Small Business

UPrinting Business Boost Giveaway – $50 Value!!

UPrinting Giveaway!!

The amazing crew over at UPrinting is super generous, and is sponsoring another great giveaway! One lucky winner will get to design a custom package of flyers – and get 250 of them printed totally free! This is great for business owners, bloggers, Etsy shops, direct sales reps – anyone with a product, service, or site to promote.

Prize Package Details:

250pcs. Flyers for one winner
4.25″ x 5.5″, 4″ x 6″
14pt Cardstock Gloss, Front Only Printing,
Nightclub flyer templates and business flyer templates also available for download.
3 Business Days Turnaround
Free US shipping only

Learn more and see some examples of great business flyer designs on their site. This is a value of almost $50 bucks – and an awesome way to start promoting your business in the new year!

Interested in using UPrinting for YOUR business needs? You can get a free sample package of your choice, to see the great quality of their products yourself. — Request Free Sample Package.

Enter to WIN!

Use the easy peasy Rafflecopter form to enter the giveaway – and don’t forget to come back each day for your daily bonus entries! Good Luck!

{Disclaimer: I was provided with a complimentary set of flyers from UPrinting to review. I look forward to showing you the finished product soon – and am excited that one of you lucky fans will get to win a set too!}

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Posted by Meagan Paullin on December 12, 2011 Filed Under: Giveaways | 1 Comment

$350 Cash & Prizes: Shop from Your Seat Showcase and Giveaway! {11/30}

Holiday Giveaway!

I am excited to be teaming up with CEO of Me, Inc and over 25 other family friendly blogs to bring you the 2011 Shop from Your Seat Showcase and Giveaway November 21 – 30th! You have probably heard of Black Friday and maybe even Cyber Monday, but we want to help spread the movement of Small Business Saturday. On Saturday, November 26, Americans are being encouraged to shop with a small business!

We are showcasing 24 fabulous small businesses and small business owners that can provide great Christmas gifts for your friends & family! You can shop from your seat and not on your feet as you support a small business!

Small Business Saturday

Something to keep in mind this holiday season is that YOU, the customer, are direct sales, handcrafted business and small business owners’ everything! Spending $100 at a BIG BOX store during the holidays won’t make a bit of difference to anyone. However, spending $100 through a home business owner for Christmas means their businesses can continue; it gives them their pay, provides for their families, helps them meet their personal goals, and helps them continue to do what they love without using harsh sales techniques. The big stores will not care about you the way they will! You mean the world to all of them so shop a home based, direct sales or hand crafted business for Christmas this year!

Our 24 sponsors are each offering some special sales and offers just for this giveaway! Be sure to click here to visit our Shop from you Seat Showcase & check out all the companies and their specials!

This is more than just a showcase, it is also a GIVEAWAY!

We want to reward our readers for being so supportive of our blogs (which are also small businesses) and we want to help you with your Christmas shopping too! We have over $350 in cash & prizes we will be giving away including gift cards to all 24 companies that are sponsoring this event!

Enter to Win!!

To enter to win, simply go through the Rafflecopter form below. There are numerous ways to earn entries and 28 total prizes you can win!
Thank you for supporting small businesses including this blog!

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Posted by Meagan Paullin on November 21, 2011 Filed Under: Giveaways | 1 Comment

Get your Business ready for the Holidays – Save over $50 too!

Who Loves Vistaprint?

I do, I do!! I use Vistaprint for a huge order every few months, and have always been super happy with the service, the quality, and especially the PRICE. You really can’t beat the value you get with Vistaprint – seriously. I get almost everything I need for my blog and business, plus fun gifts and personal stuff too.

Why do they give away so much stuff for FREE?

While Vistaprint has tons of great options for gifts, personal use, and office supplies – they are most focused on business owners. They’re hoping that by letting you try out a bunch of their products for free, you’ll love ’em enough to keep coming back for all of your small business needs. And for me, it sure worked!

What can you get free?

Right now there are a ton of great free options! You can get cute little mini-photo books like these – and there are a bunch of really nice design options. I used these as part of Christmas gifts for the grandparents last year. Really nice. You can also get all of this for free right now too:

One Wall Calendar – fully personalized with your own family photos and dates.
250 custom designed business cards – including your company logo!
10 Free Premium 4×8 Invitations – great for any holiday entertaining, or even make them as a Thank You style card instead!
1 Free Custom Cotton Tote Bag – your choice of design and text.
1 Free T-Shirt with your own photos and text.
Plus the photo books!

Why this is a great time to order:

Here’s how it works – all of the above items are totally FREE, you click here to visit Vistaprint.com, and start creating all of your fun free items. All you pay is shipping and handling on each one, which ranges from $4-6 bucks on each item. If you only want a couple of things, this is an amazing deal – how can you NOT love a full set of 250 business cards for $5 bucks? Or how about a T-shirt or tote bag customized with pic’s of the kids to sent to Grandma? And if you’re a business owner, you need to get ready for holiday promotions by stocking up on stickers, cards, brochures and more right now!

How to get even MORE value…

Here’s where the REAL value comes in… If you ordered all 6 free items, you’d pay about $30 bucks total for your shipping and processing fees. Still a totally great value for everything that you get, right? BUT – right now, Vistaprint has a deal – Spend $50 bucks or more and get FREE shipping! What does that mean? That means instead of paying $30 in shipping for all of this great stuff, you can STILL get it all, PLUS pick out $50 in ADDITIONAL merchandise, for only $20 bucks more!! When you add the value of the free items, plus the free shipping, you’re paying about $50 bucks for over $120 in merchandise!

There is so much fun stuff to choose from:

Car door magnets to advertise your business
Mugs and travel cups
Photo Mouse Pads like mine above
Holiday Cards
Christmas Ornaments with your family photos
Notebooks – these can be customized any way you like, with calendars inside, back cover graphics, text, etc. One of my favorites!
Keychains, lawn signs, banners, networking stickers, and more to boost your business
Photo Post-it Style notepads, greeting cards, birth announcements, and other fun stuff!

Love it!

My old business cards you see in the first picture have my old logo – so I’m putting together a HUGE new order with my new info! I want to add my Discovery Toys business info too. I’m excited to get new cards – and I’m getting a tote bag with my logo, to promote while I run errands. I’ll also get a rubber stamp, tons of cool logo pens, the car door magnet and more – and I’m totally having fun designing Christmas ornaments!

So check it out, and get YOUR order in today too!!

6 Free Fall Products from Vistaprint! The products are FREE, just pay Shipping and Processing. Choose from flip books, t-shirts, totes, calendars and more! Get creative and have some fun! Great for gifts or for your own use. Trying to find a way to preserve memories? Upload them to a calendar or flipbook! Planning an event? Send invitations and create rsvp cards out of business cards! Click Here to get started!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2011 Filed Under: Blogging Resources | No Comments

Supporting Women in Business – A New Way to Shop Handmade!

Introducing a New Way to Buy Handmade…. Crafty Attic!

CraftyAttic.com is a brand new site that just launched in September. Their goal is to provide crafters a new venue for sharing their amazing handmade products – as well as give lovers of those crafty goods a way to purchase them at big discounts!

Women’s Small Business Month

Did you know that the month of October is officially Women’s Small Business Month? Shopping at Crafty Attic is a great way to show your support for other women in business! When you buy a handmade item, you’re using YOUR power as a consumer to help support another hard working mom, instead of just a big corporation. And in return you get one-of-a-kind, handmade, quality goods – not some mass-produced item. Love that.

Are you a Crafter?

Learn more about the great opportunities for handmade crafters that Crafty Attic offers by visiting their website.

You can apply to be a Featured Seller, offer to partner with them for a fun giveaway, and learn more about being a vendor. This is a wonderful opportunity to extend your reach, and share the products that you put so much heart into with a whole new audience!

Do you support Handmade?

Then you will LOVE Crafty Attic! They share some of the best crafters, artists, Etsy Shops, and Suppliers – and offer them at great discounts too! Plus, every week they have a brand new giveaway you can enter – and I know you guys LOVE a good giveaway.

More about the site:

“Crafty Attic offers daily deals on craft supplies, handmade goods, and vintage findings brought to you by artists, crafters, and independent suppliers. Our hope is to connect our featured sellers to new customers who will help their businesses thrive.”

What are you waiting for?

Head on over to Crafty Attic today, and sign up for their Daily Deals Newsletter today – so you can start shopping their great selection of handmade goods, and enter their weekly giveaways too!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 8, 2011 Filed Under: Shopping | No Comments

Get Ready for a DRAMATIC Change to Facebook

Cha-Cha-Changes are Coming to Facebook…

I first read about the new changes coming to Facebook in a couple of weeks on Six in the Nest’s new article- Holy Smokes… More Facebook Changes. That’s where this picture came from- it’s an example of what your new Facebook page will soon look like.
I wondered if this was a “possible” type of change, something that they were thinking about, just testing- or if this was a sure thing. So, I went to the Facebook blog, and sure enough, in a few weeks we’ll all start seeing ANOTHER new, and dramatically different, Facebook page when we log-in.

It’s called Timeline, and you can see more of how it works here:

This is BIG deal

One of my favorite social media news sites- (the always amazing Mashable.com) states, “I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media. And while I won’t talk about the mind-boggling things Facebook will be launching, I will say this: The Facebook you know and (don’t) love will be forever transformed.” Read more of how to Prepare for the New Facebook, or if you’re brave, How to Enable the New Facebook Timeline Now.

You can also check out a great explanation, including a really helpful set of screenshots from someone who is already using the new Timeline page- What to Expect from the New Timeline Change on Facebook.

What do you think?

Honestly, I don’t like it. I say- slow your roll Facebook. You’re beautiful just the way you are. Please- don’t change, again, just for the sake of change.
Of course Facebook needs to update often, and evolve- all technology has to change constantly to stay relevant. BUT- this seems to be changing Facebook into something totally different than what it is now. If you have a game-changing product, that everyone uses, why would you make it into something else? It might turn out to be an amazing change, but it seems like a huge risk.
This isn’t an “upgrade”, this is like buying your favorite ham sandwich at the deli and finding out it’s now a tuna melt. It’s the same idea, but a totally different product.
That said- I’m totally open-minded about it {even though it sure doesn’t sound that way, lol}- and am really hoping I like it. A few friends I’ve talked to who are developers and have made the switch already are really lovin’ it. *Fingers crossed*

Helping you find what’s Important

On the Facebook blog it says, “The way your profile works today, 99% of the stories you share vanish.” They want to make it easier to ignore all of the “I totally woke up too early today. I hate Mondays” type of posts that clutter your stream. But um, if all of my random daily posts will disappear, and only major events will show up…. correct me if I’m wrong- but THAT’S making 99% of my posts disappear, right? And if I only wanted to know major events in my friends lives, I could take a peek at their photo albums to see weddings, babies, and graduations.

Do you use Facebook for your Business?

No word yet on how these major new changes will affect Pages. I know that for many bloggers like myself, a large majority of our traffic comes from the interaction and community that we’ve built on our Facebook pages- I’ve already seen a dramatic drop in traffic after the last Facebook update a week ago, since many people no longer see my posts.

It’s hard to imagine how a business page would make sense with this new Timeline layout, but I’m hoping that Facebook will really consider the needs of business owners, and ensure that Facebook can still be as useful to us as it is now.

My bet is that Timeline will roll out to personal pages first, and business pages later on- that seems to be how most of the Facebook changes have worked in the past. I’ve heard from many designers who are halting their Facebook projects for small business clients until the changes are completed, to fully understand what this will mean for business pages.

I’d love to hear from you…

Share some comments- Love? Hate? Indifferent? Tell me what you think about the new Timeline, and whether you believe that it will really change Facebook as dramatically as people are saying.