Start Up Princess Nancy Cadjan Offers Great Landscaping Tips

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Start Up Princess Nancy Cadjan is ultra creative and talented! Not only does she know how to create award-winning products for her company, Sign Babies, she’s very skilled in home and garden design. She jokes that she got her degree on HGTV. I’ve always admired Nancy’s landscaping and so now that I’m doing mine, I’ve turned to her for suggestions and ideas.

Here is what Nancy suggested:

1. Set aside time as a family to brainstorm about what you want your yard to be like. What functions will it serve? Parties? Basketball? Jacuzzi? Play area? Garden? Shed? BBQ? Do you want low maintenance? (All Start Up Princesses want low maintenance, right!?) Do you want to use plants that conserve water? Write down all of your ideas.

2. Take digital photos of your house and then print out multiple copies. Draw plants and ideas directly onto the paper to see what you like. Nancy did this for me and it was so helpful to visually see the plants and walkway, etc. I know that there are some landscaping software programs that will do this too…but, I didn’t want to invest in that, but maybe you do…

3. Pay attention to where the sunlight hits, because that will determine what plants will go in that area. My homework this week is to check the sunlight for where I want my garden to be and see if there will be adequate sunlight.

4. Do as much as you can at the beginning, it is easier to get the curbing done with the sprinklers, etc. And if you can’t get the fence right away, at least put in the posts so that the posts don’t hit a sprinkler later. You can always add more plants and lighting later.

5. If you have to prioritze, put your money into the front of your yard. Curb appeal!

6. Decide a color scheme and stick with it.

7. Use tall grasses to hide utility boxes on your property

8. Look into “square foot gardening” this is a way to mix your herbs and vegetables into your beds, if you don’t want to do box gardens.

Thanks, Nancy!
Any other great tips?? 

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Open Your Mouth: Networking Pays Off

This week I had a meeting with one of my CEDO mentors, Gary Rhoads, BYU Marketing Professor. For convenience, I could have had the meeting on the phone, but I wanted to see him in person and I’m glad I did. After we met I was riding in the elevator with a BYU student who looked nice, I asked her if she was a business student and she said, “marketing, but I’m just starting the classes.” I said, “do you want to be in the BYU business plan competition this year?” She said that she didn’t really want to do that, but another girl heard our conversation and said, “I do.” I didn’t even realize she had gotten on the elevator with us…she wasn’t shy and just piped in to our conversation and I was SO GLAD. It turns out she is a Masters of Public Administration grad student and her class has to write a business plan for their Social Ventures class. We chatted about Start Up Princess and my previous experience in business plan competitions as we walked down the hall together, ironically past a display case that had my picture in it for winning 2nd place at Wake Forest University and I was able to show it to her. She said she would discuss it with her class as a consideration. I’ve now been invited to pitch the concept on Monday. If we can get the class to write our Business Plan, that would be such a great opportunity! I hope it works out, if not–no matter, another friend made! I think I will hang out at the Marriot School of Business more often!

Today’s Magic Wand: Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need or want for your business, you just might get it.

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My Baby is Crawling but Can’t Sit Up!?

My six month old baby has been scooting/crawling for 2 weeks and seems to have skipped over my favorite stage, sitting! She went from rolling around to crawling…any ideas on how to get her to sit up??! It’s driving me nuts because I feel like her babyhood was drastically decreased by her adventurous spirit! My other kids sat and played on a blanket for a couple months…where did that phase go?

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Business Blogging for Beginners

Recently at our Networking Tea Parties we have been discussing the importance of creating and maintaining a business blog. Several Start Up Princesses are creating them right now and so, I hope the following article/link is helpful. Those of you who are like me, relatively new to the game, you might find this info also helpful. One point I liked that she made was to make sure that you provide introductions to your blog. I have been doing this because I wanted to alert people that I wrote about them on the site and to have them see what I wrote, etc. This has been helpful. For example, Paul Allen suggested that I meet Shawn Nelson, LoveSac Founder. After I had written about our meeting, I alerted Paul and he was generous to put a link about it on his site and it brought over 600 views to the site. If I had not told Paul, I would have missed an incredible opportunity.

Jory discusses other tips as well… Click Here to be linked to an excellent article written by Jory Des Jardins, co-founder of www.blogher.org. Enjoy & happy blogging!

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Growing Your Brand Successfully: A Look at Two Toy Companies

For the past six years I have researched and purchased high-quality, award-winning, educational toys for my children and as I have prepared to launch sweet & charming, I have attended several tradeshows and have researched child-related brands for the past two years. I consider myself well-educated in the various brands available and have followed the growth of many companies over the years, including two leading toy companies, Melissa and Doug and Alex Toys. Both toy companies are carried in highend specialty toy stores, however, Melissa and Doug toys are also carried in Toys R Us.

Melissa and Doug was first developed as a wooden toy and puzzle company and that is how they focused their brand for many years. In fact, I was so impressed with their quality, durability, and creative products that I became a wholesaler so I could sell their toys to my friends and neighbors as a fundraiser for One Heart Bulgaria and have sold these products for 3 years during the Fall, in time for Christmas. This year I was so overloaded with my business launch and Start Up Princess I decided I wouldn’t do it, however, my neighbors begged and persisted and finally I’ve relented and have allowed them to purchase these products. And it will be a blessing to the orphans One Heart Bulgaria supports as a fundraiser. However, when the 2006 Melissa and Doug catalog came, it was extremely disappointing! They have a few of their mainstay, classic products, but have chosen to retire some of my favorites. They’ve also gone gang busters with product development this year. Now their brand is so diverse and inconsistent that I would not be able to recognize it as I once was.

Previously, the brand was so strong you could display the brand on a shelf or an aisle and it would all compliment one another, now it is all mix-matched, designed with every pantone color and they must have a dozen or more designers all doing their own thing, it no longer reflects strong art direction like it once had. Yes, their products are probably still winning awards and probably still considered one of the best quality, however, I predict that the specialty toy retailers will only carry a few of their lines, while Toys R Us will carry all of it. Maybe that is what they want, however, to me, it has lost that unique appeal. By the way, today the orders are due and my neighbors are only spending an average of $40 on their orders whereas before they were spending an average of $75, some up to $500 (for their entire Christmas)! Those who haven’t ordered before think their products are great, but those who have ordered in previous years are disappointed that their styles are changing and their orders reflect that opinion. When I talked with my rep about it she said that they have diversified so much because their style was being copied by a lot of companies. That is true, it was being copied, but even the knock-off brands weren’t as high of quality.

Alex Toys, on the otherhand, remains strong, they are also an award-winning, creative, educationally-based company and also has significantly added product lines over the years, however, their products are still the same style, with strong art direction in a cohesive manner.

To me, there is a difference of growing your company and growing your brand. Melissa and Doug has grown their company, but not their brand. They have outstanding customer service, quality, allow new businesses to do terms easily, and other great things…I just wonder if they could have done all of those things and created a more cohesive style and brand. Alex has done both. I would be interested to know what each of their revenues for 2006 will be.
Today’s Magic Wand:

Growth is great, but direction is VITAL. Be consistent and keep your brand strong, or your growth won’t be so great.

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Raw Melissa Will Teach How to Make Delicious Salsas on Thursday

Here’s a great chance to learn and have a night out! Amazing chef, Raw Melissa www.rawmelissa.com is teaching an exciting course. Let’s all support our friend, Start Up Princess, Melissa Chappel.

Class Details:
Thursday at the Orem Herb Shop.

The class will start at 7:00pm and will cost $5.

Class Description:

Mango Salsa, Pineapple Salsa, Garden Tomato Salsa. What do they all have in
common? They’re delicious and they’re raw! Join us on September 28th
as I show you how to make these three mouth-watering salsas. I’ll talk
about the best ingredients to use, what goes best with each salsa, and
how to add a different secret ingredient to each salsa that will
surprise your friends and family.

Hope to see you all there!

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Fling Your Clutter and Donate to a Charity!

Today was my Friends of Multiple Sclerosis Donation Center pick up day. This free monthly service has helped my family “fling our clutter”, a term The Fly Lady, Marla Cilley taught me on her website, www.flylady.net. I donated over 60 pounds of clothing and house items today! I love de-junking and donating my high-quality, resellable items to a cause I believe in. Two people I care deeply about are suffering from MS and I appreciate this non-profit organization.

Today’s Magic Wand: Decide what charity you want to support and see if they will pick up your items on a scheduled pick up monthly. If you know they are coming, I’m sure you can find some things to donate each month to make it worth their trip. I heard someone say that every time she gets a new shirt she donates one from her closet to charity. What about shoes? Coats? I love that concept.

Friends of Multiple Sclerosis Donation Center, SLC

801-463-2475

877-493-0120

Tell us what charities you support and why you’re passionate about their causes!

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Janet Meiners Shares Tips about Optimizing Your Press Releases

Start Up Princess, Janet Meiners offered these tips from Marketing Sherpa on her blog today www.newspapergrl.wordpress.com they are excellent.

Janet writes:

Here are some good tips on optimizing your press release for search engines. Think: listed in Google News or Yahoo News. Think: The first paragraph is going to be seen first, so go for the click on the first line. Make it sell (grab interest).

• Use a keyword in the title like your brand name

• Choose the top keywords for your press release, put them in the first paragraph

• Make sure at least one of those keywords is actually a link

• If possible put the best keyword in your URL

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Women-Owned Businesses Are Booming

The Ladies Who Launch blog features a great article about the increasingly high rate of women-owned businesses….click here to read more.

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12 Key Attributes of Successful Entrepreneurs

Click here to see a short slide show prepared by Grow Utah Ventures.

What other attributes do you think are important not mentioned in the presentation? Let’s discuss with some comments.

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