With so much choice out there, how do high street buyers make their buying decisions? How can you ensure that your product is chosen from the thousands that are pitched to them each year? And if you are lucky enough to be granted space on their shelves, how do you ensure that you keep it?

1 – Ensure you have a strong brand.
When you are trying to bring your product to market, you will be seen immediately beside your biggest competition so you need to stand out as much as possible. Think like a consumer; what sort of packaging appeals to you? What kind of branding do you like? Take a look at the branding of other similar products and see what they all have in common and use this knowledge to your advantage. Most importantly, make sure that it is clear to potential purchasers what your product is and what it does!

You only get one chance to make a first impression: This is particularly true of the web.
 
If you go into a shop or a cafe and you don't like what you see - the chances are that you will hang around for a few minutes, you've probably caught the eye of the staff and it would look very rude just to turn around and walk out.
 
So the staff might get a second chance, a chance to engage you in conversation… and maybe win you over.
 
If you click on a website that you don't like, you simply click away - and no one even knows that you were there. 

Time management not your forte?  Always chasing your tail?  Mum, business owner and time management guru, Sarah Sadler of Organised Mum, shares her tips and advice on how to make the most of your day.

Unfortunately for those of us who work and have a family there’s no getting round the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day!  As a working mother it can be a struggle to fit in work and family commitments and feel that we are devoting enough time and attention to each area of our lives. 

However, by taking a proactive approach to what needs to be done and applying some simply time management techniques, working mothers can regain control and achieve a balance between their work and family lives.

Relatively new to blogging Motivated Mum, Maggy of Red Ted Art, started out small and now boasts an ever-increasing readership and presence on the internet.  These are her tips on ways to attract readers to your blog, increase your stats and get yourself noticed on the internet.

There are two approaches to this article. One is the story (rather a long essay) and the other is keeping it short and sweet. Here is short and sweet.

Here is a screen shot of my stats:

What happened in Jan/ Feb 2010 and again March & April? Then in May? What will June  look like?

Tips and advice from Genius creator and food lover, Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, on production, research, funding and the challenges, inspirations and issues that mumpreneurs face in starting and growing their businesses today. 

1. What is your background as a mumpreneur?

I have three sons, two of whom have food allergies.  Prior to having my children, I trained as a chef at Bibendum restaurant in London and went on to teach at Leith’s School of Food and Wine when I co-authored their Techniques Bible. I also used to run my own business when I catered for exclusive parties and events in London.

When I discovered that two of my children had food allergies I decided to write a book called How to Cook for Food Allergies.  Knowing how difficult it can be to cook for a family with various allergies, I had the cookery knowledge to impart to others to make it easier for people in the same situation as me.  After writing the book, I went on to start-up a business called Genius Foods.

Many people take on freelance work from home. Some use a spare bedroom as their office, others use whatever free space they can find. The following are some useful tips and ideas for anyone working freelance to optimise your home office space.

Anyone working from home for the first time should have a plan. What or where will my office space be? What will I need in my office?

If you’re not in the industry,  search engine optimisation can be a bit of a minefield.

So many people all tell you different things,  but they generally have one thing in common, they all want to make money out of you.

You are probably already bombarded with phone calls from Companies promising to get you on page one of the search engines. In truth, they possibly can, but it will cost. And if the cost outweighs the business it generates then you have not really achieved anything. It is also important that you are at the top of the right page – it’s all very well pushing visitors to your site, but if they are the wrong visitors , you won’t make any new sales.

Self-confessed 'shoeaholic' and mum-of-three Andrea Alli is enjoying great success with her handy product, the 'Flexi Shoe Rack' (www.flexishoerack.co.uk). In this exclusive interview, London-based Andrea, 38, shares with other budding mumpreneurs how she found her feet in running her own business.

“Like a lot of women, I love shoes. The problem was I had 200 pairs and a lot of space in my house I simply couldn't use. Corners of rooms, gaps under the stairs or recesses in the laundry room just weren't compatible with the shoe racks available on the market. It frustrated me to buy a shoe rack that was of a fixed width and height with no flexibility built-in. The product just didn't conform with the space I had to play with.

Award-winning author Clare Mulley won the hearts of the nation with her debut biography of Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb. It was awarded the Daily Mail Biographers Club prize and was described as a ‘truly brilliant book’ by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. But in an exclusive article with Motivating Mum, the mum-of-three reveals the difficulties she faced juggling life as a writer and a parent.

Motherhood - in all its wonderful complexities - seems to be the story of my life. When I had my first child I decided I wanted to work part-time from home, so I left my job as a fundraiser at the charity Save the Children and started researching the life of the charity’s founder, the wonderfully named Eglantyne Jebb. The plan was to quickly produce a best-selling biography. I had no idea what I was taking on. 

NEWS COPY - WITH PICTURES

Talk about the mother of great ideas...

Eight of Britain's most respected female entrepreneurs have thrown their weight behind a groundbreaking new initiative that supports mums in business.

Rachel Elnaugh, Sally Preston, Laura Tenison, Antonia Chitty, Wendy Shand, Leila Wilcox, Mel McGee and Rachel Jones are backing Mentoring Mum, a unique mentoring scheme for self-employed women.

They will draw on their extensive experience to offer help and guidance about all aspects of business - from law and tax to marketing and public relations.

In the three years I have been running Motivating Mum, I have come across so many mums with many great ideas, be they product or service.  They say 'necessity is the mother of all invention' and it seems they were right on many fronts; having babies seems to highlight areas lacking in just the right product or service and it is the mother doing the inventing.

I asked Cally to contribute this article as I know that although you have the ideas and the passion, the know-how is an area that many of you could use a little help and who better than the founder of She's Ingenious herself?  Cheers!  Alli 

An article by Cally Robson, personal business coach and Founder of She's Ingenious! www.ShesIngenious.org

While grant funding gets harder to win, organized awards and showcases are on the up. Here are some pointers to help you find the pick of the bunch for your idea and stay on top of deadlines.

Article by Sarah Steel, Managing Director, The Old Station Nursery Ltd

After 7 years of running my children’s nursery company, I took the plunge last year and published my first book. Over the years I have enjoyed writing a newsletter for parents at the various nurseries and have often included a recipe we have made at nursery, or details of an activity that we have carried out that the children have particularly enjoyed. We produced an in-house booklet of nursery songs for parents, who couldn’t remember, or didn’t know all the words to some songs and wanted to be able to join in with their child.

So, slowly the idea formed that it would be really nice to produce a book which brought together lots of these ideas and activities and which parents, grandparents and carers could use to give them some inspiration when they were at home with an energetic child.

Identifying the pros and cons of drop-shipping – what is it and is it the right business model for you?

An article by Mindy Emsley, Founder and Managing Director of www.merababy.co.uk

According to Wikipedia “Drop-shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in all retail businesses, the retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price”.

Put simply, it means you advertise and sell Product X on your site for a retail price of Y££. When the customer buys Product X, they pay you the Y££ advertised. You then place an identical order with the supplier of Product X, who charges you a Wholesale (drop-ship) price of Z££. You give the supplier the customer’s details and the supplier packs and ships Product X directly to your customer.   The customer receives their goods, the supplier receives the wholesale (drop-ship) price for their product and as with all retail, you have made your profit on the difference between the price you paid the supplier and the price the customer paid you.

Four, three, two, one!! The room erupts into cheers and, caught up in the excitement, you decide to stop smoking, go to the gym, stop spending, insert your own New Years resolution here...

Sound familiar? The next part probably does too. The part where, within a week your determination has been whittled away and you're indulging in cake, smoking a pack a day, shopping up a storm, insert your own personal demon here.

Guilt-free 'me time'. It ranks right up there with non fattening ice cream and a man that puts the toilet seat down, ideal but impossible in the real world. But is it really? Some things are out of our control, like getting hubby to drop the lid, but as fantastic as it sounds guilt-free 'me time' can be yours. Read on for tips on how you can take a little time back for you.

You've just given birth and come home with your new baby. You're getting up in the night, you're sterilising and washing, you're feeding and bathing and you're getting used to a new and very different life. So, what do you do? You start a business!

Growing up, Christmas was a magical time, great feasts of turkey and pudding, presents spilling out from under the tree and tinsel and lights sparkling through the lounge window. You never questioned how it all came together, you just ate, drank and played until you went to bed and it was time to look forward to Christmas next year.

I have never been fussed about having kids. I have never clucked over my friends' babies, chased kids at weddings or cooed over infants in strollers. I am what you call non-maternal, and I've never been bothered by it...until I became pregnant.

I had finally made it through the 9th month. I was ready to reduce my girth, deflate my ankles and stop dressing in clothes with stretchy panels. Most of all, I was ready to meet Amelie. There was only one catch; my baby was nowhere to be seen.