Name: Debbie Beanland
What: Kurrajong Farmhouse Soy Candles
Where: Menai, NSW
Inside Small Business reader Debbie Beanland has started up a candle-making business from her home on the outskirts of Sydney. She shares her start-up experiences with readers.
1. Snap
Got a photographer to photograph my products (thanks Wishing Well films) and arranged business cards, postcard flyers and stickers through online printing company Vistaprint without even leaving the house. (Just uploaded the new photos straight to its website.)
2. Click
Purchased a domain name and set up a new business email and home email so it all matches.
3. Sweat
Googled ‘how to create a website’ and did it myself using webs.com. This took about two full days, as I’m no IT expert. Using online guides, added a shopping cart with PayPal and credit-card options to the website, which only costs $5 per month.
4. Stamp
Registered my business name and my trademark name and got an ABN (thanks to business.gov.au for the tips and tutorials on how to do that).
5. Share
Found a Gen Y social-media manager (aka my daughter, thanks Leah Beanland) to create a business Facebook page for me, link it to my personal Facebook page and then launch it – the big announcement. I asked everyone I knew to ‘share’.
6. Connect
Emailed details about my new business to everyone in my address book, in one email. Huge success.
7. Schmooze
Went along to my first BEC drinks night at Miranda Hotel and met all the local shire members (there were around 40 to 50 there, I’m guessing).
8. Ker-ching
Rapidly went from one to 137 ‘likes’ on Facebook and got my first website orders.
9. Swot
Registered and logged in to a one-hour online BEC webinar on social-media marketing. Thanks BEC, it was awesome and I’d actually like to hear that again if it’s possible. I note there were 150 people listening in…very popular.
10. Plan
Registered my business so I can attend upcoming annual trade fairs as a retailer.
What’s next?
I wait eagerly for your next issue of Inside Small Business to come out.
I’m grateful for all the networking opportunities through BEC meetings, the online technology available just by Googling, the government Small Business Resource Kit (business.gov.au) and the information in hard-copy resources such as Inside Small Business magazine. And a special thanks to my husband Martin Beanland for setting up the domain names and my new matching emails, and for his expertise on using Facebook for business. (Martin coincidentally had just signed up a year’s membership with BEC for his own new small business, but that’s another story.)
Debbie Beanland
