Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Non-Profit Organizations Can Benefit Greatly from a Website

I have quite a few website clients who are non-profit organizations.  They need to communicate to their members (as well as to the general public) about their events and programs in order to generate the maximum funds to support their cause.  They also want to grow their membership in order to better serve their cause.

Recently, one of my clients had this to say after their first year using my services:

"You fixed many of our problems. Membership is increasing, participation in events is way up.  We had the best fundraiser event in many years, one of our highest attendances ever, and possibly our most profitable. We have more cash than in years, largely due to the website."

If you are part of a non-profit organization, I can help you with a website, as well as other technology tools.  I often do Access databases, email marketing, Powerpoint slides and Excel spreadsheets for my non-profit clients.  The board of directors of many non-profits may not have members with the right technology skills to help with certain tasks, and that is where I am able to assist them.

Please contact me for more information.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Small Business Websites

I am in the unique position of being a web developer and retail business owner at the same time.  Last year I started designing jewelry and selling it locally.  Since I know how to create websites, I created one for my jewelry business (I already have one for my website business).

I've learned a few things about myself and business in general since getting involved in selling retail items.

It is a LOT of work to create and maintain a website to sell physical items such as jewelry.  Each item that I create is unique, so if I want to sell it on my website, I have to take photos, insert it on the site, and set up payment buttons for buyers.

I'm currently using paypal buttons since I've used them in the past and they're easy to set up on a website.  The down side is that  I have to create a unique payment button for each item.  It takes a lot of little steps to add every single item that I've created to the website so that it can be sold.  I can easily spend an hour to add just a few new bracelets or earrings to my site.  Since I'm doing everything myself, that's a significant amount of time to spend.

I'm considering signing up to sell my jewelry at a small local craft show.  I am concerned about the amount of product that I'd need to make and the cost of the inventory involved.  I don't see this business as potentially creating a large income, it's really more of a hobby, so it puts me in a somewhat unique position.  Do I want to pursue the jewelry business and actually try to make a profit?  That is the question that I've been pondering.  I don't really have a lot of free time between my full time job, my family and my other hobbies.

For now, I'm enjoying the creative process without pushing myself to make it into a real business.  It's good for me to have experiences like this in order to understand the business needs of potential clients.