I have had thoughts stirring in my mind for several days now about revamping My Very Own Mail. I actually began pondering it several weeks ago, but, then I received my newest copy of Revenue Magazine in the mail. And that is when things went haywire (in a good way)! I began to completely rethink my business model. The new ideas brewing in my mind were very exciting!

It almost feels like this is the direction my sweet little, fledgling business should have gone in the first place! And now, this morning, reading Seth Godin’s blog post about Vestiges, I am more convinced than ever that I need to make these changes. I hope that I have the strength and the courage to blindly jump off that cliff, and rework my business. There are things I’ve been doing and ideas I’ve been holding strongly to for five years, since I began sending mail to kids.

I think I will have to truly shed some of those old ideas to make the new ones really flourish. It could be wonderfully exciting if I will just ‘Go for it!’

I truly agree, that we are ‘living in a YouTube world’ (an idea I pulled out of Seth’s post) and I think that is where he really got me! I’ve got to do this - I’ve got to let go of any My Very Own Mail vestiges that hinder my progress forward into the ‘YouTube future’!!

Ok, now I’m really getting excited! Thank you, Revenue Mag!! And thank you, Seth Godin!!

Click this darned cute bookworm to keep up with my progress:

I’m always comparing him to Alex P. Keaton, because, he is so obsessed with money. I’ve told him, though, that Alex wore suits all the time. He said, “Oh sure, Mom, I can do that.” Yeah, right! Anyone who knows him knows better than that - he hates dressing up! Haha! I do stress to him about studying and working hard, that’s for sure! Even if they don’t have college degrees, millionaires have a very strong work ethic. That is one thing he’ll have to learn if he wants to be financially successful. Maybe he could go into real estate - there’s good potential in that field. Although I kind of see it as being similar to making it in Hollywood - there are a million fish out there trying it, so you better work your tail off! He could play games like Donald Trump’s Real Estate, just to get a bit of an understanding of what the field is about, while he is so young.

I love having my own business. My Very Own Mail is just my baby and I really enjoy it. And being self-employed is great, because, I don’t even have to worry about stuff like corporate performance management. My work life is a lot simpler than that. It can definitely be a lot of work, but, it is basically pretty simple. Another thing I happily miss out on - office politics. Ick! And you know, they are just everywhere. No place, or even organization, is immune to the vileness of ‘office politics’. Case in point - the year I was PTA president - oh my goodness. You are at the school, volunteering your time, putting in major hours, and people actually get upset with you. It totally blew me away. So now I am just at home, with my personalized letters business and my blogs, and no office and no PTA. It’s pure bliss.

We are definitely living in an exciting time! I’m sure all generations have said that, even my grandmother’s, but, I imagine she would really be in complete wonderment to learn that I work, and earn a living, solely from home - solely online. I used to wish that I was born in a different era. I thought it would be fun to be a teen in the 50’s. I also thought being a flower child must’ve been the coolest thing. But I will tell you now, after my experience these last few years online, I would not in a million years switch places to another time. This time - right now - is so exciting, and being in on a business online in the beginning phases of the internet really changing the shape of everything we do, thrills me to no end. I am definitely glad to be a webpreneur. (See? We even have our own new language!)
And one tool that is absolutely crucial for a webpreneur to have in their bag of tricks, is web conferencing software. That is how we connect with each other and learn from each other. Because even though we may be all working ‘alone at home’, none of us are working alone. There are countless people I could list off the top of my head who’ve helped me get to where I am now, and countless others who will help me even more. And I try to make an effort every day, to help someone else out. That is another really cool thing about online business - there is such a ‘working together’ attitude, that I think, perhaps, has not permeated any other business so completely.

I just attended a web seminar last night, and I learned quite a bit, and more importantly, I connected with a lot of other men and women working towards very similar goals. These connections have been vital to the progression of my success. And they’ve also been extremely satisfying, as I’ve met some wonderful people along the way.

One such company that helps to make these connections possible, prides themselves on not only being business people, but, also, being people people. I really like the sound of that - it just furthers this whole idea I’m talking about - online business owners and their helpful attitude towards each other. The company I’m talking about is The Conference Depot, and the big way that they carry out their ideal is through their Conference Coach concept. Each account is assigned a person to help them out every step of the way as they learn to use the web conference software. Awesome - I love that! So often, with new software, new gadgets, new computers, or whatever - you get stuck and you just can’t get a human to talk to who can help you out!

This is an awesome time to be a part of internet business, and finding all the right tools to help you along the way is very important. The Conference Depot, with their ‘people attitude’, definitely gets my vote!

GO READ A BOOK!

I have been a webmaster, or webmistress, if you will, for a number of years now. I started my personalized letters for children website, My Very Own Mail, back in 2003. Online advertising and traffic generation can be overwhelming responsibilities for webmasters, but, with all of these new consumer-generated advertising networks popping up, things are getting just a bit easier. See, I can purchase some advertising through one of these networks, and then some nice people, who are hopefully awesome bloggers, will get paid to blog about my website. And then I should gain some more traffic and maybe even a few sales from having my name out there more. And even if I don’t make sales from it right away, it’s still good, because, I’m building a name for myself on the web, and gaining some backlinks to my site.

GO READ A BOOK!

Actually, I have been a housewife and stay-at-home-mother for the majority of the past fifteen years. I have ventured online in the past few years, in an effort to make a living online. I have learned quite a bit, but, there really is so much about the business world about which I have no clue. I think if some of the things were just explained to me in more simple terms, as opposed to what I like to call, business ‘brochure language’, I could better understand it. You know what I mean - take company mission statements, for example. Oooh boy! They really lay it on thick there!

A lot of the business stuff that I find confusing is financial in nature, like financial consolidation software. I really have no clue what that is - my only guess relates to personal finances, and I think I am totally on the wrong track with that one.

I remember, back when I was a suit, sliding quite easily into that business ‘brochure language’, but, having been removed from it for so long, I am at a loss with a lot of it.

GO READ A BOOK!