I am sitting here listening to Christmas music and it brings back sweet memories of my Mom & Dad. Around this time of year, we would be getting ready to make the trip to Grandmas house and the excitement ran high.

We would pack the kids in the van and drive all night to get there. It was so much easier to drive and let the kids sleep. We would be tired, but those quiet conversations while we crossed all those miles were precious.

When we got to Grandma’s (Mom, to me), her cookie jar would be full of cookies, but in the oven were the favorite cookies, her Magic Meringue Cookies, and the kids loved them, they were truly a Grandma specialty. Here is the recipe, I hope you and yours enjoy them too.

I for one hope that I can answer a resounding yes to that question. In honesty though, I am not consistent enough to make that claim. I have good intentions, I think most of us do. But, in today’s society, distractions abound, and it so easy to simply lose our way.

I was taking a class on building a website. The instructor was warning us about one of the pitfalls that many people make when designing their website. It was having too many choices.

You know, when you go to a buffet to eat, there are so many choices, you end up taking some of many things, and nothing is especially memorable. It becomes a blur, and you although you may have enjoyed the food, nothing stands out.

The same thing happens in real life. We all know that there is a great need in our world. Poverty is a very real thing right outside our own back door. As hard as it is to believe, we have neighbors who have no food, adequate clothing, or place to live.

We know that here and in other parts of the world, people  are homeless. Many have no access to health care, clean water, education and so many of the bare necessities of life. Those of us who are in better shape, have the desire to help, but have no clear direction on how to do that.

Sure, there are more charitable organizations than we can count, but the choices of which one to help are like trying to choose your favorite food from the buffet. It all gets muddled together, and in the confusion, we simply don’t make a commitment to anything.

I think that if we could encourage our families, church groups, friends etc to focus on one thing, we could be more effective in our efforts to extend a helping hand. For instance, when I spoke to the director of Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City, she told me that something they are  in constant need of are toiletries.

The poor have limited access to those items, yet they are basic to health and dignity. What if your group would decide that your entire charitable focus would be to provide toiletries to a certain group.  That would be simple, yet enormously effective. If your group committed to keeping the shelves supplied with soap, shampoo, deodorant, for a certain charitable organization, staying focused would be easy.

Your friends group could choose to supply basic staples, peanut butter, tuna, beans. Again, simple and focused would win the race. It would not have to be any more complicated than that. Your girl/boy scout group could adopt collecting toilet paper. The altar society might knit hats, you get the picture.

What could make the impact even great would be to do what Daniel did. His group took seed money and held a fundraiser. They multiplied their money greatly. Then they were able to much more for the poor they were helping.

I know for a fact the we have made a lot of money with the cinnamon roll fund raisers, and you can get more information by clicking here https://www.doughraisingmom.com/join-us or on the box at the very top of my website.

Of course, you can choose to do any fund raiser that fits your group, the main point is that it is worth it to make the commitment. Remember the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principal, and you are sure to have success in your mission to help others.

photo credit: Webb Zahn

photo credit: Rain Rannu

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could “bottle” Christmas cheer?

I have been writing a lot about being an entrepreneur. I have realized something about myself, I am an idea person. I can’t help it, those ideas just pop into my brain constantly, and they won’t stop. So that idea about bottling Christmas cheer, I am willing to share that with all you budding fellow business men and women.

Just think of the possibilities. Humor me for a minute, while I ponder just what such a product might be able to do. Unlike huge companies that take every possible step to protect their “secret” formula, recipe, product idea, etc., the Christmas cheer company will only gain more market share by giving it sway as much as possible.The “pay it forward” theory would be that I freely give it to you, you love the feeling and want to keep it on hand at all times, so you keep coming back for more.

There would be no need to develop expensive marketing strategies, all you would have to do is let the customers experience the feelings that accompany true Christmas cheer, and it would go viral.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. But, I am not a newbie entrepreneur, and I know the steps. That meant I had to pull out the old notes about making a strategic plan. You know, putting your plan on paper exposes the flaws, I guess that is why so many of us don’t want to actually commit our plan to writing.

When I started listing the strengths I began to experience sort of a euphoria. I could envision a world  a world where the most valued career was that of  “The Secret Santa”. Ambition would be fueled not by selfish desires for wealth and power, but by the passion to help other people.

When the fuel for that ambition was running low, simply taking a sip of that magical Christmas Cheer would fire up that engine again. The would be an endless demand for our product. I was getting excited, I thought I had made a brilliant discovery.

Then I realized that I had neglected to fill in the other side of the strategic plan, the weaknesses. I hate when you get to that part, it often spoils everything. I prefer to be the dreamer, but I am also grounded in reality. That is where the perfect picture began to get a little blurry.When I started to list those weaknesses, the top of the list was the fact that most of us lose focus quickly.

Unfortunately, for most us us, that warm and fuzzy feeling that Christmas cheer gives us, fades as a mere memory when we put away the decorations. It gets boxed up and put on the shelf and becomes a faint memory. The same thing can happen in our business.

It is really hard to have the laser focus to keep making the right decisions to move forward. I now realize, that if we can just keep doing what we do well, and center our attention on that one thing, we can jump start our business, and the continued focus will keep the batteries charged.

photo credit: UK in Italy

photo credit: Fatback[Dale]

Here is a fast cookie that everyone loves.

This recipe brings back great memories. When we were kids, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Mom baking cookies. Of course I loved making the cut out cookies and frosting them, but I also love dipping these cookies in chocolate, (then you had to lick your fingers). I pulled up the video from the archives for you to watch. Enjoy, and remember times a wasting.

A Blog Can Help Establish You as an Expert

I know that you may not want to share your favorite recipes if your dream is to open the latest greatest restaurant. You don’ t have to. All of us have recipes that we can share with others that won’t fit into our business dream.

In the real world, we start building our reputation by networking with others, and giving out samples of our food. All grocery stores have people preparing food in front of you so you can sample whatever product they are promoting. You have to do something similar, you may know that your barbeque is the best, but you have to have other people saying that your product is awesome.

Online, you have to have something to offer people to enable them to get to know you. When you begin to share recipes that get rave reviews, people will trust that the product you want to sell will be even better. Therefore, the more traffic your site gets, the more buzz you will have.

I have talked a lot about foodie websites lately. The reason is that it is a topic lots of people are interested in. Recipes are searched for everyday with millions of searches per month. Why not get in on that action? You know that you have valuable information you can share, so do it.

There is a lesson to be learned from the big retailers. As recently as just a few years ago, many of them did not have an active web presence. Now most of them have very profitable e commerce sites. They have realized the incredible power of the web for their business.

The same thing applies to the small businesses. For many of us, starting online will give us the edge we need to succeed. You have heard me talk about the expense involved in brick and mortar storefronts. That is a reality, and can be avoided.

Have you noticed that many of the big chain stores are closing storefronts? For some it is a sign of the economy and they are simply going away. For others, they have seen that they can accomplish sales online without the high overhead of a walk in store.

You may be impatient with me if you just can’t wait for your product to be available to the public to taste. What I am trying to get you to realize is that there is a ton of competition out there with lots of money to advertise. Sadly, competing with the giants is hard.

I said hard, but I did not say impossible. You just need to have the smarts to figure out how to coexist with them. They are not going away, so carving out a way to get a piece of the action takes making strategic decisions.

One way to do that in the beginning is to check out affiliate programs. You start a blog that appeals to many people. Then you not only offer them good advice and how to information, but monetize it with an affiliate suggestion.

With affiliate programs, they are paying people who like what they do a commission simply for talking about what they like about the product. You only talk about something you authentically could recommend to your mother or grandmother.

It does not cost the customer an additional penny. You see, the product owner avoids paying high advertising costs, and is more than willing to pay a commission to folks who love their product. It is a win-win-win.

Many of the big retailers now offer affiliate programs, you just scroll down to the bottom of the website and click on affiliates. All the information to sign up is there.

Last year I used my friends affiliate link to Amazon. I did all my shopping while still connected to Amazon through that link, and she got a commission on all the purchases I made there. I did not pay more for the products I wanted, Amazon just got a little less profit because they shared some of it with her.

You can find topics related to food to promote, and get a share of the money that is made. It is so easy to promote something you believe in because you want others to get a good product or deal, knowing that promoting it does not mean they will have to pay more to cover your share. I suggest that you go find some affiliate programs to include in your blog.

Is Your Business on Track to Make a Profit?

It is officially the busiest time of the year for many people. The Holiday’s are filled with shopping, decorating, parties, and spending time with family and friends. It is that wonderful time of the year.

It is also the time when many businesses are adding to their bottom line, after all, “tis the season to be jolly”. For anyone I know, watching their bank account improve is cause to celebrate.

If your business is firing on all cylinders, you probably won’t have time right this minute to start planning your strategies for next year, you are too busy cashing in on all the hard work you have done this year. Well, I guess that can depend on your business.

If your business is just in the start up phase, or could use a little help, this is a great time of the year to start doing the work you need to do to make sure that next year at this time you are either enjoying the results of your efforts, or joining other businesses by participating in the “Black Friday & Black Monday”. By that I mean the definition of those terms, changing from operating in the red to in the black. Simply said, to be making money.

I know, that is easier said than done. One of the important things every business must do is to evaluate what they are doing or planning to do to assure they are on track. If what you are doing is not actually helping your business make a profit, why do it? To continue to do the same thing and expect a different result is the definition of insanity!

I know it is a hard thing to do, but if your website is not enjoying the traffic you need to grow you business, you are going to have to figure out what will bring you more traffic. Do you even know how to track the traffic that comes to your website?

If your answer to that is no, there are simple solutions out there that can help you with that. For online businesses, traffic is the life blood, and you need to know that people are actually coming. Knowing other information like where they are coming from can help you make decisions on where to spend your time and possibly money. If you are using WordPress, you can get the free pluggin, Google Analyticator.

That pluggin gives you info like the most popular pages on your website, how long they stayed on your site, where they came from, and more. If you are using cpanel, there is information like that there.
At any rate, tracking your visitors gives you some key insight on how you want to prioritize your time and money.

Contacting you is something that needs to be simple for your potential customers. If you have a Gmail account, (which is free), you can get a “Google Voice” number. It is great, and gives you a free tool for customers to contact you via phone for free. It gives you lots of options, and it is all free. You can find out more information about it here:  https://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

IF you are not at the point that you are ready to spend money on an expensive shopping cart for your website, just use PayPal, it is a great way to get started, and there is no monthly fee. They charge a percentage per sale. There is a lot of information on the PayPal website. Here is a link to the business information page: https://merchant.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/compare_wp_products

Every Serious Business Needs a Website

If you are just in the start up process of your business, you are facing expenses that just go with the territory of owning your own business.

One of the expenses almost every business owner faces is setting up a website. It is almost a necessity for all of us. If you have lots of tech experience, you just have to download WordPress, get a webhost and domain name and you are set to go.

If you are not a tech person, the reality is that you probably need to hire someone to help you. That is the reason I wanted to write this post. I have worked with a company that does amazing WordPress websites, has great service, & offers lots of extras.

Now, I have to tell you that I love good deals, and when I find one, letting other people in on it is so fun. I did not go out at 4:00am to get in on the doorbusters, but I found something that is way better than anything I saw advertised.

The other day I got an email from a group of small business owners suggesting that as entrepreneurs, we are missing a golden opportunity if we don’t participate in Black Friday.

In answer to that, the web design company I was referring to has decided to offer a limited time offer. I copied it so that you can read all the details.

Get Your Website Designed or Re-Designed – Half Price Sale!

Use Coupon Code 65071 To Get 50% Discount!

Choose from the following Packages

Our Best Blog Customization Package with a Social Media Kicker – $397 (Sale Price $198.50!)

• This includes installation, customization and optimization of a blog theme. (If you want us to use a Premium Theme that we do not own a Developer’s License for, you must purchase the license.)
• Installation on a ‘cpanel’ equipped host such as Reliable Webs or MomWebs. (If your site is hosted on a different type of system, please let us know during your free consult so that we can make sure we’re able to work with it.)
• Customization includes creating your blog header graphic and adapting the colors and layout of the theme to match your desired look and needs.
• Optimization includes installing a very useful set of plugins that improve Search Engine Optimization efforts and increase the usability of your site.
• We’ll create one complimentary eCover graphic that you can use to represent a special report or ebook that you sell or use to attract visitors onto your mailing list.
• We’ll set up the autoresponder account of your choice, insert the optin form on the site and create a branded landing page to welcome new subscribers.
• We’ll create your Twitter & Facebook pages and connect them to your existing WordPress blog so that your blog posts get piped out to these important social media sites.  We’ll also create custom graphics to carry your branding over to these sites.  (And place social media icons of your choosing on your site to link over to these pages.)
• This package also includes up to one hour of One on One Coaching to make sure you know how to update your new blog.

Basic Blog Customization Package – $297 (Sale Price $148.50!)

• This includes installation, customization and optimization of a blog theme. (If you want us to use a Premium Theme that we do not own a Developer’s License for, you must purchase the license.)
• Installation on a ‘cpanel’ equipped host such as Reliable Webs or MomWebs. (If your site is hosted on a different type of system, please let us know during your free consult so that we can make sure we’re able to work with it.)
• Customization includes creating your blog header graphic and adapting the colors and layout of the theme to match your desired look and needs.
• Optimization includes installing a very useful set of plugins that improve Search Engine Optimization efforts and increase the usability of your site.
• This package also includes up to one hour of One on One Coaching to make sure you know how to update your new blog.

I hope that you will check them out, they have given me exceptional service, and I feel sure they will do the same for you. Tell them Grace sent you.

So, have fun getting started, let me know the address of your blog so I can drop by.