I’m traveling a long way for Thanksgiving this year, so I’m going to have to live vicariously though all of you who get to cook up yummy stuff for the holiday. But I’m having Christmas Eve at my house, so get ready to be blasted with tons of Christmas cooking ideas soon!

Be sure to check out these Thanksgiving kids crafts and these Thanksgiving coloring pages while you are in the neighborhood. You might also like these printable Thanksgiving place cards, too!

Springerle Recipe	Glazed Anise Cookies	Fennel Blackberry Cookie Recipe
Pizzelle Cookies	Crisp Anise Cookies	Anise Star Cookies
Anise Pretzel Cookie Recipe	Anise Pepper Cookie Recipe	Anise Mandelbrot / Biscotti
Anise Drop Cookies	Anise Cut Outs – Bizcochitos	Anise Saviato Cookies

For more Christmas fun, check out these Christmas handprint crafts, Christmas animal coloring pages, or these Christmas word puzzles!

Springerle Recipe	Glazed Anise Cookies	Fennel Blackberry Cookie Recipe
Pizzelle Cookies	Crisp Anise Cookies	Anise Star Cookies
Anise Pretzel Cookie Recipe	Anise Pepper Cookie Recipe	Anise Mandelbrot / Biscotti
Anise Drop Cookies	Anise Cut Outs – Bizcochitos	Anise Saviato Cookies

For more Christmas fun, check out these Christmas handprint crafts, Christmas animal coloring pages, or these Christmas word puzzles!

Cartoon Dinosaur Coloring Page	Cute Dinosaur Coloring Page	Cartoon Girl Dinosaur Coloring Page
Winking Dinosaur Coloring Page	Dinosaurs in Love Coloring Page	Laughing Dinosaur Coloring Page
Mom and Baby Dinosaurs Coloring Page	Dancing Dinosaur Coloring Page	Baby Dinosaur Egg Coloring Page

You might also like the rest of our dragon coloring pages, too!

When I started Egg, I found myself an accidental entrepreneur. I had quit/gotten fired a bad job with a horrible boss. I started writing press releases. And stock tips. And emails. And resumes. And anything that would pay the bills. In some ways, I still have that mindset.

As an entrepreneur who is struggling (is there any other kind?), we tend to do whatever it takes. But is that actually detrimental to us? Everything I’m reading (including All for One) is pointing me in a single, focused direction. It’s urging me to shed the low-pay, non-focused efforts in favor of the niche I’m trying to create for myself.

And so, I will have to say no.

I will be more picky. I won’t sign up to market services (nothing against them, but it’s much harder to measure interest in something intangible than a product that gets bought off a shelf). I won’t take on any teeny one-time projects. They don’t allow me to really help a business develop its brand, and the clients always expect too much out of a single press release.

I will look for projects with large budgets. With a desire to work with a marketing consultant long term. That understand that marketing doesn’t happen with a single email, press release or two weeks of social media. That it’s about long term commitment to building a brand.

And by asking for it, I will receive it. (cue heavenly music)

What about you? Could you stand to start saying no (I think no matter who you are, you could.)? I’m looking forward to saying no (unless you really really need a press release. Wait–NO!!!)

I’ve also seen some ads that tout the perks of “No Inventory” needed. I can certainly appreciate that lack of necessity or requirement for said inventory; however, I do not agree that is necessarily a good thing to be without inventory.

In fact, I contend that inventory is highly encouraged if you wish to grow your direct sales business. Many direct sales companies take one to three weeks to receive product once it is ordered. In some cases, back orders occur and it can take even longer. Who wants to pay for something and then wait three weeks before you actually get it? Sure, many people do that, but imagine how much more your sales would increase if you had cash and carry available.

Whether you’re choosing to work your business via home parties, vendor events or one on one sales – we are in an age of convenience and impatience. Customers will most likely take what you have rather than place an order and wait weeks.

Also consider the turn around time. If you’re at a vendor event and have on hand inventory, the customer who purchases from you will take the item home and likely either start using it immediately or show someone what she purchased. Assuming your product is a consumable, the customer will need a refill all the more quicker vs. the three weeks of downtime while waiting to receive her initial order. Or if she shows it to someone that night “Hey look what I picked up at the craft show!” chances are greater for referral business, “Where did you get that? I want one!”

If your recruiting efforts include the words “No Inventory Needed”, you might want to change that to “If you’re able to stock up on a little inventory, it will really increase your sales ten fold.”

You’ve heard it before: It takes money to make money. A small investment in some on-hand inventory will be money well spent.

We are very fortunate to do business in a time and age where you can get business quality software for free or close to free. They are everywhere. For a long time, I’ve been saving these tools. Every time someone asks for a software they could use to do something, I whip out this list of tools. I have finally decided to compile them all into one convenient handbook. It was originally supposed to be only 100 then it grew and grew to the final 180 – there’s actually more than 180. I just didn’t count some of them.

The tools for a ton of different things. From project management and accounting to web conferencing. Get it from my site if you’d like a copy.

She points to a really fantastic presentation by Olivier Blanchard, which I will also use here:

Christina talks about goals, and the importance of having them before you even try to find your ROI. And it’s true. I know so many companies who want to get into social media because everyone else is. But why? What do you hope to attain by doing so? It’s not going to get you instant sales, so you need to be ok with using social media to build your brand and connect with your customers. If you think this is a waste of money, social media is not for you.

Assign a value to everything you do. If your Twitter reach is 5,000 people, that’s worth something. (not if you don’t interact regularly, though). If a Google AdWords click is $1, that’s a value. What’s a click worth from Twitter? Even if you start with arbitrary numbers, at least you’ve got something to look to for metrics. If you spend 20 hours on Twitter to get 1 sale, that ROI isn’t as good as if you spent 15 minutes crafting a custom email. Got it?

Here’s an interesting Twitter conversation I had with @jacobm on the subject.

What are your thoughts? Do you measure social media ROI? How?

Grab our Thanksgiving Turkey Mask and have some fun this holiday. You can choose one to color yourself, or print the full color printable mask on your color printer.

Thanksgiving Printable Craft - Full Color Turkey Mask

Thanksgiving Printable Craft - Turkey Mask Coloring Page

More Printable Animal Masks

More Thanksgiving Activities

I swear there is some sort of maternal instinct that ensures that all handprint crafts are preserved for posterity.

Paper Turkey Construction Paper Turkey Craft

Fall Tree Autumn Leaves Handprint Tree

Cardboard Turkey Toilet Paper Roll Turkey

Pumpkin Pie Handprint Turkey Pumpkin Pie

Check out all of our handprint crafts and the rest of our Thanksgiving crafts and activities, too!

Create Multiple Custom Store Categories

It makes total sense! eBay lets you create up to 300 Categories AND Subcategories in a single store. That’s a lot of categories!! Make sure you are using relevant, popular keywords in your custom category names. This will ensure you are placing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Blank Printable Football Helmet	Make a Football Fan Bobblehead	Fun Football Cookies	Football Coloring Pages
Football Team Spirit Pins	Stuffed Paper Footballs	Super Bowl Centerpiece Craft	Football Toilet Paper Roll Craft
Paper Plate Football Craft	Football Door Hangers	Favorite Football Team Scoreboard	Football Pen Holder Craft

You might also like this awesome ‘Find the Footballs’ hidden picture printable from Printables4Kids!

Enjoy these football coloring pages as part of PE activities, or they would also be great for a Super Bowl party!

Football Player Coloring Page	Football Coloring Page	Football Field Coloring Page
Football Pass Receiver Coloring Page	Football Dog Coloring Page	Fighting Football Coloring Page

You might also like these Football kids crafts, too!

Thanksgiving Turkey Luminary	Cute Paper Bag Turkeys	Brown Bag Thanksgiving Turkey Craft	Turkey Hat Craft
Turkey Treat Bags	Turkey Puppet Craft	Turkey Paper Bag Puppet	Paper Bag Turkeys

For more Turkey Day fun, check out these Thanksgiving handprint crafts, more turkey crafts, and these printable turkey pinwheel crafts!

“I just received a ton of bounced emails that aren’t written by me. The email address is mine, but honestly, I did not send them. Has my email/website I been hacked?”

While hacking is always a possibility and I do not want to discount that at all, the reason is probably not that but rather email hijacking. You see, it is easy to change the “From” address. All you need to do is change it in your email program. Instead of your name and email address, you can change it to just about any email address. That’s what they are doing. They aren’t sending emails via your account or your server. Just using your email address as the “From” address. Because bounces go back to the “From” address, that’s why you are receiving them.

For a long time, there is really little you can do about this. I can send an email pretending to be you and vice versa any time. But if your web host supports DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), you might want to have it turned on. What it does is only allow email to be sent from specified domain. This way, a hijacker who always sends emails from his own or any spoofed/fake domain, is prevented from sending any mail. The thing you need to watch when turning this on is to make sure that any other domain you may be sending email from is in this ‘whitelist’ or your own emails won’t go out either.

This idea for Turkey pinwheels came to me yesterday when I was out in the car running errands. Is it just me, or do you also get your best ideas at the most inconvenient times, too? Like in the shower – or while I’m cleaning and covered in grime… seriously.

For more Thanksgiving printables, check out these Thanksgiving masks, printable Thanksgiving placecards, and these turkey coloring pages!

Thanksgiving Pinwheel Paper Craft

Thanksgiving Paper Craft Pinwheels

Assembly instructions are on page 1 – they spin better if you can use heavier paper, btw!

Turkey Tail Feather Pinwheel	Turkey Tail Feather Pinwheel for Coloring
Turkey Pinwheel Center	Turkey Pinwheel Center for Coloring

Be sure to check out all of the Thanksgiving activities from the Woo! Jr. Network!

I get releases that are simply a cut/paste of a press release. That has nothing to do with my interests. Trash. I get endlessly long email pitches that take forever to get to the point. Trash.

Here are 5 ways you can be sure to end up in the trash. If that’s where you want to be.

1. Don’t read the blog or website. You’re a busy person. Why bother reading the source you’re pitching? They’ll be interested in your fantastic news no matter what.

2. Cut and paste. Again, busy. It saves time to just cut and paste your pitch (including the snazzy Dear Editor title) for each email you send.

3. Make it long. The more info, the better, right? Besides, you’re such a good writer you know they’ll be hanging on to the edge of their seats until you get to the point…waaay at the bottom.

4. Don’t bother with goals. You just want to spread the world with your news, so coming up with objectives and goals for your PR campaign ain’t worth the trouble.

On the other hand, a well-crafted pitch gets my attention, even if I may not be interested in the subject. Take Natalie Sisson, of ConnectionPoint Systems Inc. She recently sent me this pitch.

Hi Susan

I read your Facebook pages blog sometime back and thought you’d be a super handy person to contact since you’re so clued up on Facebook, blogging and social networks. We’re a Vancouver startup that recently launched our Facebook application FundRazr – the easiest way to collect money and manage members on Facebook. We believe we can change the face of fundraising and payments in social networks.

Is there anyway we can talk to you about our application and doing a story that would be interesting to your readers?

I’ve attached our latest press release so you can read more.

Thanks in advance

Natalie

Why I like it.

• Flattery works. She said she read some of my work. Then she said I’d be the best person to share this with. (watch my peacock feathers ruffle)
• She told me in 1 sentence what her company does. Rock.
• She politely asked if I’d want to share this info.

While this is a little off from what I write about, I did decide to include FundRazr in an upcoming post…because she pitched me correctly.

What did you learn from this?

For me, this is great because I like the simplicity of using Google Sites to create a Wiki of our organization’s work flow, operating manuals and how-to’s. But the fact that the data is ’stuck’ on Google Sites made us re-think it because it takes a lot of my time to write these manuals and while I’ve not lost anything on Google yet, that’s the keyword – yet. Besides, what if something comes along I like better and want to switch? Data portability is crucial.

With the import/export tool, I can finally resume using Google Sites and create a backup of our documentation in HTML microformats. It is written in Java – which means you have to have Java (not to be confused with Javascript) installed. It is open source and you can download it here.

Networking

If you’re looking for a way to share your contact info with others, try the Professional Profile: Networking app or Business Cards.

Planning an Event

If you hold events, be it online or in person, you can use one of the many Event applications to help herd people and gauge attendance. Eventbrite is popular, because you can accept payment through this app.

Fundraising

If you are a nonprofit or organization, you know that collecting funds online can require a sophisticated web interface. Try instead using FundRazr, the Facebook app that lets you collect money and communicate with supporters.

There are tons of other Facebook applications that might serve other needs you have. Search for them and see how you can add to the experience a fan has on your Facebook page

Pajama Mama – This is a take on at-home mom costume that mom’s never wear but admittedly I did as a costume in college. The big difference is that not only do you wear your jammies and robe, but you need to accessorize with a large cup of coffee and a laptop or Smartphone!

Twitter Maven – You can do the full deal and dress up like a blue bird. Or simply walk around with your Smartphone commenting on everything. Don’t forget, you have to talk in 140 characters or less!

Facebook Maven – Not into Twitter, then why not dress up as a Facebook Maven. Get a big piece of card board and cut a hole big enough for your face to show through. Along one side list all the stuff you’ve been doing. Add a quiz to make it realistic. And don’t forget to add a “Facebook Me” option so others can befriend you.

What ideas do have?