I have a question for you. Do you remember your first website? I do! I built my first site using Microsoft FrontPage. My first online venture was called WomenInBiz.net (yep, dot net). The year was 2003, I remember it like it was yesterday.

Women In Biz was geared towards you guessed it, women starting a business. I even mailed out a “hard copy” monthly newsletter, which my subscribers paid for.

I worked this business for six months before it proved to be too much. I LOVED producing the newsletter, but, I was losing money. You see, the subscribers (all three of them), paid a yearly rate of $20.00. I thought that because it was a paid newsletter, it was my duty to give them a full color, 12 page, 8 1/2 x 11 newsletter every month. The problem with this brilliant idea? $60.00 a year did not even put a dent in the cost of producing my newsletter each month.

You see, I had to print out at least 15-20 copies a month. My subscriber copies, free copies to advertisers (when I had them), and free copies for marketing purposes. Heck, I even sent Oprah a copy….nothing ever came out of the Oprah mailing though, but I was hopeful.

Printing expenses were not my only expense when it came to the newsletter, I also had to purchase the ink, the paper, envelopes, and stamps. It just got to be unrealistically (is that a word?) too expensive for me. So after six months, I stopped production, closed down the site and refunded my subscribers.

Why? Because I started out in the hole. I was losing more and more money as the months went by. Sure, I could have hung in there for another six months to see what happened, because I loved what I was doing, but in reality, I knew what was going to happen.

I was using money from my full time job to fund this business venture. In my opinion, that was not a good decision. I know it takes money to make money, but at what cost? I guess I could blame my failure on a lot of things; lack of funding; inadequate advertising; bad networking, etc. Oprah was my biggest marketing tactic it’s sad to say.

Now If Oprah had actually read my award winning newsletter and featured it on her show, then I wouldn’t be typing this post. I’d probably have my own show, and be on the New York Times Bestseller list by now But alas, Oprah never gave me a shout out, so here we are now.

I don’t know what made me think back to Women In Biz. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately in terms of my business, you know……where I should be, where I want to be, and what I need to do to get there.

Five years ago, I thought I’d be making six figures by now! Guess what? It hasn’t happened, not even close. I feel as If I’ve been spinning my wheels for the last five years and I’m tired of it. Oh, I know that it takes time to build a business and make a living online, But I also realize that there are some business models that take A LOT of work and take up A LOT of your free time.

My Virtual Assistant business is part time, I’ve wavered between keeping it part time and going at it full time. I’d like to work at home full time, but not as a Virtual Assistant. Why? Well, even though I LIKE WHAT I DO and I enjoy making money from home, I DON’T LOVE WHAT I DO.

So now I’m at a crossroad. Do I keep my VA Biz because I like what I do and it does bring in income OR do I build a business model based on what I LOVE TO DO and tackle it full time?

There are several things that I LOVE DOING.  I love creating, teaching, talking, and nurturing.  Can I make a viable business model out of these things?  Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

What about you? Are you doing what you love? If so, are you making any money at it?

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I used to think of facebook as a networking site for teenagers (my niece has an account for god’s sake). Well, I was wrong. Facebook is not just for teenyboppers, it’s a great networking site for entrepreneurs, bloggers, family, and friends.

I’m addicted and I only signed up yesterday. I spent the entire day adding cute little applications to my page and sending out my friend requests.

Here’s what I like about facebook so far:

1. I can connect and network with people that I normally would not network with. Alexandra Brown added me as a friend today. Okay so she also has over 2,000 other friends, but still…..I feel special.

2. I get to let my “friends” have a glimpse into my life. I can add photos, reveal my likes and dislikes, my friends can see what I’m reading, see my favorite music, my interests, the lists go on and on.

3. I can join groups that are specific to my interests. I’ve joined a few Virtual Assistant groups and connected with some great VA’s.

Here’s what I don’ t like about facebook:

1. The “owned” application. Something about it just rubs me the wrong way. Apparently you can buy people with this application. I won’t discuss this application any farther, maybe I just don’t understand it.

So to sum it all up:

I’m enjoying my facebook experience, true its only been 24 hours but I can’t stay away from the darn site. I’m starting to come out of my shell and network more this year and the rewards have been abundant and I’ve met some really great people thru networking.

You see, I’m a newbie online networker. In my offline life, I’m miss social butterfly. If there’s an event or function, I’m there. Online networking is a little different to me and I’m still learning.

This is what I’ve learned so far about networking online:

1. Connect with people outside your online clique. Yes, I’ve discovered that there are some online cliques (I’m not in any of them, but they do exist). It’s not networking if you’re interacting with the same people day in and day out. You have to travel outside your comfort zone and add new people to your circle. Networking is all about connecting with people!

2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or leave comments on Twitter, facebook, or someone’s blog. No ones gonna know you’re out there if you don’t make your presence known.

3. If you’re business networking, be careful of what you say. I’ve stopped following quite a few people on Twitter that I’ve admired online for years because of some of the things that they Tweet about. Some of it is really offensive and not funny. Is it really necessary for you to tweet the “F” word in every post? You don’t need to say everything that’s on your mind. However, if you’re networking with family and friends then that’s an entirely different story.

As I’ve said I’m pretty new at online networking but I am learning a lot and meeting a lot of great people. If you have any networking tips, I’d love to hear them. Leave me a comment below!

Also, if you’re on facebook, add me as a friend!

Technorati Tags: alexandria brown, networking, social networking, twitter, facebook

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I know how you ladies LOVE contests and meme’s so you’d better head on over to Kelly’s spot and read the rules and reggies for this meme.

Kelly says “What I do want is to encourage all work at home moms to practice an attitude of gratitude for their position as a WAHM”. I like that….practice an attitude of gratitude, has a nice ring to it.

Kelly has asked participants to blog about why they love working from home. I could probably write a novel on that subject, but for the sake of brevity, here’s my top three (3) reasons.

I love working at home because, I can work whenever I want to. If I decide to get up at 3:00 in the morning and type a blog post, I can do that.

I love working at home because, If I want to take a day off, I take it! I don’t have to get approval from anyone.

But, the most important reason I love working at home is because, I love having my own business!

I was tagged for this meme by my friend Mary Lutz, so now I have to tag a few people. Let’s see…I’ll tag Heather, Revka, and Sheena.

Leave me a comment, I’d love to know why you love working from home.

Technorati Tags: kelly mccausey, moms talk biz, sparkplugging, contest, gift certificate

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Today is the first day that I’ve felt like my old self and decided to catch up on my blog reads. In doing so, I came across an interesting post by Tishia Lee. First, let me start by saying that I absolutely love Tishia’s blog. I love her frankness and her sense of humor. Even though I’ve never met her and she has no idea who I am, I feel as If I’ve known Tishia for years just from reading her blog. Tishia is very open and honest and I love it!

I guess one of Tishia’s other readers doesn’t feel that way and thinks that Tishia is too real when it comes to her blog postings. I agree with Tishia, If you don’t like what’s being written then you should stop reading.

It got me to thinking…do I censor my blog posts? There have been times when I’ve hit the backspace key because I thought that what I was typing was too dorky or not worth reading.

I think personal blogs should be about personal things and anyone who is reading a personal blog should expect that.

Do you have a personal blog? If so, do you find that you censor your blog posts to protect the innocent (your family)? I’ve visited blogs where the children’s faces are blacked out to protect their identity. I think it’s up to the individual whether or not they want to censor their blog.

Do you censor your blog posts at all? If so, what won’t you write about on your blog?

Technorati Tags: Tishia Lee, blogging, personal blogs, censored blogs

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