Hello!

This is going to be a slightly different post than you’ve gotten used to seeing on this blog… That’s because it’s written by me, Norbert, Alysia’s husband. My wife has mentioned my name a few times before in her postings, but to those of you who haven’t heard of me, I’m responsible for the business and marketing side of blue hour designs. We’ve been talking for a while now about me starting to write a weekly blog entry that focuses on the business side. Many of you are small business owners yourself, and I’m sure, have quickly learned that making a business successful entails a lot more than having a good product. With that said, I must admit that I’m my wife’s biggest fan and DO believe she makes very classy, unique and beautiful jewelry – which does make an excellent product! Now we just have to figure out how to best get the rest of the world to find out about it and how to keep her happy in her workshop! That’s where I try to help out and that’s also what I will be talking about in these posts.


So, where to start… or where to end… I’ve actually been thinking about these posts for a little while and there’s really a lot to talk about, since I’m attempting to cover a huge topic here. It just dawned to me, that I could probably right a whole book on this topic! Scared you, huh? Don’t leave quite yet, I’m not gonna be writing a book in this blog and make you read it on your Friday morning when your thoughts are probably already mainly on where to go out for lunch or where’s the best happy hour this afternoon! In any case, I think I’ll take a slightly different approach discussing business topics than most people would expect. The first few posts will probably focus more on the importance of understanding yourself and the importance of time management. After all, as a small business owner, and I’m sure most of you would agree, you yourself are your business’s most valuable asset and your time is the most precious resource you have. Even if couldn’t care less about the trials of starting, and running a small business, these topics (ESPECIALLY) will come in handy in many other parts of your life.

My wife and I have learned immense amounts about ourselves and each other as a result of this business, some of which has been very surprising to us. So first of all, I think it’s very important you understand yourself and your business partners in as much depth as possible before going down the route of starting your own business. Mainly because successfully running your business is (not can be, but IS) a very time consuming task, so you better LOVE what you do and be very efficient at it. So, why don’t you take a moment, a few minutes, or an hour before going to bed and really think about what makes you happy…? Again, I’m talking about digging a little deeper than the happy hour later this afternoon. What do you daydream about? Focus on what would make you happy each and every day. Also, for the time being, set aside the items that you don’t really know anything about, such as sailing in the Caribbean when you’ve never set foot on a sailboat before in your life.

I guess I’ll stop with that thought right here before you DO get scared that I AM gonna be writing a whole book. I’ll try to pick up where I left off next week, but until then, happy weekend to you all!

- Norbert