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Walkthrough of opening your own New Small Business

This past month I've been lucky to help a dear friend start up her new practice of Ayurvedic Medicine, and it stirred the wheels of writing again to share the steps we took, in case you have something new you want to promote and generate income with, with little-to-no startup. 

After our first session together on December 1st, we summarized what Tracy needed... She already had a space rented, a name for the business, and a nice shiny new degree to be proud of.
So what she needed next was:
A logo. A website. And blog. Some photos. An emailing system. And of course, a Facebook page.
Now it was time to start checking things off the list!

We started with everyone's favorite, GoDaddy, and secured her website's name:  www.wholehealingayurveda.com.  Three years of hosting and one email, check.

Then we went to my favorite, Weebly, and started her free website design.  If you want an easy operating system with preset designs and settings, Weebly the way to go.  It took us about two weeks of writing and editing (including 2 startup blog posts) and $15 worth of stock images from www.123rf.com, and Tracy's page was up. Check.

Meanwhile, while Tracy was writing, I took her great ideas to Photoshop and hammered out a logo. Check.  

Once her page was live, we set up a page on Facebook (5 minutes!) and began sharing it with all the local friends we know.  We then went over what, when, and how to post in order to grow her list of clients.  Facebook, Check! 

Then we went to another free fave, Mailchimp. We imported her small mailing list into the system, designed a few templates for emails, set up the html for a mailing list signup widget for her website, and Tracy's first email to her potential clients will go out today.  Check.

One month later, her entire system was set up! And for less than $50 and 10 hours of my time which I am excited to receive Ayurvedic treatments for!


So what are you waiting for?  What business do you need to promote online in 2012?

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