Starting over and keeping a level head about it-

I have decided to leave my current position of Outreach Library Assistant (I take the library's circulating items to housebound and nursing home patrons in the district), and forge my own way in the web design business. Scary and exciting, all at once.

I made this decision actually way back in November; Thanksgiving weekend to be exact. I decided it was time to make a change.I looked around to see what options were available to a middle aged woman with my skills and knowledge base. Looking back over what I had done for the previous few years, and what I found enjoyable gave me some ideas. I have many connections in the local business community because I have been the chairperson for the local Holiday Parade for the previous 2 years (and continue to do so). The library has also been a great source for contacts. In addition, I was a huge supporter (of both time and effort) of the local high school band program because my daughter was a member in a number of bands in her high school. In all these organizations, I worked alongside many wonderful people, and did whatever I thought I could to help towards the goals which included allot of fundraising, organization and soliciting of materials, funds, volunteers, etc. I learned so much from each of the people I worked with and all the events I helped to pull together.

On opportunity presented itself through the band that I particularly enjoyed- I designed, created and implemented a new web site for the band program to facilitate communications between the parents, students and the band directors. That web site ended up being 78 web pages long, and included huge amounts of information. The directors of the band loved it because it made it easy to communicate with parents and students in a very timely manner. The parents loved it because they were now always aware of what was happening in the band program for their students. Not sure if the band students really cared one way or the other...

I decided that web designs was something I should try as a profession. In a way I feel like my daughter. When she was 5 she wanted to play the cello. Upon questioning her as to why the cello, she told me it rhymed with jello (which she loved). Hopefully my enthusiasm with the new profession will last longer than her excitement for the cello (she now plays the saxophone) At first, I was concerned with educating myself to learn all I would need to know about web design (not to mention running my own business). Then the reality of actually making money hit, would anyone PAY me to create a site?

I struck upon the idea of offering to create a site for a business owner I work with on planning the local Holiday Homecoming events for our city in the Chicagoland suburbs. Judy, my friend, owns a local coffee shop, and I knew she had no web site. I asked her if I could create a web site for her, free of charge. My only stipulation would be that I could place my logo and a link to my new business site at the bottom (inconspicuously) of each of her web pages. She agreed! Thank you so much Judy!!

I wrote the main home page of the site over a weekend, went to her shop and showed her my ideas. She said she liked what she saw and gave me content and order forms to incorporate into additional pages for her site (I also took pictures inside her shop to put on her web site). Two weeks later, I was back with a fully functioning and finished site to show her. She was pleased with the final results- I paid the URL cost for her site for one year ($10) and found a site that would host her site for free with that URL.

So, Judy got a nicely functioning site; I got a link to my business web site, and a new site I could list in my portfolio. A win-win situation if ever I heard of one. I stopped back 2 weeks later to touch base with Judy and she said 3 customers had stopped in just that very week and said they found out about her coffee shop on the Internet, looked at her web site, then decided to come by and see her shop/cafe. So, one satisfied "customer" down, many more (hopefully) to please...

Sue