Welcome to 'Interview with a WahMOM' Everything you always wanted to know about Working at Home. Our first subject is Swishina who earns her living selling Scrapbooking product for Coordinates Collections.

What company do you work for? I work for an online scrapbooking store and monthly kit club, Coordinates Collections.

What is your job title? Logistics Coordinator. I made it up myself. I sometimes call myself the Uncreative Team because nothing I do is actually related to scrapbooking.

What do you do? I maintain the online store, entering new products, sales, new customer accounts etc. I create and send out promotional emails. I also administer the message board (moderating tasks), and run games, contests, challenges and other fun stuff in the forums.

How did you find your job? The store is owned by my sister-in-law. I started working for her in 2005, helping with shipping, putting kits together etc. As business grew, running the store got to be too much work for her, so she handed a lot of the computer work to me.

How many hours do you work? I work between 10-15 hours a month doing store administration, depending on the amount of new products coming in. I spend an average of 30 minutes/day on the message board.





What is your favorite thing about your job? Least favorite? My favorite thing is drawing winners for the contests and challenges. It’s always fun to tell someone they won a prize! Least favorite is probably data entry for new accounts.

Do you get any perks or discounts? I get a discount to the store, and sometimes I get to go through extra stuff for free. Also, I get to go to the Craft and Hobby trade show and help select products for the store and plan the monthly kits. It’s a scrapbooker’s paradise, and lots of fun girl time, too.

If you work out of your house, how do you balance children and work? My work can be done at anytime, so I try to do it during naptime, or after my daughter goes to bed. If I have a lot to do, sometimes I’ll put a show on for her to watch and she will let me work, but I try not to let CC work take away from my time with her.

If someone wants to get started in this business, what would you tell them? Be very careful about where you spend your advertising dollars. Advertising in magazines and on scrapbooking websites can be extremely expensive, but a lot of great advertising is free – word of mouth and recommendations based on our fantastic customer service, for example.

Do you have any advice for people that want to work from home? Just remember that your family comes first. My goal in working from home is to earn extra money without taking away from the time I spend with my daughter. I am very task-oriented, so sometimes it’s hard to put aside all the things on my list until after bedtime.



How does your business have an edge over the competitors'? A unique thing about Coordinates Collections’ monthly kit club, is that you can have your choice of two kits, or even skip a month if neither one suits you. Also, the kits are reasonably priced, and offer a variety of products from different manufacturers that have already been coordinated for you. A lot of kits I’ve seen out there are big and expensive. CC’s are just the right size, and you can get a monthly subscription for as low as $20/month including shipping.

Do you use your own products or services?
Yes! I get a discount to the Coordinates Collections store. And since I know when the sales are, and when we will be getting new items in (and get to help pick out the new items!) I always get good deals.

In two sentences, do an "ad" for us.
Coordinates Collections is your online scrapbooking site for all your scrapbooking needs. We offer a monthly scrapbook Kit Club with 2 kits per month, an online Store with the latest scrapbooking supplies, a fun & friendly Message Board and Idea Gallery, and Monthly Contests, Challenges and Sketches with Prizes.


Thank you Swishina for that very informative look at your WAH carreer!

Inteview with a WahMOM is a new Bi-weekly feature, that will showcase our networking members' businesses. Due to the nature of this feature, this will ONLY be open to members that are subbed to the networking forum, though all members can view it. If YOU want you and your business featured in 'Interview with a WahMOM', you can become a member of the networking forum providing you meet the requirements of 250 posts and are an active/contributing member. A networking member will be chosen at random, OR you can pm Missystuy and Desertmom to be featured.

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Congrats on being the first interviewee! It's great getting to know you and what you do better. Sounds like you've got some good tips to help others.

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