Profiled: Planning for Babe

From this week onwards, we're going to be profiling a different young entrepreneur on our blog every week! There's so many amazing young people that we meet, out there doing some really cool and inspiring things with their time and business skills - so we want to inspire you too!

This week we're profiling Amanda Jephtha, Founder of Plannng For Babe.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the choice in baby products and services? Do you simply have no time to thoroughly research and decide which is best? Planning for Babe's baby planners exclusively tailor the most suitable baby products and services to your individual needs and lifestyle - like a wedding planner to a wedding. Planning for Babe gives you the most important luxury - the gift of time and confidence to enjoy your pregnancy.

Sounds like a great idea to me! It's awesome to see someone who spotted a market niche and acted on it!

To find out more, check out http://planningforbabe.com/ or e-mail Amanda at

amanda@planningforbabe.com.au

TOP 5 PITFALLS TO WATCH OUT FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENUERS JUST STARTING OUT

There is no such thing as a mistake, just mis-takes! So learn from them
and keep going. But watch out for:

1. MANAGE YOUR TIME
You still have to do your homework, sport, chores, friends, families - so manage your time to fit it all in. Use timetables and checklists.

2. DON'T BREAK THE LAW
Do your research, ask around and make sure you don't do something really wrong! There is still a lot of room for your awesome ideas, within the law!

3. GET THINGS IN WRITING
Any agreements you make with friends, family, customers, suppliers etc you should get in writing, contracts, quotes, prices, what you will deliver etc, to protect yourself and others.

4. CAREFULLY MANAGE YOUR MONEY
You have worked hard to make it, so look after it! It’s very easy to just go out and blow it all on yourself, but then how will your business have its doors open tomorrow for you to make more money?? So put aside money for bills and costs before you pay yourself, avoid debt early on, and regularly check your cashflow and where your money is coming from. Also shop around for the best bank account so that all your hard earned dosh is not being taken in charges!

5. DON'T STOP IF YOU FAIL
Failure is not a bad thing - ask any successful young person in business and they will tell you that failure and mistakes is what got them to where they are now! Work out why it didn't work, how it can be improved, learn and then try again.

TOP 5 TIPS FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS JUST STARTING OUT

1. BE EXCITED & interested in your business idea
It takes a lot of hard work to make your idea happen so you want to make sure you really
enjoy it, whether it is food, computers, helping people, service etc, and your excitement
attracts people too! Being excited and energetic comes easy to young people, so use that
to your advantage.

2. GET YOUR IDEAS ON PAPER
This will help you get structure to your idea, plan things out, you can show it to others, and
it will show you where to start. Keep it simple.

3. DO SOME RESEARCH
It doesn't need to be too much, just enough to get you started. Research costs, prices to
charge, what competitors are doing, what customers want, legalities etc.

4. START SMALL
Just build yourself 1 customer at a time, this way you don't need much money to start with
at all. Just make a small profit each time so that you can keep going, and get a little better
next time.

5. JUST GIVE IT A GO!
The easiest thing to do is to have a great idea, the hardest thing to do is to actually give it
a go and do something about it, and by giving it a go you will learn a lot about yourself
and money. So just get started, NOW!

Is Work Causing you to Stress?

If you’re feeling irritable at work, you can't sleep, you’re taking days off and you can't concentrate, chances are you’re suffering from work stress. The nature of work has gone through drastic changes over the last century and it’s still changing at whirlwind speed... and with change often comes stress!

What are the signs of work stress?
Typical symptoms of stress can be: insomnia; loss of mental concentration; anxiety; absenteeism; depression; substance abuse; extreme anger and frustration; family conflict; physical illness; headaches; and, stomach and back problems.

What can cause stress?
Some of the most obvious causes of workplace stress are: high demand for performance; job
insecurity; coping with technology; workplace culture; personal or family problems; and mental or physical harassment in the workplace.

The good news is, you can do something about it!

In today's biz climate, you need to be continually prepared for changes to avoid stress ...
SO:
o Find and protect whatever time you get to refresh, re-energise and re-motivate yourself.
o Be and feel happy by giving up negative mental behaviours such as fear, anger and revengeful
attitudes, which actually encourage stress. Instead try holistic relaxation such as meditation, breathing and exercises.
o Celebrate your own or your work mates accomplishments; however big or small!
o Re-evaluate your goals and prioritise them.
o Evaluate the demands placed on you and see how they fit in with your goals.
o Identify stressors in your life, such as work, or family. Get the support of your friends, family and even counselling to help reduce your stress.
o Ensure that you’re following a healthy lifestyle:
1. You’re getting enough sleep to keep your energy levels up
2. You’re eating a healthy, balanced diet
3. And try to recognise your spiritual needs - do you believe in what you are working for?
o Give yourself a break! Switch to another area within your organisation. If you come back later, you may find that you’ve started to enjoy the work again, and can take on only those commitments that you want. You may, however, find that you have absolutely no interest in continuing with what you’re doing. In which case, it may be best to drop it altogether.
o Exercise! Join a gym or get involved with a local sports team. If you’re feeling highly stressed and deeply de-motivated with your job or life - get into action today!

Adapted from an article at www.lifepositive.com

Congrats to Fred Schebesta and Callan Taylor - winners of 30under30!

Here at The FRANK Team, we'd love to extend a big CONGRATULATIONS to Callan Taylor (our SA facilitator) and Fred Schebesta (Director and occasional guest speaker/article contributor), who have been named as winners in Australian Anthill's 30under30 competition! This is for their amazing entrepreneurship, unique business ideas and approach, and ongoing great work! Keep it up :)

10 Secrets to Marketing Your Business Online

10 secrets to marketing small business online

Being online levels the playing field, as, big or small,everyone has the same chance to attract customers.

By following some basic principles, you can receive the same coverage as major players and see your business take off using savvy, affordable marketing.

1. Create a Website of course! - Without a web presence you don't exist online. So the first and most obvious step is to create one! The key to keeping customers happy in the online environment is to design a website that is both aesthetically and functionally pleasing. When you’re designing your website, create a situation where every page drives a consumer action and generates a sales lead for your business.
2. Convert Visitors to Leads - To turn your website from a passive, "brochure-ware" site that delivers a lot of information but doesn't deliver results, you need to refocus your strategy from delivering free information and content, to providing relevant content that drives consumer action. Supplying information is both necessary and helpful to readers and handy in raising your search engine rankings. Always ask yourself, "what is my call to action" - these can take the form of links to downloads, requesting consumer information, advertising, offers or promotions. At the very least, encourage users to make contact with you, either by phone or email.
3. Build Trust & Credibility - Being open and transparent is crucial to success in online marketing. Prove you are a concrete, reliable business by including as many of the following as possible: clear contact details including a physical address and landline phone number, photos and images of employees, location and equipment, third party endorsements and verification of your authenticity including ‘approved’ stamps and/or testimonials. Also, be sure to reply to all contact enquiries promptly with an acknowledgement of emails sent by users and/or response to phone messages.
4. Search Engine Leads - the first step to finding what you need on the internet is running a search on a company name, product name, service or activity. Research shows that high search engine rankings are a major predictor of online business success. After 30 results, users stop looking, so it’s vital you sit within this top percentile. So to optimise your business’ search engine ranking, use search engine optimisation (ie: having key words associated with the content on your
site so people find you when searching) and search engine marketing (you can pay to have your site link featured on the right hand side of search results pages).
5. Email Market/eDM - The power of online can be summed up by email marketing. It’s a cost-effective, efficient, traceable, relationship-building tool for regularly communicating with your existing and potential consumers. We have all heard of the 80:20 rule in marketing: 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. Email marketing is the easiest way to continue an ongoing, targeted dialogue with them. 5 top secrets for Email Marketing Success are: regularity, short punchy content, calls to action, personalisation, and maintaining a clean list (database).
6. Affiliate Market - As well as buying listings in search engine results, you can buy or trade listings on relevant directories and/or cross-promotional websites. Reciprocal link-backs improve both websites' natural search engine listings.
7. Partnerships & Links - As with affiliate marketing, the success of this tactic lies in increasing your exposure through both cross-promotion on related websites, and also through upping your search engine listing thanks to increased link-backs. There are many avenues to increasing your presence, for free or at a low cost on related websites. Submit articles to other websites and free PR websites, submit sites to directories, buy links, buy partnerships e.g.
Emailcash, List on Shopferret and price comparision websites.
8. Blogging - Running a business, you are clearly an expert in your field. Invite potential and current customers to share your expertise and get a taste of how your knowledge will positively impact them, by creating a blog. Blogs create a community around those with common interests and become a tool for sharing and developing ideas. Their major advantage is creating an open, accessible channel to boost consumer involvement. They can be used to encourage trials,
conduct on-the-ground research, and develop ongoing customer relationships. Plus there’s stacks of software online to set up your blog - all for free! We use www.blogger.com but there’s a huge range out there to choose from.
9. Email Signature - Think about how many emails you send out each day, each week, each month. Now multiply that by the emails sent by your employees and/or subcontractors. Every one of those emails is an opportunity to market your business. As well as including your standard contact details, and always, always your website URL; the smart online marketer also uses this opportunity to promote their latest offer, promotion, or release. Alternately it can be used to build your brand identity or value-add to consumers, and grow your relationships.
10. Track & Respond - Every web host keeps detailed statistics of activities occurring on your website; from the number of visitors, to downloads, where people landed and left the site,how long they stayed, to where they spent most of their time. Analyse this information and use it to continually improve your site's performance based on this silent customer feedback. The beauty of the Internet is that you can change your marketing and track its effects immediately. If something is working, stick with it. If not, change it again.

Going Forward
While you may not have the financial resources of the big guns, you do share access to the same technology: online. Use it to your advantage, and watch your small business grow!

This article was provided by Fred Schebesta, Director of Freestyle Media.

The FRANK Team is now hiring!

The FRANK Team Facilitator

WANTED: enterprising young people and young entrepreneurs to run career, business and community workshops for young people in metro Victoria, NSW and the ACT!

SPECIFICALLY WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

- Victoria; one female facilitator who runs their own business.

- NSW; one male and one female facilitator, at least one who runs their own business.

- ACT; one male and one female facilitator, at least one who runs their own business.

MUST HAVE:

Facilitation and/or training experience

Awesome presentation skills

Inspiring, energetic attitude

Experience in running a business AND/OR

Experience in running community projects, being involved at a community level AND/OR

A track record of achievements (e.g. excelling in your career)

For the full job description please email anna@frankteam.com.au or call 02 9966 4333.

Look forward to hearing from you!