Cold Calls

The past couple of weeks I’ve been making cold calls from a list of businesses in my area.  I’ve been finding it challenging.

It’s interesting when you start actually working your own business.  There is a very big difference between working for yourself and working for someone else.  When you are working for others there is a sense that they are responsible, you are simply a representative of their company.  Rather, when you are working for yourself you are putting yourself out, there isn’t anyone else behind you.

It can be very empowering, and yet intimidating at the same time.  Belief in self is an important part of working your own business.  If you are serious about having your own business, the self-doubt needs to be put aside.  Reality is we wouldn’t be out here doing this if somewhere inside we knew that we could.  So . . . . stand up, be tall, speak confidently, and believe that you can.  Because you Can!!

GoLive

I’ve been working in GoLive for the websites. It is a wonderful program, really easy to use for the most part. But there are several quirks that you have to remember and work around.

Like it adds on extra pixels to the size of cells and you must remember to go back and remove them or it sends things totally out of whack. Or when you make changes to cells you need to remember to go back after you save the page and then go back in and check the pixels of each cell, set it to auto, then back to pixel and optomize the page.

I’m starting a checklist of things you need to remember to do. Hopefully soon I’ll get the chance to try out Dreamweaver and see how that works.

2009 Blessings

I’m looking forward to 2009 being a wonderful year.  I started it off by redesigning a website.  Nineteen pages, and more to come.  It was such a fulfilling experience.  I’d been musing on what it could look like for a few months.  Drew it out, basic lines.  Then worked up a mock up of the index page.

When I showed it to the owner of the site she was thrilled, as were her associates.  It took a bit of time to switch it all over, with a bit of time added into the learning curve, I think it went well.

I have another person that is working up her text and will be starting another new site soon, and in December I was contacted by a lovely harpist in December and am now managing her site.

I’ve also signed up for a Design Concepts class with International Association of Webmasters.  I’m taking it together with my mentor and am looking forward to learning together.  I’m also going to be updating my site, important thing to remember.

Exciting things are happening all ready.  I look forward to seeing what the rest of the year holds.

Running thru the woods

I’m off and running.  Tomorrow I’m signing my first contract for the first official website within the business.  I all ready have ideas percolating and my new client is very excited.   I have another woman’s site that I’ll be doing revisions and updating material.  So within a month or so I will have another site for my portfolio, and a steady client for the maintenance of her site.

Mac vs PC

This is such a wonderful art form.  I’m really enjoying all of the learning, both from my mentor, and from the classes I’m taking from the International Webmasters Association.  And Oh Happy Days, I’ve gotten an Apple MacBook Pro!  It is so much easier working on the website with my Mac rather than a PC.  I’vt still kept my desktop pc’s for everything else.  Now my labtop is my committed website working computer.   All I have to do now is transition my brain from pc to mac, and learn all of the little idiosyncrasies of the mac world.

Website finally launched

After quite a bit of work, and a lot of patience for my learning curve, I’ve gotten the
Daughters of the Goddess website launched.

GoLive is a wonderful program and makes the creation and management of the website so much easier.  Ridding myself of the old website with its frame style with drop down menus is such a joy.  The new version is much easier to travel thru, user friendly and a great addition to my portfolio.

I’ve been gifted a new computer from a friend so I’m in the process of configuring it to be my dedicated web-working computer with the current one to handle the remainder of stuff on my office network.  With Skip Sommer of Shadowbend Studios as my web-guru/teacher, and my friend Mark as my extra techie support the world is wonderful.

Blessings
Patrice
 

New Beginnings

This wolf has found a new den, WolfWomyn.com, and wandering the forest realm of websites.  I am so excited to finally be on this journey.  And very grateful to have as my traveling companion Skip, proprietor of Shadowbend Studios, who is my teacher, mentor and friend.