the wahm zone exists because you do….
it's frustrating running a part-time business, especially one that is based on a favourite hobby. you love what you do, you enjoy what you do, you have absolute belief in what you do.
nobody else seems to value those things though, not unless you back them up with a long term business plan, a visionary, earth-shatteringly, impactful goal and/or a big bag of money to "invest in your future" (of these, the last one seems to have the most importance to those willing to help you).
except that all just changed, because I for one do value what you do, and there are thousands of people in exactly your position who value it too!
so who am I, this person who professes to value you?
my name's Gary Wilmot and that's me on the right – but let's not be so formal; you can call me Gazza, Gaz or even "the zone controller" (a name that amuses me, so I stuck with it).
for my part, I've always had a deeply embedded desire to be a sort of Robin Hood character; helping "the little guy" overcome the odds that "the bigger guy" doesn't usually have to deal with. I have a wife (this is important as you will soon find out) who started making jewellery as a hobby; it quickly grew into a little part-time commercial venture too, eventually morphing (somehow, I still don't quite get how lol) into a kids' clothing hobby/business.
now my wife, let's call her Helen (after all that IS her name), has absolutely no intention on giving up her two jobs (primary school teacher and a mum); she sees her hobby business as a way to have fun and earn a few extra dollars in the process. in fact, since she started attending local markets, she's found that there's a great social aspect to it as well.
the thing is, when she goes to markets, many people don't want to buy right then and there, some of them want to take contact and web site details, so they can check things out later. therein lies a small yet significant problem – you need to have a website for them to look at!
this is where the robin hood thing comes into it
Helen is a remarkably intelligent person and had the tremendous foresight to marry her very own geek in shining armour (or sticking to the robin hood thing, geek in tights? let's scrub that one…)
using my geek wisdom and web skills that spiderman would be proud of, I did what any self-respecting hubby would do and built her a business website – not just one with a few bits of text and pictures, and a bunch of PayPal buttons – a full blown professional business website, with shopping cart etc. etc. etc.
the thing is, there's NOTHING earth-shattering about that; ecommerce sites are commonplace these days, the components are available for any competent software developer to throw together. unfortunately for you, you probably didn't marry a software guy or a web geek, did you?
the wahm zone is the next best thing to being married to me!
(probably)
the wahm zone was built so that you could put your business online, connect with like-minded business hobbyists (or is that hobby business-ists?) and generally get your paws on the things you need, while avoiding all the usual stuff about "investing in yourself", "active networking", "developing the right mindset", "business and personal coaching", blah blah blahdy blah…
the wahm zone was built so you don't have to pay for expensive third party apps just to sell your products, or run promotions.
the wahm zone was built so you don't have to spend more each month on web stuff than you do for a physical market stall!
above all else, the wahm zone was built because hobby businesses are for life and not just christmas!
so now you're just worried that it will cost a fortune, aren't ya?
I can't say that I blame you – after all, it's what we've all come to expect from online "solutions" isn't it? but remember, this is a kind of online Robin Hood (minus tights) thing going on here…
- to join the community is… FREE
- to have discussions, post updates and join groups is… FREE
- to send private and public messages to other members (I call them zone-istas) is… FREE
however, in order to keep the community non-spammy, to avoid the need to stuff adverts all over the place, and to save you the hassle of saying "no thanks" to the question "do you want to pay for people to actually see this content?"… there is a small fee for the mini sites service.
however, at $6 (aussie dollars) per month it works out at around 20 cents per day, which is significantly less than you might pay for a shopping cart service plus shopping cart app plus contact form app plus… so what're you doing still reading this stuff? Click the big button below…