Your Pet Business Launchpad
On Vacation..Speaking of Which…
Aug 11th
So as a petpreneur you’ll need to take some time to unwind…time to take a break and re-charge. Especially if you’re a solo-petpreneur, but is your business ready to run on semi-auto pilot? As I sit here on vacation…my business is still pretty much a lean-running machine. Here are a few tips to keep your vacation an enjoyable one.
1) Plan – this sounds easy enough, but planning is more than jotting down a happy face on your calendar(although I don’t condone this). If you’ve been operating for a few years you’ll probably have a general idea of when your slow period is. It’s a 
good idea to try and schedule your down-time around this period. If you’re just starting out… no vacation for you…you have a business to grow my friend!
2) Give Your Customers a Heads Up – Make a point to let your customers know you’ll be on vacation and what they can expect during this time. If you’ll still be able to fill orders, let them know. If you’re totally unavailable let them know that too. I generally do this through my social network with them, and with a reminder in my email signatures.
3) Prepare – If you’re going on an extended vacation schedule some blog posts during that time, to keep your blog fresh and crawled. If you’re on WordPress you can do this under the ‘Publish’ box on the right hand side while you’re writing your post. Go to the Publish line, click edit, you’ll then be able to schedule when you want that post to go live. This is a great trick to keeping your blog updated, and looking like you’re ‘there’.
4) Enjoy – Now technically if you’re really doing what you love, a vacation means something different than when you’re doing a J O B. When you’re doing what you love, and you take a vacation, it could be because you need to get some inspiration, or you need to go to an expo or convention…it’s still fun…as it should be. So enjoy your time ‘away’, and be happy that you’re walking down the path of a fulfilled petpreneur 
5 Social Media Hacks for Busy PetPreneurs
Jul 20th
One of the big dilemmas facing those diggin into social media bliss as a business tool is the balance between authentic participation and automation for time saving sake. If you haven’t considered any automation let’s look into it so you’ll know when it’s ok to automate and when it’s the kiss of death.
On one end there are certainly tools and services that can actually take care of all of your social media participation and automate the process of posting your content to every known social network.
On the other end is the desire to create personal engagement and branding building community through one to one content creation and participation.
The first certainly lacks a human touch, and the latter can suck up too much time. In my mind, the perfect balance lies somewhere between the place where tools can be employed to facilitate intent and leverage time, while still adding personal attention.
Below are five social media hacks that allow personal engagement fused with the use of tools that make it easier to do more.
–>1. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon It’s essentially a social bookmarking site that allows people to bookmark and find interesting stuff. There’s a unique approach with StumbleUpon that makes it such a great tool though… once you create an account you can pick categories of content that interest you or that might interest your pet parents. Then you install the StumbleUpon browser tool bar and any time you want to find some potentially interesting content discoveries, just hit Stumble. The tool bar takes you to random sites identified by other users and is almost always a great way to come upon content that is unique and valuable from little know sources. This is a great way to share great finds in your blog posts and tweets while spending a few minutes doing the research.
–>2. The Round-Up
This isn’t a tool so much as a practice. Pet parents love to digest content, especially when it pertains to their pet companions. One way to create and deliver that is to get in the habit of using a bookmarking tool like Delicious and simply tagging sites you come across (perhaps in the tip above) with various tags like ‘blog’ or ‘newsletter’ or by client industry segment, and then going back at the end of the week and writing a post or creating a newsletter issue based solely on abstracts of the good stuff you found during the week. By installing the delicious browser toolbar, you can tag any page with the right click of a mouse. Filtering content and delivering just the best of what you read (perhaps in your RSS Reader) can make you a very valuable resource to people who just want the good stuff. By employing your own filtering tool you can easily create the content on the fly.
–>3. Reader to TwitterFeed
TwitterFeed is a tool that allows you to connect any RSS feed to your Twitter account and effectively auto tweet anything that is added to the feed. I don’t find this very useful and in some cases it’s seen as spam, so that’s not what we are going to do here.
Since you can attach any feed to it you can have total control over what goes to Twitter, so it’s really just a way to make it easy to tweet things you find. For example, the delicious tags you created above also have RSS feeds associated with them. So, you run that feed through TwitterFeed and have it tweet anything you hand select and tag as you surf.
Another great use is to connect it to your GoogleReader account, but only for the RSS feed associated with your “shared items.” That way, as you sit at the diner reading the blogs you subscribe to on your phone app over lunch, you can find a great post that you want to share and all you do is hit the share button at the bottom of the post and that one item gets pushed out to Twitter. Still, done by hand, but just skipping a few steps to save time.
–>4. RSS to HTML
There are any number of tools that will take the content from an RSS feed, one that you produce or one that you find and read, and turn it into dynamic HTML content that you can display on any web page you like.
Creating content specific pages and pushing the content you find as you surf to them can be an easy way to create content for your web pages.
Google has a free tool called Dynamic Feed Control Wizard, but check out the great list of RSS to HTML web publishing tools from Robin Good.
–>5. Blog to Fanpage
There are lots of plugins and apps that make it very easy to republish blog content to your Facebook personal wall, but many businesses these days are much more interested in publishing new blog posts to their Fan Pages.
There are, in fact, a number of free and paid apps that allow you to do this, but the simplest (and in my mind best) approach is to use the built-in Notes function. When you enable the notes tab on your Fan Page you can click on add a new note and you’ll see that one option is to add a blog feed. When you do this you get a new tab (the name of your blog) and the last five or so blog posts, depending upon your RSS fee settings.
The reason I like this approach is that there’s not a third party app involved – that’s where most tech issues arise – and, in addition to simply having a blog page, your new posts go right into the wall stream when you publish them.
Blog post adapted from John Jantsch award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing
Email Marketing: Tips for Newcomers
Jul 11th
Join my list!
Do you have a list?
10 ways to build your list!
Build your list Build your Business!
You’ve heard all the buzz, hype and whoopee-la on building your list and email marketing but what really IS the big dealy-o?
Well here’s my take on it. Should you build some sort of a pet parent list? Yes…do you need to bug them every other day with your stuff? Well maybe not so much. Should you keep in touch with them, with useful, valuable information and updates…Absolutely.
Having a list of people that have stepped up and said “yes I’m willing to open up my valuable inbox to you and listen to what you have to tell me” is pretty amazing. Not to mention a wonderful direct line to those who matter most in your business.
With that list you can ask questions, get honest feedback, share updates, make product and service announcements the possibilities are endless.
The idea is that if you have stuff to sell, the people in your list will be at least willing to hear you out, and if you present it with them in mind and they need what you’re sharing they’ll click the ‘buy’ button and you’ve just made an easy sale. In theory this is how the gurus’ say it works, but what if it doesn’t.
What if you have a list of a just a few people and you’re just starting out? Well here’s my theory.
To start out let visitors to your website and/or blog know that you’d like to have them on your list. How do you do this without sounding…’List-y’ ? You can go for the give stuff away bit. That works for some folks. For example: “Sign-up for my 5-day e-course on selling to retail boutiques” this way they get something from you for free, and you get a name and email address…Golden!
Or if you don’t have an e-course to give away, you can share tips with them on something you know, or something you’ve recently found that they would enjoy or like. Be creative and make sure it’s something that’s useful. DON’T trying selling something unless you know beyond a shadow that they want it. If not it will surely backfire on you.
Here are a few email marketing services you can look into.
1) Aweber – Have heard rave reviews about this service and it looks great if you have the budget for it. Pricing starts out at:
$19/month, and they have a free trial to give it a shot for $1.
2)iContact – This one keeps soliciting to me to switch and try them, while I have not yet, they seem worthy enough to mention. They too have a trial to give them a try first, and their plans start at just $9.95/month.
3) Your Mailing List Provider – This is the one I personally use for Bark Business and for my other gigs. It’s free to use for up to like 1000 contacts, you can upload images, and you can configure the experience after they enter their name and email. You can use HTML, and it’s pretty easy to use. By far a great fit if you’re just starting out and don’t want to pay for a subscription service just yet. And when you’re ready to their plans are awesomely affordable, like under $6/month affordable!
4) Constant Contact – I’ve used this service in the past and was mildly pleased. I was upset that for each email blast I could only add I think maybe 5 images. Anything over you have to upgrade…bummer. And their lowest plans start at $15.95/month. Not much else to say, it’s an ok starter, but would personally go for one of the other service providers.
My guess is that your email list and your blasts will depend on what you want to share, what you want from them, and how much you’re willing to spend on it all. But at any rate, the idea of course is to start if you haven’t already.
The Very First Bark Chat Interview is LIVE – Welcome Pup.com!
Jun 25th
After about 2 weeks of learning audio editing software, putting up a seperate blog for The Bark Chat, putting together questions, a Call In Line, scheduling, and timing with a 5 year old and a 2 year old the First Interview from The Bark Chat project is Live.
Thanks so much to Bonnie Sweebe of Welcome Pup.com for participating and sharing her Petpreneur story with me. It came out pretty good for a first go, so spend about 18 minutes and hear her story. Comment or ask her a question to show some love!
More Bark Chat interviews are already lined up, and coming soon. If you’d like to be featured or sponsor an interview please contact me here!
Thanks for reading and listening! Click the ‘Interviews’ tab up above!
Build your pet community…build your pet business
Jun 23rd
Here is a few quick steps to building your pet community, and grow closer with your customers and fans.
1. Make your pet community prominent.
Don’t hide your online community behind a link. Bring it right up to the front page. Anything less, and you aren’t giving your community the respect it deserves. If you are serious about your online community, prove it by giving it serious exposure.
Show that you value the opinions of your members by featuring their content alongside your own editorial content — you are equal partners in this.
This goes further than just proving your commitment to the community. It puts the community in front of eyeballs. A lot of the time, visitors won’t even notice a link to your community — so put it where they can see it if you want them to join and get involved.
2. Keep it simple.
You don’t need fancy features and a glamorous site design. Most of the time, these are simply distractions. Keep things simple. There is nothing wrong with basing your community solely on a forum. You don’t necessarily need a full range of ‘social networking’ features. 
People need to be able to communicate — it’s as simple as that. They can do this with a basic forum.
Fancy designs are often just an ego stroke for the organisation that commissioned them. Remember, an online community isn’t about you — it’s about your members. Strip everything back and keep it basic. Your community may not look glamorous, but it will be far more likely to contain activity and member engagement.
3. Tell me why.
I come across a lot of online communities that don’t explain or outline their purpose. As crazy as it sounds, there are a lot of people building communities without actually making it clear what the purpose of the community is. Sometimes this is obvious from the name — but even then, I need to know why I should join your community rather than one belonging to your competitor.
Ensure that all visitors to your site know why they should be joining and getting involved in the community. Keep it short, simple, snappy and accurate.
4. Be active.
As a community manager, you need to be active in your own online community. You can’t be a matchmaker unless you get to know members of your community. You can’t learn from your members if you don’t know who they are.
Lead by example — get stuck in and enjoy the community. If you aren’t active or if you aren’t enjoying being active, your community has a problem. Fix it.
5. Build pet parents relationships at home and away.
Some people who contact me stress that they are highly active in their community — in fact, sometimes they are its chief contributor. Of course, a community isn’t a community if there is only one person doing the talking. If this is happening to you, it’s an indicator that you need to be more proactive.
Just because you’ve built an online community it doesn’t mean people will flock to it. You need to get out there and find members. Fortunately, that’s never been easier. Your potential members are out there writing blogs, telling the world what they are doing on twitter, and networking on Facebook.
Don’t stalk these potential members, and don’t spam them. Get to know them. Comment on their blogs, provide value. It’s all about what you can do for them — not the other way around.
*I surely cannot take credit for this amazing article it was originally written by RodLow on Social Media Today*
Paying Yourself 101
Jun 22nd
Are you one of those pet business owners that is doing everything yourself and wondering when your business will start to give back to you a little? Let me tell you I Am One of Those Business Owners.
Since 2007 I’ve been wearing every possible hat available to keep my small business chuggin’ along. I do all of my social networking ( which doesn’t really seem like work most times I do all of my web, print and design stuff, I design my products I source manufacturers here and abroad, I pick out fabric, I sketch the drawings, I take of shipping, customer service and all of my blogging. Phew…I think I should be getting a mondo fat paycheck. Well…nope not here my friend. But….I got an eye opener today.
I got a chance to speak with another fellow business owner who gave me some awesome advice this was his quick but very insightful tip! Here goes:
**No matter how much ‘profit’ you’re making, Pay.Yourself.First! Now what exactly does that mean? Well it doesn’t mean you go and blow every dime of your sales on a Coach bag or new uber expensive plush spa bed for Dino. Here’s how my friend broke it down for me.
1) Even if you’re brining in $125/month. Set a pay structure in place, right from the beginning. Divide your ‘income’ into 3 divisions.
–>Pay yourself
–>Pay the business
–>Pay for growth, and expanding or sustaining ( depending on your personal or business goals)
If you can get in the habit of dividing up every single bit of income that your pet business brings in you’ll see that slowly or quickly it starts to build and you begin to gain more confidence in your business and before you know it you’ve got a budge for yourself, your pet business and budget for the growth or sustainability of it.
You may know already what happens when you’re not paying yourself at all. You may doubt your endeavor at times, you may feel overworked and obviously underpaid. You may wonder why or why did you jump in and do this…But I can tell you that once your business has foundation and starts to ‘love’ you back it’s a great and wonderful feeling.
**So get those pay systems in place and start appreciating all your hard work**
10 Questions to consider when hiring an Independent Contractor(IC) for your pet business
Jun 16th
Once your pet business begins to grow and the business is coming in on a steady basis you may consider hiring some assistance. The trend in small pet business is hiring an Independent Contractor or an IC as they are commonly referred to. Here are some questions that the IRS may ask to ensure you do in fact have an independent contractor and not an employee.
Here are some questions the IRS asks in determining whether a new hire is truly an independent contractor or an employee masking as one (so the employer can avoid…well, you know):
1. Does the worker set his or her own hours?
2. Who makes the rules for how and where the work will be done: employer or worker?
3. Does the worker furnish his or her own tools and equipment and hire his own assistants if needed?
4. Does the person have a workplace (home office, for example) that’s separate from the employer’s premises?
5. Can the individual work for other companies?
6. Is the worker paid on a per-job or a commission basis?
7. Does the person send you invoices for his services?
8. Is there a written “independent contractor” agreement between worker and employer?
If the answer to these questions is yes, you’ve successfully hired the person as an independent contractor and avoided the employee issues.
Take care to ensure you definitely have an Independent Contractor and not an employee, or the IRS may slap you with fines and all that ‘employee’ paperwork. See your accountant, bookeeper, or VA (virtual assistant) if you need further help with this one.
*adaped from Entrepreneur.com*
Love to Talk About…You? Perfect!
Jun 10th
Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy and like you’re important…at least I like to think so anyway. But I also have this thing for listening to people and wanting to fiercely learn everything I can from anyone who has made the crazy commitment to be their own boss.
Crazy you say? Yes CRAZY…because if you’re in the category that I too am in…you’ve got to be just a tad bit crazy…and then you probably also have crazy, awesome stories you can share with others, who may just want to come join your crazy train.
Welcome to The Bark Chat…the newest brain child from Bark Business aka…me
While the Bark Chat project gets underway, I’ll need victims er eh hem featured guests to come take a quick journey with me (actually 20-30 minutes) to talk about your petpreneurial journey. This is the good, bad, and the ridiculous…let’s put it all out there….
So here’s your official Casting Call —> Calling all Pet People who have just launched, or are seasonsed business owners. I need you to help make The Bark Chat a colorful and vibrant spot where other pet people will gather to listen in to your amazing story! Contact Me if you’re interested!
Now in addition to my guests we’ll need people actually listening to the conversations….yup it’s true good stories aren’t really that good unless others get to experience them too. So help me get the word out with letting others know that THE go to source for smashing pet people business interviews will be right here err actually at The Bark Chat blog
Ready….Break!
Now off and contact me and spread the good news!
New Featured Post: Rexy’s Random Awesome-ness
Jun 10th
I’m all over the web. Often I find new cool pet people goodies and because I love to share what I find, I wanted to include them here at Bark Business. Here’s my tribute to those randomly awesome stuff me and Rexy sniff out. So can you do me a favor, If you like what we find, comment and say so, Tweet about it or facebook it…cause we all love finding random awesomeness!
Show some petpreneurs some Wuuv!
First up: Teddy the Dog
–> Super cool simple website…love it
–>Super cool stuff for the people of pets
–>Check out their awesome Plush Beds Too.
I’ll See You At The Top…of Google that is
May 20th
Now being in the small business and in the pet industry I’m sure you’ve seen and heard a lot of ‘experts yappin a lot about SEO, and getting your organic listing at the top of major search engines, right? But are they showing you how it’s done? Are they taking you step by step and guiding you to really understand it so when you want to replicate it you can…on your own?
Because as you know ‘pay per click’ ads…well ‘Add’ up fast. And if you’ve ever given this method a shot you’ve probably witnessed first hand how quickly your advertising budget does a disappearing act. My personal experience with Google adwords was horrifying. I spent around $300 for my first ‘run’ only to get tons of clicks and no customers! Arrrghh! Talk about disappointment and being jaded…I was fed up and frustrated.
But here’s the good news. The good news is that I’m putting together a sure-fire, no fail video/tutorial on how YOU can inch your way (or even start) at the top of Google for your favorite keyword phrase or search. And get this, once you implement this sure-fire 
tactic…you could be showing up on Google within hours! Not days, weeks or months…yes Hours! How’s that for turnaround?
Now at this point you might be saying a few quips… ‘how is that possible?”, “does that involve spam, or fake blog posting?” or is this gonna be one of those ‘Try my system bits for $900 and you’ll be a pet-anaire!’ No my pet friends…this is none of
that.This just my effort to share with you a little bit I learned and want to pass it along.
I will tell you it won’t be free simply because I’m spending some time to put the whole bit together for you and I want it to be something worth paying for. Your pet business is worth it and your success is worth it
And one more thing I’ll mention. Just in case you do purchase my Sure Fire Top ‘o Google Strategy and after you think…Man that may take longer than I have to spare…I’ll be discounting my Sure Fire Service for you since you already purchased the Strategy…for like 50% off! Because that’s how I like to show you some love.
If you’d like to be some of the first to know about the Sure Fire Top ‘o Google Strategy please be so kind as to leave me your email and name below. This will tell me that you’re really ready for the SFTGS! Woo HooT!
Questions, comments…those little comment links aren’t there to look pretty…use ‘em!
Hey there and welcome to Bark Business, I'm Rickina and I'll be your blogger for your visit today. My mission for Bark Business is to share tips, tools, tricks and resources I've learned and sniffed out to help others start & launch a pet-inspired business and grow up to be full fledged "Petpreneurs". 
