Gimme a break!

Michelle Lambert

Last time I wrote I was drowning at the hand of my host, Aplus.net. I’m happy to report that within 2 days of my post, our site was faster then it had been in many months. Thank God! We also came to understand that our gateway had shut down. There seems to be a disagreement as to whether or not we were notified of this. We have no email to that affect, however we’ve been assured it was sent out to us. We have every single email filed from the last six years that was sent to us from Aplus, we just don’t have that one. We are now set up through Authorize.net, which I’m really excited about by the way. And so within 3 days of my blog post we were back in business. So now what? My business had been paralyzed, but is most definitely moving…

Follow this link:
Gimme a break!

Missed Opportunity

Kara English

I was listening to the radio the other day when a commercial for a local business came on. They were making it very easy to do something very small that could help many. I listened some more and learned that if I bring in gently used shoes they would donate them to people in Haiti. What a great idea!!! I was already thinking about all the shoes I could donate. I also started thinking about how I’d love to replace those shoes with a couple of newer styles. I was excited about the idea of donating to a good cause…and the idea of shopping. What really struck me was when the advertisement was over. They had my attention, they had me turn up the commercial to listen, they already had me envisioning spending money in their store. Th…

Original post:
Missed Opportunity

Someone throw us a life preserver.. We’re going down!

Michelle Lambert

It’s my server.. my server!!! I can’t believe what I’ve been through for the last few days.. I should really say the last three months. I was having some pretty significant lag times on my site, specifically my Miva pages. I’ve blogged over the last few months that things are slowing down, and we needed to put our thinking caps on. I assumed that this business was failing because of me and my lack of ingenuity. Maybe, to some degree, that’s true. I’m never without fault. But sometimes my optimism kicks me in the butt, and I don’t see what’s right in front of me. I just don’t see the obvious. That my server was keeping folks from shopping my site. I opened a ticket in November with my host, Aplus.net. We have a shared hosting plan for…

See the original post:
Someone throw us a life preserver.. We’re going down!

My glass is half full

Michelle Lambert

Just as I forcasted last month, our December was a slow one for Red Hats By You. And even though this doesn’t come as a surprise, it’s still a disappointment. Sometimes, I just close my eyes and pray for the answers to come. Sometimes they do! But many times they don’t and I guess that comes from sheer exasperation. What are the answers to reinvention? I can sit down and write 10 things to do that might help. But because I’ve been so depressed about the lack of momentum in our site, I may only do half of them. I’m just ‘in a funk’ as my mom would say. This Fall was promising. We were looking up, and I have to remember that and not get caught in the bummer of December. January and February tend to be stronger months. And obviously, runni…

Excerpt from:
My glass is half full

Mom are you going to work on Christmas?

Kara English

Mom are you going to work on Christmas? This is the question I got before the holidays from the kiddos. They’ve been home on Christmas break and I’ve been working each day. We are busier than ever so I haven’t had much personal time lately. My answer was of course, no honey I will not be working on Christmas. But looking at last year’s sales, we did have orders on Christmas Day and a few customer service phone calls and emails. When do you turn off of the phones, turn off the computers and just breathe? I know on Christmas Day I will turn everything off and focus all my attention on my family, but I also know that little spot in my brain will want to check my email or my voice mail and it will be bugging me to find out what is goin…

Link:
Mom are you going to work on Christmas?

Let it snow!

Michelle Lambert

For months I’ve been patiently waiting. I’ve been avoiding the heat of Utah by escaping to the mountains to hike. But it’s getting colder, and snowier, and finally this past weekend, I bought my season pass and started to ski. Ahhhhh… this is why I moved here. This is what it’s all about for me. The fresh air, the powder, a great lunch outside by the fire, and then heading home thoroughly exhausted and happy.
I love winter. Oddly enough, December is my least favorite month for the site. It’s our slowest month online. This whole cyber Monday thing makes me laugh every year. I saw on the news today that Overstock.com moved enough merchandise today to fill half a football field! Sigh.. I’d be happy with just half of the bathroom floor. …

See more here:
Let it snow!

Thankful for our Crazy Year

Kara English

It’s been a crazy year for me this year. Beside the business growing like crazy, a full website redesign and adding over 2000 new Party Favors and Gifts, it’s been crazy for me personally too. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when my husband lost his job in June. We knew it was coming, with the economy it was just a matter of time. The twist I didn’t see coming was my husband working with me. I gave him a few projects which he gladly took on and I have to say, I didn’t realize how much I needed the help. And I’ve already seen a return on what he’s done for our business. I was worried about us working together; we don’t look at things the same way. But it was nice having him home, having a lunch together, just the two of us…

See more here:
Thankful for our Crazy Year

Time to diversify..

Michelle Lambert

Happy Halloween from Salt Lake. It’s our first Halloween here, and my kids are sooo excited.. sorry.. Indiana Jones and The Vampiress are already so hopped up on sugar, they’re sure to crash before we even hit the pavement. But I’ll let them indulge, to me, that’s what it’s all about.. too much sugar and staying up too late! Ahhhh, the life of a kid! Gotta let up on them sometimes. All is well here in hat land. We are working hard to keep things going. Last month I talked about cross selling on the site. I’ve done that with some success. I have to say that whenever I make changes, I see sales. Moving things around on my site is probably the fastest way to make things move. I have to remember that people don’t tend to scroll down. I str…

The rest is here:
Time to diversify..

Preparing for the Holiday Season

Kara English

With the holidays coming up fast I thought I would blog about something that happened to me a few months ago and how I plan on applying this experience to improve my business. Last Spring at the end of the school year my kids and I went shopping for teacher gifts. Our first stop was the local florist. My kids really wanted to give their teacher some flowers. They had big dreams of very large bouquets and arrangements. I had a budget. Not only was it the last week of school, it was also Memorial Weekend and Graduation for all of the area high schools. Busy times in our small town! As we shopped around the clerk approached me and asked if she could help. I explained that I was looking for teacher gifts, maybe a small flower arrange…

See original here:
Preparing for the Holiday Season

Things are looking up : )

Michelle Lambert

We have some new life to speak about.. THANK GOD! We have new customers coming into the site and things are looking up. I can’t believe I get to write that… things are looking up : ) When you start to lose your business it really throws you into a funk. And when subsequent attempts to revive don’t work.. an even bigger funk!
We’ve had over a year of that. Could this be a trend? I don’t even dare to type it. Our mailing list has grown, and that most definitely is why. I made the subscribe section more prominent on the site and in the weekly email I send out. Whenever we see an upturn I never want to trust it, even if the traffic is increasing by a very significant 25% off of our direct mail campaign. So not only are they subscribing,…

See more here:
Things are looking up : )

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »