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EPnews -- from The Entrepreneurial Parent
a work-family resource for home-based entrepreneurs
@ http://www.en-parent.com
February 14, 2001
Lisa Roberts, Editor:
epideas@en-parent.com
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_______________CONTENTS_______________
- ... The Funny Things EP Kids
Say & Do
... Making Money Matters -- Silvana
Clark, author
... EP Expert Essay -- "Habits:
My Old Friends" by Sarah Edwards
... EP Times -- "Taking
Time to Relax" by Lisa Roberts (reprint)
_________________________________________
Do you find EPnews useful?
Please forward to a friend, or recommend it to your favorite
Web site or
e-zine. Thanks for your support!
---> Subscribe TODAY: EPnews-Subscribe@egroups.com
<---
For easy reading, simply print
out this newsletter.
Editorial Note: EPnews is distributed
the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every
month, and monthly during the summer. The Entrepreneurial Parent
web site
(en-parent.com) is a hub
of community and career resources for
Entrepreneurial Parents -- come visit often. Welcome all new
subscribers!
========================================================
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___________________________________
THE FUNNY THINGS EP KIDS SAY & DO!
Submitted by EPnews Subscriber,
Mark DuRussel, a teleworker
(mailto:mduruss@yahoo.com):
We have a very talkative two-year
old duaghter named Abby. Given her age,
we're constantly amazed at the things she says, and how keenly
she's aware of
everything.
Abby knows that I sometimes work
late into the evening after she goes to bed
(in order to make up time spent with her during the day!). But
perhaps I'm
making too much of a habit out of this, because the other night,
as I tucked
her in and gave her a kiss goodnight, she said, "Goodnight,
Daddy -- hope you
have a 'ductive work."
After sighing through my giggle,
all I could say was, "Thanks, sweetie --
hope you have a good sleep."
=================================
Why work at home? So you can hear the funny things your EP Kids
say
throughout the day. Share with the EP Community something your
child said or
did recently that made you smirk, giggle, or LOL. Send your submission
via
e-mail to:epideas@en-parent.com.
And if you need a stockpile of smiles to get
you through your EP day, check out Grace Housholder's heartwarming
"The Funny
Kids Project" at www.funnykids.com.
On those stressed-out EP days, you'll be
glad you did!
Grace's coffee table book is
also available at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963871536/theentrepreneuri
____________________________________________
MAKING MONEY MATTERS
Being available to your kids
and managing a career under one roof sounds to
many like the best of both worlds, but without pulling in some
kind of income
what's all the effort for? Making Money Matters!
This month Silvana Clark, EP
to two daughters and a professional author and
speaker, as well as our "EP Low-Cost Marketing Expert,"
shares her marketing
tips with us. Her contact info is:
Silvana Clark
2100 Birch Circle
Bellingham, WA 98226
Phone: (360) 734-9506
E-mail: SilvanaC@msn.com
To learn more about Silvana,
go to:
http://en-parent.com/Experts/exp-clark.htm
(Want to spread the word about
YOUR business in EPnews? Let's hear how YOU
earn your keep as an EP! Mailto:editor@en-parent.com
with the subject heading
"MMM Survey" and we'll get the questionnaire over to
you. Thank you!!)
1. In a 2-3 sentence statement,
explain what your home business is about,
including your target market and "mission statement."
As a professional speaker and
author, I present motivational and practical
keynotes on balancing your personal and professional life. I
also speak on
"Taming the Marketing Jungle" for small business owners.
2. What are the most popular products and/or services you sell?
How much do
you sell them for (or what's your hourly rate), and how did you
find the
right price/fee schedule for them?
My main source of income comes
from speaking at national and local
conferences. As a member of the National Speakers Association,
I set my fees
according to what "professional" speakers charge. (Although
not in the
$15,000 an hour some top speakers charge!) It's a difficult balance
to set a
fee and stick with it, since many groups have limited budgets.
I also sell my
books after I speak, and on the web.
3. What are *your* favorite products and/or services? Why do
you like to sell
them?
I love the actual presentations
I give...although that is only a short amount
of time. I may speak for one hour, but have spent hours planning,
traveling,
preparing net material, etc. It's great to be in front of a group
of people
and watch them interact and get excited about the ideas I present.
4. Tell us a bit about your marketing
campaign. When did you start noticing
your first sales (after which marketing technique), what marketing
efforts
have you noticed yield the greatest results, and how do you make
your first
contact and subsequent sales (via online, phone, fax, mail, face-to-face)?
Since one of my books is called,
"Taming The Marketing Jungle," I wear a
safari outfit (complete with pith helmet) when I speak. People
like the
visual tie-in and actually expect me to get off the plane dressed
in my
safari outfit! It provides that extra "hook" and my
promotional picture
features me with my safari hat and a parrot on my shoulder. For
the last 5
years, my 11 year old daughter frequently comes with me and speaks
at
conferences also. She's written two books, "Craft Fun With
Sondra" and
"Wearable Art With Sondra" and now groups want her
to speak to them about her
experiences as a young entrepreneur. So I get second billing!
One of the
books I've written, "Parent-Tested Ways To Grow Your Child's
Confidence,"
stresses ways to give children a "can-do" attitude.
Parenting groups ask me
to speak on the book and bring Sondra along to show that the
ideas work.
5. Any additional comments are welcome.
My speaking and writing are truly
a family affair. As often as possible, my
husband comes along (to lug the boxes of books) or Sondra travels
with me. We
just returned from a trip to Africa and love spending time together.
We've
found the perfect balance of making money doing what we love.
___________________________________
EP EXPERT ESSAY
"Habits: My Old Friends"
© 2001, by Sarah Edwards
author of "The Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the
Time, Money and
Energy to Live the Life You Want to Live"
Habits, those myriad of things
we do without thinking. For better or worse,
they keep our lives organized, familiar and predictable. We organize
our
time, money and energy around them. Like them or not, they are
how we do
things and free us from endless decisions and constantly trying
to remember
to follow through on decisions we've already made.
They are the perpetually open
doors in our lives, through which we walk
without question, our unspoken pathways, that also prevent us
from opening
new doors that might lead on new paths to who knows where.
It's said that it takes 6-21
days to make or break a habit and this past few
weeks since Paul broke his ankle has been a lesson in just how
true this is.
His accident wrenched me from my habitual routines, both the
ones I looked
forward to and the ones I just did because that's how I get things
done.
The early mornings, for example,
were my quiet time. I would awaken, walk
outside to greet the day, get the paper and read it over a quiet
breakfast.
Paul would arise an hour or so later with Billy, our Toy Manchester
Terrier,
take care of Billy's morning needs and then join me in reading
the newspaper
while eating his breakfast.
But suddenly, there was no more
morning quiet time. Mornings presented me
with a long list of things I must take care of before I could
even consider
walking outside to get the newspaper and sit down to my own breakfast,
taking
care of Billy, fixing his breakfast and Paul's breakfast. And,
the time I did
sit down, believe me, it was anything by quiet.
At first, despite my best intentions,
I resisted the new way of operating. I
wanted to hold on to my old routines. I missed them and had to
make myself do
what I knew I needed to do. But, somehow, within six days or
so, the new
routines magically became "the way I do things." Just
in time for Paul to be
ready and eager to resume the old ones.
Again, at first, I resisted.
These were my habits now! I wanted to hold on to
them. I fed Billy! I got the breakfasts! But, once again, within
six days or
so, things were pretty much back to "normal,"-that
is, how they used to be,
with a few differences here and there because we've learned
some new ways to
start the day that we like better.
That, I learned is just how hard
and yet how easy habits are to make and
break and that if you make yourself do something you want to
add to or change
in your life for 6-21 days, in no time at all it will take you
6-21 days to
pry yourself away from doing the very thing you once resisted!
So, here's to habits, my old
friends! They are the bricks and mortor from
which dreams are made. Change your habits, change your life!
=====================================
Sarah Edwards is our EP Home Career Selection Expert and the
author of "The
Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the Time, Money and Energy
to Live the
Life You Want to Live." Let's Talk Change is a weekly column.
Sarah wants to
hear about your dreams and the difficulties you're having in
creating them.
E-mail your questions, comments and ideas at www.practicaldreamer.net
and she
may answer or address them in future columns. Sarah and her husband
Paul have
written a dozen books on working from home and self-employment.
They have
over a million books in print. You can read more about them at:
http://en-parent.com/Experts/exp-edwards.htm
_________________________________
EP TIMES -- AN EDITORIAL
Editor's Note: Due to tight book
deadlines, this editorial is a reprint (from
2 years ago!)
"Taking Time to Relax...and
Sing"
© 1999 by Lisa Roberts
Friday night at the Roberts household
is "Take Time to Relax" night. With
weekends being just as busy as weekdays for us, if we don't make
relaxation
mandatory at least once a week it just won't happen.
I first got my inspiration for
Friday nights from a little book I bought for
my daughter long ago, called (naturally) "Take Time to Relax"
by Nancy
Carlson. It's about two parents and their daughter who are busy
every day,
every night, weekday-in and weekend-out. Their "enriching"
lives include
cooking, aerobic, tennis, swimming, computer classes and more,
in addition to
their career and academic obligations. Saturdays are filled with
chores from
dawn to dusk and by Sundays they are all pooped out to move.
It isn't until this family is
snowed in -- and absolutely can't go anywhere
-- that they "take time to relax," enjoying each other's
company...plain and
simple. The book served as a warning to me not to sign my kids
(or myself) up
for too many activities, less we grow apart rather than together
as the years
pass by.
EPs in particular need to be
cautious about warding off activity overload.
Because we work at home and are physically on the homefront,
the temptation
to volunteer for our children's school events is strong. While
it's great to
take advantage of our physical locale by attending daytime school
events
(such as plays, concerts, holiday parties, etc.), we should be
careful not to
lead up too many of them if the time commitment will compete
with our
income-producing activities.
For myself, I have taken the
year off from all volunteer commitments for the
first time in ten years. Even so, my kids are as busy as ever
(even AFTER
dropping Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts from their schedules). My
daughter
(age11) attends religious class, piano and basketball, plus she's
involved
(by choice) in community service, sign language and a math team.
My son (age
8), has religious class, piano and basketball, plus "Odyssey
of the Mind."
Between these after-school activities, homework, dinner and bedtime
rituals,
we have a no-TV, no-computer-games during weekdays house
rule to keep them focused.
Which brings me back to our Friday
"Take Time to Relax" tradition of a video,
pizza and no-shower-tonight policy. By week's end the kids are
more than
ready to veg out in front of the TV screen, and lately I've hit
on a treasure
trove of entertainment I'd like to share. Old movie musicals.
Nothing beats
clean, simple fun (OK, I admit, my husband purposely doesn't
come home from
work until the closing credits of the so-called "family"
movie, but the rest
of us consider it fun!). To top it all off, Saturday morning
chores now have
a new sound that will be eternally etched on our collective family
memory. I
mean, which one of us will ever forget:
"Mess maker, mess maker,
make me a mess!" (from Fiddler on the Roof's
"Matchmaker," sung by the older kids to their little
brother Thomas); or
"If you want your Tinky
Winky, Dipsy, La-La and Po...just leave everything to
me!" (from Hello Dolly's opening song, with "TeleTubby"
names stuck in to
fill the can't-understand-what-she's-saying void); and
"What's playing at Rox City?
I'll tell you what's playing at Rox City! A guy
meets a doll and trips on his shoes, that's what's playing at
Rox City!"
(from Guys & Dolls signature song, another improvisational
version);
This week, try a musical on your
kids for size. See how it fits. After all,
with such entertaining musical interpretations that could last
for months,
filling the house with cheer and chuckle, what more can you ask
from a Friday
night?
=================================
Lisa Roberts is the mother of four, Site Producer of The Entrepreneurial
arent and author of "How to Raise A Family & A Career
Under One Roof: A
Parent's Guide to Home Business" (Bookhaven Press, 1997).
"EP Times" is a
continuation of the "Home Business Diary" essays originally
created for her
book, which is available for purchase at:
http://en-parent.com/order.htm
and through Amazon, at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0943641179/theentrepreneuri
_____________________________
CONTACT/SUBSCRIPTION INFO
The Entrepreneurial Parent, LLC
is not engaged in rendering legal or
financial advice. If expert assistance is required, the services
of a
licensed professional should be sought.
This newsletter may be redistributed
freely via the Internet. Re-publishing
of separate articles for your print publication needs approval
first; write
to: Roberts@en-parent.com
for permission.
© 2000, The Entrepreneurial
Parent, LLC
Editor: Lisa M. Roberts
POB 320722, Fairfield, CT 06432; http://en-parent.com
Ph/Fax: (203) 371-6212, Email: office@en-parent.com
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