RS Designs

Can I tell you a secret? *whispering* I know next to nothing about business. *end of whisper*

I majored in music education in college so I could teach private piano lessons, which I have done for 15 years now. (I haven’t been out of college for 15 years; I actually started giving piano lessons in high school.) My dreams have always been to be a stay-at-home wife/mother, to teach private piano lessons, and to be a church pianist. God has graciously fulfilled all of those dreams. However, as you can tell, none of those dreams have anything to do with blog design or business in general. I’ve never even marketed to gain piano students; instead, I have always trusted that God would give me the amount of students I needed and could handle. (He always did, by the way.)

Then RS Designs happened. And I now find myself a true business owner. This has meant that I am having to learn how to market my business, how to create relationships with site visitors and clients, how to use SEO to rank higher in searches, what type of records I need to keep for legal information, and all the other hundred-and-one details that make for having a successful business.

One of my best moves to date was when I asked Linda to join me at RSD. She and I work well together, and even better, our strengths complement the other’s. Our weekly business meetings are held via MSN Messenger, and during those meetings we have come up with some pretty good ideas for improving this business.

Another great move happened last week when I downloaded Clate Mask’s e-book, The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales. Wow! Have I learned a lot! I have been inspired to improve my business in specific ways, including creating a “Design News” column talking about trends and news relating to blogging and design, building better relationships with site visitors and clients, creating a more interactive website, and sharing more of my design knowledge through tutorials and other posts.

Why am I featuring a e-book about building your business? First, I believe that many RSD visitors either have their own business or would like to have their own business. Obviously, this e-book would be a great help to those people. Second, many of the principles and suggestions in this e-book can be applied to bloggers and blogging. For example, Mr. Mask advises treating each customer as if they were your friend. Bloggers would do well to treat all their visitors as their friends. Mr. Mask also advocates letting your personality show in your writing. Blogs written by bloggers who are themselves are much more interesting to visit than blogs written in a stilted, business-like manner.

That is just a sample of the information found within the 57 pages of this book. At the time of this post, the e-book was free, but I am not sure that it will always be free. Even if it cost money to get this book, I can assure you it would be well worth it.