Lynette Chandler 2.0

This week’s feature is special. Lynette Chandler is my good friend and repeat co-conspirator in business. She parters with me as co-coach at Mom Masterminds and provides exceptional resources to entrepreneurs via the Tech Based Marketing website.

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

This is actually a long story but I’ll try to keep it short I married my husband and relocated here without any solid work or career plans. I did know at the time of moving that the local area I was moving into didn’t have much going on in terms of economy. Ah! What crazy things we do for love. Anyhow, the only good jobs here is the military or civilian working for the Navy which required you to be a citizen. At that time, that was not an option open to me.

Besides, I worked marketing/advertising, there didn’t seem to be anything that would fit me in civil service. To compound the problem, because my schooling was all overseas, it is not recognized here and I couldn’t take advantage of it. But… I love to work, do something. Sitting at home drove me absolutely up the wall.

That’s when my journey into working from home began.

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

The first thing I did was take stock of my existing skills. I love working in marketing and advertising. I did it well in my last job and thought why not use it. For a while, I offered to help small (mostly offline) businesses with their marketing. But soon, I realized these people couldn’t avoid the Internet anymore and marketing online became more and more important. The problem is, I didn’t know too much about Internet Marketing. I knew the general marketing principles can work anywhere but as you know Kelly, there are some things that are just unique to the Internet. So I set out to learn more about it and realized after a while, I needed a more unique angle to my positioning. Also, there were many more smarter and more experienced people in Internet marketing itself.

Today, I’m the ‘techie’ marketer almost by accident and it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t start to work with Alice Seba who offered me an opportunity to provide technical services from her site. I was absolutely in love with this idea and position because I do love technical stuff. I spent a lot of time between clients learning new technology and programming languages. Even when I was working outside the home, I was always close to the managers in the technical departments. We spent a lot of time discussing ideas and solving sales, marketing, production and warehousing issues where possible using available technology. They even tried to recruit me several times and trained me to maintain the company website. But I still loved marketing. Thankfully the Internet allowed me to easily put the two together.

Where did you look for inspiration?

This is difficult because I don’t really have one major role model or one source of inspiration. Yes, there are people whom I look up to, respect their work and want to emulate. However, my inspiration is a bit more complex. It’s a combination of stubbornness, my own drive, family history and the need to build a better future for my family. My grandfather was a business man and so are several of his sons. I think that kinda passed down to me. He is also a big source of inspiration because he too was an immigrant and he built a successful business.

Every time I look at my kids, they inspire me. Especially when we’re at the store and I whip out my PayPal to pay for their toys now that’s a high. And my stubbornness. I’m the type who will not accept no for an answer when it comes to my life path. If my grandfather could do it, I can do it. If so and so can do it, so can I. Of course all the gal pals in the Wahm community they too inspire me. More than they know.

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

Golly, so many things I’m not sure where to begin. Overall what really did not work for me is:

1. Too much learn not enough do. This is particularly true in any coaching or learning system I bought. Thankfully, I’ve made very few bad purchases from ebooks to full blown DVD courses. They were all good. The problem was especially in the early days, I only did part of the stuff the courses taught me to do and never bothered to review the material for a 2nd or even 3rd time. I still do that sometimes so now, I have seriously tuned down the buying of new learning materials so I can really take time to completely digest, go over my library again and whole heartedly apply what I’ve been taught.

2. Over analyzing - I’ve learned that until you put something in motion, you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I used to theorize and lay all my plans out nicely but when the time for execution comes, there are things I just never anticipated nor would I ever have anticipated them in a million years. Sometimes, even plan B’s and C’s need to be modified before I can move on. I’m not saying don’t plan. It’s always good to have a road map when you’re driving to a town in another state you have never been to. But you don’t always know if there would be road work or even a bad accident along the way that forces you to take a detour. You can’t plan those things so you have to be prepared to roll with it. Anticipate some things, release the project and tweak, tweak, tweak as you go.

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

Being able to be home with the family is a given. But recently something happened in my daily life that caused me to realize just how much stress I’m able to avoid because I work from home and report to myself. Working from home is not a stress eliminator. Running your own business can be highly stressful but what I’m talking about here is the daily work environment stress. My stress does not come from being forced to work with toxic people, an impossible boss or absurd company policies. My work environment now is more relaxing and fulfilling.

I also love that I set my own rules. I can work around my life and not having life work around me. If I have to get out to renew my registration or run to get milk and toothpaste. I can.

How are you applying Web 2.0 tactics to your business?

I don’t think I’ve consciously sought out Web 2.0 tactics and I don’t do that much other than Twitter, Blogging and a tiny sliver of LinkedIn and Facebook when I have time (not much). To me, the web is becoming more like real, everyday world. In your everyday life, you have a group of friends whom exert influence over you on certain topics and you exert influence over them on certain topics. So using Twitter and blogs is to me a way of making those friends, ‘hanging out’ with them and just sharing. The ‘expert’ thing and the targeting your audience thing comes naturally. Kelly, it is just like some of your offline friends will know to seek you out when they want to learn to work from home. They’ll refer friends who want to be WAHMs to you. You don’t have to tell them you’re an ‘expert’ at that. They know because they interact with you, it comes out of really knowing someone.

What are your hopes for the future?

My biggest hope is to bring my husband home so he can work alongside me on our business.

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

Put your fears aside and just do it. The more you do it, the fear will go away. That applies to anything from rolling out a new product to putting in place a new technology.

Be patient - a business takes time. The average business doesn’t turn a profit in the first 2 - 3 years. Yes there are some exceptions, you work towards being an exception but you plan financially for the average. Don’t quit your job today and then think about building your business. Plan and work your business first, grow it to the point you feel you can quit then do it.

Be prepared to take some risks. A business is a risk. It is wise to be cautious but there comes a time you have to take calculated risks.

Learn to have a thick skin. You’re going to need it. From constructive criticisms from your peers to scathing remarks from competitors, angry clients or newsletter subscribers. There will also be times some of your products fail or don’t do as well as you hoped. You’re going to get them guaranteed. It is going to sting but should not put you down. Take some time off if you have to but always come back, better and stronger.