Joanne Musgrave

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people buying and using reusable shopping bags when they do their grocery shopping. I think it’s fabulous, and in my online shop, we sell the Envirosax and they’re just stunning. But I do think that this whole ‘envirobags’ everywhere is counter productive. Today, while walking around Charlestown Sqaure, we went in to The Games Shop to buy a good old fashioned board game, Backgammon, and we were given our purchase in an envirobag.

It’s a shoulder variety, and apart from carrying our new board game out to the car, it’s smelly, an awkward shape and is emblazoned with the shop’s logo. Let’s face it, I’m not going to use it again. On what planet is it better to make those chemically laden stinky pieces of non-biodegradable crap and have them tossed aside instead of a paper bag designed to break down when in land fill? Yes, I’m making a living selling water bottles because reusing the packaging of anything is so much better than disposing after one use, but sometimes, disposing of something after one use is necessary. And if it is, shouldn’t that thing be small, easy to make and biodegradable?

At least at Borders, you can buy a plastic one. Hell, make them $1 each for all I care, it might make people like me actually remember to pack one of their Envirosax with them when they go out instead of leaving them at home all the time

Announced today, Nestle are buying out Jenny Craig.  Here’s my own spin on their reasoning.

REASON 1?
Be the cause of obesity, the cure & the relapse. A never ending cycle of up & down, of which the same company owns both!!

REASON 2?
Nestle have seen junk food companies go bust due to lack of diversity – Krispy Kreme comes to mind. They’re doing a ‘McDonalds’ and offering a healthy option, diet.

REASON 3?
To plug their ‘eating chocolate in moderation is healthy’ stance so they can continue to flog chocolate to fat people with no money.

Full story here.

My toes curled while hearing about Carrie Bickmore telling Americans that business people and the ‘girls’ pop in to hip places called McCafes which are ‘a little bit fancy’. As a pre-promote for Oprah’s ‘wildly sponsored’ tour down under, it’s a big giant fucking surprise that McDonalds are one of the sponsors.

Do we really think the average Australian is THAT stupid?

Read more at The Drum

There’s talks of banning smoking in ALL public places in NSW & VIC. Bring it on. I can’t stand walking in and out of shopping centres or standing in line at an ATm only to have to walk through a layer of smoke to do so. It’s disgusting and unhealthy and should be banned in all public places.

Read more here

My love of music and Glee has won over my hatred of Christmas. You just HAVE to get your hands on a copy of the Glee Christmas album with the best version of Jingle Bells on the planet. KD Lang also sings a song with Mr Shoo

Buy it a JB HiFi or online at iTunes. If you have to be sitting at home all weekend working like I do, then at least you can listen to something cool. Packing boxes to these funky tunes makes the time fly by a little quicker. Let’s see – 120 boxes, 5 minutes a pop, I’ll be done in 10 hours and listened to the album so many times I’ll never want to hear it again LOL!!

I was just wondering today, while scouting some online stores, what kind of moron discounts their whole website with a discount coupon that’s advertised on the front page of their website. If you want everyone to have 30% off, then just drop the prices by 30%. If you want to test a piece of advertising, then offer a discount in a newsletter or some Google Adwords, but putting it on the front page of your online shop is just sheer stupidity.

That is all

On another note, I have had 3 suppliers in 3 days delivery my orders on a pallet. Warehouse exploding at the seams!!!

Big thank you to the folks at Invisible Zinc for allowing me to stock their product. After picking up some Invisible Zinc at the chemist last week and lathering myself from head to toe with it on the weekend, I can very easily tell you that it is THE BEST natural sunscreen I have ever used.

Check out the official Invisible Zinc website to check out the range. My faves are the 4 hr water resistant and the tinted moisturiser for every day use. There’s no nano-particles, it’s micronised. It can leave you looking a little pale & pasty looking when you put it on, but seriously, if you’re out in the sun and you’re not getting burnt, who gives a shit? If you’re concerned about a pasty face, the tinted moisturiser is fab. You just can’t wear it in the water as it’s not water resistant.

Run to the chemist to buy a tube or wait a couple of weeks and you can buy it from my shop.

Dyson have a really cool looking grooming tool you can use to vacuum your dog! No joke, it’s a brush attached to a Dyson vacuum cleaner that sucks the hair right away as you brush them.

I’m very keen to check out the Dyson grooming tool on my dogs, but there’s one small issue, they chase the vacuum cleaner!!!

The owners of www.themummytree.com.au need a good slap as far as I’m concerned. This morning, they went on Sunrise to be interviewed about helping mums start their own business. Instead of actually HELPING anyone, they sat there, looking like stunned mullets and read off a script. It sounded like an infomercial to flog their eBook.

Kochie called them on it and actually ASKED them for one of the free tips, not just to flog their eBook. These women are supposed to be giving advice to people about starting up a small business, yet they only seemed in interested in helping their own. Just pathetic ladies. Seriously.

Because of this, Karma (or stupidity) got them good! After the show was on, their website was down, and now I’ve gone and looked and their website’s hosting account has been suspended, I’m assuming due to them using their bandwidth limit for the month, or possibly for not warning their hosting company about the increased traffic and they pulled the site because it kept crashing the server and affecting 20 or 30 other businesses.

If you’re giving advice to people about how to run a business, how ’bout getting your own in order first……………………

Want some tips? Here’s a few of mine, and their FREE. I’m not selling anything.

1. Their big free tip was to stand out from the crowd. I’m assuming they meant a unique product. While this is one tactic, you really just need to be better at marketing your brand than your competitors.
2. Start up funds – you have to SPEND money to make money. If you don’t put some money aside for your start up & draw up a budget, you will fail.
3. Marketing budget – if you’re setting up an online shop, if you’re relying on free search engine results for your sales, you will fail. You need a monthly ad budget and you need to factor it in to your profit/loss.
4. Don’t be a tight arse – if you design your own logo, cheap out on your website, or heaven forbid, the manufacturing of your product, you’ll look dodgy and fail. If you’re going to be like this, go set up an eBay store.
5. Your suppliers are your lifeline – whether it’s a manufacturer or a distributor, forge relationships with your suppliers. It can mean the difference between success & failure.
6. Find a mentor – if you’re new to all this, find yourself a mentor. Perhaps the community forum section of The Mummy Tree might actually help you with this one. Learn from others mistakes, swap ideas with people you’re not in direct competition with.
7. Most successful businesses are set up because of some kind of passion or skill. Shop Naturally became the huge success it is because I had an interest in the products & my skills as a professional web designer meant I could out market all of the competition. Find your passion and your skill to start your business around.

Harsh? Perhaps yes, but pardon me for being annoyed at two self-serving women with a free story on one of Australia’s highest rating shows who were more concerned with helping themselves and not others, and who were too stupid to take proper advantage of the golden egg that is a story on Sunrise. Watch for yourself and see if you don’t agree with me.