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December 12, 2006

Winter Break Fun Activities for Kids

Are you wondering how you are going to keep the kids busy during their winter break? With all the last minute shopping, wrapping of presents, baking, cleaning AND running your business, the kids may need some extra fun things to keep them busy so you can keep your head on straight!

Our Moms Network of sites have several sites that provide TONs of fun - from puzzles and games to coloring pages, gift tags and more. Be sure to bookmark these sites to keep handy for enjoying and printing out some free holiday fun for the kids while you strive to do your best to run your home based business AND get ready for the holidays while the kids are on break: Get a Free Personalized Email from Santa! Tons of Holiday Fun: Coloring Pages, Gift Tags, Stickers, Printable Cards & So Much More

Moms Network Christmas Coloring Pages

Send Free Talking Rudolph, Santa & Frosty eCards!

Coloring Pages, Gift Tags, Puzzles & more

Free Christmas Gift Tags & Candy Cards

New 2007 Printable Calendar!

Posted by Cyndi at 02:46 PM | Comments (1)

December 10, 2006

Your Business Shouldn't Take the Holiday Season Off

Over the years I have noticed that the holidays can be a difficult time for moms who work out of their homes to stay focused and stick to their regular work routine. While working out of your home does give you flexibility, you still do have a business to run and people counting on you to deliver your product or service. So, while it may be tempting to "ditch" work more than normal to run holiday errands, bake cookies, decorate and take more breaks than usual, I caution you to be careful to not go overboard. Plan accordingly, just as when you worked out of the home. When work needed to be done, you couldn't decide to just not show up for work or leave during the work day because you wanted to have fun, instead of being in the office. Granted, all people get vacation time and you need to, in essence, schedule your own vacation time from the business you do out of your home.

Being your own employer takes discipline, and requires that you make sound and professional decisions.  You need to remind yourself that even though the holidays are here, you do have a business that still needs to run and be taken care of.  Depending on your business, and whether you own that business or work for someone else, you need to make a plan that will carry you through the holiday season while still creating the time you want away from work.  By playing hooky too much, you will fall behind in all you had hoped to accomplish, and be complaining about it when January hits, and even worse, not bring in as much money as you need each month. Remember, real businesses in the real world don't stop when the holidays hit. They need to go on as they always do throughout the entire year.

This holiday season, be sure to make a plan, take some extra time off to enjoy family and festivities, but at the same time, making it a priority to continue with your work and business in a professional and responsible manner.

Posted by Cyndi at 09:16 AM | Comments (3)

December 07, 2006

Work at Home Tips

Working at home is NOT something that everyone can do. Plain and simple. Too many people fall into the hype that "anyone can do this!" the line that so many companies and individuals use to try to get you to sign up for their program or business. Among other things, running a business out of your home takes dedication, discipline, creativity, and being able to make tough decisions.

Today's Work at Home Tip: Know when to ask for help and do it! Too many times when someone has their own home based business, they think they have to run every aspect of their business themselves and are either too afraid, or worse yet, too proud to ask for help. The sign of a good business owner is the ability to know their limits. As your business grows you may not be able to "do it all".  You want to be able to have resources and people that you can bring on board, even before you are at the point of needing them.  This is part of good business planning.  It is the sign of a smart work at home mom, who is humble enough to admit she can no longer do it all on her own anymore. When you are at the point that you are not able to handle all the tasks at hand - it is time to reach out to others for help.

Whether it be just a little extra help from your spouse and children, or whether you need to step it up to where you hire an outside source, be sure to make that step and not put it off.  Not only will it lessen the stress load on you, it will free up your time from doing tasks that others could easily learn, so that you can focus more on the growth of your business and putting your talents to their best use.

Posted by Cyndi at 07:43 AM | Comments (6)

December 06, 2006

Who is Paying For Your Ignorance?

Ignorance is bliss... sometimes yes, but most of the time no. If you are a work at home mom, who is seriously trying to build a business and succeed, you can't afford to play the ignorance card.

You need to be a responsible business owner who knows the rules and regulations that go with running a business, specifically YOUR business. More importantly, you need to adhere to them. If you don't, not only do you pay the price, but so do others, which is not fair to them.

It is one thing if you want to disrupt and put a bad mark on your own business, but to put other individual's and other companies out, that is just plain selfish and unprofessional. I cannot tell you how many times over the years that people have submitted content or ads to us in our free promotion areas, only to come back and demand that they be removed or changed because 1.) they didn't do the research on what they could and couldn't do online or 2.) because of not perusing what they submitted and finding errors in their email address or url.  Many are downright rude in their attitude and insisting that we have to remove or change something immediately that they submitted to us.

It's one thing to humbly approach a company and tell them that you made a mistake, asking if they could remedy the error for you.  It is another thing to be flippant and expect that the company take care of your mistake.  This in turn not only gives you and your company a bad name, but also causes the company that has offered you these free services, to spend their time, and money to change something that you decided to be ignorant about.

There are also those who don't read the rules for message boards on what is and isn't allowed, and they proceed to do what they want.  Again, the ignorance causing you to look bad and creating extra work and money spent for the site owners to remove posts and/or memberships.

So, make sure that you step up to the plate with your responsibility to understand what it is you can do in regards to your business, as your ignorance will eventually shine a bad light on your business.

Posted by Cyndi at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)