Jacqueline Myers is a self-proclaimed English nerd.  She’s taught college English, English as a second language, composition and literature, as well as worked as a college level instructional librarian. She started Nitty-Gritty English as a way to help students navigate the murky waters of college writing. 

What made you decide to start a home business?

The idea of starting an online business appealed to me way before I knew how to make it happen.

  I had been teaching college classes exclusively online for a couple of years, so I already knew that I enjoyed working alone and at home, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted to utilize some of the skills that I had not been using in my past jobs in academia. I also knew that what I had to offer was needed by many and that by offering informal lessons and information to all online, I could reach a much larger audience, without all of the time-intensive and mind-numbing essay grading that comes with being a college English professor.

Why did you start the business you did?

In many ways, I was starting a new phase of my life, and I was ready for a change in my career. Our daughter had started college so it was just my husband and I in the house again, and we had moved to a different part of the country, leaving behind all that we knew. The timing just felt right to me. It felt like a natural progression.

What steps did you take to get started?

I did a great deal of research, trying to decide if there were really reliable and legitimate ways to make money with an online business.

I carefully followed a few blogs, and after I felt comfortable with a particular business coach, I signed up for one of her courses that took me step-by-step through the process of setting up an online business. I started my blog, then created a social media presence and wrote informational freebies for my niche. Building the business has been much of the same: blogging regularly, marketing my services and products while working to increase my client base.

How did you get your first customer/client?

Two months after I got my blog up, I got a message from a man who has several educational websites that he wanted me to write for. I still don’t know how he found my little site, but he did. Writing for him lead to other clients to write and edit for. Even though my original business plan had been only focused towards college students, I decided to go for it, so I changed my plan to be two-pronged: information and coaching for college students and writing and editing for small businesses and bloggers.

How do you market your home business?

I blog a couple of times each week and use social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Since my niche is a physical presence, and I live in an area with a major university and many smaller colleges, I market locally using tangibles such as business cards, T-shirts, flyers, car magnets, etc. to market off-line. I create short reports/checklists as free incentives to visitors of my blog. I also do quite a bit of guest blogging for other sites and collaborate with others on projects that get my name and brand in front of other, new audiences. In the coming months I plan to expand my marketing into videos and podcasts.

What are your biggest challenges?

One of my biggest challenges is to keep my focus on what is a priority for now. I am a very motivated and organized person, but it is so easy to get confounded by what to work on next with an online business. It is multi-faceted, and so it is easy for me to get ahead of myself. I also have to be aware of comparing myself and my work successes to others who have been doing this for a much longer time than I have been.

What are your biggest successes?

My biggest success is coming as far as I have, in the time that I have. And even though I wish I were able to quit my “real job” and focus only on the business, I feel successful because the money I earn from my new career, while not enough to pay all of the bills, has been substantial enough to put back into the business so that it can grow faster. I also feel successful in learning all that I have. I love learning new things, and there are always new things to learn in the world of online business!

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?

I wish I had known how to balance my work and home lives more effectively. I think I have come up with some boundaries that work pretty well, but it is a constant challenge to separate these two parts of my life when they are housed under the same roof. I can easily feel like I work all of the time if I’m not careful, so understanding this difficulty and being more prepared for it would have made me happier and more efficient in the first months of the business.