It might seem like a tired old bit of advice, particularly in this age of computers with spell checkers built into everything including the Internet browser programs, but nothing beats good old fashioned spell checking by hand to make sure that you have everything looking right. And, if you are not a [...]]]> Proofread, proofread, proofread.

It might seem like a tired old bit of advice, particularly in this age of computers with spell checkers built into everything including the Internet browser programs, but nothing beats good old fashioned spell checking by hand to make sure that you have everything looking right. And, if you are not a native speaker and reader of the language that you are printing something in, get a native to triple check everything for you.

Why, you might ask, do I suggest this? Because poor spelling cost a company a sale last night. I was in the store and I needed to pick up some cat litter. As usual, I scoped out the other brands to see if anything might be on sale and less expensive than my regular brand (hey, it’s dirt for cats to do their business in, I don’t see any reason to pay more than I have to for it).

Anyway, as I scan the shelves a purple bag catches my eye. Amazing Cat Litter. Hmm… a bit more expensive, but I’ll bite. What’s amazing about it?

I get the bag down and sit it in my cart. A cat litter that can last for up to eighty days, with multiple cats?  Now, as a cat owner / border, I can tell you that is amazing. I do good to make it a week with a container of litter for the four cats I harbor at my place. I want to know more about this silica crystal based cat litter (particularly since I had thought a few months ago as I cleaned the cat box that silica would be a great way to absorb the urine.

I flipped the bag around to see the back and find out more.

Okay, so the bar graph is an eye catcher, and it caught my eye. 80 days is for one cat, three and you can make it for 30 days – which still beats normal litter in my experience. I look for more information about it and the next thing I see is the top right where a couple of small stopwatch images highlight some key points about the litter…. and I find a typo.

It will leab my cat tray odor-free in 30 seconds? Is “leab” the new science in Amazing Cat Litter? I am fairly positive they meant that it would be “leaving odor-free cat try” not “leabing odor-free cat tray”. Interesting to find a typo like that on packaging, but, hey, it’s just cat litter. A typo can be overlooked, right?  I smile at the typo and read on…

The benefits list is a reasonably long list.Third one down, their single bag will replace the same amount of 5 bags of clay or chumping litter… wait… chumping? My regular cat litter “chumps”? I think they mean “clumping”.  Skip that typo and continue on, a few more lines down and we have “no more urine-soaked chay”. So with my normal brand of cat litter my chay is getting urine soaked and chumping?

Still undeterred I move on to the instructions -

First line…. “adry” – I think they meant “a dry”. Step 4, I’m not sure how you remobe something, but it sounds a little painful. I think they want you to “remove” the solid waste, and that would be for “best results”, not “best rosults”.

This was just far too many typos on such a small bag of cat litter, I snapped the above pictures and put it back onto the self. I’m sure that silica absorbs cat urine quite well, but I was turned off on trying it by how many typos there were on the packaging. I saved a little money by sticking with my regular brand.

And, I think it is an important lesson for anyone that is relying on writing to sway someone. You really need to make sure that you have caught every typo and corrected them before you send something out – in particular before you print a package or booklet for a product that is intended for mass distribution. People will overlook a few typos, and some people might overlook a lot of typos, but you can also loose potential customers if they are turned off by poor writing. It makes them wonder how much they can actually trust the product if the packaging has repeated and blatant typos – which was what happened to me with the cat litter.

Sure, it’s just something for my cats to defecate in, but after a certain number of typos on the package, I decided to stick with my regular brand that I know gets the task done, rather than risk buying the more expensive (twice as expensive) brand that was poorly packaged in a package littered with typos.

Read your work, then read it without relying on your spell checker. Then have someone else read it. Writing is very powerful and can sway people’s decisions. And when it is a brand you are trying to sell, you want them to be swayed in your favor, not away from the product.

In the words of Dolly Parton, it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.

So, for those [...]]]> I went looking for something on taxes for home based businesses and do you know what I discovered? It costs over $60 for even the most basic and cheapest software I have been able to find.

In the words of Dolly Parton, it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.

So, for those of us who just wish we could say we work 9-5 and know that running a business is more like a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job, I am going to be sharing what I sort out here as I work on my own small business taxes.

All posts will be gathered under the “taxes” category.

I’m not [...]]]> Since the start of May I have been working toward starting up a business making quilts, it has been a rocky startup, but so far I think I’m getting there. I’ve been making quilts for family and myself for years, and now I am planning to turn that toward a second income source.

I’m not about to give up my writing, but I need to get another source of income if I want to ever stand a chance of owning my parent’s home. So, enter the quilts. Which is actually a very fitting business for trying to earn money for the house, since I got into quilting by making a quilt for my mom for Christmas one year.

I think that she would be very encouraging of me pursuing quilting as a home business. And I will need to pursue it from home, since the plans I had for participating in the Saturday Market in my local town seems to be more of a hassle than potential profit at this point. $25 each time I want to set up there to sell, with only a small handful of fellow vendors and half the number of people stopping in at the market. I would love to go every weekend, but between the low return on investment and the hassle of getting someone on the weekends that wants to hang out with dad so he does not have to go to the market from 9am to 7pm…. ::shakes head::: It is just much easier to run the business from home with an online storefront.