Home with the Kids Newsletter November 23, 2004

The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - How to Make More With Your Home Business
What's happening on the discussion boards?
Guest Article - How to Pick Up the Gloves in Marriage and Fight Well
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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter

Did you know March is Dr. Seuss month? I think I'm going to try to have some fun with it on the site. I'm thinking about things families can do together, encouraging reading and just plain having fun. Dr. Seuss is my favorite children's author, and probably the favorite of quite a few of you too. I'm still planning and setting things up, but I'll be letting you know when I have things up and running. We'll just see what I can pull out of my (Cat in the) Hat.

For those of you who may have missed the announcement last week, I now have an unverified work at home job lead section up and running. I'm doing it in a blog format because that will make it easy to tell the age of the leads. I've also split the leads by category so that you don't have to wade through too many leads that would never be o finterest to you. It takes some work, and if anyone wants to contribute leads, just let me know. I do mean job leads and not home business ads! I doubt that I'll be posting them daily - I'd lose too much work time to that, but I do intend to post a couple times a week at least. There are links so that you can use the RSS feed or just add it to your My Yahoo, My MSN or otherwise take advantage of the syndication feature.

Well, I survived Gage's first birthday party. We had a lot of fun with our family. Considering the year we've been through with him, it felt great to relax and celebrate his birthday. Poor Ariel, though! His birthday was on Thursday, and she assumed the party would be the same day, so she was in tears when she found out the party wasn't until Sunday! She was so mad! But I had her help make and decorate the cake, so I think she was quite happy in the end.

Don't forget, you can contribute your articles or tips anytime for consideration. Just use the contact form.

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Feature Article

How to Make More With Your Home Business

One of the things you need most from your home business is money. A home business that is satisfying but costs more than it brings in or is only minimally profitable probably will not last. A little extra effort in the right areas is likely to have a very positive impact on your bottom line.

One area that is easy to ignore is studying your customers. No how much you might wish it were otherwise, your ideal customer is not “everyone” or even “all mothers.”

What would you like to know about them? Just about anything you can. Where they shop. What they read. What they need from your business. This is information you’ll be using to help target your ads. The more directly you can appeal to your potential customers, the better chance you have to sell to them. If you lack this information you are more likely to be wasting your advertising dollars.

Don’t assume you already know or even that your old research is still accurate. Habits change. Do a survey of current customers if you’ve been in business a while and see what they say. You may need to offer an incentive to get customers to fill out your survey, but a well-written survey will give you information that will be tremendously useful to your business.

Make sure you’re taking advantage of all advertising opportunities. Your website address and any other information that will help customers choose your business should be on receipts, packaging, business cards, products, etc.

If your customers are ordering online you can take advantage of that too. A regular newsletter (monthly at a minimum) can keep your customers coming back. Don’t just send them ads, make the newsletter useful and make it easy to unsubscribe. You can offer tips relevant to your products, tell customers about special deals and so forth.

Consider rewarding loyal customers with special discounts or gifts, and make sure people know about the rewards. People love to get good stuff for free, even if they have to buy something else to get it. Telling customers that if they spend $100 they can get a free $10 gift certificate can be excellent advertising. Another reward could be free shipping if they spend over a certain amount.

Are you marketing yourself locally as well as online? Contact your local media with something newsworthy about your business and you might just get some free advertising. Participate in community events. Sponsor a nonprofit event. There are plenty of ways to get your business in the local limelight.

Communicate with your customers. Encourage them to send you feedback. A few good testimonials are a great way to improve your business’s image. Being easy to contact will also make potential customers feel more at ease.

Another good tactic is to be available to help your customers. If you can provide the solution to a customer’s problem, they’re more likely to tell their friends about you. Word of mouth is great advertising.

Finally, don’t forget about working with other businesses in your area, whether in the same general area in the real world or in complementary fields online. You can help each other advertise, suggest complementary products from each other or even participate in events together.

Stephanie Foster is the owner of Home with the Kids, a resource that knows that there's more to staying home with your family than just business. For more stay at home tips, visit the site at http://www.homewiththekids.com/ and subscribe to the free newsletter.

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What's happening on the forum?

Ads posting jobs in Working From Home - seemazen, Mon 01-Dec-08 (0 Replies)

Hi From Wichita Kansas in Introduce Yourself - kharding, Mon 01-Dec-08 (5 Replies)

Hi my name is Missy and I'm from GA in Introduce Yourself - kharding, Mon 01-Dec-08 (5 Replies)

With unlimited permission to get dirty comes great mud in General Chatter - stephfoster, Mon 01-Dec-08 (6 Replies)

Freelance Public Relations Writers-Unresearched in Working From Home - WorkAtHomeSpace, Mon 01-Dec-08 (0 Replies)

Guest Article

How to Pick Up the Gloves in Marriage and Fight Well

Call it a fight, call it a discussion, call it whatever you want. But let's be honest. The truth is that in every marriage there is fighting. No matter what you think, there is no such thing as the Cleavers or the Cosbys. That being said, if it happens in every marriage, why is it that there are some couples who seem to enter and exit the ring gracefully while others seem like there is never a break between rounds? The reason is that some people have learned the secrets behind fighting well and others are just swinging away hoping to connect.

Whether you have been married 20 years or 20 minutes, learning to fight well can be the difference between being one of the most rewarding experiences of marriage and the most challenging.

What fight do you want to fight?

Let's clarify what was said previously. Everyone fights, but you may not actually know it. Even if you are in the relationship. There are basically 2 types of fighters; the Screamers and the Sweepers.

What does a screamer sound like?

This is the couple that nobody doubts is having problems. They are the ones that fight over the smallest things, and these small things turn into World War III. The fights turn brutal fast and leave deep wounds that are still raw as the next fight starts. They fight about the same thing over and over and never seem to solve a thing.

How deep is the carpet you sweep under?

These couples do have conflicts, but they keep it quiet. From the neighbors, from the family, and even from themselves. When a conflict arises, these people will quickly and effectively avoid the conflict and will work around it. When they come into therapy, generally these people will talk about conflicts that were never resolved 10 years ago that their partner didn't even know was a problem.

Why do so many couples fight? Here is the problem. There really are 3 things working against you in this relationship.

What family tree did you fall from?

First is that neither one of you grew up in the same family. Maybe your family was the kind of family that was loud and outgoing, always doing things together, and constantly moving, whereas your partner came from a family where spending time together meant that they were in the same room together listening to the same clock ticking in the corner. It may not have been quite that extreme, but you get the point.

Are you a fruit?

Secondly, no two people in the world have had exactly the same experiences and thoughts as another person. Our experiences tend to form who we are and how we see life. Therefore, no two people in or out of a relationship will ever see their relationship exactly the same. It is like trying to compare apples to oranges.

What planet are you on?

Finally, there is one overlying theme that hangs over all of us in traditional relationships. One of us is male and the other is female. Period. Although we are not from different planets as you may have heard, society expects different things from us and we therefore have different goals and expectations about relationships and our roles in them.

Knowing that there are such strong, lifelong habits and traits that we are dealing with, it should be

Why do we loose control?

When we fight, something interesting happens in our bodies. For most people, fighting isn't just an exchange of words. It is an emotional event that happens and is felt throughout our bodies.

Emotion types

There are two types of emotions. Primary and secondary. Secondary emotions are emotions that come after the main emotion occurs. In essence, it is a reaction to the reaction.

When people come into a session, most often we hear "She pissed me off", or "He made me so mad". That is not the real emotion. That is the reaction to the emotion. The primary emotion is hurt, disappointment, or rejection. It is important that this distinction be made.

Chemical Confusion

Part of the problem when we fight is that too often we are dealing with the secondary emotions. We have felt something strongly like rejection or betrayal, and then our bodies automatically go into defensive mode. Our brains release chemicals that put us on alert and do not allow proper functioning of brain processing.

What we need to realize is that people who work off of secondary emotions do not actually see reality because their brains cannot function properly with the chemicals that are being produced. Our natural response is to retaliate without thought. How can you fight effectively when your brain is not functioning? You can't! That is why you need to be able to see clearly enough to fight.

This is just not natural!

Why is it that fighting well is so difficult? Even the most practiced couple makes mistakes at times and seems to go backwards. What needs to be understood is that it is not natural to have the kind of conversations that will make marriages work. Our natural reaction is to fight or run.

So what we are doing is trying go against what our animal instincts are telling us to do. What needs to happen is that we need to transcend that instinct and move to a higher level and do things that feel difficult and unnatural. It's hard, but it can be done using proven tools.

Other Topics in this Series 1) Check Out Time 2) Kitchen Sinking 3) Sucker Punch 4) Setting the Rules ...and many more

Topics discussed here are not intended to replace professional counselling. For further information, more articles like this and downloadable audio files relating to marriage, visit www.bestmarriages.com

With over 40 years of combined experience in marrige, family and relationship counselling, Jay, Lawrence, and Darren bring a unique and refreshing look at what makes marriages effective.