See why every second counts - any how to make the most of them

-154

I feel like every second counts both at (employed) work and at home currently. Having taken on full-time work at the same time as my freelance work has started to take off is a bit of a challenge. A "normal" day is-

• Up at 5.45am
• Update my website
• Leave the house at 7am
• Write a blog post on the bus
• Start work at 7.30am
• Lunch hour at 11.30am
• Write another blog post
• Finish work at 4pm
• Write a blog post on the way home
• Home at 4.30pm
• Get half an hour of promotion work done
• Dinner at 5pm
• A couple of hours with the kids
• Start writing, promoting, tweeting and investigating at 8pm
• Finish and go to bed around 11pm

It all adds to quite a tiring day, and I'm at work tomorrow, pretty much the same routine but I'll leave the 8pm activity, and catch any of that up on Sunday.

I'm really enjoying it all, work is a promotion as well as a change to full-time so I'm managing a team, coaching and training. These are things I'm good at and well practised in. The frustration is the amount of new team members and the fact that business is heavy at this time of year in retail. It doesn't give me a lot of time to develop and train the team into the group of people I want them to be.

The freelance work is fitting in around all of the other bits that I'm doing. I've mentioned before that I sometimes write pieces on my iPhone on the Park and Ride bus on the way to and from work. I find that this gives me the opportunity to switch off from work, and I've also found time in my breaks to do the same. I can put together a large part of what I need and then re-read and edit it down when I get back onto a PC at home.

It's really good to be busy all the time and the fact that most mystery shopping companies stop the amount of mystery shops available in December (see here) means that this is a good time to be doing more at my employed, paid work.

Watch this space!

See how I'm using mass blogging sites, multiple blogs and social media to grow an audience

-152

I've been looking at different ways to increase the views on my blogs this week. The amount of people that read my right blogs is relatively low, in terms of the big online sites and I want to grow real views and clicks for three main reasons-

1- to have people view my estate agency blog that are interested in estate agency. This will increase my traffic for any blog on estate agency on my own website when the business is set up.

http://eaboost.blogspot.co.uk/

2- to have people interested in the Spennymoor property market as a ready-made audience for when I open up an estate agency in the town.

http://spennyproperty.blogspot.co.uk/

3- to have good click figures for potential buyers when it comes to selling my fiverr gigs to people who want exposure for whatever they are selling.

See my fiverr profile here-  https://uk.fiverr.com/homeestates

The ways that I have started to look at this include mass-blogging sites, featuring the blog wording on other sites and trying to increase my social media following.

Mass-blogging sites

The idea with these is that it takes my single blog on its own site and puts on a site that people will visit to read blogs. The plus side is that my blog suddenly appears somewhere that readers are expecting a blog. The down side is that I'm now faced with the competition of hundreds, thousands of other blogs.

Some of the sites I have tried include-

• Blogarama
• BlogFlux
• Super Blog Directory
• Blog Listing
• Bloggio

Basically you out in your blog RSS feed details and it will automatically feed any new entries to the respective sites.

It's only been around ten days but I can't really report any great increase in my readership as a result of this so far. I'm sure that in time it will add readers as my blogs gain traction but I don't think that it will change the world for me. I'm sure that every click counts when it comes to content and content marketing though, and I'm happy that I've done it.

Featuring the words on other sites

I've set up Wordpress sites of each of my blogs so the wording can be found in more than one place.

For the estate agency blog I've also uploaded some of my blog posts on an estate agency networking site. These for me are about establishing a presence and increasing networking. Apart from the links within the text, there's no actual prompt to read the initial Blogger blog in any of these. So my concern is that it may dilute rather than increase the readership. These are an even newer development than the mass blogging sites so I'll have to keep you posted in my progress here.

Increasing my social media following

I've been trying to naturally grow thew following I have for all of my Twitter accounts. Each account focusses on a different area of interest and I'm looking to quadruple the amount of followers I have on each. I am doing this by trying to follow people who have a similar interest and that tend to follow people that follow them. I'm determining this by the amount of followers and followed they have - if the figures are roughly similar then I believe that there's a good chance of being followed back. I'm trying to stay aware of Twitter's rules and they will block any accounts that routinely follow hundreds of people sat once. I'm following people with similar interests and only 15-50 per day at the most.

I find that Twitter gives me the best traction for my blogs on social media, although I maintain Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr accounts and sometimes upload my blog posts to LinkedIn.

As usual, I'll keep you updated with any progress or otherwise that I make.

Onwards and upwards!

See the different marketing ideas I'm using to sell my books

-128

I've been looking at ways to expand the sales of my mystery shopping book. It's had some initial interest and I want to capitalise on that interest and turn it into book sales. There have also been a couple of positive reviews already. It's one of those things that every time you talk about it, other people are really interested in what you have to say. It's a topic that everyone has some interest in, either what you do or becoming a mystery shopper themselves. To assist with the book I've started a blog that mixes hints and tips from the book with my daily experiences as a mystery shopper. Each blog entry prompts the reader to take a look at the book. The blog can be found here.

I have also set up a basic promotional YouTube video to help with the book sales. The idea behind these two things is to get people to like the look of what is going on and then go on to buy and read the book. But the next questions I have are-

• How are people going to find the blog or the YouTube video?
• Who is my target market?
• How will I reach them?

The people who I think will be mainly interested in mystery shopping are university students and the mothers of children that are at school. I live quite close to a university city so I thought that the below poster could get me a bit of traction. I'm going to put it up in a few places around the city that I know students frequent. I hope that more readers of the blog might mean more book sales. Finding the mothers might take a little bit more doing. I'm thinking that the forums mothers frequent such as mumsnet might be somewhere to look. I know from sites like Money Saving Expert  don't allow people to advertise their own products on their forums so mumsnet may be the same. Aside from these two areas, it's a case of searching and thinking more about potential readers and how I can reach them.

The poster looks like this-

Wish me luck!

I'm starting to resurface back into the world after the eye operation

-110

I'm starting to resurface back into the world after the eye operation and the recovery period. After the operation and the recovery period I've been finding that even the simplest of tasks leaves me tired - until today.

I've re-started my gigs in fiverr, with the hope that they bring in some income that I re-spend on fiverr itself. There's a vast array of items that I can see myself spending credit on, and some others that are interesting as well-

• I will ghostwrite, proofread and edit your ebooks and kindle books
• I will write a 500 word introduction for your book or ebook
• I will illustrate your book
• I will design a Sensational Book or Kindle eBook Cover
• I will advertise your book or bookish product on my book blog
• I will add PERMANENT Facebook likes
• I will post PERMANENT Amazon review 
• I will write about your site in my Real Estate Site

There's a wide array of things to be ordered on Fiverr, and probably a whole host of other things that I haven't even come across yet.

During my time on the Fiverr website I've done a few Gigs that I've been really interested in, and I'll share a bit of detail with you on the latest one. I have explained how the website works on recent past blog posts, so I won't go into too much detail there. And also to say that I won't be giving updates on every Fiverr Gig I conduct but in the early days it's been quite interesting.

The below blog link is a sponsored link through Fiverr, where the producers of the product wanted more exposure for their products and to create some back links for their Etsy shop-

http://inofftheblogpost.blogspot.com/2015/09/so-your-child-wants-to-be-footballer.html

The products themselves are great, but it was thinking about how to frame them into the context of who is reading my blog on football, and who is likely to buy the products when they've read the blog. I worked on the different angles available to me and then decided hat they aspirational aspect was probably the best way to go, as it is still too early to go heavy on the Christmas theme.

In all, I'm very pleased with the way it went and the fact that I'm resurfacing onto online life, if not the real world quite yet.

The products can be found at -

https://www.etsy.com/listing/247211206/personalized-christmas-stocking-custom?ref=shop_home_active_3

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheBusyElfWorkshop?ref=hdr_shop_menu

homeestates

Fiverr

Seller

I am a writer - I write all the time. I have several blogs, have written three books (so far) and I just love writing. I will write positive reviews or articles or mention you in my blogs in clear English. I'm new to Fiverr but I'm incredibly passionate about what it can empower.

It's time to get the house set for the colder weather

 -83

It's time to get the garage-cum-office finished and all the little snagging jobs in the house find before the weather turns. Before long Autumn will turn Wintry and it will be too late to get any outside jobs done, so that's where I will start the focus.

It looks like it's list time again…

I'll have to go round the house and trek a look at all the areas that I feel need attention. From there, it's a case of setting up sons time to ensure that I can get everything done. I'll probably start the list this afternoon and from there I'll have an idea of how much time it will take me to complete.

If like the setting up if the estate agency for next year to follow a similar path but there are do many aspects of it that I have no idea about timescales. I'll just have to leave more time than I think possible and take it from there.

I'm one of these people that likes to have everything planned to the finest detail with accurate timings but it's just not possible when setting up what will be a new business. The current thinking is to finish my current job at Christmas, take a couple of weeks off and then start in earnest during January. From there I'll step up through the gears to be opening after Easter with a view to building stock levels for this time next year. I follow the cycles of the market and it appears that there are two main markets in my part of the world. The first is taking on property in January and February for sales in March and April. The second phase is taking on property through the Summer to sell after the kids go back to scho in September for people that want to move in for Christmas. I'm looking to catch the tails end if the first market and be really up and running for the second.

Wish me luck!

What's next? - my new strategy

120

After sounding off a bit on my last blog and feeling a bit rudderless, I've devised a new strategy to deal with all the different balls I'm trying to juggle at present. I've dubbed it the "what's next approach." On one sheet of paper I've made a note if all the areas I'm trying to progress in, then in each area I've written what I need to do next. Sounds simple? It has only started today after a little formulation in my brain last night and the process of writing these small steps down has been hugely refreshing in its own.

The list is-

The Business

Paint the left wall of the garage

Assemble the table that will be my desk

Paint the rest of the garage

At Home

Sand and paint the bathroom ceiling

Glue stones on cupboards in kitchen

Paint hall and landing

My "Books And Games" Selling Business

Get all stock out of loft and place in new office in garage

Check and update inventory

Writing

Finish a book I'm writing on how to buy a home

Edit the book down to get it ready to publish

Start the creative writing course I've enrolled in

Mystery shops

Update my spreadsheet with all shop data on

Prepare for the 7 shops I have on Thursday

Look at adding to the 4 shops I have on Friday

Look up online about self-assessment and tax

Photography course

Go to the local city and get the final city photos for my final project, based on the main river that runs by here

Retake some of the other photos I have, in the golden hour, to ensure the sky is lit best