JOY I love this word! Meaning: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune,  HAPPINESS

I love to think of what brings JOY in my life.

FAMILY = JOY

Our family business – Ovaleye brings me JOY

JOY is used in my favorite BMW commercials and ads.

Motorcycle rides with my husband = JOY

Good wine = JOY

Gluten free lifestyle = JOY

Morning Gym time = JOY

We have a new bundle of JOY.  Our perfect little Grandson.

J O Y ..
What brings you JOY?

Well it’s my life…  I am the owner of a website hosting company called Ovaleye Web Solutions.

Here are some fun facts about web hosting and why you need it.

1. Without hosting your website isn’t live.  You need hosting!
2. Your emails that include your domain name ex. kathy.nelson@ovaleye.com all need to be hosted.
3. Your hosting package includes all the tools you will need to set up a website.
4. Traffic of your website is tracked with your hosting company tools and  this is included in your package.
5. Shared Hosting means your website shares space on a server with other websites.  It does not invade anyone’s space.
6. Dedicated servers are used for websites that need extra space or tools to manage their own hosting environment.
7. Ecommerce packages will include tools to get a store online such as:

• SSL certificate to show that you are a legitimate business
• Secure hosting so your clients can enter credit card information.
• Payment gateway set up..

(Paypal is the simple solution to this)

Here are a few questions you should ask your hosting company.

1. Where are your servers located?
2. What is your customer service hours?
3. The monthly fee can be quite low with some companies, so you want to make sure that with this package they do not shut your website down at anytime if you exceed their maximum storage..  You get what you pay for!
4. How long does it take to get a simple question or update done?  It should not take a week! This is your business!
5. If you need a little hand holding to get started online, go with a company that helps their clients set up their website.
6. Do they have an actual server or are they using a “unlimited” hosting plan and adding your website to their own.

I am always looking out for my clients and making sure they have the tools to grow their business online.  I am Kathy Nelson and I own a hosting company www.ovaleye.com

I have been thinking that I have been in this situation before.  The situation where you are constantly trying to be in front of your audience and keep them interested in your business.

From 2000 – 2004 I was the manager of a local hard rock band.  It fit nicely with our online music store at the time. I met the band called Alkai Diggins in 1999 when they just graduated high school and did a in-store show which brought a huge crowd to my little cd store.  So looking at the sales of the night we asked them back.  Our store promoted many bands in the area, but this band brought a huge crowd of people of all ages.  The band members would visit me and talk about their plans of breaking into the local Seattle scene.  I was intrigued!  I was asked to manage their band and I had no idea how to manage a rock band that consisted of 5 boys who wrote all their own music.  So I became their manager and my husband Tracy was their roadie.  For years I promoted the band and traveled to California, Oregon, and all over Washington.

This experience of promoting a band took some time.  We would play in the really bad dives of Everett and other cities that were so close to Seattle but not there yet..  The goal of the band was to play in nice clubs in Seattle, open for big bands and record cds.  We did all of these things and played almost every weekend in Seattle for a few good years.  I will tell you going in the back doors in the alley ways at 3am, driving a bunch of smelly boys on the road and staying up way too late was one of the best times Tracy and I had.  Those boys worked hard and we fought hard to get into nice venues and actually made pretty good money at those shows and sold out a few too. We also made a 11 song cd with cover art and sold it in every store we could, including big Franchises.  I would mail 100’s of cds to radio stations and online music stations. We had a coffin guitar case that we dressed up with Christmas lights and I sold their cds and t-shirts at shows. This taught me so many great skills in marketing and this was right before MySpace and Facebook! Flyers, posters and emails and an awesome website were how we got the word out back then.

So if I can promote a 5 member hard rock band, I can promote anything!

Did you know that your domain name is your real estate on the internet?

Do you know who your domain is registered with?

Is your domain name in your name?

Is your contact updated in your Whois information?

Has it expired and you still want the domain name and don’t know how to get it back?

Did you know that a domain name is the most important part of a website?

I help my clients with domain names every day and the above issues come up all the time.  To change hosting from one place to another you need your domain name.  Most of my clients don’t know where they registered their domain name because usually someone else has done it for them.

PLEASE get educated in how your domain name works and where it is registered.  I would be happy to help you get started in finding out how to locate your domain name so you can be the sole owner of your own property.  It’s so important!

I am Kathy, owner of Ovaleye Web Solutions where we host websites and help our clients with their hosting and website needs.    I would love to help you update your websites and be in control of your business online.

My domain name is OVALEYE.COM

Flying to me is not in an airplane.  It’s on a BMW motorcycle with my husband.  I never really felt the feeling of flying until this year.  It’s a feeling I want to happen often!

I have been a passenger on the back of our R1150RT BMW with my husband for a few years now.  All over Washington state and parts of California so far.  I was just happy to look around and enjoy the sites.  We have gone on some interesting rides in the past.  Last year on a ride to Eastern Washington we went through a bad wind storm on the bike.  I held on as tight as I could as a big tree slid by us and big 18 wheelers slid around the freeway.  Fun times!  Another time a dog decided to charge at us and the bike fell over with us on it.  The rest of our rides have been fun sight seeing and non eventful just beautiful scenery.

This summer we went on a few short rides and one I will remember for a long time.  We rode to Yakima to stay at a very pretty Bed and Breakfast that I wrote about earlier.  On the way we took a road that followed the Yakima river.  It was so pretty and we rode higher than the river and I looked down and saw water and it felt like I was flying!  It was the best feeling.  Fast with lots of wind and arms out!

This reminds me of the part in Titanic where he says “I’m King of the World”.  It’s a great feeling when you are climbing up that steep, steep hill of building your business.  It feels good to FLY!

I am anxiously waiting to be a Grandma this month!  I can’t wait!  People ask me are you going to be a cool Grandma?  Well YES! I have quite the role model for a Grandmother!  I received an email this past week from my Aunt with a photo of my Grammy. Here it is:

She is 88 years old and decided to get a tattoo!

My Grammy Sophia Kaeser married Keith Kaeser 69 years ago this month.  He has always called her “Squeezy”.  They have lived a very happy healthy life and will be Great Great Grandparents any day!  They had 3 boys, my dad who is the oldest and who looks just like my Grammy.  I was their first Grandchild and being a girl that they always wanted, they got to name me.  Only my family calls me by that name though.  Kathleen..

My Grammy has always been a big part of my life.  I have everything she ever gave me.  My mom makes fun of the thing I have saved the longest, it’s an overnight bag.  Red, round and with my name inked on the front of it and it now sits next to my dresser.  She has made me knitted items and then gave my sister and I recently her knitting needles.  When I see her I listen intently to her stories so I always remember them.  She and my Grampy think the world of my husband and say to me we are just like them!  Such a compliment!

My Grammy has taught me to enjoy life and keep healthy.  She walks miles each week, tap dances with younger women and socializes as much as possible.  She stays young and happy.

Maybe my grandson will call me Grammy

Running a business can be quite overwhelming without a team around you.  I am in awe of anyone that does this alone without family or a team behind them.  If you are one of those lone business owners please comment on how you do it!

My team has grown in 2010 and without them I would not have been as far as I am now.  I am one of those business owners that is learning as I go basically.   The biggest lesson so far is to surround yourself with great people! Jenn and Tracy help me daily with our goals for Ovaleye Web Solutions.  I am constantly bombarded with creative ideas from them.  As I write this blog Tracy is asking me to pay attention to our Voip system and can I answer the phone now. As I have written before Jenn keeps me on my toes at all times with her ideas and new strategies.  Some of those are starting to really pay off now!

I want to give a shout out to a few of the people that have helped my business in 2010.  The team you pick is very important to your business growth.  They have to have the same values as your business and want similar goals for themselves.

A few of the people I consider great team support have been:

Margo Myers – http://www.margomyers.com

She is just a great business women full of energy and fun.  Margo is also a team player for many businesses in the Seattle area and I recommend her to get your business out to many publications and media.

Holly Hanna -  http://www.theworkathomewoman.com

Jenn told me to try advertising on Holly’s website one day, so we tried it and 3 months later we are still with her.  Here is what Holly says on her website: a website dedicated to helping women and moms fulfill their dreams of working at home and/or becoming self employed, while providing inspiration, motivation and support.  Holly Hanna (love her name) will help women owned businesses promote services to all her followers and they are growing daily.  She has interviewed us and just supports everything we do.  I was pleasantly surprised at her dedication to helping Ovaleye achieve our goals.

Bear Files – http://www.evolutionfiles.com/

Bear is family and is a very creative guy.  His main niche is beautiful designs for websites, wine labels and more.  I have used his skills for many of our clients needs.  I have also used his social media skills and his business skills.  When the economy sank last year so did his big clients.  He then redesigned himself to meet other needs and trained himself in all areas of websites and social media including hosting for his clients. Sales seems to be the latest topic I talk to him the most about.

Carissa Dunphy – http://caffeinekeyboard.com/

Our latest Team member at Ovaleye.  Mother of a two year old son, wife of a entrepreneur and a techie nerd.  She works her magic with our templates and has much knowledge on marketing small business online with keywords and Google Ads.  Her enthusiasm for the “techie” stuff is pretty funny and we are very happy she joined our team.

Jaime Slutzky – http://simplyjaime.com/

Jamie just joined our team of developers.  She is a mother of two beautiful girls, owner of a Stroller Stride Franchise, and a great wordpress developer and designer.  She has lots of energy and is always happy to help our clients find exactly what they need to succeed online with their business.  Jenn also introduced me to Jamie and we are so happy she is helping Ovaleye.

Kirk Werner -  http://www.itchydogproductions.com/ http://www.olivethewoollybugger.com/ http://unaccomplishedangler.com/

Kirk is a designer, father of two, and one of the best story tellers I know.  I enjoy his blog posts and facebook entries and if you look around our small town of Duvall his logos are on most of the town businesses and he donates so much to our festivals.  His love for Fly Fishing has helped Ovaleye gain a few great fly fishing websites.

Lee Ater – http://www.think2a.com/

Our branding specialist and all around wonderful lady.  She helped me get over my whoosh moment.  ( I will blog sometime about that). She helped Jenn and I create our brand online and showed us things that helped us grow our brand.  She also took Tracy through a fun times in the office of perfecting fonts and sizes on our website.  We all learned so much working with Lee.

Mike Nehl – http://www.laureltreegallery.com/

Mike is a business owner and has lots and lots of experience in the business world.  He and his wife Laurel own an Art Galley in Duvall WA.  Ovaleye has used their gallery to host many of our functions.  Mike has many hats that Ovaleye will use over and over again.  He helps develop websites  and he has been a huge help lately as we grow to the next stage.

When growing your business think of your team that will help you because without mine I don’t know what I would do.  For all my clients out there I would love to help you build your business and your team.

Stay tuned for more team members in another blog.  There are more!

Do you know what your Top 5 things you value most?   I seem to get to know more about myself as I grow my business.  Today  I took a look at what I value most.   I actually changed the list up a bit.  I think my personal growth this year has made me look at my list in a different light.

My top 5 things I value most and that help me stay focused.

1. Freedom – Owning my own business gives me the freedom to sit here and blog from my home office in my sweats.

2. Enjoyment – Working with family and friends is pure enjoyment every day and doing what I love to do.

3. Power -  Respect, leadership & wealth all come in this one word.  I love this word.

4. Connection – To family, clients and to my partners is very important to me.

5. Family – It’s a given and  is my top priority and why I love my life.

What are your 5 top values?

I think the title of my post is one that will help your business grow.  As one who is doing this, It’s a challenge to get yourself out to the masses.  I don’t know anyone that actually started one day and then the next day exploded.  It takes awhile to build relationships with your followers.   It’s easy for me to build relationships while networking in person.  I love it!  I am use to their facial expressions and laughs.  “LOL” is not the same I watch the best of the best on twitter and facebook.  I would say my hero so far is Gary V.  I think he has the personality to shine to his followers just as he would in person.  Actually I bet in person he is quite animated.

So how do I show that I am animated and as passionate as Gary online.  He says in his books to be passionate about your business and what you do.  I agree, but he gets to talk about wine.  One of my passions.  I am talking about hosting your website online.  Whoo hoo!  Yep, servers and emails are my passion actually!  I am coming to terms with this that it’s not as glamorous as wine but it’s pretty cool!  It finally hit one morning while listening to Gary on my ipod (I recommend the audiobook) that my passion is servers, websites, and emails.

My personal tagline is “Encourages small businesses to thrive online”.  Our servers (which I am very passionate about) allows my clients to pick anything they need in their vault of applications to use to build a website.  So all my businesses I host can pick a shopping cart that connects to paypal and start selling their services or products online today!  A favorite tool our clients use is the template website called sitebuilder where you can add as many pages, photos and a shopping cart all yourself and all for just a small hosting cost.  Many of my clients choose this package to save cash for marketing their website.  You can upgrade at anytime.   We provide the help!

So to build my community online I will connect with as many women-owned small business that need my help to thrive online! I am Kathy and I am the CDM (chief decision maker)  Ovaleye Web Solutions.

How often do you really look at yourself?  I thought I did often enough.  Last week I really saw myself as a business owner/CEO.  It was eye opening!

I found out a few things about myself.  I have a lot of white noise around me.  Meaning I let all sorts of distractions come in and I am not focusing on the nuts and bolts of my business.  My focus is at everything lately.  Marketing, finances, social media, and helping my clients.  All of these things are great to do, but I have found that it’s making me crazy   My last blog was feeling overwhelmed!

I was working for my business and my business should be working for me!

In the past week I have really let myself see the things I need to focus on getting my business where it needs to be.  Looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing the flaws is not easy.  I was very selective on what I saw before.

I have already put in motion a more focused and aggressive plan for my daily duties.  This will free up time I need to concentrate on ME!

I am Kathy and my business is called Ovaleye Web Solutions…