Case Study # 4 Christian Mom Shares Inspiration with World

Linda Wakefield Kelley lives in Ohio, USA, with her husband and three children. After home-schooling for years, Linda decided to share her knowledge with the world, by writing books and starting her own website.

I have an undergraduate degree in Business Administration - majoring in Hotel Restaurant Management from the beautiful University of Hawaii. Years later, after I married and wanted a job where I wouldn’t have to travel as much, I went back to school and earned my Master’s Degree in Education.

I’m a freelance writer and I have several book proposals I’m currently circulating to book publishers. However, I haven’t been very successful with this pursuit because publishers want authors who have a platform (a way to reach an established audience). I thought it would help my writing career tremendously to have a website. Since there are LOTS of writing websites, I decided to create a site around the themes I write most about - homeschooling and parenting.

This was an easy fit for me. As a freelance writer, I’ve written on home-schooling and parenting themes primarily. To me, “ideas” are never a problem. It’s finding the time to develop them that can sometimes be tricky.

Right now I am only able to devote about 10-14 hours per week on my site. Between home-schooling, running the children to their various sports practices, and writing that’s about all the time I can manage. SBIers subscribe to the “tortoise success factor”... persistence. The way of the tortoise may be slow, but if you persist success eventually occurs. Don’t you just love that? It makes my measly 10 hours a week seem a whole lot better than nothing. And, they are! I’m inching closer to the finish line at breakneck speed—for a tortoise.

I use Google AdSense. I also am an affiliate of Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. I participate in several affiliate programs through Linkshare and Commission Junction as well. My goal for this year is to write several e-books and offer them through my site.

I average about $150 per month in income. Most of this is derived from Google Adsense income. My second best sources of income are the Spanish affiliate programs I belong to (especially Visual Link and Power Glide).

It took me longer to achieve success than most. I felt I had achieved success when I had 20 pages on my site, and my traffic and income figures were steadily increasing each month. Six or seven months after I first purchased SBI!, that began to happen. The main reason it took so long was my lack of confidence. I started out with lots of enthusiasm, but then I struggled for several months.

Ken Evoy, creator of SiteSell and SBI!, is careful to point out it takes a lot of work to achieve success in any business and certainly SBI! is no different. SBI! eliminates many of the usual headaches you get when building a website. However, it still takes a lot of old-fashioned elbow grease. Because I’m not very technical I doubted my abilities. I hired a couple different webmasters to help me and they did. That cost me additional money and I was no further ahead because, although I now had pages built, I still felt unsure about making changes or adding content.
It wasn’t until I decided to take complete control of my site myself that I began to move ahead. I made the decision to learn what I needed to learn even if it meant moving at a snail’s pace in the process. I re-read the Action Guide and began visiting the SBI! forums and participating in the discussions. That was THE turning point.

My suggestion for any SBI! newbies out there would be to get involved in the SBI! forums very early on. Soak up the information that is available there and in the various publications available through SBI!. And, most of all, believe in yourself! A successful SBI! site is achievable for anyone.

Two things were equal selling points when I first visited the SBI! site. I liked the fact that I could be a complete Web technology neophyte and still have a successful site. SBI!’s use of the block-by-block page building sounded manageable. The forums and SBI! support offered help 24/7 as well.

The second selling point was the fact that with a little effort I could generate great traffic to my site. I didn’t want to spend a long time building a site only to have no one ever see it. Believe me, SBI! works. My site is in the top 1% of all sites on the Web.

I’m lucky to have a wonderful mate who is so supportive of my sometimes wacky ideas. When I first told my husband about my idea to build a website, he was a little leery. He knows I have to get help from him or the kids to program the VCR, and operate the digital camera, etc. I explained to my sweet husband the beauty of SBI! is I don’t have to be a webmaster. SBI! practically builds itself! He still was not totally convinced, but he was at least willing to let me give SBI! a shot for a year or so. The especially attractive part was that I might actually be able to contribute to the family income-- for a change! After a year and a half, he’s completely convinced SBI! is wonderful. Now, he tries to find ways to give me MORE time to work.

My hubby supports me in so many ways. He loves to cook and is in fact better at it than I am. He makes the family meals far more often than I do. He also cleans, does the dishes and the laundry, and drives the kiddos to their various practices. Since I am a home-schooling mom as well as a WAHM, I couldn’t begin to accomplish all that I do in either arena without his help.

I’d tackle your business very professionally. Why not present a written proposal to your husband? Research SBI!, detail your goals. Explain when you’ll work on your business—how you’ll fit it in around your other activities. Project expenses and earnings. That way your hubby can see that you’re serious about the business and that you’ve carefully thought this through. If you do this, you’ll be much more likely to have your husband’s full support.

Luckily I didn’t have to do this as my husband gave me the go-ahead sign without having to go to these lengths. Maybe he was so easy to convince because he subscribes to the “If Momma ain’t happy—nobody’s happy” philosophy of marriage. However, if I had a husband that was harder to convince, I’d try the Business Plan approach.

My kids are involved in the business. Since I home-school them, I have actually incorporated teaching business principles into our home-school curriculum. My three even came up with their own page for my web site. You can find it at
http://www.christian-parenting-source.com/bizyuhomeschool.html They also provide content for several of my pages. They have their own Christian music review pages, for example.

I would probably change the name of my site. I know I can still do this, but I hate to change it now that I’ve built up a following. My site encompasses Christian parenting and home-schooling. However, it would be better if the keyword “home-schooling” was in my domain name probably. Oh well, if I did everything perfectly the first time around, there would be nothing to accomplish tomorrow.

I think the “do it all” approach is an absolute myth. Something always has to give, doesn’t it? In my life, what goes first is the housework. I’m afraid if you dropped by the house unexpectedly, you’d find a few cobwebs and dust mites lurking in the shadows (if I answered the door at all). With the tremendous help of my husband, we manage to keep on top of most of duties. But, keeping the house neat is the one area I can’t seem to conquer.

My advice: Train your children from a very young age to pick up after themselves and to help you with the household chores. Even the youngest child can help you quite a lot. Be patient if the effort is not perfect. Half-dusted is better than dust, is it not? Also, learn from the other WAHMs out there. The SBI! WAHMs are particularly bright I’ve found. And, they’ve got TONS of great advice for attempting to “do it all.” They’ve even got their own forum all to themselves at the SBI! forums.