For kids, summer marks a relaxed, carefree time, devoid of homework and other responsibilities. But for work-at-home entrepreneurs, it can seem virtually impossible to get things done while keeping bored, restless children entertained and stimulated. It can be tempting to play hooky and spend the day at the pool with the kids, but this can easily result in missed deadlines, frustrated clients, and missed revenue. On the other hand, your children deserve to have some dedicated fun time with you during their time off.

How to deal? Here are some tips for striking a healthy balance between summertime fun and what must be done.

• Get babysitting help. Your kids aren’t the only ones who are out of school. Ask a neighborhood teenager to help out for a few hours a day. (Be sure it’s someone you know well and trust.) You can either disappear into the home office or, if you still can’t get the necessary solitude, pack up the laptop and head to the bookstore or library.

• Outsource. Consider hiring someone to help with your ecommerce operations during the summer. The memories you’ll make and the peace of mind you’ll enjoy will be well worth the money you’ll spend.

• Keep a regular schedule. One of the beauties of working at home is the ability to pick and choose your working hours, but kids thrive on structure. Let them know which days and times you’ll be unavailable so they know what to expect. Be sure to set aside some dedicated fun days when work is off limits.

• Enroll the kids in a summer camp. There are many affordable programs that provide children with plenty of educational fun, while freeing you up to focus on work. Try to spread out the sessions throughout the summer.

• Trade babysitting time with other work at home friends. This is a great way to help out other home-based entrepreneurs while getting some much-needed work time. Best of all, it won’t cost you a dime!

When working from home, it’s essential to achieve a healthy separation between work time and family time. If you try to do both at once, neither will receive the attention it deserves. The key is planning ahead and using the flexibility to your advantage.

Regina Baker - Ecommerce Solutions Expert

Regina Baker is the co-creator of Wahmcart and the Ecommerce Solutions Expert for Group Mastery.  She created Wahmcart as a full ecommerce software solution for work at home moms without the huge price tag. She's dedicated to educating the small business individual (sole proprietors) and companies with ecommerce solutions that will allow them to work smarter, not harder while at the same time providing an affordable solution that the “average” person can afford.   More about Wahmcart

Whether you sell tee-shirts or televisions, your prime goal as an online retailer is to turn browsers into buyers by driving them to your checkout process. The path to (and through) the shopping cart should be a smooth one, with none of the virtual bumps that could potentially cause items to be tossed out and left somewhere along the road.

With today’s widespread market research and usability studies, most designers of eCommerce sites have a firm grasp of effective strategies for keeping customers on a clear, focused shopping path. Even so, there are still a surprisingly large number of websites that commit grave errors in the design and implementation of their shopping carts.

Below are a few of the most common (and easily avoidable) mistakes:

1. Calling it something else. Your site’s sole point of entry into the checkout process is no place to risk confusion by getting overly fancy or “cutesy” with terminology. Resist the urge to be different by calling your cart a bag, basket, or some other alternate label. Just call it what it is, and consider adding an identifying graphic to reinforce it.
2. Hiding the “Add to Cart” button. This should be the easiest action for a customer to take, and should require little to no thinking on their part. Make sure the “Add to Cart” button is in a prominent place on the product page, and that it’s in the same location regardless of which item is being viewed. If you have long, text-heavy descriptions that extend below the fold, you might even consider including two “Add to Cart” buttons (as long as you do so on every page, for consistency).
3. Forcing customers to register. In keeping with the “smooth cart path” strategy, requiring customers to fill out a registration form prior to adding an item to their shopping cart can be conversion suicide. While you definitely want to make it easy for customers to create new accounts, it should never be implied that it’s a condition of purchase.

The last thing you want to do is to cause confusion with your potential customers.  Make it simple for them to purchase from you instead of your competitors.

Regina Baker - Ecommerce Solutions Expert

Regina Baker is the co-creator of Wahmcart and the Ecommerce Solutions Expert for Group Mastery.  She created Wahmcart as a full ecommerce software solution for work at home moms without the huge price tag. She's dedicated to educating the small business individual (sole proprietors) and companies with ecommerce solutions that will allow them to work smarter, not harder while at the same time providing an affordable solution that the “average” person can afford.   More about Wahmcart

I heard a definition of an expert several years ago that still has powerful meaning today: An expert is a person who applies the lessons learned from the many, many mistakes he/she has made in a particular area. In other words, through the process of trial and error, education, training, experience and more - an expert has achieved a certain level of mastery. I just love that!

The Group Mastery Experts are truly experts who have achieved mastery in focused areas of business.  Each of these outstanding professionals are well-equipped to lend their expertise to support our community of learners:

• Regina Baker - Ecommerce Solutions (Shopping Cart, Online Marketing)
• Leesa Barnes - Social Media Marketing
• Kristen Beireis - Marketing Implementation
• Lou Bortone - Online Video Production (DIY Tech Talk)
• Shannon Cherry - Publicity/Media
• Carol Deckert - Netweaving
• Charly Leetham - Blog Customization (DIY Tech Talk)
• Joselin Mane - Internet Strategy (DIY Tech Talk)
• Allison Nazarian - Copywriting
• Kathie Thomas - Blogging

Via the 90 Minute Mastery Webinar program, the monthly marketing mastermind calls, DIY Tech Talks, technology sessions, blog posts, TV and special community events, the Group Mastery Experts help our group coaches learn easy, fun and profitable ways to create, market and deliver a successful group coaching program.  Now, that's REAL learning!!