The Small Business Enterprise Centre (SBEC) and kitestring are offering up a smorgasbord of branding expertise in three delicious picnic sessions. These three sessions run on February 9, February 16 and February 23 from 5:00 to 8:00pm. The first session, “Gathering Ingredients”, will help you understand how to properly assemble your own brand and learn a fresh philosophy about how to communicate through social media. Second you’ll need to get “In the Kitchen” and define your brand online using the ingredients you’ve gathered. And lastly, your brand will go “To Market, To Market” by collectively developing a fully integrated campaign platform that engages your brand’s target audience through social media. Join in on the (educational) fun by pre-registering with the SBEC by calling 905.540.6400 or send them an email at mail@hamiltonsmallbusiness.ca.

I am a business owner. I am a mom. I am a wife. I am an individual. Balanced? I am not!

We all know that there’s a mountain of information, discussions, blog posts and magazine articles out there in the quest of finding a work/life balance. So, I thought I would throw my two cents into wishing fountain and talk about how I think it’s an impossible quest.

I’ve done my best to put some basic structure into my life to ensure that one day doesn’t blur into another. I go to the office 5 days a week. I spend quality time with my son after work. I do my best to put work aside on the weekend and spend time with my family.

Note, nowhere in the above list do I mention where I maintain our house, have a hobby, hang out with friends (or my husband for that matter) or attend business functions.

Oh, did I mention that my husband is a tradesmen and, typically works 18+ hour days in the summer?

Please, don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining. I quite enjoy the fast paced, craziness that is my life. I chose all of the roles that I find myself juggling each day.  Of course, there are days that I wish I walked into a clean, un-cluttered house. There are days at work that I wish I was at home. There are days at home that I wish I was at work.  Life isn’t perfect. But, let’s face it – if we lived with a perfectly scheduled and balanced day, well, we’d all be pretty bored!

Disagree? Believe you’ve found the secret recipe for balance between your work and life? Let me know! Until then, I’ll continue on – content with the idea that maybe having toys scattered over the living room floor while I work on my laptop and chit-chat with my husband about his day is okay.

-jenn

Chris and I had the pleasure of meeting with a potential client this morning. During our conversation, the idea of ‘building your business success on your own terms’ came up. I actually jotted this line into my notebook as it really stuck with me – what an important concept!

Often new entrepreneurs are faced with the necessity of taking on any work that comes their way in order to build the business – it may be outside of your area of specialty  and it may be for clients that frankly, aren’t fitting into the landscape of what you envisioned. You can’t turn it down, right? YOU NEED THE BUSINESS!

It’s easy to understand this logic and quite honestly, it is most likely necessary. It provides you with work, a track-record and most importantly, capital to keep building your dream. The important thing to remember as you’ smile and service’ your way through these projects is that all of these ‘experiences’ help you define and build your business – and your brand.

Continue to build a strong brand that clearly articulates what your business is and the experience that you promise to your clients. Most importantly, infuse all of this into the marketplace! Ensure that your unique brand is being consistently used in all of your marketing materials (both in print and online) as well as your social networking efforts, face-to-face interactions, your physical environment, the style in which you answer the phone, your business card…I could go on and on.

By doing this, you’ll have your first filter in qualifying clients. The right clients will be naturally attracted to you. Your cultures will align, the work will excite you and TA-DA – you’ll start to build ‘success on your own terms’.

It’s a lovely place to be – you should try it!

- jenn

I’m not a bookkeeper. I don’t like bookkeeping, I’m not trained as a bookkeeper and, I’m certainly not good at bookkeeping. Believe me – you do not want me in charge of bookkeeping!

So, how does our bookkeeping get done? We hired a bookkeeper!

Too often, entrepreneurs take on all of the functions involved in managing and growing their business – bookkeeping, purchasing, marketing, sales – you name it, there’s a hat in your closet for it!

The problem is – you’ll spend so much time on trying to do the things that you’re not so great at that you’ll have no time to add real value using your real skill set.

My point? Use your core skills to contribute to the business most effectively. Whether it be a bookkeeper, lawyer or marketing firm, find the right partners to help you with the areas that you’ll just end up wasting your very precious time on. After all, your business deserves the best!

- jenn

The holiday season is just around the corner. Have you started your shopping yet? Jenn was telling me today, on the way to a client meeting in TO, that she is almost done all her shopping for her little guy Jack. I haven’t even started to think about it yet. Maybe I better.

What about you? Have you started your Holiday shopping yet? We’ll I have a few links for you to help find just the right thing for that little person in your life. And they are all my clients!

Hit the read more button to get-a-shoppin’!

As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time building our business plan and perfecting our product or service. Of course, these are both super important but as Dragon’s Den Arlene Dickinson notes, branding is also an essential piece of a successful business.

Have a listen to Arlene’s podcast on the importance of building a solid brand strategy.

http://www.kpmg.ca/en/services/enterprise/dd_podcasts/dd_10_23_2009.mp3

Happy Listening!

-jenn

We are! Meg and Chris from kitestring will be at Supercrawl this Friday. We will be handing out big prizes. BIG prizes. Make sure you spot us in the crowd. We will be wearing our underpants so it won’t be that hard !

Check it out!

See you there!

It was actually soon after the birth of my son, Jack, when I started down the path of opening my own design firm. I felt that if I was going to make the leap, now was the time. One of the most desirable aspects of being an entrepreneur was the flexibility to have the time my son that I wanted while still maintaining a rewarding career.

I’ve almost been back to work for a year now and, I must admit, it’s taken a lot of trial and error to get this new ‘family machine’ working smoothly. It seems as though I’m on a constant quest for balance between work and family. Throw in a week of work travel for my husband, business functions after work or a sick little boy and everything can quickly turn upside down. Luckily, I have great people behind me that bring support and sanity, when I need it most.

It’s certainly a challenge but, in the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

- jenn

Check out the following article on how mompreneurs are making an impact on the business community:

http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/409934

If you are using Twitter for business, or fun, don’t forget to add yourself to we follow, a Twitter user directory.

You get three tags you can associate to your Twitter profile, and it allows people to search for you in a different way.