I have been feeling rather direction-less lately. I don’t want to say unmotivated, more like being pulled in many different directions.  Sort of like a compass that spins because it is too close to a magnetic field.  There are so many things that I want to do, so many good teachers out there, that it can be difficult to find which way to go.  Until I read this blog post on Thursday.

I sort of glanced at it on Thursday and then reread it yesterday.  And reread it again.  I started clicking on the links in the article and reading those too. Then I started taking notes. Brainstorming ideas that I can apply to my own business.  Things that I am doing wrong, things that I am not doing, some things that I need to be doing right now.

The article is by Rae Hoffman, also known as Sugarrae. I have known her for a long time now and she is the person that I credit for encouraging me to go into affiliate marketing.  She is also one of the most successful people that I know and her advice is stellar.

This comes at such a good time for me, as I am revamping what I consider my biggest website.  And a time when I am ready to make some changes to move forward. I encourage you to read it too.  I’ve already ordered the The E-Myth Revisited based on her recommendation and it will go to the top of my reading queue.  Tomorrow I will reread her post again and start to put the steps into action. Success lies at the end of this compass direction.

My daughter is in school 5 mornings a week and her school is a good 25 minute drive from home, so I am not real keen on driving home while she is there. It would cost quite a bit more in gas for one thing. Plus I would lose about an hour’s worth of working time. I have been working in places that offer free wi-fi while she is at school.  I’ve been doing this for about 2 years now, so I would like to share some tips from what I have learned about working with a mobile office.

Working from a temporary office can be an interesting experience.  For one thing you have to find a spot that will welcome you.  I have had great luck working at Starbucks or Panera Bread.  Both offer free wi-fi, tables, chairs, drinks and in some cases food.  You do have to get a registered Starbucks card to qualify for their wi-fi, but the service is topnotch and I’ve only had a problem connecting once.  Which was worked out with an easy phone call to customer service and I was up and running. A local coffee shop or library are also good possibilities.

Keep a fully stocked briefcase or bag with everything that you need in it.  Where ever you end up is not likely to have a spare pen, laptop charger, or headphones for you to use.  My laptop bag contains noise blocking earbuds (a must for canceling out background noise so that you can concentrate), planner book, laptop charger, pens, notepad, bluetooth mouse, and the cord for connecting my iPhone to my laptop. It is a good idea to have duplicates of the items you use at home, so that you can keep these items in your bag.  Nothing worse than your laptop battery dying and you forgot to put the charger back in your bag (ask me how I know).

Don’t forget to be a good patron too.  You are utilizing space in a business, so please be a paying customer.  Buy a coffee and a bagel or get some lunch.  There is nothing worse than seeing that person taking up a table meant for 4 people with their things all spread out and sign of food or drink.  And if you are planning on being there longer than 2 hours, than get a second drink.

Do you work on a mobile basis?  What are you favorite tips to share?

Finding someone that I don’t know to watch my daughter, has been such a struggle for me as a mom.  Babysitting was one of my first jobs, but I am not too keen on entrusting my 4-year-old with a 12-year-old.  The world is not quite the same place that it was back then.  My friends that do use babysitters have had mixed experiences.

Normally my parents watch my daughter as needed, but they winter in Florida so that is not always possible.  I had considered hiring someone to watch my daughter this summer for a few hours a week as I worked, but it didn’t happen.  Is it August already?  School starts in 3 weeks!  Ahhh, so much to do.

But I digress.  There is help in finding a babysitter or nanny.  Last month I checked out the Local Nanny Listings on Care.com and their service of matching parents with caregivers.  Their service focuses on more than just babysitters, they also provide lists of pet sitters, house sitters, and elder care givers.  I signed up for their service and placed an ad.  Within an hour I had received several replies from potential babysitters.  By the next day I had received over 30 inquiries.

I sent replies to about 10 contenders and used their automated system to those I felt unqualified.  That is a nice feature.  You can click on their profiles and get access to references, experience, and a background check.  I did not end up hiring anyone at the time, but I do have a list of people to call on now if child care is needed in the future.  I highly recommend this service.  It is helpful and much needed for many work at home parents.

According to news reports, Twitter is undergoing a denial of service attack today. Having gotten kind of addicted to the micro blogging website, I am at a bit of a loss today. I enjoy being able to read updates from friends, business contacts, and celebs. I also like being to post little tidbits about my life, philosophy and general goings ons.

So in the spirit of Twitter being down, I have decided to take this time to work on some other, far more productive components of my business. Here are some things that you can do today to cope

1. Update your main blog.  If you haven’t written something longer than 140 characters lately, take a little bit of time today to pull together something more in the 140 word category.  It will be good practice.  Promise!
2. Brainstorm some new website ideas.  The Holiday shopping season is only a few months away and getting a head start now will have you ahead of the game.
3. Participate in the HAHD challenge from Ezine Articles.   Starting August 1st, they have challenged authors to submit 100 articles in 100 days.  I’ve already submitted 4 and plan to have numbers 5 and 6 done and submitted today.  You have until November 8th to submit them all.  All participants that complete the challenge will receive a free mug or mouse pad.
4. Create a Plan.  Sit down with your planner or online calendar and plan out the rest of your business year.  December will be here before you know it.  Are you goals for the year anywhere near completion?  If not, it is time to figure out how you will get there or what you need to rethink.
5. Feel the freedom.  A bit tongue in check, but enjoy this time of not needing to refresh your twitter window every 5 minutes to keep up on the minor details of @whoevers life.  Most of the time we are all plugged in too much anyway.  I know for me, it slows down my productivity and I am hoping to enjoy some time today being able to crank out some work without distraction.

I hope these ideas help out a bit today.  Don’t worry, I’m sure Twitter will be up again soon.

I had the pleasure of meeting Carolyn Tang of Shareasale yesterday in Toledo. She is in the midst of her SAS Roadshow that is taking her from Chicago to New York City in time for Affiliate Summit. She stopped at Tony Packo’s for a few hours and I met up with her and Scott Campbell, a fellow affiliate marketer.

We had a really great conversation and lots of laughs about our past experiences, the industry that we are now in, and how it all relates. Turns out that I had met Carolyn before about 5 years ago in Las Vegas for a small conference of ABestWeb members. Sometimes this business can be such a small world.

Scott is also from the Metro Detroit area and we laughed that Carolyn should have driven up to meet us. Luckily Toledo is only about an hour’s drive away and it was well worth it. Scott and I do have plans to get a group of affiliate marketing people together in our area, perhaps starting next month, so please look out for the details of that. It would be great to get together with others on a regular basis to collaborate, learn, and discuss business.

An SAS meet up would just not be the same without some swag. I got loaded down with some shirts and some car magnets. I got some little ones for my daughter and nephews too. Don’t have a picture of the little ones as my daughter has pretty much been wearing hers nonstop since I gave it to her.

Here is Carolyn in her super awesome rental car as she headed out for her next stop. I hope that she has a great journey and meets some really cool people along the way. I look forward to reading her updates.

On a side note, I took all these pictures with my new iPhone. I’m really happy how most of them turned out. That is one handy little gadget and I absolutely love it.

Recently I was taking a class at a local yarn store. While I was there practicing, there was a knitting circle going on. One of the woman is a business owner. She is a master gardener along with a partner. They have been in business for quite some time and have a long list of loyal clients. Recently they made the decision to downscale their business, as they are both getting older.

They have a very recognizable business name that fits their industry. When they made the decision to downsize they did not renew their business registration with the state. Two entrepreneurs scooped up their name and are now operating their own master gardener business. This woman was a bit outraged that they had done that. Many of the other woman in the class expressed sympathy.

This discussion brought up some interesting questions in my mind. When a domain name is not renewed after serving a previous business, it is sometimes purchased by another for various reasons. One of those is business recognition and the possibility of old customers visiting and continuing to be a customer.

Would these same woman feel differently if the discussion had been about an online business? I didn’t ask at the time as I was an outsider to their group. How do you feel about it both from an offline and an online business perspective?

Early tomorrow morning I am flying to the Shareasale ThinkTank 2008. I’m pretty honored to have been asked to attend and I can’t wait to go. I’m looking forward to networking and meeting with a few of the Affiliate Managers I have been working with. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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Where in the heck did I go? Summer sure flew by fast. My daughter started preschool in January which gave me time to work during the day. Well for summer there was supposed to be a daycamp and it was cancelled at the last minute. So I decided to pretty much take the summer off. I did some work here and there for various clients, but nothing too stressful.

Then in July my husband was offered a position in Germany. A “life’s dream, how could we say no, even if the timing was off” offer. Full panic mode ensued in arranging all of the things that needed to be done in order to move by September-October. And then a clause appeared in the offer we were not comfortable with and we called it off. After all that I decided we needed a vacation and I was going to take August off. Which I very successfully did. I took a leave of absence and didn’t spend much time focusing on work at all. I did however watch a few videos and read a few ebooks.

Here we are almost September and the start of school is just around the corner. There is orientation on Wednesday and then the first day of school is September 8th. My daughter is very excited. She will have the same teacher and the same classroom and I think the continuity will be great for her. I will get three mornings a week to focus on work and I am very happy about that.

I’m kind of taking a leap here and leaning toward not going back to work for any clients. I have all of these ideas and more education lined up that I want to make time for. Plus implementing all that I have learned into my own websites. I think that if I spend a little time pinching the budget and devoting the time I was spending working for others on my own things, that the return in the future will be great. That is what I am going to be contemplating over the next week or so.

Have you taken this sort of leap? How did it turn out for you?

-Shannon

Gosh, almost the end of June already? It has been so long since I have updated here. I’ve been pretty busy both professionally and personally. My daughter is out of school for the summer. Which makes for very long days and not a whole lot of work going on here.

My solution? I joined a gym today. It has a swimming pool and a childcare center. We get two hours a day of free childcare. That totally rocks. So my daughter and I will get to hang out at the pool. She can play with some other kids and I get to work out. It all sounds fabulous, especially because I need to lose about 20 pounds. And did I mention they have free wi-fi? Maybe I can even get some work done while there. Let’s just hope my daughter is comfortable going to the childcare center by herself.

Professionally I’m going through a training course right now. I feel like there is so much that I need to learn and I am just cycling and not doing anything new. I’m also going to do some personal coaching to help me with goals and following through. I’ve decided that I’m relying too much on working for others and I need to start doing more for myself. Long range it will help my income so much more. So I’ve taken a bit of a hit on income coming in right now in order to do so, but I know it will pay off.

How is your summer going?

-Shannon