Lazy Days of Summer

I realize that I haven't blogged in awhile. Blame it on the "lazy days of summer". I have been enjoying spending time with my children and just having old-fashioned fun. Business has been slow but I am hopeful for a busy fall/winter season. I have already placed a big order, most of which is now sitting in my basement. Soon, I might need to rent a small warehouse so I don't feel like we are living in one :-) And I finally opened up a DBA* account at my local bank which was exciting! So, now, you can write a check to "mom2sarah" vs "my name here" ! Check out my website mom2sarah.com in the next few weeks as I will be adding lot more stock...and enjoy the rest of the summer ! It sure does go fast doesn't it?

*DBA simply stands for "doing business as"...sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Bringing Up Princess: Turning Girls Into Narcissists - WSJ.com

I just read a very interesting article about "bringing up princess" (link below). As a mother of two young girls, I found it very relevant to my own life and life choices. I am definitely guilty of buying princess paraphernalia which in itself is not so problematic. I do agree, however, that we can go overboard and that it's important to balance out the princess stuff with more "down-to-earth" stuff. This is one reason why I love the Go!Go!Sport Girl Dolls that we sell on our website. The founder, Jodi Norgaard has always been involved in sports and for many years has coached “Girls on the Run”, a program which encourages girls to make healthy choices in life through running. While working with the young girls, Jodi had an idea. “I realized there was a need for a positive doll for girls that would be age appropriate, proportioned properly and send a positive message about a healthy lifestyle – physically, mentally and emotionally – through sports.” So check out the article THEN check out the Go!Go!Sport Girl Dolls at www.mom2sarah.com .




Bringing Up Princess: Turning Girls Into Narcissists - WSJ.com

Great Service means Exceeding Expectations

I was thinking today about what it means to provide Great Service. Great service, to me, means "exceeding" my customer's expectations whether that means shipping things out earlier than they expect or giving them free upgrade to Priority Mail if I couldn't ship it out the Same Day. I had the pleasure of experiencing "great" service first-hand today with my dry cleaners. I recently signed up for a dry cleaning service that offers free pick-up and delivery. Yes, it costs a few dollar more per week but it saves me a lot of hassle as I no longer need to rush to my One Price Dry Cleaners by 10 AM to get their same day service. And more importantly, they do a better job cleaning our clothes.
The pick-up service is very simple. Leave out your bag of clothes on Mondays and Thursdays and they leave your clean clothes hanging on your door. Technically, I am supposed to have the bag out by 10 AM but I have noticed that the driver always came by after 3 PM when I am always home as my children get out of school by 3:30 PM. So today, I was annoyed with myself when I arrived home at 2:30 PM and saw the hanging clothes on my door. Admittedly, I was annoyed that the driver had changed his time on me but I had to admit that the fault was completely mine as technically he could pick them up at any time. Imagine my pleasant surprise when the driver returned to my home around 4 PM to pick up my bag. I certainly didn't expect him to nor was he obligated to but boy was I glad that he did ! He made my day with his thoughfulness and by going BEYOND what was expected of him. This is the kind of service I want to provide with my business. It's not about who is "right" or "wrong" but whether or not you can make the customer happy.

Dream BIG !

This is me, at Legoland, standing next to President Obama. We actually have lots of things in common. For instance, he attended Harvard and I applied to Harvard. We are both minorities and he is of course from the Great Prairie State. Most importantly, neither of us are scared to Dream Big and to work hard to achieve our goals. I will keep this post "short and sweet" as it is Sunday night and I really don't have too much in common with Obama. But I just want to encourage you to "Dream Big". Can you imagine Obama as a lad telling his friends "One day I will be the President of the United States". No one is laughing now. I also want to THANK all of friends who have showered me with encouragement and well-wishes . Finally, I have some very exciting news ! Look for an editorial in the May 2009 edition of The Glancer Magazine for mom2sarah.com. Now, I just need OPRAH to check out my site and All of my Dreams will indeed come true! Good Night everybody and "Thank You!"

Step 3 : Marketing Plan

Step 1 was coming up with the Product Line. Step 2 was building a professional looking website. An yes, you can do it yourself using Yahoo ! hosting (it was quite easy actually) but at some point, you will probably need some "professional" guidance especially if you are dealing with e-commerce. If you like my website, email me and I can get you in touch with John Cowin who worked closely with me designing my site. Sometimes it is frustrating not being able to do things yourself but he followed MY vision and didn't take away the control...just the tedious work ! Step 3 is arguably the most important - Marketing ! You can have a great product and a great website but if people don't know about it, what's the point of it all ? And the WWW is such a vast space that you need to take it upon yourself to DIRECT people to your Site.

I had the pleasure of having coffee with my friend, and a fellow preschool mom, recently, and as luck would have it, she has a background in marketing. Don't you love that when things work out like that? We brain-stormed for an hour and came up with some excellent marketing tools (some of which are too juicy to share here). The most obvious one of course is to email All of your friends including those on facebook, twitter, playgroups, etc etc and offer them a 10% coupon. Who doesn't love a coupon? Then ask them nicely to pass it along to their friends and so on and so forth. Your first dozen or so orders will most likely be from "a neighbor, sister, or a friend of a friend of a friend". I want to thank all of my friends who were gracious enough to help me out in this regard. 90% of my first 2 dozen orders were from one of these emails (I can trace it back by the coupon code - smart aren't I?). In time, as your friends and their friends have a wonderful shopping experience, the net will be cast further and further out into the World Wide Web.

The main point I took away with me from that "pow-wow" was that "everywhere you Go, there is a potential for a Sale" e.g. writing the name of my site on the back windshield of my car and my husband's car. My favorite is her idea to embroider my site's name onto our beach/pool bag ! I love that idea and remember how the person who designed "jibbitz" for Crocs was discovered at the local pool by the founder of Crocs himself (their daughter was sporting them at the local pool).

Everyday this week, I plan on doing 2-3 things to further my goal of "spreading the word" including of course writing this blog. Due to the "viral" emails (don't SPAM people please!), I have received orders from states as far away as HI within just a few short days of releasing a coupon code. Btw, if you read to this part, you deserve an award so here it is : Use coupon code "thankyou15" for 15 % off your next purchase at www.mom2sarah.com ! Yes, I am a nice person :-) And SPREAD the WORD.

Grand Opening During a Recession?!?

Every morning I read the Wall Street Journal. Lately, the headlines have been very bleak. Today's was "Economy in Worst Fall Since '82". Yet, I am only a week or so away from OFFICIALLY launching my NEW e-commerce website, specializing in Melissa & Doug Toys. It is called www.mom2sarah.com . The site is actually up and running but it is very rudimentary. I had a total of 530 page views (woot) in the last 10 days. I am hopeful that my new snazzy website will lure many more viewers and hopefully, some shoppers. Undoubtedly, my timing could have been better but sometimes "the right time is Now" or at least that's what I tell myself. I have been selling online since 2001 (with the birth of our first daughter, Sarah) and am both a powerseller on eBay as well as a Pro Merchant on Amazon Marketplace. The recent changes on eBay has made it a less lucrative place to sell and the steep fees on both sites pushed me to venture out on my own. The big question was "What was I going to sell?"
TOYS. High-Quality Toys. The next big question was "How am I going to differentiate myself from the sea of competitors?" Research. Research. Research. I spent hours on Google scoping out my competitors and trying to figure out why one site was better than another. I came up with a plan that hopefully will not only compete but eventually overtake some of the competition. If you can't compete why get in the game right?

Why Melissa & Doug products? Because I truly believe they offer the BEST VALUE. Value doesn't mean the "cheapest" but rather the quality of its construction, its FUN quotient, its educational value, and of course its price. Even though everyone (including myself) will be pinching pennies, educational toys which are FUN will never go out of style ! So, I hope
when you need a gift for a child ages 0-6, you will check out www.mom2sarah.com . I personally guarantee a wonderful shopping experience from beginning to end. And awhile you are there, check out Sophie's page which has some toys hand-selected by my 5 year old as well as Nate's page (he's my adorable nephew) which will feature Awesome Boy Toys for all ages.