Barbara Ryan 2.0

Over the years I’ve met many ultra cool Moms and I want to introduce some of them to you here on the WAHM 2.0 blog.

Today I’ll start with my friend Barbara Ryan.

Barbara, when did you first decide to look for a way to work from home?

Working from home actually found me before I discovered it. My business is actually a hobby I had, I love photographs and discovered digital scrapbooking and learned to make photo collages and one thing just led to another and I started my photo collage design business, Cherish Collages.

This past January, I added a knew branch to my business when I ventured into digital scrapbooking design. I design as digiMom Designs. Basically this came from wanting to ensure I can continue to work from home for a long time to come, I want to increase my income, but continue doing something I truly enjoy and digital scrapbooking flows well with my collage business. I started my collage business while still working full time and had never even considered working from home, but after my second child was born, the cost of daycare for 2 children was almost my entire salary so it didn’t make sense to continue working.

That’s when I really started taking my “little” business more seriously as I realized if I did, I might not have to go back to working outside the home….ever.

How did you sort through your ideas for a work at home business?

Well, as I said, when I started I fell into it, but in branching out this year I did put a lot of thought into what I wanted to do to add to my existing business. It actually took me quite awhile to land on digital designer. I spent a lot of time reading and studying the resources available at Mom Masterminds and had thinking of the Internet Marketing direction…but wasn’t sure that was really for me, asked a few questions, got some answers…I knew I wanted something related to my existing business, I was heading in the direction of doing scrap-for-hire, basically making scrapbooks for other people, but the logistics scared me.

I knew I wanted a slightly more passive income and scrapping for others was not going give me that, that would be exactly like my collage business, working directly with clients. It’s a great option, but I wanted something different. More scouring of resources at ScrapVenture Pro, a scrapbooking focused membership/mentoring site and I realized I could design the digital scrapbooking products and create what I wanted when I wanted, and not be dictated to by the photographs my client’s handed me.

Where did you look for inspiration?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, Mom Masterminds is a fabulous group of mostly moms who have all “been there done that.” Amazing resource and support group. Also, ScrapVenture Pro is full of resources and constantly growing and this is great for my business because it’s focused on scrapbooking as a business, so all the information is tailored to exactly what I needed. And really just inspired by moms all around me who I read about and hear about who found a way to make an income doing something they really love.

Is there anything that you’ve tried that you would say didn’t work for you?

Internet Marketing…sort of. I tired, with a friend, a mom magazine, and not to say it didn’t work, we didn’t give it enough time, it might have worked, but it was a lot of work and didn’t fit with my own existing business and she didn’t have the time needed either. We transformed it into a blog magazine and it’s much easier to handle this way and it’s doing quite well now in this format…it requires much less upkeep, we can both contribute easily and it’s actually making some affiliate sales now. It’s more of a personal blog for both of us now, but makes a little money too.

This past year you seemed to have really found your groove, what to you credit for that?

Barbara’s got her groove back! lol I took my time trying to figure out what direction I wanted to go…I came close to a few options, all related to my collage business, but that would have required a lot of difficult internet pavement pounding marketing and that’s really not my thing. I can market myself online, but I don’t want it to be ALL I do. I took the time, almost 6 months to really think about it, soak up everything I could from Mom Masterminds and ScrapVenture Pro and when the, well, sort of epiphany, came I just knew it was the right thing.

What do you love about what you are doing to work at home today?

Everything! I love that I can design and be creative and am constantly learning and actually make money doing it. When I was working a “job” I was the person everyone came to when they needed a flyer made up or something creative, it wasn’t my job, but I did it when asked and it was my favorite thing to do. Now I get to do it all the time. With my new venture, I get to design what I want and it’s great, it’s not dictated by the photographs I have to make a collage with, although I still love doing that, it’s nice to be creative on my own terms.

How are you applying Web 2.0 tactics to your business?

I use social networking. I blog, have a few blogs actually and I join the blog networking sites. Digital scrapbooking is very social, stores all have forums and galleries and as I designer it’s important to be visible in the forums, scrappers like being able to “talk” to the designers so I partipcate in the forums at the stores where I sell.

I try to participate at mom forums as well, using my signature line to promote my business. Blogging is important to digital designers, giving away freebies to get traffic etc..I recently started guest blogging as well, I have a weekly guest blog spot on Vera Raposo’s Scrappers Talk Radio blog giving digital scrapbooking tips.

What are your hopes for the future?

I hope that I can grow this digital designing to be equal to or greater than my collage business income. That will justify me being able to stay home even when my kids are in school full time, which was when I was going to be going back to work outside the home. I have a few more years to accomplish it, this will convince my CPA husband that working from home is the best option for all of us.

What advice would you give a new work at home mom?

Take your time to figure out what you want to do, get support and advise before you start if possible, cuts the learning curve by years! If you really love something, it might be possible to make money doing it, you just need to really disect it to figure it out. But be realistic, not everything you love can make you money, think it all through fully before diving in head first.