How do you get past a bad day?

[partybabe]

I have had one of those days (well weekends actually) where I am wondering why on earth I am doing this and not working in a 'proper job' that brings money in on a regular basis.

My question is how do the rest of you get past a bad day, where you want to jack it all in?

[friendlybaby]

I remember why I'm doing this in the first place - which is so that I can stay at home with my kids.

Hope things improve for you soon.

[ann0024]

Sorry your having a bad day/weekend. I'm often in the same postion and ask myself WHY. Then I think of all the hard work I have put in over the past few years and thin if I pack it all in, it was all for nothing. Then come on here and see how successful others are think to myself "if they can do so can I". Hope you have a better week.

[babybiz]

I question myself all the time but I think it's healthy, if ever I can't come up with any answers then that's the time to question if I need to pack it in. What I tend to do when things are really tough is just remind myself it's not always like that and that when the next good thing comes along it will really buck me up, I just hold on to that thought and work towards it.

Certainly unforgiving this at times isn't it. I hope things pick up for you today.

Tashxx

[Issyboo]

I have thought of it this way if it helps ...
Recently I have gone in to a lot of shops (birthday and Christmas coming up) and wondered round and not bought anything. Sometimes I have been the only person in the shop and I think how do they survive.

So I try and think when that when someone just makes an enquiry but no booking it's just like me wondering round a shop and not buying anything.

Oh no this doesn't really make sense when you type it but it does in my head.

[funkydorydawn]

Sorry you're feeling a bit fed up about things.

When I have a bad day (or week) I try and step away for a while - do something totally different for a couple of days - but I know how hard that can be too!

I remember about 18 months ago I felt really depressed, checking for orders every 2 minutes, and finding none. I'd go for days without an order. I used to post a lot on here (:cheesy:) and had some great advice.

You could use this time doing other things to promote the business - blog, FB pages, why not put all your halloween goodies on the front page welcome area - show people that you have them - announce them in the forums......

You could write articles to go on your sites, go through them and think of ways you can rewrite product and categeory descriptions to improve SEO. Keep plugging the site on free directories, link swaps etc.

And please don't think of this as a criticism, but you have 3 sites there - it is very difficult running more than one site (in my experience) and very easy to spread yourself too thinly. Maybe think about where you want to be in 1 or 2 years from now - it might help to concentrate on one area, or one site, and do it REALLY well, rather than spreading yourself thinly over 3...?

And just wait - today is the start of a new week - many people are on half-term, it's cold - they might not want/be able to take the kids round the shops - so look out for more internet traffic :happy72:.

dawn
xx

[BellaMiller]

I don't know whther this will help or not but every bizz book I have read (case study types) say that you need to have persisitence, you need to keep going.

One of my faves is "Anyone Can Do It" - the Coffee Republic story. The founders came extremely close to jacking it all in - and just when they thought it couldn't get any worse they turned a corner.

[MissMountshaft]

Having a bad spell can make you more appreciative of the good things when they happen. As long as the bad things aren't always outweighing the good - then you may need to have a rethink, but little setbacks are always worth it when you get to work from home.

[Spacekids]

I think you've just got to try and put the bad days behind you and try to look on every new day as a new opportunity.

I've had a poor weekend because our site has been down for most of the weekend due to a problem with our web hosting company. Dh has now set up a redirect so the site is working again, but it is so frustrating because we usually get most of our orders at the weekend, and this weekend has been a dead loss!!

Anyway, this is a new week. I'm in the office today doing my "proper job", catching up on all the post that has built up during my weeks holiday last week. So, stressed today, but can still look forward to forgetting it all when I pick up my kids at 4pm!!

Sorry, I don't think this is very helpful - sending you hugs!!

:kisshands:

[partybabe]

Thank you all.

Well following a rough night with the kids, I am tired but feeling a little more positive. I am thinking of transferring some of the stock on the gift shop to the party site, as I have an adults gift section set up but nothing in it, and then that would not only make things a little easier to manage it would also save on costs too. Another idea is to swap the hosting account of the gift shop as it is costing way more to run and not bringing in anywhere near the sales of the party shop.

So lots to think about there, and as suggested I could do with getting some articles etc added to the site and just improving it overall, only problem is with it being half term I'm not sure I will get time to do it but I will be able to work on plans at least.

Thanks for all your lovely comments, it is just a blip I know it is and I have a busy November coming so hopefully that will help financially.

[Tess]

i love your site. i only wish i found it a few weeks ago!.
tbh i don't think you promote it enough. the party site.
i walked all over town to find character party bags (scooby doo or spiderman) and came home with one with balloons on, theres hardly anywhere in town that sells them.

promote your site. join all the forums, i couldn't find any thank you notes on your site. and the pictures don't enlarge when you enlarge them which is a pita for me. and i HATE searching t osee how much postage is :angry: grrrr, my bug bear lol

can you promote the gift shop on the party site and vice versa. maybe a treat for after mum has done all the hard work for the party she can treat herself.
do you make the bath stuff yourself?

ps, ive looked on the obvious places on the gift shop and i can't see how much postage is

[partybabe]

Thanks for your feedback whassat, the postage is something I may change, at the moment it is set to charge depending on the weight of the parcel, but I realise this means that you don't know in advance what postage you will pay. I am thinking of setting it to a standard charge, but I worry that if the order is a heavy one I will lose out, guess on the law of averages I will gain over all though as the tendency will be to order a few bits rather than a lot.

I will look at the picture resizing thing, at the moment I use the official pics from the wholesaler but may think about getting some of my own done especially on the more detailed items.

I am not sure how else to promote my site, I am going to try and write some articles and I do go on a few parenting forums and work at home forums, and I have friendfeed, twitter, facebook etc too. Any more ideas?

I might have to enlist some help with pr as I know that could work, especially locally, but it is not my strong point.

[Spacekids]

We had the same quandry over postage too. In the end we went for £3.99 as it seemed reasonable, and we thought it wouldn't put people off from making a smaller order. So far, the average cost of postage for us has been about £3.40, so it seems to be about the right figure. for heavier orders it has been over £6, but this is counteracted by some orders coming out at just over £1.

I suppose you could look back over your previous orders and work out your average cost of postage, add a bit on top and charge that. Sorry, not very scientific I know!