A Break from Business Planning...

So this year is our tenth anniversary, so I told Mike a while ago that I'd like to have a honeymoon for our 10th anniversary.  So we decided on Hawaii and I started polling friends and family on where the best place in Hawaii would be.  From what I heard, it sounded like we really couldn't go wrong.  But knowing how Mike is on crowds and touristy things, we narrowed down to Kauai and I decided to start looking into lodging.  Teri put me on to VRBO.com (vacation rentals by owner) and I looked at a few, then found a little house near Poipu.  I sent in an inquiry and got a response yesterday.  So, it looks like we are going to Kauai for 8 days in May!  Woohoo!  I am so excited!  Funny enough, I will only be home for a week after that before I am off to Las Vegas for the World Tea Expo.  May and June will be busy!

Business Class #8 - Invoice and Expense Tracking

Last class in the series and last one with the SBDC for a while.  Nehal was here again and after talking to him, we found we have a mutual friend that works at HP with him.  Very nice.

So this was on invoicing.  This was somewhat useful but I think I may use a program like Quickbooks.  That will be the next class I sign up for with the SBDC I think.  And I'll drag Mom along with me.  She can help with my bookkeeping.  :)

Business Class #7 - Email Marketing

Today's class was number 3 in the series; and it was all about email marketing.  I have seen Constant Contact, iContact, and a few others but this one introduced us to MailChimp.  I signed up as soon as I got home and realized I have nothing to market as of yet.  Ah well, I will eventually.

Anyway, we went through the ins and outs of managing a client list, importing it with a .csv file, writing a marketing email and sending it.  Very useful.  I am enjoying the exercises and like that they are practical.  The instructor Nehal has been very helpful and the materials are easy to follow.  I'll keep you posted as to how I use this stuff in the future.

Business Class #6 - Presentations

Today was the second class in the series of business classes.  Today's subject was Presentations such as for presentation to a loan officer in preparation for applying for a loan.  Again, it was informative in that there was good information although this probably more than the rest was repetition for me since I did presentations all the time for work.  Knowledge and practice is always good, though and it helps to keep polished.

Most of the same people were in this class as were in the first in the series.  It's nice to see the same faces and encourage each other on ventures.  The diversity in plans is pretty interesting.  There is everything from funeral planning, event planning, herbal distribution, and at least one person who is taking classes after having been in business for a while.

Business Class #5 - Managing Business Finances

Who knew that a class about finances could be interesting???  There was of course all the boring info about balance sheets, profit and loss statements and all that (necessary but very dryyyyyyy) but it was all kept very interesting by the instructor but if anything, I am even more intimidated...all will come in time though.

Clyde didn't teach this class, but his colleague did and he was great.  He made it fun to sit and talk about that stuff.  One thing I learned is that you can get really crazy complicated with your finances, but the trick is to work at keeping it simple.  Only complicate it enough to include what you need, but nothing else...in other words, KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

Business Class #4 - Website Management

So when I signed up for all these classes, I signed up for a series involving digital media management.  This one is about website management.  Mike, of course, pshawed at the idea behing the whole series because each one seeme dlike something I already know it that would be unnecessary.   So for this one, it is because he is my website admin and I didn't really need something like that because I had him.  I went anyway because I was curious what they might have to say.  I'm glad I did because this wasn't design so much as minor changes on the fly.

Mike has a day job and if I came to him on a busy day because some seemingly minor change in wording needed to be made, he would put me off and if that minor bit of wording were say, a note about a sale, it could really affect the business.  So this was a good backdoor way for me to go in and make minor changes.

The class was run by a really cute guy who works for HP.  And Mike still pshawed at the class when I showed him the exercises...but oh well.  I enjoyed it.  :)

Business Class #3 - Business Plan Guidelines

This class was a really good one!  It was an all day course and a lot of the people from the first class were there.  Clyde was the teacher again and he had some really great information.  He also sent us all home with a flash drive with some worksheets and templates.  I looked at them and they will be a good place to start when I start writing. 

I am a little intimidated by the amount of research that needs to be done.  One of the bits of advice that Clyde gave is to go sit in some comparable shops around town and see what it's like.  Mike wants me to expand on that and explore all the shops in the area and visit them all several times during the week.  I know that I need to know what that information looks like, but it's still intimidating!  LOL