What is your personal mission in 2015?

Having a personal mission helps bring value, depth, and meaning not only to your personal life, but to your business as well.

As we fill our own happiness and self-worth bucket, we also help ourselves stay focused on what is truly important as we move forward in our businesses.

This year, my focus is children. Providing opportunities for children here in my local area and around the world. I have been blessed with a very adventurous and full life, which gives me many experiences and skills to draw from.

From my marketing skill set I have had the privilege to work with local teenagers through a Teen Mastermind group I created. We meet once a month to form teams, solve mental and physical challenges, learn to communicate as a team, how to be comfortable with who we are and how to use our strengths as individuals and team members to everyone’s best advantage.

From my need to serve, I have had the honor to host a beautiful girl in Zambia so that she may continue attending school, have the required uniform, stronger shoes, school supplies, and a snack every school day. I have been watching and encouraging a young leader within Zambia who is changing her countries future, one child at a time through her “Children in need Zambia Buumbalambo Foundation“.

As I move forward through 2015, I can’t wait to see what opportunities arise for me to serve my local community and help children be enriched, empowered, and inspired!

Happy 2015,

Anna Campbell

First Steps Toward Starting a Successful Business

Have a great product or service to offer and ready to make it official? Starting a business isn’t so difficult, however, starting a business that is successful and sustainable takes some planning. Here are some preliminary steps to take before opening your business.

Write a business plan: Writing a business plan will help you clarify your product or service, your mission, and provide an outline for 3-5 years. What’s your strategy? How fast will you grow? What money do you need to start? What’s your budget? Do you need a permit or license? How will you market yourself?

Make a timeline of deadlines and objectives. Before venturing out on my own, I interned for a model home company for a year, and then subsequently had a partnership with another person for several years staging homes. When I decided to go out on my own, I had some experience under my belt and knew what I wanted to change.

I modified the existing business plan I had in place for the partnership to reflect what I wanted to accomplish with my own business. I changed the name on my business license with the city, and filed for a fictitious name statement with the county. A new business checking account was created, along with a new website, and marketing materials (business cards, etc).

Determine your readiness? If writing the business plan doesn’t help you determine you readiness, the Small Business Administration offers a handy assessment survey for potential small business owners to help determine the readiness of you and your venture.

Choose a location: Online, home-based or in need of an office? Get clear on what location will best serve you and your customers. As I have school age children, I knew from the start a home based business was what I wanted. I needed the flexibility a home-based business offered, and to be able to set me own hours.

Looking into financing: Depending on the size of your venture, and what inventory you may need, you may want to look into start-up loans/micro-loans or angel investors.

Choose and register a business name: Choose a name that reflects your product, service and intended image/brand accurately. Check for trademarks and secure a URL. If it’s different than your actual name, register your ‘doing business as’ name with your state government. My company name was formed with the initials from my name. I then hired a professional to design the logo with those initials and the colors I loved.

— Cindy Krutilla, Interior Designer, CK Interiors, (925)915-0216
Creating beautiful interiors, one room at a time
http://www.ckinteriors.net/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/CK-Interiors/

Achieving Your Personal and Business Dreams

How can anyone truly be living their dream life?

When we let go of what we believe the “world” expects our dreams to be and we allow ourselves to breathe in our own excitement, ideas, and visualizations we slowly begin to realize what OUR dreams are.

We start to realize that we have actually already achieved some of our dreams, and we are well on our way to accomplishing many more.

A dream can be finding a life partner, going back to school, starting a business, or maybe going on vacation. Just the fact that you once dreamed for it to happen, and it already has or is about to happen, is HUGE!

Dream’s don’t have to be awe-inspiring life changing events. They can be the ideas we believed would bring us happiness and joy. They can be giving someone else a party, or just being there to witness a beautiful moment.

Everyday we are accomplishing a dream we envisioned just yesterday or maybe years and years ago.

Taking time to look back, take stock of what you have been doing, who you have been doing it with, and where you have been may just help you see that you are already living your dream life.

May you find peace in your life today and be able to rejoice about it tomorrow.

~ Anna Campbell

Be True to Who You Are as the Business Owner

When we are so busy running our business, we can sometimes forget that our business represents who we are. When someone stops by to see what new items we have, they are seeing a piece of who we are as a person.

Our business quality represents our quality as a person.

Our business standards represent our standards as a person.

Every time we answer the phone or respond to an email or online inquiry, we are presenting “who we are” to the person on the other end.

This may be your first or last opportunity to show your value as a person and business owner to this client.

So, please try and remember to “Be True to Who You Are”, because you are amazing!

Just my 2 cents for today,

Anna Campbell