How do we capture an account?

  My wife started her business with just a knock on a couple of doors and handed a flyer or two out.  She successfully completed her first assignment for a corporation.  She is supposed to be called back for another assignment in a few days.  In the meanwhile she is planning to duplicate the marketing process which landed her first account.  Knocking on doors and handing out flyer's presents a challenge because one never knows if this is the best method.  The idea behind knocking on doors is that it is inexpensive and more personal than a telephone call or direct mail.  We have started to build a website but it is just in the initial stages of design and probably won't be ready for a couple of months.  The old adage that it takes money to make money is ever present in her marketing strategy.  She has a limited budget for this and in the short term this is going to hurt the chances of acquiring the contacts needed to expand her business.  I am just saying to you some of the things we discuss about the business and marketing it.  She does have time though and she is planning personal visits to potential customers very soon.  I am arranging for her to try a little direct mail advertising soliciting to just businesses that could use her.  The price be it worthwhile is a setback for us at this time.  If there are other methods of inexpensive advertising I'd sure like to see them and how they work.  I believe that after her website is up and running there will be a greater chance of getting her business advertised.  The design and the advertising for the website is being done without professional assistance so progress is slow to say the least.  Keeping up with new conventions in Internet business is a 24 hour a day job and one can never have enough experience or knowledge to keep abreast of all of the rapid changes.  We are going to settle for doing the best we can and hope that it gets some results.  Honestly I'm sure everyone has seen plenty a wonderfully built websites and if your like me try to duplicate one of these is pure hope.  We are trying to design a website that explains some of the responsibilities we are offering our customers.  As of yet there are no images on the website as it seems time doesn't permit us to include them.  We are taking pictures of our work and planning on displaying them as a marketing tool.  So far our website has 2 incomplete pages.  A few pictures and a form or two is all that is needed to start publish her website.  Certainly I would like to know other opinions on website design and this is one of the reasons for creating this blog.  I believe after we are satisfied with a couple of pages being designed as best as we can then we can start marketing the website.  This is a whole other can of worms so I write on it another day.  To close today I'll let it be known that we are going to pursue my wives business using as many different marketing strategies as money permits until something works.  She works hard and deserves to have something that is her very own making.  The economy is very down now as you know so any money gained in a business should increase when it picks back up.  Also each advertising dollar spent is a boost to the economy and should increase her chances a attaining long term customers and eventually hiring some people to help her.       That's it for now,

Our birthday fishing trip

My wonderful mom is planning to take my wife and I on a fishing trip.  My wives and my birthdays are 1 day and 1 year apart so this is a present for us from my mom.  I hope that I catch a few more fish than mom but knowing her she will catch more than me.  I would really like to post a few pictures when we get back but I don't know if time will permit. I am looking forward to the scenic river and just being out there. The time away will do all of us some good. I am not looking forward to returning though because I know what we are planning to do so I'm putting everything out of my mind so I can just enjoy the trip.        bye for now,

Business sense; necessary or not to survive?

     To say the least I wasn't born rich not with money anyway.
  I can honestly say that I have a strong desire to be successful.  Success is measured in many different ways and is up to the individual to label it.  One way for myself to be successful is to own and operate a business.  I don't know of anyone who has went into business who didn't want to get rich.  Only a handful make a fortune.  The others myself included seem to going from one business to another trying to reach for something that only a few have attained.  At this point in time I am trying to narrow my description of success to practical experience that I have attained and to put greater dreams on the back burner.  Currently  my wife has started a cleaning business which has evolved from several years of running ads in the paper to do assorted jobs for people in our area.  She has 1 corporate account to date.  I like to think that she has made something out of nothing.  To help her in her venture I completed a couple of things for her.  I called the insurance people to find a quote.  I learned quite a few things about business insurance in the process.  I was told that this business was a sound opportunity and has future growth possibilities.  This was good news to hear.  She has completed her first three cleaning jobs for this corporation and she was told that she would receive a phone call for her next job very soon.  Everyone we have dealt with from the insurance agents to the corporate personal have been great.  As both of our birthdays are coming up we are going to take a few days off.  When we begin again we are going to start passing flyers and going business to business.  Thats our marketing plan.  I've heard that this is a good place to start so we are giong to do it.  I sure would like to know some other techniques that can be used to drum up business from some people.  I'd like to know what technique was used and to what success as well as the cost.  While typing this it just came to me to build a web site to advertise her business.  I could use some tips for this kind of advertising as well.  I am giong to conclude my first entry now and see if this gets any results.  I think this is very well worth the effort so I'm sure I'll try to create more entries later.  Bye for now,