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It’s Mother’s Day, I’ll rant if I want to

The weather’s been so hot and humid lately, it’s seriously beginning to affect my productivity. I get drowsy in the afternoons and I spend entirely too much time sipping iced tea.

Before you question if I’ve heard of air-conditioning, the answer is yes but in my humble efforts at cost-cutting, I will only resort to it when conditions become somewhat unbearable .

It would be nice if I owned a piece of Winter Park real estate where this would quickly become a non-issue. Then maybe I’ll be complaining that the cold makes it hard to drag myself out of bed in the mornings to get to work on my business.

Hey, it’s Mother’s Day, I’ll rant if I want to .

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mommies out there who work so hard at managing family, kids and home business! Cheers!

Convenience with an online savings account

One of the first things you must do if you’re just starting out in your home business is to open an online Savings Account.

I was a little hesitant myself at first but the more I thought about it, the less I relished the idea of running back and forth to the bank. I’m busy enough as it is.

The thing about an online account with Wamu.com, for instance, is that it’s free and you get free electronic statements as well. In fact, there’s no monthly service charge either if you link your online savings account with your checking account.

There’s also an online overdraft transfer service that you can use to transfer funds between your savings and checking accounts to avoid overdrafts and bounced checks, etc.

You can also easily transfer your funds for ATM withdrawal purposes. I think convenience is definitely a plus point here as some of these features are not offered by other banking facilities.

Many home business owners wear multiple hats, and quite often, we’ll need more than 24 hours a day to accomplish everything we have on our plates. So it’s wise to choose services that can help you save time, money and inconvenience.

Plan ahead for high volume sales days

Today is Mother’s Day and I notice that some stores at the mall seem unable to cope with the demand. There are long lines at checkout, gift-wrapping counters, restaurants and I’m pretty sure some gift items are out of stock.

Mother’s Day is an annual event like Valentine’s and Christmas. A great opportunity to rake in sales. If you want to maximize your sales, you have to plan ahead of time.

Don’t leave it till the sales come pouring in, only to discover you can’t cope with the volume, or worse still, you have to turn customers away. You’ll be losing sales and customers for nothing. Remember people have long memories about bad customer service, so planning is key.

Get some entertainment, learn something new

I confess I don’t spend enough time watching Reality TV Shows. Actually they’re not only a great form of entertainment to take your mind off business for a bit, they’re also a great source of ideas.

Yes, you can actually get new ideas for your business, generate new blogging ideas. I believe there’s always something you can learn something from looking outside your business, even from entertainment.

RealityBug.com has lots of reality shows you can choose from. I definitely need to get offline a little more and I wouldn’t mind it as much if I could it and still gain some useful insights I could possibly apply to business.

Why have your own domain?

If you’re running a business blog on a free blogging platform such as Blogger or Wordpress.com, it’s probably time to think about buying your own domain and getting your own hosting.

Why your own domain?

Because it shows you’re serious enough about your business. Besides, the cost of a domain is pretty affordable these days, and you can host several domains on one hosting account.

Save on international calls

If you’re someone who makes phone calls or travel frequently in your business, overseas calls can get pretty expensive.

But there are many ways you can save on your phone bills and one of them is by using international calling cards. They’re also very convenient to carry around and probably cost less than if you were to use your cell phone.

GetMeCallingCards.com has tons of phone cards, from prepaid cards to rechargeable pinless cards, that you can use to place calls from the US to 153 countries and counting.

Anything that says great quality at low rates with promotional discounts thrown in sounds good to me. Go check them out for yourself.

A great little powerhouse of tools

As many of you know, I use an iPAQ and although I didn’t start out very fond of it because I actually wanted a phone, not a pocket PC, it’s worked out surprisingly well for me.

First off, it’s multi-functional (unlike a regular cell phone) and it does a ton more stuff on the go. It’s a great place to quickly jot down blogging ideas that strike me at the strangest times and places, snap a few pictures, track my appointments, set up my alarms and go online which is something I don’t do very often though. Nice.

Knowing what to do with your money

I was watching some TV interviews of people in high places and it got me wondering just how these folks do their trust and estate planning since they’re obviously doing something right to enjoy their current lifestyle and plan for the future as well.

Then I came across the Northern Trust website. They’re a premier provider of banking, asset management and asset servicing to affluent people and leading institutions worldwide, so it’s possible they are a service that many of these influential business people use.

One look at their site and it’s clear they have financial planning, private and business banking, investment management, even philanthropic services at their fingertips.

That bit about philanthropy caught my eye. I’ve always believed that if you have the good karma to be rich and famous, you should always think about giving back, helping the less fortunate and making the world a better place not only for yourself but for others.

Got a website but what’s the use?

I’ve recently been trying to set up a photographer friend to go on some fashion shoots around town. What’s funny though is that I can’t seem to find much information on the websites of the places where the events are going to be held. Some of them are so old and haven’t been updated in months!

So short of driving to the site and asking for information face-to-face, I really didn’t have a whole lot of options. Strange, isn’t it, that in this day and age of the internet, businesses would set up sites that provide barely any information on what’s going on?

I’m just guessing here, but it could partly be due to the fact that they don’t take online marketing very seriously.

Quality insurance coverage at reasonable prices

I just came across this site that prompted me to remind you guys that even if you work from home, you should still consider purchasing health insurance for yourself and/or your family.

If you go to the Kaiser Permanente site, you can request online for quotes and plans for California health insurance or for any state across the United States.

They’re known for providing quality coverage at reasonable prices. And of course, being able to peruse plans and quotes, ask questions and purchase your plan online really helps those of us who are glued to our computers all day.

So go check them out when you get a chance.