Many of my readers know that I’m an eBay Power Seller through my Store, Moomette’s Magnificents, as well as a Moderator on Suzanne Wells’ eBay Coach Free Forum.

Suzanne is an Internationally recognized eBay Authority, Author-Extraordinaire of The Stay At Home Mom’s Guide to Successful eBay Selling, and Administrator of the Ebay Coach Free Forum. (If you sell on eBay, it is THE place to be for up-to-the minute advice on anything and everything eBay!)

Suzanne is an expert on finding inventory (cheap, or free) to sell on eBay, and has amassed oodles of products from  CVS, RiteAid, Walgreens, and various other stores.  eBay Coach wants to do a little Pre-Fall cleaning at her house, and is looking for someone to take it off her hands.

Here is what you get:

(2) Tubes Aveeno Sunscreen SPF 55, $18 value
Burt’s Bees Color Keeper Shampoo, 8 ounces, $9 value
Burt’s Bees Healthy Healing Carrot Lotion, 8 ounces, $9 value
Itch X Lotion, 3 oz, $10 value
Love’s Baby Soft Cologne Spray, $12 value
(2) Oral B Cross Action Power toothbrushes, $14 value
Almay Intense i-Color Kit, $22 Value
(2) Almay Triple Effect Mascara (blackest black), $16 value
Quattro Surf Style Razor and Case, $5 value
Aquafresh Advanced Toothpaste, $4 value
Neutrogena Lip Balm with Sunscreen, $4 value

Here’s how to play.

Post this contest on your blog. Leave a comment at Suzanne’s blog, eBay Selling Coach, about why you want all this FREE stuff, that links back to the post on your blog. If you don’t have a blog, post this contest on a forum or group. Leave a comment that links back to your post.

The winner will be announced Monday, August 25 - we have to do something to make Mondays fun!

Should I happen to be the winner, I’ve indicated that I will be donating the prizes to the local Social Services Agency in my town, or to the local Shelter for battered women.

As part of my Grand Master Plan,  I’m hoping to try to retire next year. For the last 1-1/2 years, I’ve been building up my various ecommerce businesses, one by one.

It all started when my daughter was planning her wedding and I mistakenly decided to buy her a Celtic Tiara to wear at the reception. I bought it on the internet, and she promptly made me sell it on the internet. Little did she know she was creating a monster, as I plunged full speed ahead, opened an ecommerce store, and became a Power Seller. And who doesn’t believe in the Luck ‘O the Irish?

Opening an ecommerce store obviously meant that I had to invest in some office supplies to get my momreneur ebiz going. Superwarhouse.com is a one-stop shop for all home and business office needs. It’s also Eco-Friendly, and carries name-brand products.

If you’re going to sell on an ecommerce site, the most important thing, besides inventory, is you’d have to have a good-quality camera My favorites are the Canon Digital Cameras. Canon has announced a new initiative, Generation Green that combines the company’s eco-friendly printer products and solutions under one corporate brand. Generation Green is divided into three product classification categories: Eco-Conscious, Eco-Standards and Eco-Friendly. More and more people I know are making a concerted effort to go Green!

I also needed a postage scale to weigh all my packages that I send out for items I sell. I also had to purchase a tape-gun, packing and shipping supplies such as bubble wrap, packing tape, poly mailers as well as printing paper.

My second ecommerce business venture is that I established a Virtual Assistant website specializing in Administrative and Paralegal Assistance. I’ve been a professional paralegal for over 30 years, and this was a natural progression for me. In order to run such a business, I need to purchase items such as a scanner and am looking into Laptops as well.  The Epson scanners and HP laptops are one’s I’m definitely going to look into. However, Sony has announced their own plans for helping the environment by introducing the Sony VAIO Eco Friendly Notebook to the market. The notebooks are available in a range of “eco” colors, which include leopard print and floral patterns. Having a laptop gives me the flexibility to use Wi-Fi and work from almost anywhere! Since my Charming Son-In-Law is originally from Vermont, I can take it up there when I go to visit and never miss a beat on either my ecommerce business or my VA business!

There’s just so many choices at superwarehouse.com that I’ve definitely bookmarked the site as one of my favorites.

I promised I’d share my tips on how I’m jump-starting  my second career and planning for my retirement.

Now I’m going to let you in on a cool webinar that’s going to be taking place August 27th at 9 pm EST that can help you promote your business in time for the upcoming Holiday Season ~

The Cost?  Only USD $1.00 ~ yes you read right!  SPACE IS LIMITED to 40 people!

You get:

• The chance to ask as many press release/public relations questions as you want
• An mp3 copy of the event so you can listen as many times as you need to
• Special attendee only bonuses and discounts

How can you pass on this?  If you’re seriously trying to market your products and are interested in public relations and media attention, give this a shot for $1.00~

Hope to be ‘talking’ to you!

Read more on this terrific opportunity ~

Press Release Mis-steps – What you don’t know can make all the difference
By Patrysha Korchinski

As a publicist, my job is to help my clients get media coverage. The tool I use most often on their behalf is the simple, but highly effective, press release. What I do isn’t rocket science; seeking publicity can be an in-house job for most small business owners.

Press releases can seem like a panacea for small business owners. The prospect of getting free publicity in exchange for a couple of hours of writing and submitting a 400 word release seems like a great deal. And on the surface – it is a great deal.

The publicity generated from one release picked up by a major media outlet can increase awareness and sales with a far greater impact than buying advertising in the same outlet.

Under the surface though, lurk thousand of disappointed publicity seekers who for one reason or another did not get the coverage they desired.

I used to believe that the reasons for the failed attempts lay mostly, if not entirely, on the message within the release.

The headline wasn’t strong enough
It read like a sales pitch rather than news
The subject wasn’t newsworthy

While those are definitely factors that will get your press release a one-way ticket to the circular file, most serious business owners I’ve met don’t fall victim to these mistakes. They took the time to craft newsworthy releases that were topical, relevant and well-written. They had the initiative to create a targeted media list to submit to – and yet still they struggled to get coverage.

What was going on?

It was only when I dug deeper and examined other aspects of their failed efforts that a few trends began to emerge. There are factors in press release pick up that the professional publicist innately utilizes for the benefit of their clients that most small business owners just aren’t aware of.

The timing of your submission is one component that is often to blame for poor results. You see, each media outlet has what is called a lead time. This is how far in advance they need to start working on stories that will eventually appear. Magazines with a large circulation tend to have the longest lead times, often 9 months or longer. If you send out a release geared towards Christmas to a major magazine in November, you’ve missed your window of opportunity by eight months!
You don’t necessarily need a publicist to get over these hurdles, you just need to be aware of what hurdles exist. Overcoming them is usually a fairly simple matter. As I said before, getting media coverage is not rocket science. You can improve your odds significantly with a little fine tuning.

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For more tips on turning the odds in your favor, you’ll want to grab the free special report.

Click on the link for the FREE IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD !

Continuing my little expose on how I’m doing in wally world as a WAHM, I’m going to further expound on my adventures in Twitterville.

First, I’m going to say this work-at-home Gram from Dysfunction Junction, CT is finding it’s a ton of fun ~ I enjoy getting the little pop-ups on Twitterfox, and getting to know the personalities of all my Tweeps.  While working late at night, I haven’t had the opportunity to watch the Olympics.  However, there’s one gal who updates regularly, every 10 minutes or so, on what exactly has been going on!  She’s so entertaining (besides being the author of a terrific blog, Send Chocolate, that I suggested last night that she bottle all the commentary on the Olympics into an eBook!

But I digress.  Seriously, Twitter is an excellent platform for micro-blogging and marketing your product, be it a blog, service, eBay store or mission.

If you find yourself in a position that you need to understand your target customer as well as keep up with various ways of marketing to those potential customers, Twitter is one of the most powerful and popular tools out there right now!  This new type of network communication has been taken up by companies and individuals alike in recent months and for good reason.

To get a better understanding of Twitter, let’s first take a look at the format.  Essentially, Twitter is a program that allows you to make very small, public posts.  Because these posts are so limited (they max out at 140 characters) they can easily be sent to a number of different locations all at once.  When you have written a Twitter, it can appear on the twitter website, on short message services, instant messaging sites or even on third-party applications like Facebook or Twitterific.  Folks can even add a script to their blog or website to show their most recent posts and the posts of others!   I have a blue widget box on my right sidebar.   Your Twitter messages, also known tweets, will appear to anyone who has chosen to follow your updates.

There are several advantages to this type of communication.  The first thing that you’ll discover is that it allows for a much more immediate relay of information.  The shortness of the message forces you to be very brief, and this alone can create interest in those reading.  Because tweets are so short, they often lead to frequent posting, which is excellent when you’re looking to communicate with people and to get to know them.  While Twitter is, by default, public, you can restrict the people who see your material with the ease of checking a box in your profile.

Actually, although I rarely have to do this, last night and so far tonight have been the exception.  I believe it’s a full-moon this week, and true to form, the crazies are coming out of the walls.  I, along with a few of  my fellow Tweeps, have had to block several people.  If these folks have a trillion people that they’re following, and only 1 or 2 followers of their own and no website listed - that’s a sure sign of a Spammer or bored teen, and an instant BLOCK.  But don’t let that discourage you.  It happens in e-mail programs too.

You’ll find that not only can you post tweets, you can also receive them.  Once again, the immediate nature of this service lends greatly to its appeal.  Want to follow someone’s updates and see what they are up to with their business or life in general? Simply sign into your Twitter account, type in their Twitter address or username and click the “Follow” button.  That’s all there is to it!

The amount of time that’s spent reading the messages is very short, and you can be in contact with people a great deal more than you otherwise might be. In essence, you can get to know each other much more quickly than if you were just reading each others blogs or profiles.  The look and feel of an instant messaging service helps add to this ability.  Think about it for a minute, do you feel more connected to those on your messenger list than the blogs you read? Twitter is the same way.

I used Twitter extensively this week with my website designer for my Virtual Assistant website.  We both are on Twitter and when I sent her an e-mail either responding to her design questions, or making suggestions on the site design myself, I sent her a Tweet to let her know that ‘you’ve got e-mail.’  Simple!

For many, whether they’re looking for friends, clients, or someone to help them out with a problem or workload, getting in touch with others is important.  With Twitter it’s never been easier!

Don’t forget to Follow Me!

The most awsome, popular social networking site SK*RT has changed it’s name to KIRTSY!

Get there as fast as you can to check out all the fab information available! I love the banners that say “For Women ~ And the Men that want to Get In Their Heads.”

You’ll find information on Arts & Entertainment; Designs & Crafts; Parenting & Family; Fashion & Style; Food & Home; Internet & Technology; Mind, Body & Spirit and Travel & Leisure.  So sign up now!

Bloggers - upload your latest posts for all of us to see!

What more can a dame ask for? ~ Plus, a chance to enter some fab contests!

One of the goals of this blog is to provide credible information to WAHMs. I consistently see questions crop up frequently on several of the social networking sites and forums that I belong to from members asking where to find affordable, cheap web hosting for their home based businesses.

As a WAHG, I originally started out selling on eBay with a store, where I quickly became a Power Seller. I then decided to open my own boutique online ebiz to sell handcrafted items and vintage collectibles. Finding an affordable web host with tech support, load time and bandwith was very important to me.

I’d like to tell all Moms, Dads, and Grams who are considering opening their own online ecommerce sites about this site discussing  cheap web hosting which provides all the reference points you need to know, as well as information about web hosting specifications and tutorials concerning finding affordable, cheap web hosting.

After perusing the site, I think you’ll find that you’ll have a good background to determine what’s right for your needs. Additionally, you can comparison shop for web host information at Web Hosting Rating. Check it all out.

A new highlight of my Blog will be featuring and offering site reviews of WAHM (Work-At-Home Mom) eBiz ventures. I would like to try to offer a “Best Of WAHM Site Award” Banner to a WAHM who’s site has been featured.

It’s great to see so many young women taking the plunge and becoming business owners and self-employed. This was essentially not an option when I was younger!

I’d like to start out by letting you know about a young, WAHM who is venturing into the Virtual Assistant services field.

Erin Hall has recently launched her EH Virtual Assistant Services website. Proud mom of a toddler daughter, Erin and her husband are expecting their second child . Describing herself as a team player and Varsity College Lacrosse Letter Winner, Erin’s drive and determination are certain to assure this mompreneur success in whatever she sets out to accomplish!

A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients …Wikpedia

Erin holds a B.S. in Communication, concentrating in Advertising and Marketing, with a Minor in Business Administration. Erin is experienced in all aspects of the sales and marketing area, with extensive experience in the Advertising and Pharmaceutical fields.

A sampling of the services that EH Virtual Assistant Services is able to offer are:

- Marketing/Advertising /Cold Calling/Mailings

- Business Promotion/Event Promotion & Conference Planning

- Advertising Copy and Articles

- Press Releases

- Creation of Training Materials

- Consulting Services

- Travel Arrangements

As each business has a different budget and need, one can request a free initial consultation.

Please take a moment to visit Erin’s site and see what areas she may be able to assist you with in your business!

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If you would like the opportunity to be a featured WAHM on my blog, please drop me a note or comment to have your WAHM site or Blog reviewed and be considered for an Award Banner!

In an earlier post, I spoke of how I recommended to a fellow forum member the benefits of how I started several blogs to promote my Shoppes site, eBay store and affiliates. Here’s additional tips to support that suggestion.

Want Website Traffic? Start A Free Blog!

Blogging has become increasingly popular in the past couple of years. There are more and more blogs created everyday on a vast array of topics. Both personal and business.

If you own a website, then you know how difficult it is to get exposure to it. Creating a blog is one of the best resources there is today for receiving that exposure.

Like anything else…it takes hard work on creating interesting content on a new blog and getting traffic to it. Focus on your website or business when creating new posts and always try and add something new everyday. Try and connect with your creative side…we all possess some level of creativity! Give it a try…you just may surprise yourself at what you manage to conjure up.

Topics:

Concentrate on what people may be searching for today on the Internet. A lot of people are searching for content for their existing websites, marketing advice, and/or finding work at home jobs and home businesses.

While some people may be just searching for friendship and are interested in simply having a good time…getting to know others, conversing about current events, funny jokes, and the like. Some people are interested in infant clothing, toys, various baby items, and parenting tips or advice.

For example: If your website focuses on women’s interests…then center your blog around women’s interests, support groups, parenting issues, bargain shopping, household items, recipes, or whatever your website content may be. Try and make your blog posts as interesting as possible to try and keep people coming back for more.

Tips On Getting Comments:

1) Simply invite people to join in on the conversations and encourage them to comment on the various posts within your blog description.
2) If you own a website and message board, and you have advertising space available for other webmasters or business owners…announce a contest on your message board offering free advertising for the person that posts the most comments on your blog. ( I have a good friend that has done this very thing and it’s working great for her.)
3) Give people a chance to self promote their websites or businesses through their comments.
4) Offer something free…for example, a free ebook or some kind of software.
5) Participate in message boards, announcing your blog, and request their opinion. Ask them to place a comment post and share their thoughts and opinions about your blog.

Promoting Your Blog:

1) Advertise your blog on various message forums.
2) Include your blog link in your signature within message forums and emails.
3) Submit your blog in blog directories.
4) Exchange links with other bloggers.
5) Write articles relating to blogging and submit them to article directories.
6) Advertise your blog in various newsletters and ezines.
7) Include your blog link on any websites you may have.

One Last Thought:

Have fun with your blog. If there is something (off the wall) that you want to share or you think is really amusing…share it in your blog. Write about anything you feel like writing. The possibilities are endless!

You can create a free blog at http://www.blogger.com. Or, you can search for free blog sites at your favorite search engine.

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Article written by: Tammy Embrich
Tammy Embrich is an Internet Marketer and is the
Owner of: WAH Opportunities, Owner of: Real WAH Jobs, and owner of Cookin At Home

Tammy’s two WAH websites focus on free telecommute job leads and more.

I recently did a post about the sluggish economy and how it might affect businesses. I’m a Bronze eBay Power Seller, as well as an affiliate independent consultant for several companies, and recently formed a Virtual Assistant Services ebiz.

Whenever I package an item to ship to my eBay customers, I cross-promote my Shoppes site and the companies that I rep for and include my business cards.  In order to qualify to be a Bronze Power Seller, I have to sell a minimum of 100 items per month. That’s quite a few business cards that I hand out ~ and that’s just to my eBay customers alone!

Though various eBay forums and business forums I belong to, I found out about Vista Print. Vista Print is a once-stop source for all your promotional business needs. I get many of my company business cards for FREE! There’s a wide selection of nicely designed templates that you can customize to personalize your cards and make them ‘your own.’ There’s also the opportunity to upload your own logos to design your business cards. Vista Print has a category design for everything – boutiques, mineral makeup, spa, beauty, gardening services, house cleaning services – you name it, they have it!

Additionally, VistaPrint offers a wide array of very affordable printing services including:, checks, rubber stamps, announcements, and car magnets! They even offer window decals. You can customize all of their products to your liking!

Since many are free, I order often, and leave my card in  the establishments I patronize: local hairdresser; restaurants; banks; and also supply the whole family with cards to pass out to anyone they think might be interested in my businesses! Grow your business with Vista Print!

Here’s a FREE eBook to Download to see how Vista Print can help Grow Your Business:

Click on the Photo for Immediate FREE Download.

In my continuing quest to retire, I’ve recently become an Independent Consultant for Seriesse International.

This time I think I got it right. Seriesse International was established by Jennifer Flavin-Stallone, who is featured on HSN. Even though I’m a Baby Boomer, I’ve been using the Serious Skin Care products for years and years, and I can’t say enough about them! It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been blessed with pretty good skin genes… you should have seen my grandmother who lived to be 101. You would have thought she was in her 70s. These products will benefit people of all ages.

This is not a paid post. This is my honest opinion. I came across a banner on a WAHM forum that I belong to, and recognized Jennifer’s picture. Once I saw that there was an opportunity to become associated with her products, I jumped at the chance!

I have my own website, and now I can get my favorite products at a discount! The launch is recent, and from what I hear and understand, it is supposed to be B-I-G!

I’m glad I got in on the ground floor!

Visit today to see how to become an independent consultant and what it’s all about!