Laina Turner's Blog, page 57

Blogging Business Plan Part 2: Roadmap

You read my post about figuring out your blogging goals last week so now it’s time to start putting them into a plan. 

Your business plan is a road map or GPS. A path to follow in order to get somewhere. Personally, I’ve found it at times to be a life vest. When I’m paralyzed with fear or frustration that maybe what I’m doing isn’t going to work, my plan helps me to put one foot in front of another so I can keep working toward the goal until my mojo comes back. We all have those bad days and when you lose ground because of them it makes you feel worse, and that can be a slippery slope. Your plan should be simple. You don’t want to spend so much time writing, re-writing, and tweaking your business plan that you never get around to implementing it and don’t get so married to your business plan that you refuse to alter it. Even if it’s obviously not working. The plan doesn’t need to be perfect, and it’s not set in stone. It’s a working document, but one that will give you guidance and direction, but will also need to be adjusted from time to time.

Some common elements to include in your plan are as follows:

* Vision – your global goal.

* Mission – how you will attain that goal.

* Target market – Who is your audience and what do they want?

* Products and Services – Are you just going to have eBooks or will you add paperbacks and audio books? You might even think about other products to complement your books. Coffee mugs, t-shirts, swag type things.

* Market and Marketing Strategy – Do you have a strategy for getting the word out there? How will you market? What is your budget? What is the best way to reach your audience?

* Financial plan – How much will all this cost? The great ideas, the implementation, marketing, fancy business cards. What’s your expected return? When will you break even and when will you be profitable? If you don’t have any money to invest, that’s OK. Most of us don’t. There are many free tools out there and bootstrapping, building a company with personal finances and revenues from new business – not outside money – is all the rage these days.

While those things might seem overwhelming, it’s not if you break it down in pieces and don’t over-think it.

It would be easy to put off writing a business plan until you feel your blog is gaining traction. You might be thinking you haven’t finished your first book yet. Or you only have a couple books out and it’s not yet a business. I have news for you. Yes, it is. You want things moving in the right direction from day one so do it now. Create that solid foundation before you build your empire and things will be smoother sailing.

Your goal this week is to take those awesome goals from last week and start to craft your plan.

The post Blogging Business Plan Part 2: Roadmap appeared first on Laina Turner.

Enjoy the Presley Thurman Mystery Series

The post Enjoy the Presley Thurman Mystery Series appeared first on Laina Turner.

Delicious Cinnamon Rolls

I love anything cinnamon. Cinnamon toast, cinnamon coffee, cinnamon coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon and sugar has to be about the best combination there is. Usually, I make my cinnamon rolls from a can. And boy do I enjoy that popping sound when I tear the paper off the tube. But then I decided to be wild and crazy and try making them from scratch. I have to say my first attempt wasn’t too bad.

Cinnamon Rolls 2015-03-08 19:34:58






Write a review
Save Recipe Print Ingredients Dough 1/4 oz of yeast 1/2 c warm water 1/2 c scalded milk 1/4 c sugar 1/3 c butter 1 tsp salt 1 egg 4 c flour Filling 1/2 c melted butter 1 c sugar 4 tbsp cinnamon Glaze 4 tsbp butter 2 c powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 3-5 tbsp hot water
Instructions Heat over to 350 degrees. In a small bowl dissolve yeast and water. Set aside. In a large bowl combine milk, sugar, butter, egg and salt. Add 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture and then remaining flour mixing until dough is easy to handle. Knead dough on lightly floured surface for a few mihutes and then set aside in a well greased bowl to rise to double its size. About 2 hours. Punch dough down and and roll out on floured surface to a rectangle of about 15 x 9. Spead melted butter and then mix cinnamon and sugar to sprinkly over the buttered dough. Roll up lengthwise and cut into 1 inch pieces. Place closely together in a buttered pan and set aside to rise for about 45 minutes. Pop in over for about 30 minutes or until browned. Mix the glaze ingridients and drizzle over cooled rolls.
Laina Turner http://www.lainaturner.com/

If I can make these so can you! Try it. They go awesome with coffee!

The post Delicious Cinnamon Rolls appeared first on Laina Turner.

Go Bananas!

I’m not the best cook in the world but I LOVE to bake. I was blessed with 2 AMAZING grandmothers who I spent a lot of time with and they taught me so much. I don’t bake as much as I would like, mainly because I don;t need to eat a bunch of baked goods. However, one thing that is a main staple at our house would be Banana Bread Muffins. Everyone likes them, they are good for breakfast or snacks. They’re even a bit healthy with the bananas and I sneak in whole wheat flour – don’t tell the kids.

I use a super simple recipe that was in a United Methodist Women’s cookbook from a million years ago that I’d like to share.

Ingredients

4-5 bananas – brown. Not completely rotten but brown and mushy. Trust me the mushier the better.

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1 tbsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 cup of milk

Directions

Melt the butter in a large bowl, about 45 seconds in the microwave.

Add bananas (make sure to take the peel off)

Mash and beat until smooth, add the eggs, vanilla, and soda. Continue to beat until smooth. I use a wire whisk for this part and then switch to a spatula when I add the rest of ingredients.

Add the flour and milk and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Grease 2 muffin pans or 1 loaf pan with Pam or old fashioned butter.

Pour into desired pan and bake.

Muffins 325 degrees for 26-28 minutes.

Loaf pan 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes

Personally, I like the muffins because they stay more moist. To cook the center of the bread all the way the edges get a little dark fro my taste but it’s a personal preference.

I hope you like them as much as I do.

What’s your favorite easily family recipe?

Laina

 

The post Go Bananas! appeared first on Laina Turner.

Building Yourself

The way to gain a good reputation (notoriety for some particular characteristic), is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. – Socrates

We all want to have a good reputation. It can be as a business person, a parent, significant other, or friend. We want want to be known for doing the right thing at the right time. But do you ever act in a way that doesn’t really support the reputation you are wanting to project? Don’t deny it, we all have done it at one time or another. It can be hard to always uphold the “motto’ you want to live by.

One of the people whom I felt lived consistently up to the reputation she projected and others perceived is Maya Angelou. She was an amazing woman and always had that positive outlook I know I wish I could have all the time. With what I have read about her she didn’t let adversity get her down and I know personally when I’m stressed by obstacles it is when I am at my worst. It seems hard to care about your reputation when your life seems to suck. But doesn’t that just perpetuate the suckiness?

What can be done? The saying “fake it until you make it” can sometimes be the best advice. Letting it get to you can just make it worse. Be strong! No obstacle out there can get the best of us!

The post Building Yourself appeared first on Laina Turner.

Being Fabulous is a Skill Link Up

One of my personal mantras is Being Fabulous is a Skill. I guess because I like to think I’m fabulous. Some days I feel this more than others, but I truly believe we are all fabulous in our own way. It’s just not always as effortless as we make it seem (ha).

In today’s link up I want to celebrate the fabulousness in each and every one of you by sharing your fabulous blog posts (I know I’m probably using the word fabulous too much).

 Being Fabulous is a Skill Link Party Guidelines

Link to any post that shows your fabulousness
Link to the specific post
You can link up to 3 posts each week
Please don’t link to shops or other link ups
Make sure to comment on other fabulous blog posts

Show some self-love and in the comments write what makes YOU fabulous!

And most importantly…HAVE FUN!


[image error] Loading InLinkz ...

 

The post Being Fabulous is a Skill Link Up appeared first on Laina Turner.

Blogging Business Plan Part 1

OK, so you’ve been blogging for a while and you’re thinking how can I make a living from this or at least how can I make Starbucks money from this?

There are many different ways. Advertising, ad networks, sponsored posts, etc. But what you don’t want to do is go after things willy-nilly. You want to be strategic and focused. That calls for a plan.

A business plan.

But don’t let it scare you!

I know you’ve heard the cliché, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” and there’s a reason you’ve heard it. Because as trite as it might seem, it’s true.

The business plan is just that. A plan on how you’re going to achieve your dreams. It tells you how you’re going to reach your goals and keeps you on track to them, which is much better than having a nebulous idea of where you are and where you want to be. You also need to measure results or the lack thereof, and without a plan and goals you can’t accurately do that.

But before you start writing your business plan you need to have goals. What is it you really want to accomplish here?

I’m a firm believer in writing down your goals to make them a reality. I think this step is very important. You may have heard of the Harvard Business School story about writing down goals:

“A study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program stated that in that year, the students were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?”

Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.”

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.”

The moral of the story is it’s not just enough to dream it, but you MUST write it down, imagine it, and believe it can happen, for a better chance of it actually happening. I’m not trying to get all new-agey on you but the mind is a powerful thing and if you don’t focus your mind on the goal by envisioning your dream as a reality it will have a less likely chance of happening. If you think I’m crazy, then read The Secret or The Law of Attraction. Being positive and focused gets you closer to your dreams.

This is the 1st of a 3 part series on writing your business plan. Between now and next Wednesday I want you to write down your business goals then next week we will talk about putting them in a plan.

The post Blogging Business Plan Part 1 appeared first on Laina Turner.

March Goals

I feel my year is off to a sluggish start. I’ve had some unexpected obstacles put in my way and it’s slowed me down a little trying to figure out how I feel and what to do. So I thought I would kick off a new month with new energy and a new focus to my goals by putting them here for the world to see and then at the end of the month recapping my success (hopefully) of those goals.

Stay organized – a few months ago this would have not been on my list as I pride myself on being organized and able to juggle a lot but the last few months it’s all went downhill. My workload has increased and my stress level has increased (not all work related) and it’s just made me less efficient.

I wrote a post a few weeks back about Too Many Emails, Too Little Time and I was able to get a handle on my emails. For a short time but now I feel out of control again. I know it takes time to build new habits and I need to make this one stick.

Goal – to keep email organized all month and not drop the ball.

Eat healthy & exercise – this is a hit or miss one too. I’ve been doing better with the exercise than eating healthy. Going to boot camp, yoga, or walk/running 5/7 days a week. But I’ve been slacking. I can easily run 3 miles and yet the last month I’ve only walked on the treadmill. Just because I don’t feel like running. LAZY.

The eating healthy…yeah that’s gone right out the window. I like to eat my feelings and I’ve been doing that a lot lately.

Goal – continue to exercise 5/7 days but stick to a healthy meal plan/calorie intake. When the eating my feelings mood strikes do something lse to take my mind off it like read a book or listen to music.

Write every day – I do write blog posts daily but I’ve ben slacking in the working on my other writing. I have several projects I’ve been working on FOREVER I just can seem to get them finished.

Goal – finish the author marketing book and my fiction book. Code name Sterling’s Story.

Photography – I posted last week that I was going to work on my blog photos more. I want to improve this aspect so I need to better plan my posts and what to photograph for them. 

Goal – use real photos for every blog post.

I know I can do this. Just need to put my mind to it and focus.

 What are your March goals?

The post March Goals appeared first on Laina Turner.

DIY Lipstick

OK, first I want to clarify that this will probably be the only DIY type post you will ever see on my blog. That’s because I am not at all a DIY kind of person. That skill is not in my wheelhouse. I can’t even believe I did this much less that it turned out remotely successful.

While I’m not blessed with DIY talent, my daughter Sydney is. I don’t know where she got it from, but she is all about making things and is always watching YouTube videos to find new ideas.

She’s pretty awesome.

Well, she turned 9 yesterday and had a birthday party sleepover Saturday night. Just her and 3 friends just hanging out having fun. However, my daughter is a planner and a little bit controlling so she had every bit of this party planned out weeks ago and one element was a craft.

When she told me, she wanted to do a craft I got sick to my stomach. I just knew she was going to show me something that was easy for a normal person and impossible for me. She said she wanted to make lipstick.

I looked at her like she was nuts when she told me but she had watched several YouTube videos on it – she always does her research – and had a list of ingredients for me to buy. She even knew what aisle the pill boxes were in at the store. She had done recon on her last trip there.

I watched some of the videos and, in theory, didn’t seem too hard so I said we would try it.

Much to my surprise it actually wasn’t hard and it did turn out. In fact I was so impressed with myself I rewarded myself with a piece of fudge (ok 3).

I encourage you to try it. If I can do it, ANYONE can do it.

DIY Lipstick

What you need:

Crayons – I would use Crayola.
Coconut oil or Vaseline – I used coconut oil because I want to try some other things out with it so it was worth spending $15 on a large jar.
Small containers you can set in a pan of boiling water. One of the videos I saw used individual mini pie tins, one used ramekins. I went to the dollar store and food these cute little glass containers with lockable lids. I didn’t need the lids for this project and honestly can’t imagine what I might need to store in such a small container, but they were cute. And a dollar.
Individual containers to pour the lipstick in. We used pill boxes and they worked perfect and weren’t that expensive.
Vanilla – optional since it’s just used to make it smell nice.
Large sauce pan.
Water. Or snow if you got 8 inches yesterday as I did.
Bring the water to a boil in the saucepan. You will be putting the small individual containers in there so that should be your guide on how much water to use.

Directions

Take the paper off the crayon you want to use and break in half. You can always use half a color and half a white to make a color lighter. Or mix colors in any fashion that way. Just make sure it doesn’t go over a total of a whole crayon. Put in a small container.
Add a tbsp of coconut oil.
Add a tsp of vanilla.
Place container in boiling water and watch it melt.
Stir to make sure everything is melted and mixed together well. I used a plastic spoon just because it was easy.
Pour in the pill box and let cool. It takes about an hour and then voila. Lipstick.

The post DIY Lipstick appeared first on Laina Turner.

Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week

Happy Sunday everyone! Multiple Sclerosis awareness week is upon us. If you aren’t clear as to what MS really is then you can help the cause by taking a few minutes and learning. Basically, it is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Here are a few more facts:

1. Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects woman more than men.

2. MS is caused by damage to the myelin sheath, the protective covering that surrounds nerve cells. When this nerve covering is damaged, nerve impulses are slowed down or stopped.

3. MS is a progressive disease, meaning the nerve damage (neurodegeneration) gets worse over time.

4. The nerve damage is caused by inflammation. Inflammation occurs when the body’s own immune cells attack the nervous system.

5. Researchers are not sure what triggers the inflammation. The most common theories point to a virus or genetic defect, or a combination of both.

6. MS is more likely to occur in northern Europe, the northern United States, southern Australia, and New Zealand than in other areas. Geographic studies indicate there may be an environmental factor involved.

I encourage you to learn and support the cause.

Go Orange!

Purchase The MS Project – volume 1, 2, 0r 3.

An inspiring collection of stories by people who have Multiple Sclerosis. These wonderful people give us a glimpse of their life with MS, their courage, and their determination to live the life they want regardless of the obstacles in their way.

 

 

The post Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week appeared first on Laina Turner.