or ask a new question.

Particle eCommerce - Bi-monthly print magazine and website complete with articles, forums, blogs and podcasts on…eCommerce - with an emphasis on start-ups and small to mid size business.

Internet Retailer - Free monthly (print and online) trade magazine and website about the online retail industry as a whole.

I will post more as time go on and I find more resources.

The little things…

Sometimes its the little things that drives me nuts!

I have been trying to install a mailing list or mass mailing manager to my Joomla site, and I just cant “get it”.  I’ve tried iContact (supposedto be one of the best) and I get stuck after the registration process.  I’m going to try one more time and give it to my web designer to do it for me.  I though it should be easy enough for me to complete the task, but I’ve already wasted too much time on it already.

I should practice what I preach: If you cant do it yourself or if it takes too much time, hire someone.

Hopefully, I will get my mailing list manager up in the next few days. 

 

Learning time management

Time management - what is that??

Working a full-time job, trying to start a business, family life, taking care of a home and yourself can be a challenge.  I do have the advantage of (almost) never having to work overtime, living six miles from work, no children (yet!), and being in good health.  Though I have some advantages, it can still take its toll.  I am in the the process of learning time management skills - something I never bothered to learn before with sometimes disastrous results in the past.  

Popular time management books such as The Time Trap and Getting Things Done might be useful to me.   Over the coming weeks, I will post updates on how I’m learning to better manage my time around starting a business. 

Mommy, Where do Customers Come From?

How to Market to a New Word of Connected Customers

While conducting a search for books about internet marketing, I came across this book by Larry Bailin.  I was drawn in by this catchy title and the fact that it seems like an easy read (just 151 pages with large font).

This book, in my opinion is written for the novice and semi-experts in the wold of internet sales and marketing. Chapters such as “Mommy, What Was That Noise?” (that gives us a brief history on how the internet has changed the way we communicate, work, shop and conduct day-to-day business) is enough to spark curiosity.

Published in the later half of 2007, it has up to date information and advice on how to maket to our new breed of customers, web designs and formats that work and what pitfalls and passing fads to avoid when designing your website and marketing your business.

The relatively small number of pages and large font are not the only characteristics that makes this a quick read.  It is written in a comedic format so that even those of us who dislike reading technical and how-to books can be entertained as well as educated.  At times, I have read sections of this book right before bed and it didnt put me to sleep!

 

 

How long should blog posts be?

One of the ways I am promoting my business is by blogging.  I currently have a blog that I recently started for greenandchic.com which will keep customers and potential customers in the loop about the business itself, products I am offering and general information about ingredients. 

I am very new to blogging so I am no expert at it - yet.  My question is, how long ideally should blog posts be, especially blogs related to your business?  I do a fair amount of blog reading and sometimes get turned off by super long posts.  Maybe I am just a bit impatient.

If you blog daily, should post be shorter? (<300 words)

If you blog weekly, should you beef it up a bit? (>1000)

I don’t have a lot of readers right now so this question is more rhetorical. Ha!

 

Getting it done

I had been searching for a new web designer so that I can add my website and WordPress blog to a  Content Management System (CMS) that would allow me to make my own changes and updates, contact form, email list manager, an extra page and maybe one or two other features. I initially used Elance and Guru for this search, but ultimately found someone on oDesk.

These websites are great because you can hire professionals from web designers to writers located anywhere around the world. All you do is register, create a profile, and post a project or assignment you need assistance with. Once you post a project, professionals can bid on your project with an overview of what they can do, links to their portfolio and approximate price range. You can contact those who are bidding on your project and ask whatever questions you have for them. Upon completing an assignment, professionals are rated on competence, level of expertise, communication and so on so that you automatically have their raiting and references.  This service is free.

One of the best things I learned about starting a business is that I don’t have to and shouldn’t do everything. There will be certain tasks that it’s best to outsource so that you won’t burn yourself out, (4-Hour Workweek anyone?) and most of us are not experts in everything!

Update

I am in the process of updating my website using the content management system (CMS) Joomla. When I initially had website built, I didn’t have a CMS installed so I had no way of making my own changes and updates. I found a web developer on oDesk to download Joomla and add the contents of my website to the application including my custom template.

Never having done web development before, it does take a little time to get used to the software and the terminology that Joomla (and probably other CMS) use, but overall, its pretty simple to use.  Joomla is also free!

My updated website is not live yet, but I anticipate having it up in the next few weeks.