And my phone starts ringing...

So sorry I didn't post on Friday. I'd do a mini post but to be honest the days are all starting to blur together. It seems all day I e-mail potential customers and move my info from excel to base. But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I still LOVE working from home. It feels like a little weight has been lifted. And every time I think to myself "Wait, I haven't made any money yet this month." I just remind myself that there's still time and I can't think that way. I do remember though that on Friday I went and did a bit of grocery shopping. It felt nice to be able to get out in the middle of the day. Though, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe how many people were shopping in the middle of the day. This weekend was amazing. Got to spend some quality time with some great friends on friday, spent time putzing around with bub on saturday, bought some boots I've been lusting after for a while, on clearance, and the cheapest i've seen them, and then Sunday I went wedding dress shopping with my three oldest friends. Gotta say that was a little surreal, looking at these women and seeing in my mind's eye what cute little kids we all used to be, even if one of us did have an eye patch :P. The fact that I'm not even thirty and I can say that I've known three of my friends for twenty years is amazing to me. Well, back to work. I'll update about today later.

Day Two...a day late

Sorry I didn't post this yesterday, had every meaning to and then it slipped my mind until I was laying in bed ready for dream land.

I made my first phone calls yesterday. Only three, but for me that was a lot on my first day. Though I know soon I need to be up to the task of calling all day, how else am I going to get customers? I have two potential clients so we shall see where those lead.

Other than that I finally figured out how to use open office base. I wanted somewhere where I could have easy access to all of my potential customers info with space for notes. I originally had it in excel but wasn't loving the layout, and didn't have anywhere for notes. My only issue now is that in the notes section it's just one long line, I can't make a few short notes one on top of the other, and that's not going to work, if I wanted that I would have stuck with excel. Also, in excel I like that when I type the company name it auto-fills if I've already got the customer which is a great check and balance for me so that I don't add the same customer multiple times. Not sure that base will do that but we shall see.

On the home front I got a couple loads of laundry done and a couple loads of dishes. Still can't seem to wake up on time but I've got a couple ideas up my sleeves, just have to enlist bub to help and we'll see if they work. Wish me luck!

Working from Home, day one, take two

So, I finally got to have my first official work at home day. Though a bit of a wrench was thrown in due to the weather and the fact that the school that my bub works at couldn't make up their mind if they wanted to be open or not. He got all the way into Boston only to find out they'd decided to close, so back home he came, five hours commuting does not a happy bub make.

I however, woke up a bit past eight o'clock today and dilligently hopped on the computer. I've tried to make myself a bit of a schedule so that I can feel productive and make sure that I do work. Originally my schedule was Monday fax, Wednesday e-mail, and Friday call with Tuesday and Thursday being research days. However, in doing some research I came across an article that claimed that Thursday was the best day to call potential customers. So, I'm still tweaking my work schedule. I'm thinking maybe Tuesday fax, Wednesday e-mail, Thursday call. Thoughts? My boss has stressed the need to keep our name in the front of their brain so I'm gonna try and do that as much as possible.

Today being Wednesday I e-mailed. I came up with a bit of a form e-mail just introducing myself and what I sell and including a one page brochure kind of thing. I set my phone up so that I can receive my work e-mails on it so if anything comes through that I can get it right away. The first few dings of my phone got me excited. It turns out I had a few bad e-mails. However, I did get one bite, kind of. He said he wasn't interested in porcelain sinks unless we had one certain size, which we don't, however he was interested in 16 gauge stainless, which we do. So, I sent him off a price sheet for all our stainless sinks and hopefully when I speak with him tomorrow I'll have my first sale!

A bit scared for tomorrow, I'm not usually good on the phone and cold calling especially is worrying me. I know I just need to keep reminding myself that all I'm trying to do is save their company money and if I can do that awesome, if not, well, maybe I can down the road. I think before I make any calls I'll write out some key points and kind of go over everything in my head a ton so that way I don't freak when someone answers the phone. I'm sure I'll do great, but I could still use some luck, some go ahead wish away!

Day One: Otherwise known as not working from home

I cannot begin to explain how excited I was yesterday knowing it was my last day at work. Knowing that today I would be able to sleep in while my bub went off to work. Knowing that when I wanted a short break from work I could go do something that would still be productive. Then my boss broke my little heart. He told me that today we would have a meeting in the morning to go over what I did in my job and make sure everyone that would still be working there would be up to speed about what they had to do. I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to sleep in but figured I could leave as soon as the meeting was over, and seeing as how everyone has pretty much done everything that I did I didn't see it being a very long meeting.

I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed this morning, asked my fiance if it was doing anything outside(I live in New England and this winter has been more than a little white) and sadly left home, minus lunch(I figured I wouldn't need any seeing as how I'd be home before noon). Of course as soon as I got outside I noticed that it was snowing just the faintest bit, well, by the time I got to work there was new snow on the ground, covering the existing snow and any parking lots. It was only when I got to work that I realized it was going to be a crappy travel day.

As soon as I got in I specifically reminded myself not to punch in like normal, after all I was on no one's clock but my own today. I hopped on the computer and began doing research into potential customers. The first hour or so dragged a bit but before I knew it the time was flying by. My boss got in rather late, well normal for him, but still eleven o'clock is pushing it for a morning meeting.

Soon lunch was rearing it's ugly ahead along with the blizzard outside my office door. I thanked my lucky stars that I'd bought a chocolate chip muffin from DnD's because that always tides me over till noon. I kept waiting for my boss to call me into his office for the meeting. I continued to diligiently do some research and every now and then I took goof off breaks. Though I'm realizing I need to be better about either planning out my breaks or timing them so they don't take over.

Throughout the day I was keeping tabs on my bub because he works in Boston and it would be my job to get him home when he was done. We both hoped he'd be able to leave early but when that didn't look like an option and the weather looked horrendous out I looked for a plan B. The only one I could see, and the one I liked the least, was that he would have to stay in Boston at his parents. Now this would stink for two reasons, one: he would have nothing to wear to bed and would be stuck working tomorrow in the same clothes as today and two: if the weatherman knows anything my bub may not even have to work tomorrow and not getting to spend a snow day together would be anything but ideal. Yes, I know, now that I work from home I don't get snow days, ah sad fact of working from home, but ah well. Still, just having him there for lunch and waking up whenever we wanted would be nice. Thankfully a "previously unknown door in my mind opened up"(stolen from Don White, god I love that man), and option number three popped up in my head, he could take the bus! There is a charter bus company that runs a commuter bus to Boston and it just so happens to drive right by our house. So, thankfully tomorrow on my real first day working from home I will have my bub by my side.

And a commission chick is born..cheep cheep

For the past year plus a little I have been working for a small company that sells sinks, vanities, and vanity tops. I'd worked there before a few years ago and came back because I couldn't stay away from "family". Honestly, these guys are amazing and I love working with them.

However, as the economy has taken a down turn so has their business. It's gotten to a point where they can't keep me on. So, a week or so ago I was given two options. Option A: I could take my walking papers and start collecting unemployment while I looked for a new job or Option B: I could become a rep and start finding customers for our products. After some thinking over and discussing it with my fiance I decided to go for option b.

I chose option b for a few reasons, shall we discuss? I've known for a while that I needed to find something else, part them telling me, part me needing to stretch my wings. I wasn't sure a new job was such a good idea though as my wedding is this year which means a honeymoon, and it is the second bi-annual cape cod trip with my family, which I would hate to miss. I figured any new job I came across would laugh me out of the office if, during the interview, I asked for two weeks off this year alone. Also, let's not forget a certain thing called Hershey, it's only the biggest car flea market I've ever been to, and it's a week long, so yeah, after having to skip last year because I was waiting on the okay to sign for this wonderful condo I now call home, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to be able to go again. You have no idea how big this was to me, this was something my father and I did yearly for the past two, or was it three years? Honestly, when my fiance reminded me that taking on this "new" job meant I could go to Hershey again this year I started crying, that's how huge this is. Hmmm, but back to why I took the job.
Prior to them asking me to take it I had known we were struggling so I had been doing some research and trying to drum up some business and you know what? I LOVED it, it was the first time in a long while that I was actually doing something I enjoyed. Not to mention the fact that when I got phone calls from potential customers inquiring about our product my heart did a little jump.

I NEVER in a million years thought I would see myself selling, I always saw it as somehow lying to people, forcing things upon them that they perhaps didn't want or didn't need, but somehow this seems different to me. I feel like by me selling people sinks I'll be helping them, weird huh? I guess I've just had it drummed in me so much that our prices are awesome that I figure I'll find customers that are paying more for their sinks and by buying from us, they will in turn start saving money which will help them, good huh?

And last but not least the biggest reason I wanted to take on this "new" job was because it meant I could work from home. I read quite a few blogs, to many if you ask my fiance, and so many of the women I read seem to work from home, most of them are being creative, and helping other people, desiging peoples houses, or re-doing old furniture to make it pretty to sell, and I envy them so much. The luxury to work at home, to make your own schedule, to not feel someone always breathing down your back. Whenever I take breaks at work I feel like I'm being bad, the company can't afford to pay me to goof off and I know that, but yet there are times when the phone won't ring for hours, I don't have any pressing issues to deal with and I just can't find anything to do to motivate myself, which scares me, but that's another post for another day. Some days I wish I smoked, the ability to take a 15 minute break and just say, oh I'm smoking, seems more normal than playing computer games, and the fact that one computer game generally turns into five.

I always have a really hard time waking up and I often feel bad because my fiance must usually drag me out of bed, lest we be late. After Monday morning that won't be an issue any longer. He can get up, shower, and leave all without having to worry if I am up and dressed. Does that mean he won't still worry? No, probably not. But at least this way I won't worry that I'm going to make him late, which, when you take the train to work can be a very bad thing indeed.

So, there you go, the reasons, more or less, for why I'm moving on, moving up I hope. Wish me luck, I'll need it.