Hobby to Small Business: moodboard

Showing posts with label moodboard. Show all posts

Monday, December 29, 2025

Your First Customers

You’re raring to go—all you need are customers.

💢www.hobbytosmallbusiness.spotblog.com

@DArtCrea https://dartcreadesigns.etsy.com
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How to find them? Try the following tactics:

💟 Get a business website:

Keep it simple with all-inone website packages that include a domain name, hosting services and design templates. Popular options include GoDaddy, Web.com and Yahoo Small Business. If you’re starting an ecommerce business, look for a website builder specializing in ecommerce, such as Shopify, Volusion or 3DCart.

💟 Use word-of-mouth: Start your search for customers by asking friends, family members and acquaintances for leads. You never know who might introduce you to your first customer.

💟 Publicize it: Tapping into existing networks of bloggers who speak to your target audience, making connections, and offering content or services such as writing guest blog posts can align you with your target audience.

💟 Get social: Use social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to get your target market’s attention. Create a social account for your business, and post useful content providing information, advice or entertainment.

Interact with followers regularly, and link posts to your business website so followers can learn more about your business.

Advertise: If your business targets local customers, use print ads in community newspapers, local directories or local magazines to reach them. You can also get customers by advertising on websites your target market frequents. For instance, a children’s tutoring service can advertise on websites targeting moms of school-aged children, limiting the ads to moms in nearby ZIP codes.

💟 The direct approach: Try a direct mail campaign to reach your neighbors. The UPS Store offers a service called Every Door Direct Mail. Simply choose an area in which you want to advertise, and The UPS Store will handle the logistics of having your direct mail advertising piece delivered to every address in that neighborhood. It’s an affordable option to reach people in your area.

Collect customer data: Save time and market more effectively by maintaining data about prospects and customers. Customer relationship management (CRM) tools like Really Simple Systems, ZohoCRM and ContactMe let you track every interaction, set reminders and schedule follow-up contacts.

Market with email: Ask prospects and customers to sign up for email messages from your business. (Be sure to comply with the FTC’s CAN-SPAM laws.) Email marketing service providers such as Campaigner, Constant Contact and iContact let you create and send professional-looking emails.

💥 Offer deals: Offering discounts for your first customers can build a foundation for attracting more. This works especially well for businesses that provide recurring services. For example, a lawn-care service could offer six months’ services for the price of three.

💥 Become an expert: Get attention from prospects by building a reputation as an expert in your industry. Offer to speak to local groups your target customers belong to about topics relevant to your business.

💥 Buddy up: Form alliances with established small businesses to help each other get customers. For example, if you have a dog grooming business, you could partner with a local dog-sitter to refer clients to each other.

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@DArtCrea https://dartcreadesigns.etsy.com
Welcome to my Etsy Shop, if you like my products , please follow me!!!💗💜💗

Saturday, December 20, 2025

Go for It!

Go, go, go...!!!👍👍👍

💢www.hobbytosmallbusiness.spotblog.com

@DArtCrea https://dartcreadesigns.etsy.com
Welcome to my Etsy Shop, if you like my products , please follow me!!!💗💜💗

Starting a business while keeping your full-time job is challenging, but it’s also one of the best

ways to discover if you have what it takes to be a true entrepreneur. If you can handle the hard work and

long hours needed to juggle your business, your job and your personal life, you’ll be well prepared for the

demands of running a full-time business.

How do you know when it’s time to make that transition?

Before you take the leap to full-time entrepreneurship, ask yourself these questions:

Is my business ready? When you wrote your business plan, you set goals you wanted to achieve.

Common milestones you might use to determine your business’s readiness.

💢 You have developed a new product, produced it and successfully found a market for it.

💢 You have obtained outside financing to take your startup to the next level.

💢 You have more business than you can handle.

💢 You have expanded as far as you can working with freelancers and independent contractors, and need to hire employees.

💢 Your business has reached a certain level of sales.

Are my operations ready?

Before you quit your job, make sure that you have the following in place:

■ Systems and processes you can use to scale your business

■ Adequate equipment, software and other tools for full-time operation

■ A solid business credit rating and a good relationship with a business banker

■ Professional advisors such as an accountant, attorney and mentor

■ Adequate vendor and supplier relationships to meet the needs of a growing business

WHAT IF…?

■ If you need to devote more time to your business, but also need the income from your job…see if your current employer will hire you as a part-time independent contractor. You’ll still have income, plus the freedom to devote more time to your business.

■ If you need to devote more time to your business, but also need the benefits from your job…see if you can work part time at a level of hours that qualifies you to maintain your benefits.

Am I emotionally and mentally ready?

Take stock of how you and your family feel about your business so far. The challenges of running a full-time business are different than you’ve faced so far, but equally demanding—so don’t expect life to get easier.

Consider:

💥 Are your personal relationships suffering as a result of your business?

💥Do you have a strong support system of friends, family and mentors to encourage you in your transition?

💥Am I financially ready? Insufficient capital is the number-one reason startup businesses fail. Before leaving the security of your full-time job, make sure your new business is on firm financial footing.

💥Have you put enough money aside from your paychecks to support yourself until you can draw a full-time salary from your business?

💥If you have not yet reached breakeven, do you have enough working capital to keep the business going until you do?

💥Do you need to make any major personal financial moves, such as obtaining a home equity line of credit or refinancing your home?

Do so before you quit your job. It’s harder to do these things when you are self-employed, especially when your business doesn’t yet have a financial track record.

Say Goodbye...and Hello

When it’s time to say goodbye to your full-time job, be sure to leave on a positive note. Thank everyone you worked with and stay in touch with your former employer, co-workers and other colleagues.

These valuable contacts may be able to refer you to clients, become clients or serve as references to help you get new business.

Then say hello to your exciting new life as a full-time entrepreneur. You’re the one in control of your destiny now … and your business’s growth is limited only by your imagination, ambition and energy.

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@DArtCrea https://dartcreadesigns.etsy.com
Welcome to my Etsy Shop, if you like my products , please follow me!!!💗💜💗

Saturday, June 7, 2025

Exploring Style Sourcebook

Have you heard about Style Sourcebook yet?

I first stumbled upon Style Sourcebook last year… on a slow day at work. It's entirely FREE.

Style Sourcebook is a product sourcing and mood board community to help you renovate and decorate.

https://stylesourcebook.com.au/

Read in my blog more information by each step : 💥www.hobbytosmallbusiness.blogspot.com

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So, what is Style Sourcebook?

Well it is an Australian website (head to www.stylesourcebook.com.au) that allows you to develop style and mood boards from scratch. According to its own website, Style Sourcebook can be described as “a product sourcing and mood board community to help you renovate and decorate”.

Style Sourcebook provides functionality on many levels. For someone such as myself who is predominantly focused on developing style boards for personal usage, it is a great blank canvas to see how room layouts and colors will or won’t work in the real world (saves on money and all that effort moving furniture around).

How does it work?

Starting with a blank page, you can either upload your own images or alternatively you can upload from the library bank of furniture, homewares and home décor options already loaded onto the site. Although the library appears to include furniture from predominantly Australian-based and recognized companies, it is very extensive and includes categories such as Bedroom, Bathroom, Décor, Living, Outdoors, Walls and Floors. Within each of these are even more sub-categories.

Even if you prefer to use your own photos, Style Sourcebook is still a great resource. Instead of searching across the existing categories, all you need to do is upload your images via the Upload Images tab. Keep in mind that these images are then saved, and can be used later via Saved Images (you can also save images from the database and access them here later as well).

If it all seems to much and you just want someone else to show you the way, then Style Sourcebook still has you covered via its Mood Boards tab. This part of the website allows you to view style boards created by others, categorized by Popularity or Recently Uploaded. You can also use the search function if you have a particular theme you want to look for, say Teal and Purple Bedroom.

Finally, Style Sourcebook allows you to create an account as either a private person or as a Designer. Even if you create a personal account, the site still allows you to use a business name, register a business email and website etc., but does not seem to allow you to fully market yourself as an interior designer. To do that, it seems that you need to register as a Designer. To my mind, this aspect of the site reminds me a little bit of www.houzz.com . Either way, if you like the look of a particular style board creator, you can search for them on the site and peruse their work at your leisure…

How does Style Sourcebook compare to Canva?

Now that I am more familiar with both, I can see that they serve different functions. Whereas I find Canva great for graphic design work more generally (logos, insta posts etc) I find it less helpful when working on design projects. Because of the template structure of Canva, I tend to use Canva mood boards more for picture collages or color inspo boards.

However, if I am trying to style a room, defining not just colors, but furniture types and placement, then I would suggest trying Style Sourcebook in the first instance. The blank template structure means that you can place pictures wherever you want on the page, rather than within a set template format. However, I do think that they provide differentiated products and you should first consider what it is that you want to produce before deciding on which to use.

Get in touch!

As always, if you have any comments or questions. get in touch! Comments section is below and email and socials are at the top of the page :-)

Disclaimer

I have absolutely no affiliation with any of the companies or websites mentioned in this blog. This blog is based on my personal observations alone. I don’t pretend to be an expert - just a lover of all things interior design related including great websites.