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A Daily Routine
Establishing a daily routine is a critical factor when you work from home. I would even go so far as to say without it you will accomplish much less and be prone to distractions. Distractions can absolutely keep you from never moving forward in your business. When I first started working from home setting a daily routine was a huge challenge. I had just launched my second child off to college and my day was unstructured for the first time in years. As a stay at home mom I had spent countless hours with my kids activities inside and out of school, worked part time at the school office, sold…
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Online Relationships are Important
Online Relationships are Important Think about some of the brands, bloggers and public figures you love the most… chances are that you have some sort of connection with them, whether that means getting to know the people personally, or sharing a core belief with them. These online relationships are important. When businesses create a connection with their audience, they set themselves up for loyalty that can last for years. Even better than that, a real connection means that their customers will turn into raving fans who happily share their website and product recommendations with others! I am a big fan of a number of marketers and bloggers and follow them,…
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Amazon Affiliates Program Changes
Beginning on March 1,2017 changes are being made to the Amazon Affiliate Program. The biggest change is they have eliminated the “sell more make more” higher payout fees. Whether you sell one or hundreds of an item as an affiliate the fee rate stays the same. Yikes! The old fee structure looked like this: As you can see in the chart above, in the old structure, expiring March 1st, your commission rate rose based on an increase in the volume of sales. In the new fee structure your fee rate will be based on the category of the item sold. See the new schedule below.
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New Access to Amazon Associates Program
Amazon Associates Program One of my business models is building niche sites and I am an affiliate for the Amazon Associates Program. This means when I recommend products I use and love that are available on Amazon I get a commission from Amazon when people buy items through my links. This doesn’t cost the consumer anything extra. For the past few years quite a few states in the US couldn’t participate in the program because they wanted Amazon to collect the sales tax when customers bought things on their site and Amazon wasn’t cooperating. My state, California, pulled out of the program a few years ago, which meant I couldn’t…
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Quit Killing Your Dreams
Quit Killing Your Dreams If you are the kind of person who has goals, ambitions, and big ideas for your life, then quit killing your dreams. You know that taking risks is an essential component of success. Leo Buscaglia said, “The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” Pretty strong words! Risk is a natural part of life and the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. I am not talking about something foolish but taking a calculated risk with some research behind…
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Special Peek Tour of Amazon
How Selling On Amazon Works from the Inside Many people are curious how selling on Amazon works. I sell on Amazon using both Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and their merchant fulfilled (MF) process. A seller who uses MF finds a great product to sell, lists it on Amazon, and when it sells Amazon notifies you, the seller, and you ship the item yourself. When a seller uses FBA, you find great products to sell, list on Amazon and then ship the items directly to Amazon to let them do all the fulfillment… packing, shipping to the customer, and handling any returns. These are just the bare bones basics and it…
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Penny Saver Is Back
Penny Saver is Back Part of my business of selling on Amazon is garage saling and the Penny Saver is back! This weekly circular was one of my favorite resources to find great garage sales. The Penny Saver came out every week and was delivered to my mail box on Wednesdays so I had plenty of time to plan for my weekend garage saling. I could later easily file the circular with all the addresses circled that I went to and then calculate my mileage for my log as a business expense. The Penny Saver closed their doors in California in May of 2015 and laid off over 700 employees.…
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A Purpose Driven Business
A Purpose Driven Business Today is Mother’s Day and I am so thankful for my mom and the other wonderful women in my life. Sitting with my husband and son and his girlfriend and texting with my daughter who doesn’t live near me got me thinking about my business…a purpose driven business. Why I do what I do. It isn’t just for the money, although that is nice. And yes, I like a lifestyle business, one I design. But I have to remember the “life” part of lifestyle. My husband and kids and extended family and those I want to help are my big Why. They are my life. They…
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Merch by Amazon
Merch by Amazon’s New Exciting Opportunity Amazon is always changing and growing and one of their newest services is Merch by Amazon. It is a self service program where you design T-shirts and then Amazon produces them, sells and ships them to their customers. This can be an amazing new opportunity for you to grow your business whether it is an online business of yours or you help offline clients. See their quick video intro here. Why was it created? The program, started about a month ago, was originally geared towards app and game developers. Amazon owns Twitch, a live streaming video platform, that primarily focuses on video gaming. Merch…
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Life is a Daring Adventure
The title to my post is inspired by this quote by Helen Keller. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” If there was ever a person with multiple challenges and yet lived a life of purpose and passion it is Helen Keller. I have this quotation on a coaster I use every day. It really is a great reminder to view life as a daring adventure and embrace all the professional and personal challenges that get thrown your way. Whether it is my computer getting stuck for over two hours today, trying to update Windows 7, or the last 6 weeks of health issues my husband is…