If you’re a mother, you know just how difficult it can be to find an employer who is willing to accommodate your needs as a parent. The solution just may be going into business for yourself rather than working for someone else. Here’s how to brainstorm workable business ideas, create your first marketing materials, set a reasonable work schedule, and more.

Establish an LLC

Before you start taking on clients or selling products, you should establish your new company as an LLC. This will give you limited liability protection for your personal assets, and you’ll qualify for tax breaks to help your family save more money. Filing for LLC status can be easy and inexpensive if you go through an online formation service rather than hiring a lawyer or doing it by yourself. Just keep in mind that every state has its own LLC formation requirements, so research the local regulations before compiling your documents.

Choose a Business Idea

What kind of business should you launch? It’s a good idea to set up a flexible company that you can easily manage from home. Wise Business Plans recommends selling handmade crafts, teaching virtual classes on a skill you’ve mastered, or working as a web designer, blogger, proofreader, virtual assistant, or social media manager.

Promote Your Offerings

To start making sales, you’ll have to implement a basic marketing strategy. This should involve creating a simple website, posting regularly on your company’s social media accounts, and sending out an email newsletter to update your loyal customers on new developments.

When it comes to marketing, PDFs are an invaluable tool for promoting yourself online and via old-fashioned methods, like brochures and posters. You can use Adobe Acrobat’s PDF editing tools to create and edit PDFs that you share as online flyers on your social media pages, digital coupons in your email newsletters, and graphics on your website. If you’ll also be utilizing physical promotional materials, print out your PDFs to use as posters for community bulletin boards or postcards you mail out to generate buzz about your business. 

Design a Comfortable Workspace

Sometimes, you’ll probably be answering emails and working on administrative tasks while keeping an eye on your child. But if your partner or another trusted caregiver is home, you can retreat to a home office to focus on deep work. To set up a workspace where you can be productive, choose a quiet room, incorporate built-in storage, and prioritize natural light.

Stick to a Realistic Schedule

If you’re balancing entrepreneurship and raising a child, you’ll need to manage your schedule carefully. You don’t want to take on too many clients or projects at once. Instead, figure out how much money you’d like to bring in for your family each month, and then determine how many hours you’ll have to work to achieve this goal. Keep your workload in check by sticking to these hours. You may want to knock out your work in the early morning before your little one wakes or later at night when your child has gone to bed. This approach can help you fulfill all of your obligations.

Traditional workplaces are not always supportive of mothers. As working from home and freelancing becomes more common, more mothers are exploring entrepreneurship to help finance their children’s care and build up their family’s savings. With these tips, you can create a brighter future for your child.

You know that the key to success is understanding your customers. You must know who they are, what they want, and why they are drawn to your business. There are many ways to answer these questions, but your website is one of the best sources of data. Indeed, monitoring your website performance and utilizing tools like PDF editors and click rate monitors can help you identify what customers are looking for. Learn about six other insights you can gain from web performance monitoring with this great article from the Irish Hills Chamber of Commerce.

1. Website’s Functionality

Perhaps the most important insight that web monitoring can offer is a look into the overall functionality of your website. Tracking visitors’ behavior will reveal broken links, for example, or if the site is offline. In the latter scenario, monitoring your site’s performance will give you the ability to act immediately and get the site up and running again.

2. Specific Metric Monitoring

Website monitoring can also offer insights into specific metrics of your site’s performance. You can see how many unique visitors you get every day, for example, or how long a visitor spends browsing the site. This information can help you gauge the quality of your content and the overall accessibility of the site.

3. Avoid Potential Data Breaches with the Help of PDFs and PDF Editors

The aforementioned web data can also help you detect a potential threat before it comes to fruition. C-Risk explains that before a data breach, for example, you might notice a massive influx of unusual traffic. You must protect your customers from a potential breach, and you can do so by using PDFs on your site. PDFs can easily be encrypted or password protected, and they can even be locked to prevent unauthorized access. By using a PDF editor online you can conveniently change a document whenever you need to.

4. Customers’ Interests

When you’re monitoring website performance, you want to see how traffic reflects your customers’ needs. It’s not always easy to extrapolate this information, but you can gain some insight by analyzing which pages on your website attract the most traffic. Similarly, look at which pages customers linger on the longest. This information will help you understand the interests of your prospective customers, which will ultimately help you implement strategies to boost sales.

5. Conversion Motivation

According to Fit Small Business, a call to action on a website only generates a 4.23% click rate on average. Although this figure represents a small fraction of your website visitors, it’s important to consider what language and incentives may boost this rate. Analyzing your conversion data can provide insight into what motivates visitors the most — in many cases, discount codes and other deals can boost your conversions.

6. Keyword Searches

Many small business owners are surprised to see the keyword searches that generate traffic to their site. Indeed, your site may appear in results that seem entirely unrelated to your business. Rather than dismissing this data as irrelevant, though, you should see it as an opportunity to expand your audience. Create a spreadsheet tracking all of the keywords used to find your site, and consider how you can tailor your web presence to these customers.

Learn About Your Customers Through Web Data

A great website can do wonders for your business, so don’t ignore the great data sitting right there waiting to be accessed. Monitoring the performance of your website is a great way to learn about your business’s customers. More importantly, it can help you prevent data loss and maintain a high SEO ranking. Use PDFs on your site to protect sensitive information and PDF editors to adjust them when needed. When these strategies are put together, you will see gains in your website’s traffic and your business overall.

Adobe Acrobat is a versatile software suite that offers a wide range of benefits for small and local businesses. From document management to collaboration and security features, Acrobat is an indispensable tool for organizations of all sizes for many reasons:

Efficient Document Management: Acrobat provides robust document management capabilities, allowing businesses to create, edit, organize, and archive documents seamlessly. With features like merging, splitting, and indexing PDFs, businesses can streamline their document workflow and reduce paperwork clutter.

Cost Savings: Acrobat offers cost-effective solutions that eliminate the need for expensive printed materials, courier services, and physical storage space. By going digital with PDF documents, businesses save on printing and shipping costs, reduce paper waste, and lower their overall operational expenses.

Enhanced Collaboration: Collaboration is key in today's business landscape, and Acrobat facilitates this through features like commenting, annotation, and real-time co-editing. Small businesses can collaborate with remote team members, clients, or suppliers, allowing for seamless communication and feedback on documents. This collaborative approach can significantly improve productivity and the speed of decision making.

Professional-Looking Documents: For small and local businesses trying to make a mark in a competitive market, the presentation of documents matters. Acrobat offers a wide range of formatting and styling options to create professional-looking documents. From customizing fonts and colors to adding watermarks and headers, businesses can enhance their brand identity and create visually-appealing materials.

Secure Document Handling: Acrobat provides robust security features, including password protection, encryption, and digital signatures. Small and local businesses can ensure the confidentiality and integrity of their documents, especially when handling sensitive information like customer data and financial information.

Mobile Accessibility: In today's fast-paced business world, being able to work on the go is crucial. Acrobat offers mobile apps that allow small businesses and local businesses to access, edit, and share documents from their smartphones or tablets. This mobility ensures that critical tasks can be addressed promptly, even when employees are not in the office.

Compliance and Legal Benefits: Acrobat helps businesses maintain compliance by providing tools for digital signatures and document tracking. This is especially valuable for businesses that need to meet stringent regulatory standards, like healthcare and financial institutions.

Streamlined Workflows: Acrobat integrates seamlessly with other popular software applications, including Microsoft Office and various cloud storage services. This integration streamlines workflows, making it easier to convert documents to PDF format, collaborate on documents, and access files stored in the cloud. Small and local businesses can save time and reduce errors by using these integrations.

Electronic Forms: Acrobat allows businesses to create interactive electronic forms that can be filled out online, reducing the need for paper forms and manual data entry. This simplifies the customer experience and ensures accurate data collection.

Just take a look at how Acrobat revolutionized the way The J. Morey Company runs its business. As an insurance agency, J. Morey handles a lot of paperwork — all of which was physical documentation until 2015, when president Joshua Morey digitized the firm’s paperwork with Acrobat. Because they no longer rely on wet signatures that have to be scanned into the computer system or sent via snail mail, the process of signing, password protecting, and sending signed documents takes only a minute instead of 20 minutes, freeing up as much as 10 hours a month per employee.

Acrobat’s features and tools allow The J. Morey Company and more than 500,000 other organizations worldwide to reduce costs while scaling their businesses. In fact, when Joshua took over the company in 2015, it had four offices with a total of 18 employees. After just three years of implementing Acrobat into its workflows, the company grew to 150 employees across 11 offices.

Business negotiations can be situations where everyone feels pressure to seal the deal, but sometimes it's best to break off negotiations and seek another solution. For example, in the National Football League, the more successful teams tend to avoid entering bidding wars with expensive free agents who can demand unfavorable contract terms. As a result, they get the players they need without jeopardizing their bottom lines. There are other reasons why bad terms can cause issues in your business.

The Fallout of Negative Terms

Whether they're subtle or blatant, unfavorable contract terms can cause many problems for your business. For instance, if you agree to pay too much for a vendor's product or service, you may need to make budget cuts in critical areas like marketing. If entering the deal will increase your employees' workload by an untenable amount, you may end up losing employees. And if the contract doesn't have firm deadlines for the other party, you may lose time waiting for them to deliver. The bottom line is that you shouldn't let the pressure to make a deal quickly force you into an arrangement that will harm your business in the long run.

The Importance of Appearances

The appearance of the contract itself can raise warning flags. If your counterpart presents a poorly formatted or sloppily worded contract, then proceed with caution: The terms may be badly spelled out, unfavorable, or unenforceable.

Contracts can serve as legal protection and guardrails that ensure both parties meet their obligations — but only if the details are right. The good news is that if you're in charge of drafting or revising a contract, then tools that allow you to convert PDF to Word can help you nail and accurately transmit the details.

The Terms to Focus On

Try defining which terms are critical for your business and making sure those are acceptable in the contract. For instance, if you have specific schedule and pricing benchmarks a vendor must meet, spell those out — as well as what happens if the vendor doesn't come through.

While your business's key priorities should be reflected in the terms, it's also important to be on the lookout for various "gotcha" clauses. For instance, the other party may sneak in terms that make it very difficult to end your agreement, like automatic-renewal triggers. These can be hard to spot, so read carefully.

A Different Perspective

If you're having difficulty coming to terms with negotiations that aren't working out, it may be helpful to shift your perspective. It's possible that now isn't a good time for the deal to take place, but circumstances will be better in the future. And sometimes one party or the other might just have a gut feeling that the deal isn't right. Regardless, walking away from a deal isn't necessarily a signal of failure; in fact, if you avoid a bad situation, you can consider it a win. 

Avoiding Bad Terms

Entering a negotiation knowing what you need — and being willing to walk away — can help you avoid being duped into accepting unfavorable contracts. After all, agreeing to one bad deal can close many doors.

To find support for your business, try joining your local chamber of commerce.

Many small businesses handle their own marketing rather than hire a marketing staff or enlist the services of a large agency. While there may be a couple of things you’ll want to hire out to the pros, you can certainly put together a strategy to help get your business on the map. Irish Hills Regional Chamber of Commerce offers the following tips so you can get noticed. 

Evaluate the Market

One of the first things to do prior to launching a marketing campaign is to conduct market research. It's important to understand who your competition is and how you can differentiate yourself from them, whether that's in different price points, products, services, or customer service. You'll also need to investigate your target demographic and how you can best reach them. You can do some of this on your own or you can use the services of a market research firm that can help you pinpoint target demographics and the appropriate corresponding channels.

Access Your Channels

When you hear the term, “marketing channels,” it's basically a reference to different avenues or mediums you can use to market your business. For example, you’ll want to use both online and offline avenues including everything from community bulletin boards and coffee shops, telephone pole poles, billboards, and potentially even print ads along with digital media. According to Social Media Today, having a robust social media campaign is one of the best ways to interact with your market, as is having a professionally designed website. Also, consider video marketing and creating a business blog.

Form Your Messaging

Messaging is essentially whatever you want your customers or potential customers to see and hear about your company that will help them make a decision to patronize your business. You might focus on quality, uniqueness, price points, or exceptional customer service. Once you have your message, you need to incorporate it into your brand so you're always putting out the same cohesive message. 

It will take awhile to create effective marketing documents. You’ll likely need to revise your materials multiple times before they are ready to be shared. Many final materials will be in PDF form, but this formatting can provide limited editibility functions, which is why it can be helpful to convert to a doc or docx file for editing. You can convert from PDF to docx quickly using a conversion program. It only takes a few steps, including selecting the file, choosing PDF as your format, and saving. This process will allow you to edit with ease while sharing the more consistent PDF document with your clients. 

Network

Don’t underestimate the power of networking to advance your business agenda - consider it the public engagement arm of marketing. Join industry associations like chambers of commerce, attend trade shows and business fairs, go to networking functions, and volunteer on industry and business boards. This will help people begin to recognize your name, and you may find opportunities for collaboration as well as sales. If you need to polish your people or speaking skills, an organization like Toastmasters can help you learn how to make effective small talk and be comfortable speaking in gatherings and crowds.

Is Your Marketing Working?

When you're first getting started, it may be to your benefit to try a number of different marketing channels to see what works best. To do this, you want to track where your customers are coming from. Hootsuite notes that you can use data analytics on your website and social media accounts to learn more about customer trafficking patterns. It's also wise to perform a cost-benefit analysis every few months to decide if some channels are producing better than others as a way to make informed decisions moving forward.

As you can see, there are many different ways to market your business. It’s important to do your research and determine your target market, as well as which marketing channels will be most effective. Networking is also key – the more people you know, the more opportunities will come your way. We hope these tips have been helpful and that you’ll continue to explore our website for more valuable information.

Curious what other local businesses are doing to stand out from the crowd? Learn this and more by joining your local Chamber of Commerce.

There's so much to do to get ready for the holiday rush. But don't worry, we've got you covered. Here's a checklist from the Irish Hills Chamber of Commerce of everything you need to do to make sure your small business is ready for the holiday season.

1. Add Holiday Decorations

One of the first things you need to do to get ready for the holidays is to decorate your storefront. This will help attract customers and get them in the holiday spirit! Put up some festive lights, hang a wreath on the door, and put out a sign that says "Happy Holidays!"

2. Bring on Seasonal Staff

If you don't already have seasonal staff, now is the time to hire them. Seasonal employees can help with everything from decorating your store to handling customer service inquiries. Make sure to post job ads in plenty of time so you can find the best candidates, and be sure to train your new hires thoroughly before they start working.

3. Prepare for Holiday Traffic

It's important to be prepared for the increased customer traffic. Make sure you have enough staff on hand to handle the increased demand, and that everyone is trained on how to handle customer questions and concerns. It's also a good idea to have a plan for how you'll deal with any potential problems that might arise, such as long lines or stock shortages.

4. Make Holiday Marketing Updates

Your marketing should reflect the holiday season, so make sure to update your website, social media accounts, and any other marketing materials you use. Add some holiday-themed images and graphics, and include information about any special promotions or sales you'll be running during the holidays. You can also use this as an opportunity to wish your customers happy holidays and let them know about any changes to your hours or operations over the festive period.

5. Create a Gift Guide

A gift guide is a great way to help your customers find the perfect gifts for their loved ones. You can create a gift guide that includes photos and descriptions of popular items or put together a physical gift guide that customers can pick up in-store. Either way, make sure your gift guide is easy to understand and navigate so customers can find what they're looking for quickly and easily.

6. Use PDFs to Distribute Promotions

PDFs are a great way to create promotional offers that can be easily shared online or printed out and distributed in-store. You can do a PDF to jpge conversion, which is great for making your promos easy to share on social media. You can use PDFs to create coupons, discounts, or other offers that will appeal to holiday shoppers. Make sure your PDFs are well-designed and easy to read so customers will actually take advantage of them.

7. Have Offerings for Last-Minute Shoppers

Some people leave their holiday shopping until the last minute, so it's important to make sure you're attracting these last-minute shoppers as well! One way to do this is by offering express shipping or same-day delivery on orders placed close to the end of December. You can also promote any special deals or sales you're running specifically for last-minute shoppers. And don't forget about gift cards—these are always popular with last-minute shoppers.

8. Find Ways to Support Your Community

Giving back is an important part of the holiday season. There are many ways you can give back as a small business owner, such as donating products or services to charity auctions or giving employees paid time off to volunteer at local food banks or shelters. Whatever way you choose to give back, it's sure to make a positive impact on both your business and your community this holiday season.

The holiday season can be a busy time, especially if you own a small business. With so much to do to get ready for the holiday rush, use this checklist to get your small business ready for the holidays. Follow these tips and you'll be prepared for anything the holiday season throws your way!

Connect with and learn from other local business leaders by joining the Irish Hills Chamber of Commerce.