Sea World
Nicole Munoz
Google Headquarters
Today, Sunday, we went for a little Sunday drive and ended up at the Google headquarters, close to Silicon valley her in San Jose. We were able to take some pictures and there is one of me standing in front of one of the Google signs. If you have never been to Google headquarters it is huge- they have probably 3-4 blocks of buildings.
Visiting Monterey Bay, California
On Thursday we drove from Oceanside up to Monterey Bay, Ca. If you have never visit Monterey Bay it is one of the places that should be on your top 10 list of places to go and see. Especially if you are going to take a trip with your husband for your anniversary or honeymoon. It is a very cute, romantic spot with lots of different things to do.
We arrived there Thursday night and we checked into the Holiday Inn Express right there on the beach. Its 5 minutes to the beach, we could walk over there if we wanted. The next morning, we went over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we got tickets. They have a special there- it was going to cost us about $95 for our whole family but we could get a membership package for only $120 that includes 2 adults and all your children. And we can go back as much as we want for the next year. So we became members and are planning to go back there a few more times while we are in the area.
It is a very beautiful aquarium. It is very modern, very well designed. You can see all different kinds of things. It’s really interesting for the kids.
They got to see all the jellyfish, sharks and sea otters. They also have a new area called the Splash Zone, where the kids can actually touch some starfish and other animals, kelp and different things. They really enjoyed that- it was a fun day.
They even have a really nice restaurant, with some good food- a little expensive, $9.95 for a plate of food. But the food was very good. I highly recommend if you have a chance to go see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, it is very nice.
After that we headed over to Cannery Row. We looked at the different shops there. They are currently remodeling to make it more beautiful. After that we headed over to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory right there on Cannery Row and the kids got some chocolate covered Oreo cookies. They really enjoyed those and I got some English Toffee. Really good. We had a really fun day. Then we went down to the beach and the kids got to go stick their feet in the water. Clear views of the ocean, very nice. I highly recommend a day trip to Monterey Bay if you get the chance.
Aisle to Aisle in Barnes & Noble
A little while ago I was walking through Barnes & noble with my kids as part of my overall parenting strategy; to acquire a life long love of reading for my kids. Occasionally, I take them to Barnes & Noble and let them all pick out their own books. After they got done picking out their books they started to walk through Barnes & Noble and I began to think, wow, how much my life has changed over the years.
I remember when I was a teenager; I liked to visit the teenage section. As I got a little older I liked to visit the religion section. After I got married I remember my stop would always bee to the cooking section or how-to-decorate your home section. Then when the babies started coming I started to go to the baby section and parenting section. A little bit later after that, when I started to have more time on my hands, I liked to enjoy the fiction section of the book store and read alot of fiction books.
Now my favorite section would be the e-commerce, management and sales section and of course to go full circle, as I take my kids to the kid section all over again. Its amazing how a simple thing like a bookstore can remind you of little things in life that we should appreciate.
Starting a New Business
Combining business with family isn’t that hard. About 15 minutes ago my family and I headed on to City Hall and started a new internet marketing business. The whole process took about 10 minutes- after filling out the forms, the required information and $25 fee. I really love starting businesses in the United States, really easy.
If you haven’t started a business and you’re thinking about it- now’s the time to start. After that we took a quick trip over to Oceanside Pier where my 3 kids are making sandcastles and new friends in the sand.
I really love internet marketing businesses.
Traveling, work, kids, and fun!
For the next three months our family will be travelling the lower 48 states and visiting friends and family as well as a couple side trips to amusment parks. Our journey begins from Puebla, Mexico where we are live. On Wednesday March 26, 2008 we loaded up our minivan with 5 kids, a few suitcases, and of course our laptop and digital camera. Our kids are: Japheth – 7 years old, Rachel – 5, Sarah – 4, David and Hannah – Twin 1 year olds. Wednesday we drove to Tampico. On the way we stopped for some paletas in a zocolo of a little pueblito. (Frozen juice bars in a park of a little village.) Our second stop was a seaside little town that served up some excellent tasting shrimp and carne asadas. Thursday we made it to the border and without any complications we crosssed into Brownsville, Texas where a friend of my husband’s met us and took us to eat and to a hotel to rest.
Hackersafe A/B Split Test
Almost 6 months ago mostly due to high reviews and a great offer from www.stompernet.com we added hackersafe to two of our websites. As part of the offer we did an A/B split test to see if it really helped increase conversions or not. The A/B split test was run by Hackersafe and the results showed that conversions on our site increased 9.3%! Recently we just finished another A/B split test that we performed with google website optimizer (with the help of monitus.net!) and found that using the Hackersafe logo definitely continued to show an increased conversion rate! Off to test some more!
A/B Split Testing with a Yahoo Store
My latest adventure has been learning how to set up google analytics and use google website optimizer to do A/B split testing with my yahoo store. I can’t give a higher recommendation than to say that Michael at http://www.monitus.net is the guy you need to see.
First, monitus.net. Monitus.net is a service that you can pay a low monthly fee for to have your yahoo store set up with google analytics. One of the best features of monitus.net is the keyword monkey feature. With keyword monkey you can easily see which keywords converted. Each day you will receive a report for newly converting keywords and if you login to keyword monkey then you can see an easy to read chart of all keywords that converted as well as your conversion rate for any given keyword. This is great because then you can see which words you should be focusing your seo efforts on. Keyword monkey also tells you if the words are found in your store so that you can know if you need to create special pages for those words to generate even more conversions. I had google analytics set up for some time, but Keyword monkey is so much easier to read and understand. Also, if you want to use google website optimizer to do any type of a/b split testing with your yahoo store, then you will need help from monitus.
StomperMom.Com
Ever wondered how to homeschool 3 kids, take care of twin babies, manage the household, and run a full time business all at the same time? I have news for you. You can’t! At least not alone. Almost a year ago I joined an internet marketing membership site called StomperNet. Since then I have learned some important things about running an internet business.
1. You should be working ON your business and not IN your business.
2. Do you have a J-O-B or a business?
3. Is your business an asset that can be sold?
4. Don’t forget the most important thing: Spending time with Family.
5. Your income is the average of the people you hang out the most with.
Number One: This was me about 6 months ago. In between processing orders, answering the phones, and updating the websites to delete discontinued products, there was no time left to actual work on the business. I was so involved in the every day activities in became impossible to actually grow the business to the next level. Solution: Get out of the house and get an office. Hire a Manager. Train manager to do everything I do so that she can supervise all the other people I will hire. Second step: Hire a webmaster. Third: Hire link getters. Fourth: Hire someone to work on product updates and uploading new products to sites. Fifth Step: Outsource everything else and then train manager on anything I am still doing. Granted, these five steps took six months. It takes time to train people. But once you do, you can actually start working ON your business and not IN your business. It obviously also takes cash flow. You don’t want to go into debt to pay salaries, but you have to look at things ojectively. If I can pay someone $7 an hour to answer the phone, and I choose to answer the phone instead, then I am making $7 an hour! My job is not to answer the phone for $7 an hour! My job is to work on Traffic, Conversion, and Community.
Number Two. Do you have a J-O-B or a business? Do you HAVE to get up everyday and go to work or everything will fall apart? If so, then you have created a Job for yourself. Part of the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you have FREEDOM to go and do whatever you want, whenever you want. If I want to take the kids to the park, I CAN…. because I have a business, not a J-O-B. You need to create systems and policies and procedures so that your office can run itself. If YOU are the center of every decision, then you have a job.
Number Three. Is your business an asset that can be sold? If every day you have to work 16 hours just to keep the business running, then you don’t have an asset that can be sold. You have a nightmere! If someone offered to buy your business tomorrow, do you have the systems in place for someone to come in and take over? It is as old fashioned as creating step by step flow charts for your workers using a program such as SmartDraw so that everything can be run without you. It takes time to think out and plan the flow charts, but once in place, everyone will know what to do and how to do it. Keeping good books is also important. No one is going to want to buy debt. Make sure to pay the sales tax you collect on time to the respective states and be sure to only go into debt for inventory and office furniture. Don’t bank on tomorrow’s income to pay today’s salaries.
Number Four. Remember why you quit your job! You quit your day job to be an entrepreneur so you could have the convenience of working from home and spending time with your family. Nothing is more important than the kids. If you don’t get that project finished, so what? Who is going to fire you? Your kids however, are only little once and they WILL remember that mommy or daddy put them first before their work.
Number Five. Brad Fallon said this at one of the live conferences. Your income is the average of the people you hang around. How true is that. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and go out and meet people in a higher income bracket. It is not about the money. It is not about what THEY can do for YOU. It is about what you can learn from THEM. It is about the tips and advice you can think about and apply to your business. It is about expanding your horizons and seeing things from someone else’s point of view. Maybe spending $30 a month on pay per click ads is a huge deal to you. Wait till you meet someone who is spending thousands of dollars a DAY! Then ASK them for some tips! Believe it or not, people usually like to talk about themselves! They like to talk about their experiences and the their successes. Be genuinely interested in other people and don’t forget to help out those that are learning!