Well now. This HAS been exciting.

First of all, I moved to England. Hurray! If you’re ever looking for something really fun to do, I recommend crossing the Atlantic with a 2-year-old. I also recommend you try to co-ordinate it so that said 2-year-old does not sleep for a second during the entire overnight flight. And if you can swing it so that they close the airport you’re supposed to land at and you have to hang around for 3 hours in a locked airplane at Heathrow instead, well, so much the better.

The good news is, I now live in an idyllic little town called Cheddington which has all of 1103 people. (When you think of a pastoral English town, this is what you’re thinking, folks. Remember The Holiday? I think I live in Kate Winslet’s house. Except is warmer, which is a plus.)

The bad news is, I live four houses down from the 15th century pub. Now, I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot be expected to walk AN ENTIRE FOUR HOUSES just to get a fucking glass of mulled wine. I thought of writing to the mayor to complain and then I realized we didn’t have one.

Let’s move on, shall we? Read More

Every person who was abused as a child has a choice to make. They can beat their own kids, or they can spend the rest of their life doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t happen to other kids.

I choose the latter, and sometimes it’s a hard choice to make. I’m a Pisces which means I have the tendency to burst into tears when I watch the evening news, and hearing about suffering makes me want to curl up into a ball and listen to Enya and pretend like it’s not happening.

But when someone is in trouble or danger, the Enya option isn’t an option.

Children are forced to watch Daddy beat Mummy and we can’t ignore it.

One of your fellow IttyBiz owners is being stalked by her very violent ex-husband. Business isn’t exactly great — she’s got other stuff on her mind — and she needs to get out of there, pronto. Read More

DISCLAIMER: I don’t make one thin dime if you hire any of the people I recommend in this post.

”Dear Naomi,

I know about guest posting and comment strategies and social media, but everybody’s talking about those. How do I REALLY get traffic? How do YOU do it?”

I get this email a lot. Like, a lot. And I thought I’d take the time to answer it, and the dozens that are kinda sorta like it.

A good portion of the people who come to me for brainstorming or marketing consulting are people that are brand new to owning a business. They are still in the reconnaissance stages and figuring out what their plan of attack should be.

To these people, I thank you for sending me your money, but in future, you might be better off if you didn’t.

Nothing I come up with — and nothing any other marketing coach comes up with — is going to be any different from what you can figure out for yourself. We are not revolutionaries. We’re just creative.

When you’re first starting out, you don’t need creative. You need to get off your ass. Read More

So, that thing that happens at the end of December is coming. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the thing that every year makes me threaten to convert to Judaism and every year, Jamie reminds me that the Jews don’t have it any better than we do.

Do Buddhists have the fat dude in the red suit?

Anyway, since you have to shop anyway, you may as well shop from a fellow IttyBiz, yeah? Here’s some awesome stuff to get you started. (For those of you into conspiracy theories, none of these are affiliate links. I’m just doing this because I’m cool.) Read More