It’s been a long but exciting day for lifeteen.com and nomoho.com. I worked on the online store on lifeteen.com almost all day. It’s so beautiful to watch it all come together. This store is going for our ministry for two reasons:

1. We can start bringing in money through the website. Since I started working for lifeteen.com in 2001, we have not brought in any money. It’s seen as an “investment” in our ministry, but because it doesn’t bring in money, I have to pinch pennies every fifteen seconds. So once the website can start being a source of income, I’ll have more help to run the site, which will give me more creative freedom to make the site what it should be: fresh, exciting, and quality.

2. It can showcase what we do. With an online store, we are able to show visitors to the website what we do. Sometimes they come to the site they think that’s all there is to our organization, but in reality we have 980 parish Life Teen programs, three summer camps, and dozens of conferences throughout the year. On top of all of that, we have written and created resources that can really help a lot of churches do better work: things like books, training manuals, retreat guides, training DVDS, etc. Plus, we have cool shirts that teens really want, but could never get. When all of that is nicely organized in our online store, it becomes more like an online showcase.

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So now an update on nomoho.com. I don’t know if I’ve written about this in the past month, but I FINALLY got the custom-made NoMoHo belt buckle in the mail. It looks terrific–everything I wanted. So I called the manufacturer and gave them the go-ahead to make the rest of the buckles. This is so good because I’ve spent the past year working with different manufacturers to find the best buckle at the best price, and now it’s finally coming together.
I took down the old nomoho.com yesterday so I can start loading it with a Yahoo! Store. It took a while to figure out how I wanted to host the store, and I concluded that Yahoo! had the most reliable and easy-to-use store, all the while good looking. So now I’m tearing through the step-by-step process to get the store online. At the same time, I’m researching to find the most reliable and economical print shop to create the shirts. The designs are already done, so once I find the right business, it’ll all happen pretty quickly.

My sister is compiling all the email addresses from my guestbook here on supafly.com, so I’ll be able to let everyone know that the site is up. I’m always traveling, so I’ll be able to promote the site throughout the country through the rest of the fall and into the winter. But honestly, I don’t think I’m going to have to work too hard to get the word out because people are already really excited about the site, and it’s not even cool yet. I hope the word will spread. :)

Once the site is up, the next step is to customize my Honda Element and ‘54 Chevy to promote the site. I’ve decided to do the Element first because it’s my daily driver and it’ll bring more exposure. Plus, the Chevy will be mostly just me working on it, so I’d rather do that later in the year when it’s cooler outside so I can work on it in my garage.

When the cars are done is when I’ll begin putting together press releases to bring some traffic to the website. This is going to be particularly fun, but I don’t want to spoil any of the fun, so I’ll avoid writing about it.

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Summary
For both of these websites, the work is hard and takes up a lot of time. I know that this will all pay off soon, and I will be thankful that I gave it all I had. Success is built on a clear vision, hard work, and tenacity. It’s going to be awesome when it all comes together.
All of this work on my other sites has meant I have not updated this website as much as I’d like. I’m realizing that I can’t multitask as well as I did a year ago–mostly because I’m doing more now that I was a year ago. Plus, the idea of “multitasking” can be an illusion that business=productivity, and that’s rarely the case. When I can, I take it one thing at a time.

I’m beginning to think that I need to wait and remodel my kitchen in the spring of next year, rather than in the next couple months. The biggest reason is because I need to focus and get nomoho.com up, but also because it’s not good to do remodeling projects through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Everyone goes on vacation and you are left with an incomplete kitchen. We’ll see. :)