Today (well actually yesterday) is all about creating an elevator pitch for your blog. The definition of an elevator pitch is:

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100–150 words).” —Wikipedia

After thinking about my blog and thinking about what the main focus was I realized that I really needed to split Pepper Scraps into two blogs. I had one side of this blog that was informational and about blogging and design. Then the other side of Pepper Scraps was all personal and fun, about my boys, me, and some fun memes tossed in. I decided that both of these focuses needed their own blog.

Now I will have Pepper Scraps and a blog on my design site. I decided to revive the name of my old blog, UnicornBeauty for my new design blog. I thought it was fitting as this blog will be all about making your blog or site beautiful.

I created three elevator pitches. One for Uniquehorn Designs (because I thought this was such a great exercise), one for Pepper Scraps, and one for my new blog UnicornBeauty.

THE PITCHES:

Uniquehorn Designs:

a UNIQUE experience. a UNIQUE design.

And the winner is:

Author: Elly @ The OCD Chronicles
Website: http://ocdjourney.wordpress.com

CONGRATS!!!

I’ve decided that I’m so excited about starting the Problogger challenge with SITS girls that I have decided to run a contest. I want to give one lucky winner a chance at winning the eBook, Build a Better Blog in 31 Days.

If you want to learn more about the challenge you need to read my previous post! This is a great opportunity to work on your blog and have a great group backing you up.

If buying the eBook is holding you back then I want to try to help you out. Uniquehorn Designs (aka me! LOL) will offer to buy one eBook for one lucky winner. The contest will be now till Midnight Saturday.

MAIN ENTRY: To get your main entry please comment here in regards of why you want to join in.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed
• Follow my blog via Google Friends
• Follow me on Twitter: @unicornbeauty
• Like PepperScraps on Facebook
• Like Uniquehorn Designs on Facebook
• Tweet about this contest: Enter to WIN the #31DBBB ebook from Uniquehorn Designs: http://tinyurl.com/28f5e8e @unicornbeauty

Make sure and comment for each entry, so it gets counted when I use random.org! The winner will be announced Sunday. I will email the winner and they will have 24 hours to contact me to receive their book.

You will see my Miche Shells in the vlog also if you would like to see the bag you can see it at the official Miche Bag Website. You can also see some of my custom designs.

Okay please forgive the Ums, Sos, and all the Ands. I’m still getting the hang of this!

Guess who won tickets and is on cloud nine!! I don’t even know what to do with myself. I’m starting to work on my agenda to decide which sessions and workshops I want to go to, but there are doubles of everything that I’m interested in.

I have a friend who is letting me stay in her room, which I think will be tons of fun to have someone to hang with and have actual lunch buddies.

I have my plane tickets and my room with my friend. The only things I have left to arrange is childcare and transportation from the airport. Oh and decide what I’m going to be wearing! LOL

I am so excited this week, I’ve finally been able to figure out videoing with my camera is so much better than my webcam. I also was able to get some good editing software, so I got to play with my vlog a little and make it a little more spiffy. If you are new to Monday Mingle, it’s a fun little meme from EightyMPHMom.com. You get to answer three questions submited by other vloggers. This weeks questions were submitted by Alex from The Jaka Files.

Oh and yes I say um and so in my video way too much I need to work on that! LOL

Who are you trying to please?

I want to be happy in the work I do, not disgruntled that I have to work. I want to make my family function better and also be happier. I want to make my customers find joy and to truly love their new logos and or websites.

Are you trying to make a living, make a difference, or leave a legacy?

My goal is to make a living, but that is so that I can make a difference in my family and in so doing leaving a legacy in my children. I also have decided just recently that I want to try to always be working with a charity or non-profit and giving of my services. God has given me these talents and given me the business that I now have and I want to share these with others. I want to help out and hopefully make  a difference.

How will the world be different when you’ve succeeded?

I’ve talked a little bit about my dream of quiting my daytime job. This would be one of the biggest difference in our lives and one of the best. The reason this is important to me right now is I feel like my boys need more structure in their lives. With my day job this is just not possible. My schedule is constantly changing day to day and even week to week.

One other exciting goal for after I quit my day job is to start doing preschool with Zane. I did a little before Zarek was born and loved it and really would rather do homeschooling with him than to pay to send him somewhere else.

Is it more important to add new customers or to increase your interactions with existing ones?

This is a hard question for me. I am trying to balance this out a little right now. I think maybe this is hard because I’m just starting to grow my business, so I’m constantly trying to find new clients that will become clients now and in the future. I’m finding that I do love that I have clients that stay around and use me as on of there resources.

Do you want a team? How big?

I don’t think I really do want a team. I’m pretty happy just working by myself right now. I have worked in the corporate world for so long and worked with others for so long, some time alone will be nice. And who knows someday I may change my mind and will want to work with someone, but not right now.

Would you rather have an open-ended project that’s never done, or one where you hit natural end points?

I would rather have projects that have end points. I enjoy doing large projects but somehow there is this relief and joy in seeing something done. Even large projects I break into smaller projects just to be able to see that end point, to see that check mark on my list.

Are you prepared to actively sell your stuff, or are you expecting that buyers will walk in the door and ask for it?

I have be actively looking for clients but I have also been really blessed with some really great referrals. I have even just had people find me through my site, twitter, and other social events.  Which it is always wonderful when someone just happens to find you.

Which: to invent a category or to be just like Bob/Sue, but better?

I’m kinda a “be like Bob/Sue, but better” kind of person. My aspiration for my business is to help bloggers and entrepreneurs showcase their blogs/business. To help them show off their passion, pride and love for their blog or business. And in this I want to be able to spend time one on one with my clients and not just make a site that works and is there, but make something that really shows off their business, their personalities, something that they love.

If you take someone else’s investment, are you prepared to sell out to pay it back?

My intention is to take in no loans. Maybe this is a crazy idea but so far so good.

Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force you to change and develop yourself?

Are we ever done growing? I know I’m not. I try to be continuously learning and growing. In a way starting up my business has pushed me to be more involved and to learn even more. I have a huge stack of books to read right next to me right now. I have lists of tutorials and articles to read in my bookmarks. I also have gone to a conference by myself for the first time this year and am planning on going to WordCamp in the fall also. I would love to go to BlogHer, but we will see.

Choose: teach and lead and challenge your customers, or do what they ask…

I love to teach my customers and I love to challenge them. One of the things that I do that is probably unique in the web design world is I try and make my designs as user friendly as possible.

I try to make it so my clients will be able to edit small things themselves. I try and make it so that the menus are easily editable in the control panel or widgetize the sidebars so they can move things around to there liking. Now sometimes this is hard for them and when they feel stuck I am there for them. I will first try to send them instructions on how to do it to see if they can learn how and if they just don’t feel like they can do it then I do it for them.

How long can you wait before it feels as though you’re succeeding?

This is another really hard question, even just the other day I was noticing the mountains and valleys in my business right now as I work on learning how to balance everything. Some months I am amazed at how fast my business has grown, but even just last month I felt as if I was struggling. I didn’t feel like I was a failure, but I felt like I didn’t get as much work as I wanted for the month. But then I sat back and looked at my business for the last 6 months as a whole and it has been growing and I am succeeding. So I would say that I already feel like I’m succeeding, I’m getting to my goals and that’s all that matters.

If you want to see some of my work check out my portfolio at Uniquehorn Designs. You can find the original list, with all 16 questions, at this great blog post: 16 questions for free agents.

These are my answers what are yours?

I was in school for psychology, but quickly changed my degree to graphic design, knowing that in the world of HTML I could make a living following my passion, art.I needed a break from school and then my mother became ill. I never returned to school, but I continued creating my websites.

While still in college I had learned about a site, DiaryLand and this was my first introduction to blogging. Of course at that time ‘blogging’ had not even really been called ‘blogging’ yet.

After a year or so on DiaryLand a friend offered me free hosting, and then I was introduced to WordPress. I loved WordPress and it became a passion of mine. I have had a blog on WordPress ever since.

I continued growing my skills in graphics, HTML, CSS, and PHP. I maintained mutliple websites for myself. But also, I did work for friends and family here and there, but was never really able to shake my doubt in myself and fear of creating my own business and failing.

Last year I got a little nudge in the right direction. While on maternity leave I was demoted at work to part time. This taught me a few things, that we could survive on less, that I was really unhappy at my job and that I wanted to be home with my boys.

But I just wasn’t sure where to start. That was until this year. This January I found etsy, a community I loved and felt comfortable in.

I started bidding on requests for personalized graphics. And after each job and happy client I would get a boost of confidence. I started realizing I can do this.

I made the decision to start pursuing a dream of my own business in graphic design and web design. A dream to be able to quit my part time job and stay home with my two young boys.

After 6 short months I have a business, Uniquehorn Designs, that is growing in leaps and bounds. I hope that this fall I will be able to turn in my resignation and become a WAHM.

If you are looking for a logo, web graphics, twitter background, and/or a website feel free and contact me, Unicornbeauty{@}gmail{DOT}com.

I’m just a lone self taught designer and I feel overwhelmed with the idea of even trying to walk among the talent that will be there. But I will learn things and hopefully I will meet some people I can look up to and look forward to learn from.

My goals are to find some educational materials, get some hints on what the future of web design might hold and maybe hopefully meet some great and amazing talent!

And the irony is that the winner of the Twitter Background or Photocard Invitation is #1. I know it’s an odd of 1 in 13 that it would be 1 but I always think if I’m the first I will never be chosen. So everyone go and say hi to Marilyn at The Artful Hawaii Girl and Amaryllis of Hawaii.

Didn’t win? Well I’m still running a contest for 1 month free advertising! And you know what I will give away one more twitter background. If you would like a twitter background comment on this post! This contest will be open till 4/16/2009 11:59pm.