The Isolation Monster

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the first issue of the Basket Biz Cafe Newsletter! I'm so glad to have you as a member of our newsletter readers. Just a note here, if you see crazy characters in the text, it's to help this newsletter get through the spam filters to reach your inbox instead of your junk mail box, I really do know how to spell!

What's In This Issue

1. Editor's Note: New Business! Wow!
2. Feature Articles: The Isolation Monster and How to Slay It
   by Elena Fawkner
3. Gift Basket Idea of the Month: OOPS! Not Enough Inventory But I Can Fill The Space ~ Greeting Cakes!
4. Business Tip of the Month: Affiliate Marketing ~ Jinglegrams!
5. New Inventory, Sale Items & Upcoming Items - Right Column =>
6. Upcoming Events - Right Column =>
7. GBWS Sponsors - Right Column =>

Editor's Note

Hi everyone! Wow, what a big step for me to re-open my gift basket supply company ~ and I'm so glad I did! I now remember how wonderful all my customer were, it's sooooo good to be back.

First I must make an announcement about the payment methods in our shopping cart, then I'll get on with my normal Editor's Note.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ORDERING AT OUR WEBSITE:

Okay, now I can get on with the regular Editor's Note. First I just wanted to let you get to know me a bit by telling you a little about the opening of Gift Basket Wholesale Supply. Well, right now, since we're just getting started, I'm running the business from my home. Yeah, I bet you're wondering where I put everything, huh? Well, my garage, my two extra bedrooms, my living room (we use the den), my office, yes, everywhere. I bet some of you who run your gift basket businesses out of your homes know exactly how I feel. Cramped. Oh, well, that's just how it has to be until I can get my feet square on the ground.

It's so much fun getting back into the industry. Even though there are a lot of new names, there also are a lot of names I recognize. I love it!

I hope most of you have read my gift basket e-course. I understand that some who read it will have differing opinions on how to construct a gift basket but this is how I've been doing it for years, so I thought I'd write it all down. In the near future I'd like to add photo and maybe even later I'll add some audio and internet video, but that's in the future. Right now I'm focused on getting Gift Basket Wholesale Supply up and running which includes getting a larger selection of product.

If any of you have any suggestions on items or categories of items that you'd like to see me consider as stock items, please, please, please send me an email. I love to hear from all of you, the more I build my business around what you need the more successful we will all become.

On a more personal note, I want to mention that it's my plan to run Gift Basket Wholesale Supply during the week and close on the weekends so that I can spend time with my family. I know a lot of you run your businesses from home because spending time with your families is so important to you, so I hope you understand when I don't answer your emails on the weekend.

My youngest daughter is seventeen and a junior in high school. She only has one more school year at home before she'll be off to college, that's one of the reasons I'm so stuck on keeping my weekends for family. She's a volleyball athlete so you may see me writing about her club tournaments or about a big win or maybe an award she won. I'm hoping the more you get to know me, the better you will trust that I am a real person and that I will do my best to make my customers happy and keep our transactions fair.

So, I hope you enjoy our newsletter. I'm going to keep the format the same each month so you'll be able to read it and find what you want quickly. If you would like to contribute a gift basket idea or article, by all means and please do, just email me. And don't forget to send me your feedback as well. So, I can keep your letters out of my spam filter, use the following email address - editor@giftbasketwholesalesupply.com

Featured Articles

by Elena Fawkner
© 2002 Elena Fawkner

Like most people, when you think about what it would be like to work from home, you probably think of the obvious benefits such as working your own hours, not having to face a stressful, tedious commute every day, actually seeing what your garden looks like in daylight hours, not having to answer to a boss, being home when your children are, working in a comfortable environment and so on. These are, of course, some of only many wonderful benefits of working from home.

Before long, though, you may begin to think back to your previous life and realize you actually miss those umpteen visitors who were constantly interrupting you when you were trying to work, the walk in the park at lunchtime with your best work-friend, drinks on Friday night after work, and being able to run an idea past a colleague for instant, valuable feedback.

Now, everything is just, well, quiet. And there's no-one down the hall to go visit who's over age four. You find yourself checking your email constantly, wanting to connect to someone. You find yourself wishing the phone would ring. You! The person who, when you worked in a job, cursed constant telephone interruptions and thought voice- and e-mail was the greatest invention since sliced bread.

Welcome to another reality of home-based business ... home alone.

Here are some ways to avoid the isolation trap when running a business out of your home:

1. Establish a Structure

Nothing is surer to reinforce feelings of isolation as time that stretches as far as the eye can see like a straight, one lane highway through a flat, barren landscape. Don't start each day without a plan of what you intend to do. You need to structure your time so that it is not some endlessly vast terrain you must traverse alone. So write a to-do list, preferably at the end of the day before, so that when your work day starts you get productive straight away, before the isolation blues have a chance to take hold.

2. Reach Out

When writing your to-do list, make sure you include at least two things every day that require you to interact with another person. Networking is a vital skill, whether you work for someone else or for yourself. So make contacts with people who can add value to your business, as well as connecting you with the outside world.

Joining a professional group or club, attending seminars and trade shows relevant to your business are all great ways to meet new people who have similar interests and challenges. Participate in the activities organized by these groups and take a good supply of business cards with you.

3. Establish Joint Ventures

Another way to keep the isolation blues at bay is to joint venture with other home-based business owners. Team up with other businesses that offer complementary services to your business. Not only will you send additional business each other's way in the form of referrals, you're establishing professional relationships with your joint venture partners.

4. Organize Your Own Functions

Once you've joined various associations and formed joint venture partnerships, take the initiative and organize functions that bring you all together. These could be business-oriented networking sessions or purely social get-togethers such as a barbeque in the local park. Either way, you're forging a relationship with people in your new arena, just as you did when you were working in a corporate office. The only difference is that now you must take the initiative to forge these relationships. These are not people you are going to be seeing every day at the office.

5. Join a Gym

You are, of course, health conscious and physically active, right? Of course you are! So, why not kill two birds with one stone ... stay fit and meet new people. If you establish a routine that allows you to be at the gym at the same time every day, you will run into many of the same people and get to know them.

6. Use the Internet

Making online friends is another way of staying connected with the outside world. Be very disciplined here though. It's way too easy to spend a lot of work time on social email exchanges and in chat rooms. Don't fritter away your time, but do seek out and maintain internet friendships.

7. Background Noise

Sometimes, it's only silence that reminds you you're alone. If you come from a corporate environment, your workday was punctuated by the constant background noise of telephones ringing, other people's conversations, hysterical laughter from the other end of the office and lunch trolley pages over the intercom system. If you find absolute quiet irksome, turn on the radio and have it playing in the background while you work. Talk stations are good because it's like having other people in the next room, but if you find yourself becoming so engrossed with the talk topics that you stop working and start listening, switch to a music station.

There's no avoiding the fact that making the transition from a corporate environment to a home-based business is just that ... a transition. Most people will have to grapple with the isolation monster in the early days of their work-from-home career. But, as you can see, there are many ways of keeping isolation and loneliness at bay just by reaching out and forming new associations. Remember, just because you work alone doesn't mean you have to go it alone.

About the Author: Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ... practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com

Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning weekly ezine, A Home-Based Business Online, a down-to-earth publication containing practical home-based and online business ideas, telecommuting job listings, original articles, free e-books and much more. She also runs the A Home-Based Business Online website at at http://www.ahbbo.com You can subscribe to her newsletter at the site.

Gift Basket Idea of the Month

This is the area of the newsletter where you will normally find a gift basket idea with instructions on how to build it using our products. This month however, I just couldn't do it! Sorry, but since we're just getting off the ground, I didn't yet have enough stock to show you a really good Valentine's Day or pamper basket. And it's just too late to show you Christmas stuff.

Sooooo, since I'm left with some extra space to fill, I thought I'd talk about other opportunities that a lot of gift basket companies haven't considered. Have you ever thought about selling complementary items in addition to your baskets?

I joined a company called Greeting Cakes because I thought the product was a great idea and was so complementary to our products. Heck, you could even use them IN your baskets to help build a theme. Aren't they ardorable?

I cooked one because I just HAD to taste it ~ and YES, it was DELISH! I had chocolate, absolutely scumptious. It was easy too, you just add water and microwave, then spead the icing on, that's it! I also gave one away as part of a birthday gift, it was better received than the actual gift.

So, if you want to consider becoming an Independent Distributor for Greeting Cakes, take a look at the page on my website. You'll see some of the many themes they have and you can sign up right there. They only require that you purchase a starter kit and the small one is only $20 plus shipping. Here's the link to the page on my site, and if you decide to sign-up, use my application, you'll have to have a sponsor anyway, it might as well be me, right?

Click Here to read the Greeting Cake Info Page

Click Here to complete the
Greeting Cake Indepentdent Distributor Application

Business Tip of the Month

If you've read anything about internet marketing, I'm sure you've heard of affiliate marketing. If not, basically, affiliate marketing is where a company who has a website (let's say that's you) signs up to become an affiliate for a company that has a complementary item that they sell. Then the company that is the affiliate (you again) advertises the item on their website. When a visitor clicks through and makes a purchase, the affiliate is paid a commission (yeah, that's you making a commission!).

Well, I found a great complimentary item that you can use to make a commission. It's called JingleGrams. All you have to do is put the banner, or better yet, read the website and put a recommendation on your website, and when one of your visitors clicks through and makes a purchase, you get a commission. They pay a 20% commission and they charge about $15 for all their products, that's $3.00 for just putting a banner on your site.

It's a really cute concept and customers who are looking to purchase a gift might be inclined to make that type of purchase. Do be sure to make your link to the JingleGram website open a new window so your customer won't forget about YOU.

Oh, you can also earn 5% on any sales that come from customers that you refer. So if you sign-up, tell your gift basket making friends. Here's a link to the website, if you want to sign-up as an affiliate, just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Affiliate Program" link.

Send a JingleGram this Christmas!

Want to Interview or Contribute?

If you would like to be considered to be interviewed for an article to be published in this newsletter, please email me at the following link: "Editor" We will consider gift basket companies and other vendors who supply the industry as long as they don't compete with our product offerings.

Also, if you would like to contribute an article, I will consider any article that would be helpful to our industry and I will include an "Author's Info" box and link to your website. Just email me at the following link: "Editor" .

We do not pay for articles or interviews and we reserve the right to only publish those we choose to use and think are appropriate for our audience.

Until Next Time

Thanks for joining in reading this great information. I'm hopeful that you learned a lot. So, I'll be talking with you next month, until then,

Good Luck, God Bless and Happy Gift Basketeering!

HAVE SAFE & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Reba Collins
Gift Basket Wholesale Supply
www.giftbasketwholesalesupply.com