Virginia Wineries and Chocolate

On our way up to the Hershey chocolate capital of the US, Hershey, Pennsylvania, we stopped to sample a few of the Virginia winerys. To my liking of course, there was a few wines always pointed out to us that they would be perfectly paired with chocolate! Of course, they were taken home with me along with a few nice sauvignon blancs. Raspberry wines, spiced wines seemed to pair best so look out for these in your travels and stop and support these wonderful and magical small wineries here in the US! It is a great way to break up a road trip!

Chocolate Mint as a Pick me up!

I gave my web girl a little gift of chocolate mint mist spray when she came over to help me with using Front Page, the program to update a website. Did you know a little mint with chocolate can give you the pick me up that you need in the afternoon after working long hours on your computer? Try a chocolate mint candle or chocolate mint lip balm for sure! It is the calorie-free way to go!!! Happy New Year everyone!

Wholesaling

Whether you are buying wholesale or you yourself will be selling wholesale, the concept of wholesaling is one you will come across in the chocolate business. I learned from my very favorite people, the state IRS, that you need to give retail liscensing proof to other business owners before you can sell to them. I did not know some of that early on and test marketed a small sample of product with a few business owners without that knowledge. The businesses themselves did not ask though so how was I to know! Just another tip for all startups!!

Once you organize yourself, no worries!

I have learned that this is key with business. I have been organizing all Chicks Love Chocolate paperwork into files and last night, I organized all my online files also. It is necessary in this world to operate quickly and have all information available at your fingertips for questions etc… I am happy to say that the once this happened, stresses went away immediately!

Suppliers Tip, Go Paypal!

Recnently, I had a supplier who did not fill the complete order for some soaps. I called them to ask when to expect it and was talked to very rudely by the owner. I was not happy!!! Good thing for paypal though. If you purchase items via paypal, you can dispute charges. Paypal will withdraw the money until the dispute is closed. Remember, when dealing with suppliers to use paypal if possible. It is worth it for instances such as this!!!

Come on Girls! Get along!

Unfortunately, you cannot trust all other woman to help each other out in business. I think because of woman’s innate competitiveness (supposedly for reproducing purposes, I have read) with each other that there becomes a need for woman business associations to foster better female relationships. If I was to run a business center, this would be one of my top priorities because it is so unnecessary!!!! Of course, if you are in the same business, there is always going to be an essence of competition but come on, girls, there is no need for competition if you are not in the same line of work and only a win-win if you pair up!!!! I had the recent opportunity to be featured in one of our local women’s business magazines called Jolie and because their editor was so helpful, she gets my vote for woman of the year!!! Thanks to her for making my Christmas so special and picking Chicks Love Chocolate as the editor’s pick for the Valentines Day edition 2007!

Buying Domains for Chicks Love Chocolate

I bought a few more domains today. You should as I have been told, buy domains with .org, .net,.biz etc… so that noone else can use your name. I have actually trademarked the phrase “chicks love chocolate” so it does not really matter! So far, the best place I have found for price is godaddy.com. They have a deal right now on privatizing the name so no spam, etc… can get to you.

Cafepress.com

If you are unfamiliar with cafepress.com, here is the scoop! This site will let you put any of your artwork on shirts, hats, mugs, etc… and sell it. It is great and easy to work! I use it for all my chocolate designs and it makes my life really easy because you markup your stuff yourself and they make the products, ship it out and send you a check!! Sooooo… easy! I have a little space that I love keeping up with. Yesterday, I changed a banner! Yes, no website experience at all! I just got the HTML code that they provide and placed it on the site where I wanted it! You need to upgrade to premium status if you want to add multiple designs to the same products but it is cheap and for as little as $5 per month! Love that!

Chocolate Walking Tour Charleston

I went on the Charleston Chocolate Walking Tour Friday and had the best time! I highly recommend it! It is full of information about chocolate, how it is grown, what is the difference in percentages of cocoa, how do you use it and on and on! I met two female pastry chefs in Charleston that were using chocolate in so many exciting ways! I had the best hot chocolate ever at a restaurant called Tristan on the South Market. Nicole, the chef, put cayenne pepper, chiles and cinnamon in this rich delicious concoction of chocolate! It was heaven! Then they take you to McCrady’s and they make a their best selling dessert called soft chocolate. Way easy! It was rich and delicious! Then we went to Lucas, a small Belgian chocolate shoppe full of delicious goodies! I had chocolate dreams that night! The best walking tour Charleston has to offer!

Please visit the following link to learn more:
www.carolinaprofoods.com

Front Page Tutorial 12/23/06

Yesterday, I learned briefly how to use Front Page from a wonderful woman from Germany who learned Microsoft Front Page on her own and now helps others build their own sites! After realizing that the front page extensions were not installed on the server Blue Host, we were in business! I can now update pages, add images and manage my own site! Front Page is supposedly going to stop being updated this year but I was assured that that was not an issue since Front Page is such a great program already! Girls, if you need to manage your own site instead of paying web developers as much as $75.oo per hour, use Front Page!!!