Lisa Smith of GreetingCookie.com

Tell us a little about yourself:
My name is Lisa Smith and I am a 29 year old work-from-home mom. I have a 19 month old daughter named Braelyn & we have a 8 year old Golden Retriever.
My husband, Matt works for the Arizona Diamondbacks Professional Baseball team and we live in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ
called Surprise, AZ.

What is your business name and web address:
Our business name is GreetingCookie.com and our web address is the same!

Tell us a little about your business:
GreetingCookie.com started from an idea we came up with after becoming bored with traditional holiday and birthday greeting cards.
We wanted to come up with a greeting card that people could send to family and friends to celebrate holidays, birthdays and other special occasions that was different, yet simple.
We wanted to be able to write our own message, like a normal greeting card, but also wanted to add something special to the card, so we added cookies and who doesn’t like cookies?
We also wanted to make sure the cookies represented what the respective holidays and celebrations stand for and we think we have the right mix for each.
Our delicious, gourmet cookies are hand decorated, contain zero trans fats and are kosher.
We offer cookie greeting cards with cookies in a variety of shapes and sizes for most celebrations and holidays.
Our cookie greeting cards come in a clear, see-through, resealable package with the greeting card and individually wrapped cookie inside.
All of our cookie greeting cards allow you to write your own message and are better than traditional greeting cards or flowers because you can eat them!

What inspired you to become a work at home mom:
My husband travels every other week for his job from March-October and then has October-February off so I didn’t want
to have to go back to a 9-5 job after I had my daughter. I wanted to be able to take time off when he is home and
travel with him when we get the chance. I couldn’t imagine putting my daughter in daycare all day and having someone
else spending more time with her, teaching her, etc. than I was.

Is there any advice that you would like to share with other women on the path of working from home:
Even though you are working from home, keep your boundaries. When it’s family time, dont sneak off to finish a few emails
or make an extra phone call. Keep things seperate; work during your established work time but when it’s family time,
enjoy that special time together. The work can wait until tomorrow!
What has been the most effective advertising method for you:
Networking with my target-markets. Either through professional associations or online groups. Traditional advertising
doesn’t seem to work too well anymore, I really try to aim for word-of-mouth support.

Can you share with us one negative business experience that you learned from:
Make sure that you get everything in writing from confidentiality agreements to supplier contracts to pricing. It’s sad but you
can’t trust that people are going to do what they say they will. Having things in writing and collecting proof of correspondence
can keep you from getting burned and can give you a course of action if something goes wrong.