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What is the Herb Growing & Marketing Network?  What do you get with membership? Click here for details. or    We started in September and members love it---We're on a marketing junket ....FIND OUT MORE Join us now and get on board!!!

This month's Featured Businesses...

Get your business listed in our Herbal Green Pages and find out more about this exceptional resource tool.

Membership price changes for 2010!!!   With the economy it's often hard to come up with an annual membership fee at one time.  So we've listened to you and made some changes.  Effective 1/1/10, our membership regular membership fee went to $19.95  a month.  Now you really have no excuse not to join. :-)  If you are a current member and renew within 4 weeks of receiving your membership renewal notice, you can stay at the current rate of $95 a year...and...we promise not to have an increase for at least 5 years...as long as you renew on time each year.  How many trade associations will do that?     Join now!!!

January 25, 2010	Vol 12 - Issue 2
Herb businesses are hard to run.  Sometimes it seems like there are too many things to keep balanced in the air at any one time.  It seemed so simple to set up shop.  You needed a site, a shopping cart and, as if by magic, orders would come in.  Did you buy into that?           You built that site.  You either invested time and money with someone to set up a great site (or so it seemed at the time).  Or you built it yourself as cheaply as you could.  Maybe it was on a "free" site that had some ads that you didn't mind because it was free.  And now you can't figure out why you don't get all those orders that seemed so promising.            Isn't it working for you?  You've got to get serious with your business.  Are you dying to be one of the starving herbalists out there?  There's nothing that says if you love herbs and want to support yourself making a living from plants it can't be a lucrative one.  I even bought into that state of mind at one time.          Start thinking and acting like an entrepreneur.  You can be ethical.  You can support causes you feel compelled to help.  And you can really do things that matter AND create a good living for yourself and your family.  Invest in a good website.  Keep up with social media to promote your site and your products.  If you don't have much money, look for ways to promote yourself cheaply.  But don't think you can just sit there and customers will find you.           Of course, I want every herb business out there to join us and take advantage of all the support we give to members of our network.  But even if you choose not to, help your herb business by learning what you can do to promote yourself.  Never, never, never give up without giving your best.  How many times have you been close to succeeding and just given up?  It's better to give your best, than always wonder if you could have it. .                                To join The Herb Growing & Marketing Network, click here now.       ***************We're got The Herbal Green Pages Online.  up and running.  Stop in and see what types of herbal businesses are out there.  ************** It will always be a work in process but it's useful now.  It's one of the best resource guides available and is a unique way to find herbal products.   We try to list as many herb businesses as possible.  I'm always looking for new people to add.  If you're an herb business, drop us a line and we'll tell you how to get listed.   If you have a suggestion on what you'd like to see, we'd love to hear it.   Use it now, feel free to go ahead.  It's exciting.             Our online publication, the Bu$iness of Herbs is one of the benefits of membership in our network.   If you'd like to sample us, we're allowing everyone to have access to 4 free issues.  We're hoping you'll find enough material to make an impact on your business and want to join us.  Just drop me an email and we'll send you links to four of our recent issues.  Click here.   Remember, this will not tell you how to start an herb business.  You'll find that in our shop.  It's information on marketing, latest research on herbs and articles on other herb businesses.          We also have a listserve for herb business folk at well.  It's usually limited to association members but we've found it's a great way to help increase the networking experience for all.  So give it a shot....join us by going here and signing up..    Click to join HerbBusiness                                   What kind of businesses are members?  If you check out our featured businesses this month, you'll see a wide variety....growers to manufacturers to retail shops.                              We're always open to comments and suggestions, so feel free to write.                              Email              Maureen Rogers
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Who we are..... The Herb Growing & Marketing Network is the largest trade association specifically for the herb industry with around 900 members in existence since 1990.  We are an information service for our members offering material on anything related to being in an herb business (except for those pesky statistics....there are no good ones so don't ask).   But that's just the beginning......click here for our online secure order form. Featured Businesses of the Month In order to highlight some of the unique businesses that are members of our Network, we're now focusing each month on 5 unique ones.  Click here to see what sites are hot!!   This month we're showing:  PrairieWise Herb School, Backyard Herbalist, Black Kat Herbs, Dorothy Biddle Service, and Deer Creek Farm.  For all our member businesses (and nonmembers too)......check out The Herbal Green Pages Online :-) Have you used our Herbal Exchange?  You may find just the product you're looking for.
One thing I've always believed in is giving back.  I can't always do as much as I'd like but I make it automatic because I can't always remember to do it or it's too easy to make excuses.  Women for Women is one charity that I can't pass up.  And it's a group that I want to do more for.  Right now I help one woman each month with a $27 donation.  I figured there were times when I frittered away at least that amount each month.  And now, in this way a woman gets on her feet.  So in 2009 (and I hope every year) for every 20 new or renewal memberships, I'm pledging to help an additional woman.  That's an additional $324 a year for each additional $1900 that comes in.  So if you're renewing or joining your money isn't going just to me but a woman whose poverty makes all of us seem blessed.  Join or renew right now (www.herbnet.com/shop) and let's help as many women take control of their lives as we can.
Herbal Green Pages Online This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding our resource guide.  Here we list all herb businesses but members have much longer listings, larger type, thumbnails of their websites and more.  Hosted Sites HerbWorld is fortunate in hosting several member businesses. They offer a range of herbal products, services and publications. Want to be hosted?  Click here for details and benefits. Herb Speakers' Bureau Are you looking for a speaker on any aspect of herbs?  Or are you a speaker looking to promote yourself.  Here's your opportunity to be seen.  Network members get a free basic listing and full page listings with pictures are available for a small annual listing fee.  Botanical Dictionary This dictionary contains hundreds of plants with their scientific name, common names and as many different language variations as possible.  We're always looking for more so don't hesitate to make suggestions. (Slowly being added too) Want to start an herb business? We have a starter package of material to get you on the right track (or scare you away depending on your optimist level)  Proceedings from the Beginners' Day program at our last four conferences along with other helpful information. Available in Adobe Acrobat for $10 (get Acrobat Reader for free at Adobe and it can't be a hotmail account) or hard copy for $20.  I personally recommend the hard copy as easier to use. The Weather Page The weather page allows you to check national and local weather forecasts. Herbal Exchange Herbal classifieds covering everything you could want...plants and seeds, dried material, businesses for sale, help wanted, body care products, new medicinals...you name it, we've got it.  These classifieds are free to members of the network and a nominal cost to nonmembers. Care to chat? We have a continual discussion group going on herbal items.....mostly medicinal right now but if enough people are interested we'll establish them for separate categories...cooking, gardening, etc.. Herb Trade This is a new area we're just beginning to work on that will be a shopping area for both wholesale and retail products.  If you'd like to display your products here drop us a line.  Prices are reasonable Comments & Suggestions Click here to give us feedback on the site.....suggestions that would be helpful to you, problems with navigation, things like that. Please don't ask health related questions here....they should go on the bulletin board.	Herb Associations Our directory provides listings for all herb related organizations, associations and societies.  If your group would like to be listed, let us know.  No charge and the listing also goes into The Herbal Green Pages. Herb Press Herb Press lists all publications related to the industry that are available by subscription....from major to newsletter.  No charge for the listing and also listed in The Herbal Green Pages.  Please contact us with your listing.  Herb books are also reviewed here. Herbal Business Publications We publish a series of conference proceedings that offer all that technical information on production and marketing that's so hard to find.  These are the papers presented by the speakers at our annual conferences.  For a listing of topics, click above. To actually order them go to our online order form Herb University Interested in schools, correspondence courses, apprenticeship programs that focus on herbs?  Check them out here.  And if you have a school/course (not classes...those are in the calendar section) drop us a note. Calendar of Herbal Events The Calendar of Herbal Events lists as many happenings and classes as we can find by location.  If you or your group are planning an event please notify us and it will be included.  No charge for this service. Herb Source Looking for specific plants and seeds?  Don't feel like searching through every catalogue?  This is the place.  We list by Latin name and common and who's selling them.  There is a charge to have your listing here but it's nominal. Conferences -  We're not quite sure, but will let you know...... Potpourri Where do I find....?  Here are all the great links to sites that are predominately informational....we constantly add and update but when you need information on anything from homeopathy to Ayurvedic....or you can't find Jim Duke's data base....or want to find Michael Moore's material.....check us out....we've got it.  If you've got a site to recommend, please let us know....but this is for strictly informational sites. Herb Gardens If you're a traveling type you'll want to check out these herb gardens that are open to the public...not only botanical gardens and arboretum but private ones as well.  And if your garden is open to view, drop us a note with a brief description.   Herbalpedia(TM) It's the 2009 edition of our  Herbalpedia CD.  This edition includes 2300 in depth profiles that include everything we can find on the subject: cultivation, history, culinary/medicinal/aromatherapy uses; recipes of all types along with color photos to make identification easier.   Our aim is to increase your knowledge and awareness of our green relations as well as increase your culinary and healing skills.  It comes in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and you can download the Acrobat Reader software for free from Adobe.  The disk is $70US and if you reorder each year, updated CDs are half price. They'll include at least 200 new profiles and any additions or changes to the old ones.  Profiles range from 2-10 pages depending on the plant.  Check out our Bay profile (2009 Herb of the Year).  And if you want to see our what's included, we've got an extensive list.   Order online

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The Herb Growing & Marketing Network
Maureen Rogers, Director
PO Box 245, Silver Spring, PA 17575-0245
717-393-3295; FAX: 717-393-9261
email