British mum to three, Nicole Tod discovered that creating her own website was the right solution for her family’s nomadic lifestyle. Currently living in Vietnam, the Tods have also enjoyed stints in Thailand, Mali and Ghana.
Nicole, tell us about your website.I started www.kids-partycabin.com two years ago.
What kind of education and work experience did you have before building your website?
I finished full time school education at 18 years of age. This was followed by 3 years basic nurse training, 1 year pediatric nurse training, 18 months health visitor training then just for something different I did 2 correspondence courses in interior design and setting up a home based business and then a 2 year diploma in French.
I am British and started my career as a nurse which was something I had wanted to do since I was about 5 years old. I can still vividly remember regularly setting up my toy ironing board with all my plastic tools and giving my parents ‘foot care’! Consequently I went on to train as a nurse which led to school nursing then pediatric nursing and finally I became a Health Visitor.
After 10 years of nursing I was ready for a different challenge and so off I went to work in a refugee camp in Sudan. That was one of the most challenging and rewarding things that I have ever done and the kindness and gratitude of all the people that I worked with will stay with me forever. Another great thing to come out of my stay in Sudan was that I met my husband Bill. He too was working with the same organization (“Save the Children”). One thing led to another and hey presto, here we are happily married and with three great kids.
Moving on several years...Bill is still working with “Save the Children” and we have been working and living overseas now for thirteen years - Togo, Ghana, Mali, Vietnam and latest stop is Bangkok. We love it all and although I have not been working regularly per se (not always easy to get work when you are on the move every three years) I have felt immensely privileged to be able to stay at home and bring up my kids.
What was your motivation for starting an online business?As we move location every 3 years or so, it was important that any business that I did was mobile. I love working my way round the Internet and have dabbled with several web design programs – very unsuccessfully until I discovered SBI!. I also love children and being creative with them so I felt that my website was the perfect answer to put all my skills and interests together.
How did you come up with your idea for a website?It took me a while as initially I couldn’t see what I was good at or what interested me the most. However, once I started following the action guide, I was able to see that a website doesn’t have to be about something hi-tech or be just a sales site and that the idea of kids parties was literally starting me in the face.
How many hours per week do you work on your site?I’d say 20 hours minimum to 40 hours maximum.
How do you make money from your site?
It took me a while to monetize and initially I was jumping the gun and doing things too early which only set me back in the long run. Now I feel more settled and confident and am concentrating on a few monetization strategies. Basically I use Google Adsense (Just love it); am listed in a few directories; affiliate marketing; link exchange (been difficult to find decent links which aren’t direct competition); started an e-zine about 4 months ago (I find that a bit of a struggle); I have written 2 articles for e-zine directories (got me lots of traffic) and my latest is setting up a party entertainers directory. At present I provide free listings but I may charge a small fee in the future as it is very, very time consuming.
What is your average monthly income?For the past 6 months my average earnings have been around $335 USD per month.
How long was it before you found success? And please define what “success” means to you.
That’s a tricky one to answer. I suppose for me there were/are several levels of success and each one is related to the goals that I set myself. The first element of success for me was just the fact of setting up a web site. After all my failed attempts in the past, the achievement that I felt when I got my first page up is indescribable. The second element of success for me was when I started to earn some money. I can vividly remember my first earnings – all of 4 cents! But oh boy was I happy. Last month I had earned enough to buy a laptop computer – that felt like success!
Now that I have achieved the above 2, my success goals have changed. Firstly I plan to develop my party themes and my party entertainer’s directory, then I want to write an eBook and finally I am setting myself monetary goals for the year ahead. I think with a web business, your goals and what you consider successful can change all the time and as you achieve one thing, you set yourself another target. So in a nutshell for me, success is achieving the goals that I set for myself no matter how big or small.
What convinced you to purchase SBI!?Initially it got my interest as the SBI! site was different from the others in that I felt I was being talked to rather than talked at. It wasn’t so high-tech and frightening as many of the other sites and somehow seemed to be answering most of my question that I had in my head. I downloaded the free e-book and read it thoroughly but was still confused a little and I suppose nervous about spending on something that I really had no idea about – I had never heard of affiliate marketing until then.
I suppose what really cemented my decision to go with SBI! was when I emailed Judd a load of question and worries and he came straight back with some great advice and answers. I realized then that SBI! was not some mechanical site and system and that there were real people behind it who were ready to help me get started and to support me as I went along.
How does your significant other support you in your ventures?My husband is great on Excel and writing emails but that is about it. So technically he doesn’t support me at all but where he is good at is just listening to me prattle on about my day and what I have achieved (or not!). I think my advice to others would be not to bore the pants off your family like I have done in the past. My website topic doesn’t particularly ‘excite’ my husband so I tend to get friends or other family members to critique pages. Be prepared though for both positive and negative comments. Sometimes I have spent hours putting up a great page only for someone to suggest I could have done it differently.
Are your children involved with your business?My kids are involved directly and indirectly. Indirectly as a lot of the advice I give my visitors is drawn from experience of the parties that I have thrown for my kids. Whereas directly they are involved in testing out some of the craft projects that I suggest (photos of their projects usually make it on to my web pages) and in suggestion ideas for different party themes that they would like.
If you could go back, what would you do differently with your website(s)?I would narrow down my main topic. I feel my topic on kid’s parties is too wide to do successfully and thoroughly. I would maybe have just stuck to party themes or party games.
Nicole, how do you “do it all”?I am embarrassed to say that I have someone who does most of the housework for me. It is not as luxurious as it sounds as we live in Asia and it is the norm to have some home help who will do the ironing, cleaning and washing. If I didn’t have that help, I honestly don’t know how I would manage. Setting up and maintaining a successful website is not something that you just dabble in when you have a few minutes to spare. It does take time and commitment. Actually that is the only thing that I feel SBI! should stress more. I was under the impression when I started that a couple of hours a week would do – oops more like add a zero to that.
Do you have more pearls of wisdom to share with other mothers?My advice would be to research thoroughly before you spend a dime. Check out other web hosting and building programs before you get SBI!. That way you will realize what an excellent deal SBI! really is. Also you may find something more suited to your needs.
Don’t get into affiliate marketing for the money. Few people make much money in the first couple of years. After two years I make what I call “Holiday money”. In other words it will pay for our family holidays. I am very happy with that I might add.
Be realistic. It takes up more of your time than you think, especially in the first year.Create your own private workspace which is especially for you. Tidy it up each day as it is amazing now quickly it becomes a mess and then your mind is all over the place.
If you are short on time, prioritize. Write a list of what is important and stick to it. It is so easy to get carried away with browsing the forums or playing around with images when you might be better off getting a decent paragraph up on one of your pages.
Make use of the forums. I can not tell you how much they have helped me.It is very easy to become totally unsociable and boring when you are spending a long time on the computer. Try to set times when you will not work such as weekends or when the kids arrive home from school.