Happy Monday, again. I love Mondays. They’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you. Actually, 2024 offers 53 chances. Next week, Monday is a bonus chance!
For those who are thinking about starting their own business in 2025, December is, among other things, National Write A Business Plan Month. There’s more than one way to write a business plan. The Small Business Administration says, “Most business plans fall into one of two common categories: traditional or lean startup.”
The SBA offers some great “how to” advice for both categories in their online article, “Write Your Business Plan” (Nov. 1, 2024), author unknown. For those who are detail oriented and/or looking for investors, the traditional business plan is recommended.
There’s a wealth of information on the internet for how to do just about anything. WalmartBusiness.com and many others offer business planner templates to fit the needs of almost any business. AI is another source that can now be utilized for business planning.
Start your plan with a description for your business – detailing your objectives, products, and/or services. Then do a market research to identify your competition and potential audience/customers.
Define your marketing plan. Knowing how to sell what you’re offering is probably the hardest part. Additionally, create a financial plan for your all of your business’s expenses (including advertising) and sales potential.
You should also run an analysis on your business’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as its external opportunities and threats, to help you identify areas that need improvement. Improvements lead to potential growth.
Most small businesses began by getting people to know who they were, where to find them, and what they offered. Great customer service begets great customer loyalty. The accessibility of internet for the masses has certainly evolved the methods for creating or building a brand.
With new social media platforms popping up all the time, there’s been a dramatic increase in people who are branding themselves and launching their own home-based businesses. A new star is born on the internet almost every day. People and things go viral very quickly but their popularity can fade just as quickly. It’s a crapshoot.
I’ve narrowed the consensus of “how to” tips, which I’ve found on some internet searches, to “my favorite five”; including (but not limited to) – defining your brand, becoming an expert in your field, making yourself known, generating awareness through networking, and gathering feedback from people you know and trust.
Mom was a natural at marketing her talents and her products. I may have inherited her loves for writing, art and creativity in general but I know I’m lacking her self-confidence and many marketing talents. I think my brother, Mike, got all of those genes!
These days, I get anxiety just from the idea of selling anything. I tried selling a couple of times (for Amway and for Home Interiors & Gifts) but I was not very good at it. So many times, in interviews and “fan” mail, Mom would be asked how she did it and how can someone else do what she did?
Instead of composing a “How To…” guide for writing, publishing, and marketing a newsletter (or books), Mom wrote “our family story” in her self-published book, My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989). She hoped that it might inspire others. Below is a patch-work quilt of such excerpts from that book.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 53)
RISKY BUSINESS
THERE ARE MANY RISKS involved with going into business for yourself, no matter what product or service you intend to offer. If I had thought more about the risks than I did about the possibilities, I never would have moved an inch toward doing any of the things about which I now write.
My husband is not a risk-taker. I am. We complement each other well. He still becomes uneasy and anxious about every new idea I have for another book or another project, on the basis that ‘we can’t afford it.’
I have learned, over the years, to keep many of my projects to myself until they are completed; which, in the long run, saves Paul from worrying unnecessarily about something that will very likely turn out well, and keeps me from worrying that Paul is worrying.
When I have been asked about goals or destination, it is been my feeling that every corner I turn has a new goal, a new destination awaiting us. I have never thought of any one point as being the top.
Life has so many wonderful opportunities for each of us to take advantage of, that it does not seem reasonable that I should give myself the limitations that would determine just how far I should be able to go.
Because this was never a hobby, never WORK, never a job, I have had no problem with the worry or concern that accompanies a position from which one expects to retire. I would not want to give up what I have been doing [writing] since I was a child.
It would be unfair to have to give up doing something that has also brought so much pleasure and good information to so many people. It was, however, only when I realized WHAT I should be writing about and what I should be sharing with the readers – what I knew best – that things really began to happen.
Of course, my husband wisely reminds me, when someone asks about writing their own cookbook, that WRITING it is the easiest part. Knowing how to SELL it is the hard part!
‘Find a job you enjoy doing and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ – Mark Twain
I believe that if you can find something you love to do and turn it into a career, you’re very lucky. I’ve found many interesting reads online, over the past few years, regarding how to find hobbies that make you happy and how to generate income from them.
Here are a couple that I’ve enjoyed reading: ‘10 Tips To Turn Your Hobby Into A Business’ (updated 5/2/22) by Stephanie Vozza at LegalZoom.com and ‘30 Best Profitable Hobbies That Make Money’ (updated 9/7/22) by “Sara, the dreamer” at GatheringDreams.com. Check them out!
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
Excerpts by Gloria Pitzer…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989)
THE EXPERIENCES WE’VE encountered in building this family enterprise of ours, this cottage industry… has occurred while distributing recipe secrets through radio broadcasting and newspaper exposure and our own publishing efforts. If someone can benefit from our experiences, all the better. Mostly, though, this is just a story of our family, our five children…and how we made a dent in the hard shell of the publishing industry. (p. 2)
AT LEAST ONCE a week…I am asked how I got into this business, how it all started and how somebody else can write their own book [or newsletter] and get it published. If there were a formula for our kind of success…I would be happy to share the information…
The experiences that comprise the success and longevity of our Secret RecipesTM include some very wonderful people who have gone out of their way to make it easy for us to present our work to the public…
Over the years, it has been not a job but a joy to continue investigating the secrets of the food industry, combining this information and recipes with the logic of the heart, the food for thought as well as food for the table. It continues to arouse interest and delight in, both, our readers and radio listeners all over the country, as well as the world! (p. 14-15)
IF SOMEONE WERE to copy our so-called “success”, I could give them no blueprint for that condition. Each one of the little steps that we had to take to develop the kitchen table activity into a professional business operation, are like the grains of sand that the oyster requires to form a pearl. (p. 25)
AGAIN, MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over And I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 53)
RISKS – THE HARD ROAD TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
THERE ARE MANY RISKS involved with going into business for yourself, no matter what product or service you intend to offer. If I had thought more about the risks than I did about the possibilities, I never would have moved an inch toward doing any of the things about which I now write.
My husband is not a risk-taker. I am. We complement each other well. He still becomes uneasy and anxious about every new idea I have for another book or another project, on the basis that ‘we can’t afford it.’
I have learned, over the years, to keep many of my projects to myself until they are completed, which in the long run saves Paul from worrying unnecessarily about something that will very likely turn out well, and keeps me from worrying that Paul is worrying.
Some people experience a certain let-down, after reaching what they consider ‘the top’. When they finally reach the Everest of their ambitions [and] make it to the top, they start to wonder why they were in such a hurry to get there anyhow.
Like Lee Iacocca, who was only in his mid-40s when he was president of the Ford Motor Company, writes in his autobiography, [that he had] no idea what he was going to do ‘for an encore’! I have never had to worry about this, fortunately.
When I have been asked about goals or destination, it is been my feeling that every corner I turn has a new goal, a new destination awaiting us. I have never thought of any one point as being the top.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected]. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of Thursday, being National Candy Cane Day, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Candy Canes”; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Eating Out at Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; September 1978, p. 19). As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
December observes… National Pear Month, Operation Santa Paws (which runs the 1st-24th), Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month, Safe Toys and Gifts Month, Worldwide Food Service Safety Month, National Human Rights Month, and Universal Human Rights Month – among other things.
This week starts celebrating… the Twelve Days of Christmas (which is always December 25th through January 5th) and Kwanzaa (which is always December 26th through January 1st).
Today is also… National Pfeffernusse Day, National Roots Day, and Festivus.
December 24th is… National Eggnog Day and Christmas Eve.
[NOTE: Dec. 24, 1976 – Anniversary of Mom’s at-home-interview with Jack McCarthy of WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, Metro Detroit.]
December 25th is… National Pumpkin Pie Day and Christmas. Plus, this year, it’s also the beginning of Hanukkah/Chanukah Begins – which changes annually.
December 26th is… National Thank-You Note Day and Canadian Boxing Day.
December 27th is… National Fruitcake Day.
December 28th is… National Chocolate Candy Day, National Card Playing Day, and Pledge of Allegiance Day.
December 29th is… National Pepper Pot Day.
Have a great week and a super holiday celebration!
For 2024, there’s 53 chances; therefore, 52 down and 1 more to go!
