Day 1 What happened today?

[PillowThrowDecor]

Go ahead and brag right here.

[twiddlebeads]

Thanks for doing this bootcamp again!  I thought about doing the first one and got too nervous.  I have been making jewelry for about 2 years to the day, and have sold among friends and at a few home shows, but am really looking for a kick on getting online...I graduated in Business and work in Corporate America everyday, so you'd think the business aspect of this would be easy for me, but I feel like there is so much to consider that it gets overwhelming and I do nothing!  

I already had my business cards created, but I joined twitter today which was cool.  

I'm looking forward to this next month - thanks again!

[CanadianRockiesArt]

Hi! I'm new to this Bootcamp, so I hope I'm going to be doing this correctly

Wow, that was an awesome 1st day list of things to do... Here's what I have so far:

1) I already had just my main portal link  in my Outlook Email (I have a splash page that redirects traffic to my own website, my blog and my Etsy shop, which are my main selling venues at the moment.

I edited that signature to add in my iCraft shop, as well as my other selling venues (Ruby Lane, Artfire) under a "Shop with me at your favorite online venue", as well as links to my Twitter and Facebook fanpage. Long signature, but it helps to get the word out.


2) I listed my main website (could not list the iCraft shop unfortunately) on an Alberta Business Directory, because they require 'reciprocal links' and they need the URL of where you put that link back to them on your site and that's not possible to do this here. So I had to use my own website to list on there. It's free and it's pending approval, so we'll see what happens.

I was wondering if we're allowed to list on local Craiglist? Not sure under what category however... I looked under small bus. listings but it doesn't look like I could belong in that section and the jewelry section is mainly for people selling off jewelry they don't wear anymore, not for a 'shop' advertising.


3) I already have a twitter account and I use it a lot: @canadianrockies - follow me if you'd like

4) I use Vistaprint.ca (not .com) for my business cards and I have plenty on hand, so I'm all set with that

5) Gonna have to think about these great questions.

6) I'm reporting here on what happened so far

LOVE IT!

Cheers,
Nathalie in Calgary

[PillowThrowDecor]

Hey Twiddlebeads!

So glad you are on board.

I have to laugh when I see others "get overwhelmed and do nothing".  It's called diddling of which I am a master so we all have much in common here. I just blogged about diddling and how Bootcamp will pull us out of it.

That's ok.  At least we are all keeners and we want our business to grow.

I would love for any followers to sign up and leave a comment on my post and.... anyone else, from today on, that has blogged leave a link here so that we can all follow you and leave comments.  That builds SEO!
http://www.pillowthrowdecor.blogspot.com/

Cheers
Christine
https://icraftgifts.com/pillowthrowdecor[/url]

[CanadianRockiesArt]

I'm following you now and posted on your blog post (great!)

My blog (typepad):

http://canadianrockiesart.typepad.com/canadian-rockies-art/

Had too many problems with blogger that I ended up switching to Typepad.

Cheers,
Nathalie

[PillowThrowDecor]

Hey CanadianRockiesArt!

That's an impressive list of accomplishments on your first day of Bootcamp.

Good thinking about getting your shop on that Alberta Directory and yes yes yes list on Craig's List in your local area.  we will be doing that also and some sellers did get sales from their Crags list views.  I think you have to be a little low key in your "shop promo" .  It seemed that there was more flexibility in some other areas than in other.  I would leave my email as pillowthrowdecor (at) gmail (dot) com and talked about my online store but no links. It didn't seem to be a problem.  

Everyone Please post links to your blogs and twitter, etc so it makes it easy to link to you as we are reading from you!

How exciting to see you are from Calgary Canada! Yayyyyy!  Happy Canada Day.

Cheers
Christine

[PillowThrowDecor]

BTW... all of our Bootcamp posts are on a FEED to Twitter so lets stretch our imagination a bit and write really compelling subject lines as this one has.  

I think I am a terribly interesting.... you would be too if you sat all day in front of a computer or a sewing machine in your PJ's.

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[CanadianRockiesArt]

Wow, I didn't realise that this was on twitter feed... cool.... and I used a title this time to my post

I upgraded my iCraft account to have up to 50 items in my shop. I'm uploading 5 for now and will upload new things throughout the coming week or two.

My twitter:
http://twitter.com/canadianrockies

Back to listing then work in my studio! (got a wholesale order confirmed today and a custom sale too, me happy!)

[PillowThrowDecor]

the link didn't work so I am trying this again for you so we can easily follow you.

http://twitter.com/canadianrockies

Yup it works now.

BTW... you can go back and edit your posts as there is a little edit button in the top right hand corner.

My edit and delete buttons are pretty worn out

[CanadianRockiesArt]

fixed it... sorry! and thanks!

[PillowThrowDecor]

I am following http://twitter.com/UnikCreations2C

Click on the link and follow too.

[ImpawsibleToResist]

Got started late in the day but fixed my email siggy and tweaked twitter. Alas Twitter will not let me open an account in my shop name. It is too long - Impawsible To Resist. I did not like impawsibletores. Then I remembered that was why i used impaws instead.

I definitely want to do something about the look of my shop. I want a more dynamic WOW factor banner. Doing the best I can with photos and scans.

Does anyone else have trouble with reds? (see my red arm warmers).

How many items can I make and list in the next 28 days? Depends on what I make perhaps 10.

How many sales do I want  150

May add leg warmers, note cards, tags, miniatures and dolls.

Buyer is an adult of either sex, any occ. any age.

Sometimes I want to tweak everything, others leave it all alone.

Network procratination? I tweet, I blog, I don't know.

Admire - oh yes, From Japan with Love on Etsy - she has a special niche and 1000s of sales.

Tweetme: impaws
Shop: icraftgifts.com/impawsibletoresist
Blogs: http://impawsibletoresist.blogspot.com; http://themagickalewe.blogspot.com

[Naturliche]

Hi all!
Happy Canada Day!

I updated my profile page to take down the indie smiles promo.
I am going to log into my email and add the signatures.
I have biz cards already & have them and sample lip balms in my purse pretty much at all times.

Going throught the list of Questions & giving it a good "think" ~ looking at my "real life" schedule and seeing how it can all fit in.  I would defintately like to add some balms, salves, scrubs and lotion bars/sticks to my store.

I also want to think about getting my own website up and running, and getting a more colorful avatar & banner up too.  Not sure how quick that's going to happen, but its in the works.

Taking it easy today - lots of stuff to do at home.

Oh, and on a personal level, I bought some "sleeper" earrings from the drugstore and put them in today.  I've had pierced ears since I was in the 2nd grade but haven't worn earrings for over 10 years.  I've been drooling over all the beautiful jewelry on this site and i'm getting my ears ready for some sparklys!  Thank you for the inspiration!!

[PillowThrowDecor]

http://twitter.com/impaws now we can all send a tweet to you

[PillowThrowDecor]

Got started late in the day but fixed my email siggy and tweaked twitter. Alas Twitter will not let me open an account in my shop name. It is too long - Impawsible To Resist. I did not like impawsibletores. Then I remembered that was why i used impaws instead.

I definitely want to do something about the look of my shop. I want a more dynamic WOW factor banner. Doing the best I can with photos and scans.

Does anyone else have trouble with reds? (see my red arm warmers).

Tweetme: impaws
Shop: icraftgifts.com/impawsibletoresist
Blogs: http://impawsibletoresist.blogspot.com; http://themagickalewe.blogspot.com

hey Impaws.... you should check out PolkaDot Pixels.  She is one of our sponsors which you will see her logo on our sponsor list


She did mine and a number of bootcampers and what a super job! and good prices.  Sometimes it is just more efficient use of our time to do what we do best.  Check her out

http://polkadotpixels.com/