Just for fun

An actual conversation today with a customer who was really fun to chat with:

-Hello! This is SoBeBabies.
-Hi! I was talking to you earlier. About that carrier I asked you about before - did you say the waist band had a stain?
-No, I didn't say anything about a stain. There is no stain.
-(Laughing) I didn't say stain!
-Oh sorry. I picked up the call on my cell phone. What did you say?
-I asked if the waist bands were the same.
-(Kidding now) What's that? Are they in Spain?
-No no! I said, 'Are you insane?'
-No. But thank you for asking!

Mystery Shopping and other scams

This blog entry I just read inspired me to blog about my experiences before I started my business.

I was absolutely desperate for income when I'd been home a few years and we hit rough times. But I didn't want to compromise on being with my little ones. I would not consider daycare. That is not for us. My children will be with me. Otherwise, I just don't see the point. If I was a single mom, that might be different.

So anyway, after a brief stint doing some transcription of focus groups and finding I could not make any money at that, I decided to sign up as a mystery shopper. I found an ad in Mothering Magazine and stupidly thought that made it legit so I started off foolishly - I spend money for who knows what. You can actually sign up for free.

Whatever. Never mind I was beyond broke and we were living off our credit cards. Those scum suckers were happy to steal $50 or so from us.

So that didn't pan out. I then just spent days and days going to mystery shopping websites and signing up. It took forever; some of the applications were quite involved. After all that, many of them had no offices or work in my area. They probably just sold my information.

Whatever.

Finally, work started to come in! Yay! But boo. The work was hard. Very hard. And I was trying to do it with two kids. In the end, I made about $5/hour and was only able to ever make about $40/week. It just wasn't worth it.

They say people can make a six figure income mystery shopping. I doubt that. I suppose if you work your way through some special secret ranking system and start to get better paid jobs, you could. We got a couple of really awful free meals out of it and a bit of cash but the stress just wasn't worth it.

Start a business selling something you love and feel passionate about. So much more rewarding! Or do anything that moves you. But not mystery shopping. Unless you really love it and have a knack for it.

I'm a Hathor Groupie

I love Hathor! Oops, I mean Heather. Well maybe I do mean Hathor as Heather makes it perfectly clear that Hathor is an ideal. Oh heck, I love 'em both. And I am a total groupie. So I can't wait to go to the La Leche League conference and see Heather in real life! Or Hather. I wonder who will actually show up. Whatever. I'm so there!

Cure for shopping addiction

I'm cured! I'm cured!

Okay. I'm not.

But I thought I was! I really did!

Here's the thing. I have always loved shopping. Well I knew that hadn't changed. But a few years back, I found myself a stay at home mom and the shopping got a bit out of hand. We were down to one income and I had loads of free time. A bad formula, to be sure.

Then we relocated and hit some rough financial times. Shopping wasn't an option. Heck, eating was really not an option but we did it anyway.

So then things turned around for us and I realized I was cured of my shopping addiction! I was no longer spending more than my husband's earnings on stuff we could totally do without.

But recently I had an epiphany. I'm not cured at all.

So, why am I not shopping?

I am, actually! It's just that I've channeled it into a more healthy outlet. It turns out that some of the reasons for my shopping addiction have to do with enjoying the hunt and touching new things. Once new things are not so new, I need to move on. (Gee, thank goodness I am not like this about relationships.) Well, since I am the Chief Bottle Washer and Head Executive Buyer for SoBeBabies, I guess that itch is getting scratched without me going out and spending all our disposable income on junk. Plus, it certainly doesn't hurt that I don't have time to shop, not even online. eBay sometimes beckons to me but I seriously can't spare the time.

Email Marketing

I've been working on better utilizing the features of our newsletter email marketing company. Email marketing is very powerful. I should know. I live and breathe the stuff because my husband works at Enflyer! You'd think that would mean that I was using the service to its best possible advantage but of course that's not always the way it works when it's all in the family!

Recently, I've started to make more of an effort to use more of the amazing features I've been paying for. I'm now encouraging more people to sign up to the SoBeBabies mailing list by offering a signup incentive on every page of my website. And I've finally created separate lists so people can pick and choose which list(s) they want to be on. I've noticed people signing up since I added this feature.

I'll have a new email template set up shortly so my mailings will look more like my website. I had a great template but now that I've got a better logo, done by Kimberley, I am loving incorporating it into everything.

Forum again

Oh goodness. This isn't quite the wonderful look and feel I was looking for. I can't believe it. Installing the software to get the forum up and running took seconds and was fine out of the box. Configuring the forum was simple. But trying to find the documentation to make changes to the templates? Not easy. There ought to be some great templates to download and install but they didn't appear in my selections list when I tried this and anyway, there was no description of what they looked like save the name. DJ Glass? What's that supposed to tell me? So I gave up trying to get a template out of the box and started modifying the one that came with it. It was all blue/gray and now it's obnoxious pink and less annoying lavendar. Oh well. This has taken entirely too long and I'm totally winging it at this point so I'm gonna leave the poor thing as is and work on something more pressing for now.

forum!

I just set up a forum on my website! Pretty cool stuff! Now to figure out how to change the style to match the SoBeBabies look.

Entrepreneurs don't sleep

It's a dirty little secret, or perhaps, not such a secret. Here it is, 4:18 in the morning, and I am about ready to call it quits. Yesterday, after a very full day with the girls, I got to work in the evening on some website enhancements.

As with all new things, there was a learning curve. One brilliant email from a friend got me on track with creating animated gifs in Photoshop and a brilliant hour or two spent with my husband, who works at Enflyer, got me on track with my mailing list signup sheet. And now, if you go to my website, you'll see a pretty little rotating gif that allows you sign up to my mailing list. In fact, there are going to be multiple lists going forward. Dear sweet hubbie is gonna help me get that properly configured soon. I hope.

Meanwhile, there is a display issue that irritates me so I've got a message up on a help forum about that. It's always something. And now, should I go to sleep, finally, or is it about time for breakfast? I'm starved!

A little fun

Yesterday, I got an email offer from Adobe to upgrade from Photoshop Elements to Photoshop CS2 for $299 and I clicked on that link so fast! I have never been able to correctly create animated gifs in Photoshop Elements; the animation was always fixed at .01 seconds. I called and spent hours and hours on the phone with Adobe and got them to reproduce the issue but it just never got resolved. It was mostly because I so desperately wanted animated gifs that I forked out the money for Photoshop Elements in the first place. Sure, it did to other useful stuff, but this was a huge issue.

It took me about 2 hours to track it down but I did finally figure out how to do animated gifs in CS2! So here is my first properly slowed down animated gif, actually viewable by the naked human eye!

P'kolino Play Table Dadlabs.com video

This video from Dadlabs demonstrates the P'kolino Play Table and also the toy version. When I went to JMPA, I met Antonio (featured in the video) and my daughter got to play with the toy size and full size Play Table. Antonio was so taken with her because he had never seen any child of any age correctly use the demo version of the Play Table. She kept going back again and again to the P'kolino display. She especially enjoyed corresponding the demo version to the full size version.

To be honest, I was not sure I was going to start carrying furniture at SoBeBabies. After seeing how my daughter interacted with the P'kolino furniture and other toys, I knew I'd be a fool to not take advantage and stock these wonderful items. We are in the process of getting them set up at our home and my girls really adore this stuff. And so do I! Our ottoman came yesterday and my husband was thrilled. My daughters are having such a blast with this stuff!

P'kolino Furniture

I am so psyched! We got the first of our P'kolino furniture in and the girls absolutely love it. They fought over the Klick for the first day. The second day, they fought over the Silly Soft Seating. Thank goodness all is peaceful here again!

I was surprised that my older daughter, nearly 8, fit perfectly in the Klick. It looks like she'll be able to enjoy it for a bit and I'll be getting some larger furniture for her shortly.

They both adore the crayons and sharpener. We are still waiting for the rest of the items.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

SoBeBabies makes every effort to limit our environmental impact. That is somewhat ironic in that shipping in and of itself is resource intensive, but for many of the items we stock, the only way to get them is online. We do some sales in person and will perhaps open a physical boutique...read more

Englacha II - a Sneak Peek!

Oh wow! This isn't quite out yet but have a look at the new Englacha Baby Stroller! This stroller is so cool! Ever walking and your baby is in the sun and there is nothing you can do about it? Poof! Here is the solution! Just turn the top part so your baby can face away from the sun and you keep walking! Nifty, yes?