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5 Mompreneur Tips as You Prepare for School to Start Back

Mother With Baby Working In Office At Home

Mompreneur taking care of business and baby!

It’s that time of year for many of us in the US. The time of year to get the kiddos prepare for back to school. As Mompreneurs, it changes our routine completely. We are going from the lazy days of summer to the hustle and bustle of after school activities, making lunches, and last minute projects.

Here are a few tips to get ahead of the curve:

1. Load your calendar now – Many schools have already sent out their calendar for the year that includes days off, holidays, and other special days to remember.  If you have kids at multiple schools like I do, this task may take a little while.  But trust me, you will be glad that you took the time now as oppose to waiting until later on when school starts.

2. Load your contacts now – If you have contacts related to your kids school(s), load them in to your contact list now. From the main school number to the nurse line, it will be helpful to have all of this up-to-date in your address book. Also, I like to keep the email addresses of the principals and counselors in my address book too.

3. Stock up on school supplies now –  This time of year is the cheapest that school supplies will be. Stock up and figure out a way to keep them organized. Target has a really cool plastic shelving system that I am thinking about getting this year. I hate buying the supplies and not being able to find them in a few months.

4. Include your kids in your business if you can – This is not always easy to do (depending on the age of your kids), but they will love it.  My kids enjoy video editing and social media. These are areas that I can teach them how to help out. This is also a way that they can earn a little extra money.

5. PrePlan your meals – Get in the habit of planning your meals ahead of time. This is something that I do not do yet, but I plan on doing it. I find that I spend a lot of extra time thinking about new meals that I can prepare that are healthy and that I have all of the ingredients for in my pantry. So, if I plan well on Sunday, it is something that I will not have to worry about the rest of the week.

I am sure that there are several more tips that can be added to this list. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Scanning on the Go 

Scanner Pro LogoIn keeping with our app review series, we have turned our attention to scanning documents and creating PDFs. How often are you away from your office and in need of the ability to scan a document on the go? Although  there are numerous office stores that you can utilize, if you are like us we do not like wasting the time when there is another option.

According to Global Workplace Analytics, teleworking has increased by 80% since 2005. Another interesting stat is that 2.8 million people now consider themselves self-employed and that there primary place of work is a home office. That being said, this app is a great one for many people that truly work within a mobile office situation. When you are working from your mobile office, carrying around a tool that scans is not always feasible. When they say there is an app for everything, there truly is an app for everything.

The app Scanner Pro is 2.99 and designed for both the iPhone and the iPad. The app is developed by the very experienced Readdle team. They have a number of productivity apps that they say have been download over 40 million times. The app is very user friendly. The guides within the app ensure that you get a pretty good scan the first time.

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Give this app a try and let us know if it helps you out with the scans that you have to create.

The Future of Marketing

Businesswoman standing on a ladder looking through binocularsWhen you sit and think about the direction that marketing is going in, you can’t leave out social and mobile. I think that we all can agree that it is not a passing fad. A marketing/pr strategic plan that does not include these two elements is doomed for mediocracy.

The future winners will be those that can develop super creative content that can break through all of the clutter. Right now agencies are losing talented, out of the box thinking people to the Facebook’s and Google’s of the world. I think the future will be such that many big brands move away from the BIG agencies. The creative genius can now be found in freelancers, smaller agencies, and proper development of internal staff.

Here is a great article about Keith Weed’s, chief marketing for the Unilever brand, view on the future of marketing.

What do you see about the future of marketing/pr? Are BIG agencies going to remain the staple for BIG brands? Can brands train their own people do that they can save a chunk of their budget?

Saying No to the Niche: Throwing Conventional Wisdom Out of the Door

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One of my favorite chats on Twitter is #Blogchat which is hosted by Mack Collier. This chat is full of great nuggets that you can immediately apply to your blog.  The topics vary and the thought leaders that drop in are extremely helpful.  I would highly recommend this chat to anyone that is looking to monetize their blog.

One of the ideas that came out of the most recent #Blogchat was the notion that one should pick their niche to focus on within their business. I had to think twice about if I was in agreement with this idea or not.  I recognize that conventional wisdom would tell you that you can not be great at everything.  Although studying and mastering one topic is a novel idea, but is just not one that I see as beneficial to my clients.  I look at my client roster and think that they need someone who knows how to develop a strategic marketing communication plan, a social media strategy, out of this world events, and being able to speak to the media on their behalf if that is necessary.  I don’t think that a client should feel the need to hire multiple consultants to cover their marketing needs.  I do understand that one person can not literally know everything.  For example, I am not a graphic designer and I recognize that is a service that I will have to hire out for if a client has that need.  I am also not a website designer, but I can provide top notch strategic counsel to someone that needs to develop content flow on their site (to bad I do not have enough time to work on my own site).

Another person that I enjoy learning from is Marie Forleo .  She recently sent out her video to launch her upcoming B-School.  One of the ideas that she mentioned was that she is of the mindset that it is great to be a ‘multipassionate entrepreneur.’ She feels like this idea of designating a niche is completely wrong for some people. (How timely?!?) The comments agreeing with this thought process were in the hundreds (if you have time, take a look at her site). Not that I was planning on changing my mind once I had thought this through, but this video made it even better that someone else that is very successful feels the same way.

I would absolutely love to hear your feedback on this topic.  Do you believe that someone should pick a niche and stick with it or do you think someone can be great at being a generalist? My gut feeling tells me that the answers will probably be slightly generational in nature.  Just a hunch!