Our Little Treasure is a real little treasure

Our Little Treasure is designed to introduce parents and careers to educational and fun play ideas for their children, in their own home. Kirsty Newbury and Susan Clarke started Our Little Treasure (OLT) after realising parents and carers were desperately seeking information on how to provide their children with fun and educational play activities within the home. Having owned a childcare centre for 10 years Kirsty and Susan were very experienced in the area of educational play activities. They knew there were other cost effective ways to engage a child in learning and educational play within the home, rather than using external costly facilities.

OLT is the first parenting site to host short video clips on creating play activities for children. Kirsty says, “today’s parents are often time poor and need to find effective information, quickly. Our video clips provide them with just that, a short video detailing an activity and showing them just how easy it is for a parent to be involved in making their child’s playtime as educational and fun as possible”.

Many people start a business with a vision of their future firmly in mind. The reality of starting and operating your own business can be a stark contrast to the original vision that possibly inspired you to start your own business in the first place. Kirsty admits she and Susan were a little naïve when they started OLT. They have since discovered it is important to view your first year in business as a bit of trial and error. Kirsty says over the course of a year they have gained valuable experience and a greater understanding of:

The needs of their target market
Who their competition is
The true potential of their products and services

Until you start your own business a majority of your business ambitions are based on pure speculation. It is only once you are in business you will truly understand how you can successfully profit from satisfying the needs of your customers. Quite often business owners find they need to redefine their business model, which can include critiquing the product or service offering. Your first year in business is a significant time, even if you are not making a profit. Few people start a business and get it right first time; it takes time to develop a successful business. Kirsty says once they had started operating OLT they discovered a better way to effectively satisfy their customer’s needs and successfully generate profits. Initially OLT was subscription based however Kirsty says they soon discovered they could provide a much higher quality of beneficial information if OLT changed their business model to derive revenues through on line advertising instead of charging on a user pays basis. Kirsty makes an important point, she encourages business owners, particularly start-ups to look at their revenue model and consider is this the best most cost effective way to generate profits.

Strong positive word of mouth is key to the success of any business. Your brand and reputation is your platform for motivating word of mouth. How you portray yourself in the market place is an important deciding factor between whether a customer chooses to use your business and or refer your business to others. For many start-ups the creation and development of a strong brand is extremely important. OLT is expanding their offering, they are currently developing an on line shopping cart, to sell related products. Kirsty explained “we have been very careful and selective about the products we have decided to stock, understanding what we represent on OLT forms part of our brand and reputation”. What you associate your business to and with, can have a dramatic impact on a customers perception of your business, when stocking your business with products or services be selective. Be selective about where you distribute your product or service, how you advertise and where, as this can impact your brand and reputation.

Not only is important to ensure your advertising is inline with your branding, it is just as important to ensure your advertising dollars are spent on advertising designed to successfully reach your target market. Kirsty says they learnt an important lesson when it comes to print advertising. Kirsty says they spent valuable dollars on advertising in print media to find the results disappointing. Kirsty acknowledges they find on line advertising works for OLT, since visitors are able to easily click through to their site. Unlike print media, where OLT were hoping the reader would act upon the advert and later access the Internet to visit their site. This is an important point, when considering where to advertise, assess what is the true potential of reaching your target market and what is the likely outcome they will act accordingly.

Like many business owners Kirsty admits she has had to deal with her fair share of ups and downs. Kirsty says, “When you start your own business you have to take on many different roles, a marketer, a spokesperson, a book keeper and so on”. Initially it can be a steep learning curve, hence it is important to make calculated decisions, based on research and analysis. Kirsty explained since establishing OLT in 2006 she has had to develop her understanding of how to manage a website, generating advertising revenues and the analysis of website statistics. She acknowledges when she experiences difficulties, she finds comfort in her long-term plan. Explaining it is important to learn from mistakes made and adapt accordingly “in business there is no such thing as a mistake if you learn from it and are able to improve” says Kirsty. Stating “if it gets me to where I want to be in 5 years time then its all worth it, no mistake can crucify you if you have thought about it”. As Kirsty explains, “Things don’t happen tomorrow”, a year on they are still refining OLT, they realise they have so much further to go, however they know they will be where they want to be within 5 years.

Our Little Treasure

Our Little Treasure is an online resource for parents and carers of young children. As part of this fantastic website you can find Activity Ideas, Recipes, Articles, Shopping and much more making time with your children rewarding and fun.
For more information, click here to visit www.ourlittletreasure.com.au.

We will show you how you can make money in the new economy!

Our aim is to Show Mummy the Money!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

Every effort has been made to ensure that this website is free from error or omissions. However the publisher, the contributors and their respective employees or agents do not accept responsibility for injury, loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this website whether or not such injury, loss or damage is in anyway due to any negligent act or omission, breach of duty or default on the part of the publisher, the author or their respective employees or agents.