From Trash to Cash: the Dribble continues

dillidalli

Lilac Pixie - I am like you, I have a million different ideas bubbling over at the same time. With the blogging you will hit your rythmn but I just tried to write the way I would write to a friend and then I tried to do things that were more in line with my personality, as I like design so I do a design envy feature, or because I love music an insane amount I do the mixtape. As it mean I get to listen to new artists and shake things up a bit.

Also, schedule your time I read a really great book a few years ago and it encouraged segementation; so view your different interests like Ice Cream flavours or Recipe bits and bobs. Make a list of everything see what activities can be grouped together and to take it from there and to work out a timetable accordingly. Once that is done it makes it far easier to get stuff done.

Friday night is my blog research day so I find the bulk of what I am going to write about for the week in between dribbling. Then I do a few write ups over the weekend or on Monday and then edit and get posting throughout the week. Also, I grab items from the newspapers through the week too! So, if I see anything interesting blog related I will chuck that in.

LilacPixie, it might also be worth having a blitzkrieg day as I like to call it. I find one task and spend the whole day focused on that task only, so all the little niggly jobs that I have been holding off on or jobs that have seemed really daunting - I devote the whole day to it and that seems to work really well.

Also, I reward myself for completing my to do list - so if I have a week straight it is a big treat like a marks and spencers meal and chocs, for day to day it is an hour long soak in the tub with a favourite book instead of a quick shower. If you don't find ways to reward yourself you will lose motivation. Honestly, half the stuff I write on the blog is grammar riddled twaddle - but I have gained in confidence because I keep doing it.

So be easy on yourself, you will get there - I think I have a pdf of the book that helped me organise myself. I will send you a link a bit later if I can find it.
Chin up hon! You can do it!

LilacPixie

Jo the 1k profit based on shop alone. 2008 - £1100 2009 - £2240 2010 looking around 1100 but not did books yet my year end was 31st March. I don't include this in my 10k challenge.

MummyandPaige

LilacPixie - as usual, Jo is right! Proiritise and order things in an order that will work, then go from there.

Jo - just have to say, I love your levelheaded and practical approach to everything! ps. I am now a dedicated reader of your blog, amazing!

NLID - go with your head, it would be nice to constantly do things out of the kindness of your heart, but you have to put debt and DS first sometimes. ok, now I sound hard, but I am a very tight person when it comes to my money, and if I would pay for it, then it means that lots of others will too, or if you feel better about it, can you inbuild a donate button along with affilates? I am really not a techy person, (yet) but I think there is definately the opportuntiy to make a few quid there!

LilacPixie

Dalli link woud be great when ypou have time.

Mind currently being numbed by iggle piggle. I wish he would not be a naughty boy and actually go to bed.

NLID - donate button would be good. That and affiliates. I think you would need to get a bit of a following to charge outright.

dillidalli

NLID - I have learned a valuable lesson over the last few years. Always get paid - even if it is payment in kind, bartering, whatever. You need to get something for what you do. If you don't feel comfortable tie it in with some pay per click system so that it becomes free if you do some clicks. Although you see it as messing around with code - you still deserve to get paid for it! The projects I have been paid for - no problem. The stuff I have done for free nightmare, because once it is free people don't respect the work that has gone into it.

You could always do two versions if you really want to be altruistic... ie limited free version or paid for full version

MummyandPaige

LilacPixie wrote: »

Mind currently being numbed by iggle piggle. I wish he would not be a naughty boy and actually go to bed.

:rotfl::rotfl:SNAP!

mambury

Lilac - I don't bother with surveys as I feel that my time is better spent elsewhere.
As Jo said, prioritise the tasks. I would work on the onething that would make more money first or if you have stock not listed on ebay, then I would prioritise the higher profit margin.

I think if you are not including your jewellery in the challenge then that should take priority over everyhting else, then ebay, then blog etc etc. Just my thoughts!

Ready, aim.... KICK!

NLID.... I've Pm'd you with some ideas!!

Off to do something productive!

nolongerindenial

dillidalli wrote: »

NLID - I have learned a valuable lesson over the last few years. Always get paid - even if it is payment in kind, bartering, whatever. You need to get something for what you do. If you don't feel comfortable tie it in with some pay per click system so that it becomes free if you do some clicks. Although you see it as messing around with code - you still deserve to get paid for it! The projects I have been paid for - no problem. The stuff I have done for free nightmare, because once it is free people don't respect the work that has gone into it.

You could always do two versions if you really want to be altruistic... ie limited free version or paid for full version

Firstly - I dont know what altruistic means but i think i get the Gest

The more I put into this the more I realise I need to be paid for it. However with anything paid you then pass on a level of expectation of a product being fit for purpose. This of course adds pressure. The other downside of me being paid for this is the fact I am a business, and having created the product I will then have to invoice out for each payment, ensure the accounts integration is completely upto speed. Paypal is the only realistic option and for £1 to be quite honest, it is not worth my time to generate the invoice when you take into account the following (excluding host/domain costs etc)

I am VAT Registered, meaning before we take paypals extortion into account the taxman is going to take ~15p, then paypal will take ~24p out of the pound, leaving me with 61p, of which the taxman is going to want to take ~20p of that for NI/Income tax etc.

This means for putting this out there at such a low price, (again excluding hosting costs) I will take home around 41p for generating the invoice, and for me to be in profit for the time I need to take less than 40 seconds to create and send the invoice, as well as reconcile the payments - great if Im selling in volumes of over 500 licenses a day, however with the volume I predict will sell it is not sensibly priced at £1.

However for free I make no money on it, but have no hassle of generating the invoices on time etc etc - I know I can automate all of this however this also takes up time

What I think the only option is, to make this system fair to my time is to offer 5-10 accounts to people who can help me by testing the product FOC and providing valuable feedback. As well as offer a restricted version of the software to anybody who wants to try it out FOC, maybe only bringing back 25-50 transactions per seller to them, with a maximum of 5 sellers per free account. The upside of all this work is it will take me a few days to create the logins etc and probably till the end of the month to sort out the paypal autoinvoice stuff, however I will still try and keep the pricing quite keen at either £4.99 or £5.99 depending on the post tax costs.

mambury

NLID - I am more than happy to help test.... Oh and how about a subscription for the service... I beleive you can set these up automatically with paypal. And if you are going to be taking payments lower that £10 ish then set up a micropayment account, rather than 20p + 3.9%, its 5p + 5% which works out much better on low payments.

MummyandPaige

I will test it too! except I don't know what I am looking for! ok, maybe it would be better for me to be your first customer! When I said £1, it was only a random figure, I have a bit of a thing about £1, I always bet £1 for everything, and if I see something cheap, my comment is, its only £1, it really was random! I would pay more, but was giving an example, bad one, now I thing about it! I would pay a fiver for it, sorry I have a very random thought process, its all over the place!

Kitten no 2 just left, finally! £30 in the pot, now off to the PO AGAIN, why is it nothing sells unless you go to the PO, then when you get back, you have more to post! Wouldn't mind, but the queue is rediculous in there!