Wednesday, December 31, 2008
I wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope that 2009 brings you health, happiness and success.
The Tall Poppy will be back in 2009 so be ready for us!
Bring on 2009!
I wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope that 2009 brings you health, happiness and success.
The Tall Poppy will be back in 2009 so be ready for us!
Tales of Female Entrepeneurs
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sprout Publishing has released the first edition of “Tales and Secrets from Female Entrepeneurs”. This is a great read, particularly if you are thinking of starting your own business. There is so much in it that it would have been good to know before we began!
You will find chapters about Anne Maybus of Beauty Banquet (yes, that is me!) and Kathie Holmes of My New Shiny Shoes It is a really exciting thing to see a chapter all about yourself in a real book. I never thought it would happen to me!
The book has stories from Poppy King, Sandy Forster, Rhonda Britten and more. These are the women who have established themselves as real entrepeneurs in the business world. It is fascinating to read what they have learnt.
Check it out now at Sprout Publishing.
Living a Real Life
Monday, December 08, 2008
Welcome to the December 1, 2008 edition of living a real life.
The theme for this edition is 'Life in the Festive Season." Of the 100 or so submissions received these were the closest to the theme. I want to thank them for considering carefully which posts to submit.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Great Management presents How To Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever… posted at The GreatManagement Blog, saying, "Here are little activities than can make a huge difference to
Donald Latumahina presents 9 Tips to Live an Abundant Life posted at Life Optimizer.
Madeleine Begun Kane presents Office Party Follies posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.
Aahz presents Live Blogging Thanksgiving 2008 at The Caverns posted at Philaahzophy, saying, "Never in 39 years have I prepared a single dish for a holiday meal. This year, with five days notice, I took on the task of preparing a Thanksgiving feast for myself and my daughter. Then we live blogged the entire insane process!"
Raymond presents The Best Christmas Credit Cards For Holiday Shopping posted at Money Blue Book.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of living a real life using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: living a real life, blog carnival.
Bargain Business Magazine Subscription
Saturday, December 06, 2008
I am always on the lookout for good business sites and magazines. Dynamic Business is one site that I have come across that I find really informative. It covers many different aspects of business including branding, legal, retail, HR and more.
I was very pleased to see that they have a special offer on their magazine at the moment. Yes, it is a real, printed magazine.
Oh, you want to know how much?
Well for $12.10AUD you can grab yourself one years subscription. That is 11 issues at $1 each (plus GST) How far wrong could you go for the price?
I have just received my first copy and it is a beauty. Tech Trends for 2009 as well as a look at Facebook as a business tool.
Why not invest the massive sum of $12.10 and grab a years worth of valuable info.
santa sleigh chase
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Santa Sleigh Chase is on this week at Blue Zamboo. Beauty Banquet is one of the chase sponsors and there is a special challenge for us to create a piece of promotional material featuring Christmas.
Here is my entry. I think I am improving a little!
Living a Real Life
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Welcome to the November 2, 2008 edition of living a real life.
The focus of this edition is on building your self esteem. I ahve selected those articles which are closest to the set topic. I hope you enjoy reading them.
Mac presents 10 Quick Tips To Boost Confidence posted at Actorlicious.
Erin Pavlina presents How do you recover after an emotional setback? posted at Erin Pavlina's Blog, saying, "How do you raise your energy when you’ve been stepped on and emotionally trounced by another person, and your self esteem is so low that you can’t even imagine ever being happy again?"
AndrewB presents From Lame To Fame - 5 Steps posted at Personal Hack, saying, "How to really become successful in every area of your life."
axel presents Motivation And Success posted at axel g.
omguy presents Its Not About You. . . posted at Ordinary Miracles, saying, "Its not about you. Its not about your own personal fulfillment, your goals or your achievements."
AndrewB presents 10 Tips to Become Inspired posted at Personal Hack, saying, "Does everything feel like a struggle? Why not use inspiration to create energy that propels you up and over life’s inevitable speed bumps?"
Joseph presents How To Attain Success posted at Self Help and Personal Development.
Stephen presents How to Boost Your Self-Confidence - Balanced Existence posted at Balanced Existence, saying, "I am a strong believer that we are each masters of our own world. Even those who don’t think they are have a deeply causal impact upon their own world. Many such people have a victim mentality. They feel life is doing them and so life does them. Their mentality is that of a victim and so they become victims and are victimized. How could it be otherwise? This points to a very important conclusion about life – Your life is what your thoughts make it!"
Daylle Deanna Schwartz presents Law of Attraction in Action: Respect posted at Lessons from a Recovering DoorMat, saying, "If you want respect, work with the Law of Attraction to bring it to you by showing with actions that you won’t accept any less, and focus on respecting yourself."
myln presents Improve your low self esteem posted at ManageYourLifeNow.com, saying, "People with low self esteem are unhappy, miserable and they are always full of negative feelings. To improve your self-esteem you have to focus on your own unique abilities and characteristics and also on things that you like. It is not an easy thing to do but low self esteem can be improved and raised to a high level."
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of living a real life using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: living a real life, blog carnival.
Review- Spring Style Hunt
Saturday, November 01, 2008
I was recently asked to do an overview of the Spring Style Hunt run by Beauty Banquet covering how we ran it and why we had the events that we did. Here is the summary of the process that we went through.
The Spring Style Hunt
To create an event that will lead people through as many of our sites as possible and give us the greatest possible opportunity to make a sale or gain a sign-up.
Strategy:
Stage a series of events that will keep our businesses under the noses of new visitors for a whole week.
1. The Hunt. This event is a traditional scavenger hunt where people follow a trail of clues left out for them. Sponsors were encouraged to place the clue on a page that they wanted to promote so that hunters would have to go there. We want to guarantee as much as possible that the sponsors special promotion or signup page was noticed by Hunters.
There are prizes allocated to the first three placegetters and for a few random winners. This is to give everyone a chance to win something and increase the incentive for participation.
2. Dress the Stewette: This is a fun event, again with the chance to win prizes. The idea is that we provide a light-hearted experience that hunters enjoy so they talk about it. This also gives sponsors a day off while we sort out winners. It is something that is a little unusual so it should be noticed. There are lots of prizes again, and each entry earns points which add towards their overall Hunt tally. It is an easy and fun way for hunters to build their points up. Skill is no issue as they can dress and present her any way they choose to.
3. Day of Deals: This is a big shopping event where shoppers earn points when they buy from us. Sponsors are encouraged to offer a great deal of some sort so that they can pick up passing purchases. The point allocation is designed to encourage hunters to buy but sales will be dependant on how good the offer is!
4. Sponsors Hurdle Race: The judging of this event is in the hands of the hunters. It gives them some power in the process and again they earn points for being judges.
The key to this race is that sponsors have to create a fun advertisement for the hunters to view. This is a way of forcing hunters to pay attention to the advertising of each site so that they get the message. It is giving sponsors a guaranteed audience for their promotions. Not only that, it will give the hunters a promotional tool that they can use on their sites, blogs, facebook etc. Each hunter earns points for ranking the ads and double points if they view the lot.
5. Winners! Lots of prizes spread about should give the Hunt a good name. The word will spread and we should have an even greater number of hunters next year. Not only that, but the prizes are a way for winners to sample products that they may not have tried otherwise.
Results:
We had over 250 registered Hunters.
The Hunt went smoothly with active participation from a core group of hunters. Even more completed the hunt including a couple of late entrants who hunted on day 2.
The Fashions on the Field (Stewette) brought in a lot of entries and they were very original and varied. It was a favourite event amongst the hunters.
Day of Deals went well, with some stores reporting sales. Not all stores put up their special offers but those that did had put a lot of thought into what offer they could create. There were some wonderful bargains to be had.
The Hurdle race went surprisingly well. Again, not all sponsors joined in but those that did put together some wonderful entries. Most of us had not used any of the systems before so we were total novices but it was great fun to create. The hunters actually enjoyed watching and ranking our creations, so it wasn’t a hardship for them to sit through them all. As a bonus we now have new ads we can place to promote ourselves and we know they are suitable.
Prizes were distributed across all active hunters and, of course, to event winners.
Feedback:
Of the Hurdle race entries we were told ”They were all very creative especially considering how busy you must all be." and "Wow what some great ads!" You can be proud of yourselves for your hard work.
Other comments:
"You have all done an absolute fantastic job. Both with the videos and most of all the Hunt itself! Well Done!!! I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, so thankyou."
"Thank you! Its been a fun few days (even with sick children)... only a bit disappointed, I would have liked to spend more money yesterday!!"
"I'm having quite a lot of fun doing this Competition so far. Very enjoyable. Thankyou"
Of the Stewettes....
"I had to do another one ……it is soooo much fun "
"thanks for having this competition it has provided hours of fun!!"
3. Day of Deals: This is a big shopping event where shoppers earn points when they buy from us. Sponsors are encouraged to offer a great deal of some sort so that they can pick up passing purchases. The point allocation is designed to encourage hunters to buy but sales will be dependant on how good the offer is!
4. Sponsors Hurdle Race: The judging of this event is in the hands of the hunters. It gives them some power in the process and again they earn points for being judges.
The key to this race is that sponsors have to create a fun advertisement for the hunters to view. This is a way of forcing hunters to pay attention to the advertising of each site so that they get the message. It is giving sponsors a guaranteed audience for their promotions. Not only that, it will give the hunters a promotional tool that they can use on their sites, blogs, facebook etc. Each hunter earns points for ranking the ads and double points if they view the lot.
5. Winners! Lots of prizes spread about should give the Hunt a good name. The word will spread and we should have an even greater number of hunters next year. Not only that, but the prizes are a way for winners to sample products that they may not have tried otherwise.
Results:
We had over 250 registered Hunters.
The Hunt went smoothly with active participation from a core group of hunters. Even more completed the hunt including a couple of late entrants who hunted on day 2.
The Fashions on the Field (Stewette) brought in a lot of entries and they were very original and varied. It was a favourite event amongst the hunters.
Day of Deals went well, with some stores reporting sales. Not all stores put up their special offers but those that did had put a lot of thought into what offer they could create. There were some wonderful bargains to be had.
The Hurdle race went surprisingly well. Again, not all sponsors joined in but those that did put together some wonderful entries. Most of us had not used any of the systems before so we were total novices but it was great fun to create. The hunters actually enjoyed watching and ranking our creations, so it wasn’t a hardship for them to sit through them all. As a bonus we now have new ads we can place to promote ourselves and we know they are suitable.
Prizes were distributed across all active hunters and, of course, to event winners.
Feedback:
Of the Hurdle race entries we were told ”They were all very creative especially considering how busy you must all be." and "Wow what some great ads!" You can be proud of yourselves for your hard work.
Other comments:
"You have all done an absolute fantastic job. Both with the videos and most of all the Hunt itself! Well Done!!! I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, so thankyou."
"Thank you! Its been a fun few days (even with sick children)... only a bit disappointed, I would have liked to spend more money yesterday!!"
"I'm having quite a lot of fun doing this Competition so far. Very enjoyable. Thankyou"
Of the Stewettes....
"I had to do another one ……it is soooo much fun "
"thanks for having this competition it has provided hours of fun!!"
