Thinking Kinky : The Nappy Haired Diva

Starting a business isn't always easy. Most times you need to spend money before you make money. The amount invested will hopefully be earned back within your first or second year of business. For a large span of time you may be working hard and paying everyone else but yourself. This is the life of a small business owner. You spend evenings examining spreadsheets until your eyes are crossed and write checks to everyone while you eat a $1 pack of noodles. Welcome to business ownership. Take off your shoes, get comfy. I recall my days of being thirsty for business ownership. I have signed up to do just about everything from selling cosmetics to legal services. There was no limit to the things I tried. Each time I entered these business structures I was told to spend money. When I would cringe, I would then be reminded that any and every business requires an investment. This is true. The difference is that these business structures ALWAYS required that I target my friends and f...

Many of us have had that defining moment, where we contemplate working for ourselves rather than toiling away for an employer.  This idea is typically fueled by the desire for freedom from a myriad of common office issues from paid time off to water cooler gossip. While employees indeed make a company run, it's another thing entirely to run a company.  Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road.  As an entrepreneur, there is a tremendous responsibility for all aspects of your business from marketing to accounting. The amount of time required to build a business from the ground up will easily discourage most people. If you believe that you're wasting away at a 9 to 5, you will surely rot while building your startup. Every moment will be spent marketing your business, negotiating deals with clients, and if you achieve growth you can count on navigating the hiring process as well. It gets really fun when you have to master the art of payroll.  So often we see blo...

For almost two decades, my career has existed within the corporate world. My mornings have been spent either spewing a variety of profanity words from behind the wheel of my 8 year old Chrysler or ironically spending my most intimate moments chest to chest with strangers on the train. By the time I've made it work, I'm ready to go home. Each day is the same. Someone will gossip about someone else. We'll all lament about how life is nothing more than indentured servitude and once our time was up we would be free but impoverished. Our bodies will go into shock after having been conditioned to work and therefore shut down and die. It was really uplifting conversation. We all wear the same outfits. The blouses and pants and blazers and pencil skirt and cedar colored shoes and ties and suits and make up and comb-overs and phony smiles and cruel intentions. It's pretty much a uniform. But underneath all of that, there's me. Me is...

Social media is a fantastic way to market your business without spending a fortune. With the implementation of ad campaigns on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and more recently Linkedin even the smallest startup can throw their hat in the ring and try to get sales. I too decided to utilize this method when I started my business, Estwick Marketing . What I didn't know was that while social media can be a fantastic marketing tool, it can also have minimal yield if done incorrectly. A friend once told me that the path to success was paved with mistakes. He didn't actually word it that way but that was the gist of what he was saying. Anyhow, you have to learn what not to do before you learn what you need to do. Here are the top three things I learned along the way while marketing my startup on social media: Do your research: Find out where other businesses that are similar to yours are posting. If it's working for them, it will likely work for you. You won't be able t...