With this news from Hubby I’m thinking it’s time for me to ramp up my home business in anyway possible. I’ve been doing really well here lately, and I’ve picked up quite a few new customers.
The economy being as crappy as it is has actually helped increase my business for the simple fact that a lot of people can’t afford to run out and buy new computers, but they still need a computer to use. It’s much cheaper to have their current one fixed, and well my prices are much cheaper than any of the local computer repair shops.
Most of my advertising has consisted of word of mouth advertising and business cards. I ran a few newspaper ads, but I didn’t have any luck with those. Now I’m thinking I might invest in some digital signage. I don’t need anything big, but a nice small blinking sign in my window might attract a little more attention than the magnetic one on my mailbox and the vinyl peel off one on my window.
All I know is I’ve got to do something. I’ve worked my butt off to avoid going back to a real job setting. If that’s what I’ve got to do I’ll do it, but I’d rather try my best to beef up my own business first.
I know I haven’t been around a lot lately, and I’m sorry for that. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on, and I just haven’t had as much time as I would like to be able to blog. I’ve got a friend who decided to start a home business, so I’ve been helping her out with that. Hubby and I have also tried to devote a little more time to each other since lately we’ve noticed we just haven’t been able to spend as much time together as we like. It seems like one of us is always busy doing something. The fact that we’ve both spent a lot of time under the weather hasn’t helped much either.
I’ve also had a little extra business coming my way with my computer repair services. My uncle owns a landscaping business. He was looking for someone like one of those angel investors, and he finally found himself an investor. Now that he’s got the cash coming in to really help his business, he wants to upgrade his office computers. That means I’m the first person he thought of when he decided to look for new equipment. After talking about different options he’s finally decided he’d like to have me custom build his new systems, and that’s a big plus for both of us!
That just means it’s going to be a lot busier for me once all the parts come in, so I’ll try to keep everyone updated on what’s going on, but please cut me some slack if you don’t hear from me for a couple days. I’m already seriously behind on a couple of my other blogs. I haven’t really had the time to search for freebies or finish many of my product reviews, but I promise to work on those as soon as I have a chance!
I’m still making a point to get at least one post up per day because of Blog 365, but if you don’t see a post on this blog don’t forget to check all my other blogs! The way I see it I do have 1 freebie day I can use at anytime because I did blog on February 29th which was our one day we didn’t have to post!
It looks like my solder repairs today are halted. Hubby was complaining because one of our remotes wasn’t working even with fresh batteries. Being the solder queen I am (just let me keep thinking that), I took it apart and found that one of the wire connections wasn’t connected. That’s a simple repair. I just have to clean up the old solder job and solder the wire again.
I grabbed my desoldering pump and went to work. I clicked the button on the desoldering pump and got nothing. After some inspection I found my desoldering pump is broken. Yeah I have other methods to remove the solder from small boards, but when it comes to the larger ones I have to use a desoldering pump.
I started making calls to see which stores carry them. I started with Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Walmart, and Lowes. No luck. I tried Hobby Connection and Michael’s. Nada. Come on! Why can’t anybody carry a simple $5 desoldering pump! I’ve got two choices. I can search all the way to Branson Missouri and back for a store that carries one or I can just order a $3 one from Amazon. It looks like my soldering repairs will be on hold while I order a new one.
I love Amazon…for shopping. I will most likely never attempt to sell anything there again. I’ve had a huge listing of books on Amazon off and on for the past few months. I’ve sold a few while others have sat there. That’s to be expected. What pisses me off? The Amazon emails you’re supposed to receive when someone buys a product never show up. I’ve added them to my whitelist, changed email addresses many times, and still nothing. If I don’t login everyday I could totally miss a sale. That in turn leaves unhappy buyers who leave nasty comments because they’ve been waiting on their product.
Today was yet another one of those days. I haven’t logged into my seller’s account in about 3 days. I’ve just been so busy I haven’t thought about it, and I honestly thought all my current listings were ending at the beginning of this week. It looks like the current listings did end Tuesday morning, but Monday night someone purchased one of my books. The last time I logged in was Monday morning. When I logged in today I saw the sale has been sitting there, but yet again I received no email notifying me of it.
I Googled the issue, and it looks like there are many people dealing with the same issue with not receiving Amazon’s seller notification emails. It looks like it’s back to Ebay for me unless I can find another great place to sell my used books.
