NETWORKING WAHM

Are you a Multitasking Diva? Multitasking is the enemy to some moms and best friend to other moms. How do you feel about multitasking? Love it or hate it, as moms we all seem to end up doing it at some point, out of pure necessity.  We either hate to multitask or love it, don’t we? We all know multitasking divas, in our real lives. Either at your children’s school or in your  neighborhood,  we all have them in our communities. Are you a  multitasking diva yourself? One of the ladies, who just seems to get a total charge out of making dinner, driving the kids around, talking on your cell phone and all while whitening your teeth, all at the same time. Guilty of it, I swear it’s fun at times to do many things all at once. Often in my home, at times every appliance is on - all at once, to the point the power company must take notice.  Most of the time it’s fun and I don’t mind doing it.

I do think some of the enjoyment is taken out of our lives by multitasking all the time. The quality of what we do must suffer some. I will think of how if I really focused on just less things, the quality of the dinner would be much better. In example, would dinner be less thrown together and more well thought out? I’d have to say, there is something to be said in doing less some of the time, if not just for our own peace of mind and relaxation.

I think back to my own childhood. Would my mom ever attempt to do all the things we do in today’s world, while being a mom? I think not. She would be more concerned with doing less and doing them well, with all of her energy focused fewer things. Could I ever picture my mom acting like me? Driving, while on her cell phone, while putting her makeup on her way to work. No! We are definitely not our mother’s daughters. More is expected from us as mothers, wives and daughters, than our mothers generation. We are not as laid back in our lives as they were. I think they raised us to be this way. Something majorly has changed over the generations in the way we approach our own time and tasks.

Niche, Niche, Niche  –  Anyone seen my niche?

So in the beginning,  finding the right niche may seem a little daunting. (Niche is a  specialized market) Finding yours may take sometime. To do well on the web you really have to have a  popular niche and a keyword which is search very often.  Clearly for SEO reasons you want words which people search mostly, so your site can be found. (SEO – search engine optimization) So the way it works, if you very specialized in your sites topics, your site will improve in the rankings faster. The number of times a keyword is searched, if  the keyword is on your site, you site will move up. A very specific word in your niche is important, helps improve your numbers. You’ll move up in the rankings in the search engines, if you have a hot niche market. So you may have noticed I tend to use the keywords networking and/or WAHM in my posts many times. I do this for a clearly ranking reason, because when I do, my rankings for these words improves in the search engines.  There are many SEO tips and tricks, but topics around the niche and hot niches themselves are the huge ones to focus on. You can watch your own growth in you site’s ranking grow over time, if you become really great at it, a SEO consultant is a real career.  

So now you know how the numbers work, how can you use it to your advantage? Finding and what exactly is a very hot niche? Well it changes over time and it’s all up to you. Your niche has to be of interest to you or it will drive you crazy! Finding the right one, is truly the key to being successful on the net. There are so many niches it’s truly mind boggling. The latest and greatest hot niches are not too hard to find. They are always new ones being developed. My niches are networkers and WAHMs on our site. 

To find your niche really think about what do you have an interest in? Others people have the same interests as you most likely. What are your passions in life? Give it some thought and you may just come up with a great niche.

True story: I never really thought too much about refrigerator magnets. I knew of someone who had a home based business selling them online, I never really gave it too much thought to it, it’s not interesting to me. Refrigerator magnets aren’t my thing! Well I certainly did take notice, once the Wall Street Journal wrote a whole article on this person I clearly went from thinking wow that’s a boring business to thinking wow they’re on to something. The company found a hot niche market! That’s what’s all about! Find something which you have a passion for which is very select, but others have an interest in.

We have all given of our time to causes over the years. Have you ever considered drawing together your local contacts, to help a cause together?

No better way, for your contacts to truly be themselves and get to know each other on a personal level first. Down the road, maybe trying each other’s services or products.  Networking on a professional level is much more stuffy. Networking in a fresh and different way, to bring local people together. Bring your favorite local people in your network to get to know each other, in such a selfless way, is fantastic. Networking done face to face, on your home turf in a low key way, how  fun, and  it’s all for a good cause. It doesn’t get any better and you’ll feel great after! 

For WAHMs,  it’s the perfect way to get to know other WAHMs,  in a more relaxed way. Our challenges are not being able to get out as much as we’d like, with our work being at home. Doing work for a cause, would be the prefect outlet of us occasionally.

Idea:  You could create a team.  For example -  Susan G Komen Race for the Cure, it would be perfect cause for women coming together. Being able to  train as a  local team of business people, make new friends and business contacts while raising money of a great cause.  Read the rest of this entry »

We all use social media and love it, right?  We use it as a great free resource for meeting new people, advertising our products or sites  and networking with others with the same interests. Can it be harmful to you and your family, by using as much as you do?

We all love social media, how could you be overwhelmed by it? Just google social media icons, how many on the list do you recognize? What are there a hundred currently, maybe there’ll be a thousand? Counting all the ones which are currently being developed and not released yet. If I see one more new icon and not recognize it, I’ll scream. I think all the letters from A to Z, have just about been all been used for the single letter icons, right? Social media is totally overwhelming to some. I’m one who finds it a tad bit overwhelming to learn to all these sites really well. Couldn’t they at least function similarly?

It’s overwhelming for the fact there are so many. You can actually have a hard time deciding which ones to sign up for, never mind keeping up with using them reguarly. Challenging isn’t it!  I guess you need to really learn more about each, find the ones which will work for you and/or your business.  There are a few, I will not mention the names, which are much more user friendly in their design layout, for non computer people. Others are harder to use, I wish they would improve their design layout.  I just don’t understand why you  would bother to use a social media site, which is very difficult to the average person to navigate? I think we will start to see some fail, because there too many flooding the web, it seems.

Have you ever been on  a social media site till 1 or 2 AM? It’s easy to do, you really loose track of time once you get on. If  your one who is on at 2 AM, you may need to take a break. Your family will thank you for taking a social media vacation! Return to the quality family time you had before social media came about. Take your children somewhere.  Just tell everyone on your favorite social media sites ahead of time. Tell them  your taking a social media vacation for the fact your kids want to see you,  not the back of your head.

How to overcome the chaos of our mornings? Is your morning run around ruining your household?  We all love mornings don’t we! I think mornings are high blood pressure makers.

Getting everyone out and out of the house isn’t easy. Nothing could of prepared you for being a mother and dealing with the morning nonsense. Most days, the morning are not easy, but some days it’s just ridiculous. How do we overcome the nonsense, which takes place  some mornings? The kids have activites, their up late the night before, they wake up late, the homework is not finished, and then they  can’t find their socks. Now your off to a bad start and a rough day. Life is so very different from having time to relax in the morning, before children. Oh, I miss those days. Now, there is hardly anytime for you to get ready, before you need to be out the door.

10 Tips to make mornings smoother:

1. Go to sleep earlier, there is nothing that needs to be done at 11:30 PM or 12:00, which can’t be done at 6 AM.

2. Pack the backpacks the night before, with snacks and homework.

3. Sign all the permission slips the night before.

4. Ask the kids if they need anything for tomorrow morning, “How much lunch money is in you accounts kids?”

5. Pick out and layout everyones clothes the night before.

6. Hang needed items by the door for easy access. Umbrellas, coats and  sweatshirts.

7. Set up baskets by the door to catch/contain items which you use regularly. Items which really don’t want coming into the house, because once in, they get misplaced.  I love it when you hear “I can’t find my other shin guard, Mom?”

8. Buy a coffee maker which you can program ahead, so in the morning there’s one less step.

9. Shower at night so you can get up and  going.

10. When winter comes give each child their own basket for hats, mittens and scrafs. Clothes pin each childs items together, if you need to.

Please come  over and join our Circle of Moms Community. Please feel free to ask your questions. I have often given thought to starting a forum for Networking WAHM. Circle of Moms is convenient for most of us who are Facebook users, I felt it was logical choice.

Networking Mom

Networking WAHM – Circle of Moms

I feel it is very important to support other women in their endeavors.  On both my sites I try to mention women entrepreneurs regularly.  I try to always show my feelings  - being very pro female entrepreneur.  I am proud to be a woman and just as proud of all the amazing women on the web. It is true the web is a very male dominated place or let’s just say it has been previously been very male dominated place. Times are really changing, more women are really thriving on the web. 

Many of us who are on the web regularly, have notice a trend which has developed. Careers are developing from the needs of successful wahms (work at home moms) needing to outsource some of their responsibilities.  All new branches of support services for web based businesses have exploded.  Outsourcing everything from emails which  someone else can help you with to  technology – tools which would make your life easier. You wish you could take the time to learn  it all yourself, but you need to focus on the more important things. You can only handle so much in a day, you need to prioritize. Doing things the older way costs you time. Help exists, why not try a new service to ease up the inbox or help you with your affiliates. Once you start to become overwhelmed with your new site or business reach out to other women, ask for help. Tell other women what areas you are struggling with. Someone may just know of a mom looking to start a career as a virtual assistant, she may what o start out by helping you!  Your business success, may just create another business success, which is exactly what’s happening with many wahms on the web.

Positive Visualization -  Dream it and develop an idea into reality. How would anything happen in life without positivity and having dreams?

Positive Visualization is key in attaining any goal.

If athletes and business people are all use visualization tools, so why can we all use them too?  Why are companies big believers in using a company motto and affirmations for their employees to benefit from? They simply work! The ending result is the product of  the desired goal.  How do all these things happen? Great customer service, a great end product, and a happy work place.  Think about it? Why else would so many companies be using them?

Visualizing your goal and believing you can succeed is the first step in  any goal.  We dream about weddings and graduations long before they happen for a reason We plan every last detail out, far in advance and make it become a reality.

An easy step in attaining our goals is just by really willing it to happen, by using positive energy to manifesting  the goals. It’s simple isn’t it.  You just have to have the knowledge of how it happens.

Tip: To help focus and develop your idea and organize it, use a vision board. Vision boards have helped many to see and attain their goals regularly. Basically a vision board shows you  the steps to achieve the goal, so you don’t loose focus, a visual outline of sorts.  Oprah is a big believer and user of vision boards.

The more you focus on your goals, the faster you’ll achieve them!

As a very busy working mom, I really struggle with cleaning my home. To keep it up, the way I want it to look, to my standards, it’s hard.  I admit it,  I’m not perfect in this area, but something had to go.  I had to let go of something to gain in other areas, like earning money, which is very important.  I can focus on many things all at once, I can accomplish a lot in a day. The time needed to do a fantastic job on my home, it’s just takes too much time.

Those of you who really know me, know I’m in and out of the car all day long. I am always flying somewhere to drop off  my children, picking up my children, going out to after school to activities or games with my wonderful children.  Only around my childrens’ schedules,  I try to conduct the rest of my life. All my other passions in life, come after my children, I am a real mom. My priorities are very clear.

I was told a long time ago, by my mom’s best friend, the mother of five children – “If  something had to go,  let it be the house”  I really don’t want to give up, is there hope? I have been trying to implement the FlyLady system and advice in my life. It may help you as well.

http://flylady.net

So don’t give up, there is hope out there.