Hello World! - Samantha Meeker

How to start an introduction….hmmm…I’ve thought of a zillion ways to do it and it’s getting me nowhere so I’m just going to start. This picture was my selfie at Windsor Castle in England in December, a few weeks after I was laid off. I decided that London could help me get over getting that surprise punch.

My name is Samantha (aka ‘Sam’), I have four daughters, three cats and a wonderful, supportive husband. I work full time in the corporate world as a web developer (I was fortunate to find another job within weeks of my layoff…wheew!) and am looking forward to eventually sustaining myself from my own business. I’ve decided that with my love for web design and development, that this would be the best fit for my entrepreneur journey.

I’ve tried my hand in a few other startups, including owning a membership based website for couponing to owning an online art gallery and a brick & mortar art gallery as well. They all have led me to believe the ONE thing in common with them all….web design & development. That was always my favorite part.

I also have had numerous people ask me for my business card when they find out I’m a web designer. It got so bad that I began to avoid telling people what I did as my full time job because they would want my card and were interested in me doing some work for them. It was like someone had been hitting me in the head all these years without me feeling it until FINALLY the light went on….HELLO….you should be doing this as YOUR business!

So here I am, at the very beginning of this journey and I’m going to work hard to post weekly updates to keep me motivated and have a running documentary of it through all the struggles and gains. I’m also going to have an additional blog post to bring value to the community with tips and tricks.

I’m going to give you my update of the journey so far:

Researched and bought Genesis Pro Pack – like the security, ease of updating and use.
Purchased Gravity Forms – LOVE it! So used to building mine from scratch!
Selfie for website – OMGosh this was SO hard and I need to redo it (x100)!
Pick theme & design for website – daunting and changed it like 3x. Doing clients sites is SO much easier than my own!
Podcast subscriptions – I love Podcasts and found several good ones including WordPress Chick and Marketing Access Pass. Those two are my favorites so far. They are packed with great info and interviews.
Proposal maker – (that’s what I’m going to call it) found one called Bidsketch that I think I’m going to go with.
Researched Mastermind groups – I looked on Meetup.com and Facebook and wasn’t really happy with what I found so far. Going to have to ask around about this one.

This week’s goals:

Make business cards – I’ve had really good results with Overnight Prints but heard some good things about Moo.com so I’m going to check them out
Complete forming LLC – yawn…but important
Connect blog posts with social accounts
Research more networking groups for small businesses
Connect with more people via social networks
Create a signature for my blog posts that include my photo & a small title.
Research more backup site options
Research more hosts that focus mainly on WordPress