Captive Mommies

by Alyssa Dees Avant

In a world where crime is a constant and fraud is done everyday, we long to find people that we can trust and opportunities to work together where we do not feel threatened or scared of the outcome possibilities. As a business owner, we want to put our best foot forward and ensure that our clients see us as being “different from the others” in one way or another. Having integrity in your business can set you apart from the pack very quickly.

There are many ways to show your customers that you have integrity. Here are just a few of them:

1. Be passionate about your business. It is important that we are in a business or career that we love in the first place, if you are, it makes it easier to show your passion. So, do a heart check before going into any given business opportunity and make sure that you can be truly passionate about it, so that the passion you have will shine through to the customers.

2. Be upfront. Share information with your customers or clients from day one. Do not withhold information from them because you are afraid you’ll loose a sale, or not make as much money in the end. You need to want more than anything, to do what is right, not only for you but for your client as well. Withholding the truth will only serve you poorly in the end.

3. Appreciate your clients. Showing appreciation can go a long way in helping your customer to see that you are genuine, and can be trusted. Give your customers extra to show your appreciation, not to bribe them into doing more for you, or spending more money with you. Just give back to them to show that you are grateful for their business and loyalty.

4. Be personable and available. You might be the boss, the head honcho, or the CEO, but that does not mean that you should hide away in your office never to be seen by anyone but your employees after all the clients and customers are gone. You want to be seen by everyone as someone who truly cares, you want to be available to help meet the needs of your clients. Availability to others also shows your integrity.

5. Take responsibility for your mistakes. Let’s face it we all mess up. We are not perfect and we will make mistakes. When you do take responsibility and try to make things right. Your clients will appreciate you for it and will be more likely to forgive your mistake than if you tried to cover it up and not tend to it.

These are just a few of the ways that you can show integrity in your business on a daily basis, helping others to trust you with their time and their money.
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Alyssa Dees Avant is a Christian author, blogger, podcaster, speaker, and business owner, when she is not speaking to audiences of young girls and their mothers, she is writing as a freelance and ghostwriter. Whether she is sharing her passion with girls on the topics of beauty, modesty, and etiquette or with their moms on time management and organizing Alyssa has a true passion for helping others. Visit her on the web at http://beautybydesignonline.com or http://organizedlifebydesign.com
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Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

by Kim Christopherson

Phew. I just got breakfast on the table for my preschooler and I can sit down at the computer for a minute. I can finally check my morning email. “Mom!” I run over to the kitchen. Cherrios are all over the floor and now I hear the baby waking up. Little does the customer know on the other end of the computer that this email will have to wait for an unforeseen amount of time today. Oh, the life of the work-at-home mom! Can you relate?

Since being in business for myself, I’ve really had to step back on more than one occasion and re-evaluate where my priorities were. How could I put my family first, yet continue my dreams of building my business? Well, I think I’ve come up with a few answers that have worked well for me.

1.Sacrifice Means Giving More
Because I know that once my children start their day, my day revs up to speed mode the second they wake up. That leaves me virtually no time to work on business. And I’ve learned that in my situation, that’s OK! Isn’t that why I chose to be home in the first place? So sometimes that means I have to sacrifice some of my time early in the mornings before the rest of my family wakes up. I can guarantee that if I wake up 2-3 hours before the rest of the alarms go off in the house, those hours will be filled with real, solid work. It’s a great way to start my morning, knowing that I was able to answer important emails, make new contacts, write ads, and do other important work that needs to be done. Sacrificing a little sleep means I’m giving more to myself and my family.

2.Turn Off the Computer
When my children are home, I’ve learned that I must turn off the computer. They need to know through my actions that I am there to talk about their day, help with homework, or get them to where they need to go. I find that when the computer is completely off, then I am not tempted to work on it and get involved with business when I have a million more things going on right in front of me. This has not always been an easy thing to do, but my concentrated effort in this has been worth it.

3.Set Office Hours for Yourself
If you can set some hours for yourself to spend on work, then you can try to forget about it during other hours of the day. Those office hours may include early mornings, time while children are in school or napping, and later in the evenings. If it is important for hours to be during the day, you may want to consider hiring a sitter for those times, or try trading babysitting with a friend or neighbor. It’s amazing how much you can really accomplish with your workload when you are given a “chunk” of time all at once to completely immerse yourself in your work… without the guilt!

4.Find Support
There are so many online services where women who work from home can network with others in their niche, as well as offer support and encouragement. Take the opportunity to find these sites which will help you grow your business, balance your commitments, and love what you do! Joining and participating in forums, reading articles, and learning all that you can in each of these areas, will help you be the best mom and business woman you can be.

5.Let Your Children See You Soar!
I think it is so important for your children to see mom work hard at obtaining her goals and following her passions. You are setting a fine example to them of hard work and dedication. You are also showing them that they are #1 in your life by the way you prioritize and schedule your work-at-home day. You’re going to have your good days and your bad days. Everyone’s situation is different, so you must do what works best for you and your family. In the end, you will know what you really want out of life and how to get there. Remember, you don’t need to give up your dreams; they just continue to get bigger and better as you balance all the wonderful things in your life!
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Kim Christopherson is the owner and creator of YouCanMakeThis.com . Find hundreds of downloadable patterns and “how-to” eBooks for your home and family. Sign up for the YCMT newsletter and receive a $75 eBook bundle package for FREE!
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Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Fact: I usually don’t cook. Fact: When I do cook it’s either beef or chicken. Well my parents are coming for dinner tonight - not something they do often for various reasons, but mostly it has to do with the fact that we don’t have lots of room (small house with no dinning room). Anyway before I invited them over I started a yummy recipe (I’ll share below) and I was excited when I figured out I could double it and vola dinner for 5 instead of 3. I just love it when a plan comes together! If you follow the link at the bottom the source site will even convert the recipe for you to your custom serving sizes! You’ll even notice that this particular recipe provides Weight Watchers points/serving which is great because my mom counts her points and has lost 50+ lbs!

Here’s the recipe:

All-Day Chicken With Mushroom Gravy Recipe
Prep: 10 min | Crock Pot Time: 7-8 hours
Makes 3 servings (double everything for 6 servings)
1 serving = 3.5 WW points

Ingredients
* 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts halves
* 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
* Salt and pepper
* ½ can (8 ounce size) mushrooms, sliced and drained
* ¼ cup dry white wine OR chicken broth/stock

Directions
1. Place the chicken breasts in crock pot.
2. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Mix the wine and the soup and pour over the chicken.
4. Add the mushrooms.

Cover. Cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours.

Recipe found at CDKitchen.com

Gingersnap Gems
Prep: 20 min | Bake: 8-10 min/pan
Makes about 45 cookies

Ingredients
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* ½ teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* ½ teaspoon ground cloves
* ½ teaspoon ground ginger
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 1 cup sugar
* ¾ cup shortening
* ¼ cup molasses
* 1 egg
* Sugar

Directions
1. In a bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the 1 cup sugar and shortening with an electric mixer till well combined. Beat in molasses; beat in the egg. Add the flour mixture and beat till combined.
3. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll balls in sugar and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 8 to 10 minutes or till edges are set and tops are crackled. Cool on a cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Makes about 45 cookies.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
calories: 74
total fat: 4g
cholesterol: 5mg
sodium: 70mg
carbohydrate: 10g
fiber: 0g

Recipe found at midwestliving.com

by Tammy Embrich

If you are a website owner, then you know all too well that getting high rankings in the search engines can be quite a challenge . Keywords play a huge part in increasing your search engine ranking. You have to use specific keywords that you know your target audience will be searching for.

If you own a work at home website, then your target audience would be searching for work at home opportunities using phrases such as “work at home,” “work at home jobs,” or “free work from home jobs.” The guide below will help your website get those higher rankings.

Get Inbound Links Pointing To Your Website.
Use your main search terms as the text link. Pay attention to “which” sites you are getting links from. It is in your best interest to choose sites that also have good quality inbound links themselves. Google of course, gives more relevance to links from important websites than it does to links from less important sites. This is how we get our website page ranking.

Use Signature Lines In Message Forums.
Use those same keywords in your text link…the search terms or phrases that you want people to use when doing a search. Join and participate in forums that relate to your website.

Consistently Add Good Quality Content To Your Website.
Adding fresh content on a daily basis is ideal and is also crucial to your site’s presence. By doing this, it makes your site more easily indexed by the search engines…thus, making it more appealing to visitors. Updating your content frequently will also keep those visitors coming back again and again.

Submit To Directories.
Usually directories provide one-way links. However, you will find some of them require a reciprocal link. If so, it is a good idea to use reciprocal directories with higher page rankings. If you run onto reciprocal directories with very low page ranks, don’t bother with them. Submitting to directories is time-consuming, but well worth it if you take the time to search for the relevant ones.

Create Simple Page Titles
Make your page title simple, clear, and descriptive. By doing this, you make it less complex for search engines to determine what each page is about. It also makes it easier for searchers to quickly determine (at a glance) if your page contains what they are searching for. The title is one of the most important components on a web page.

These are all keys to increasing your rankings in the search engines. Study them and apply them. This does take hard work, patience, and consistency.

Follow the steps above, put forth the effort, and you will begin to see an increase in your website’s relevance and rise to the top of the search engines.

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Tammy is an Internet marketer and the owner of
Work At Home Opportunities
And owner of Real Work At Home Jobs
Tammy’s two work at home websites focus on free telecommute job leads and more.
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Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com