June 11-13th I attended the World Tea Expo held in Las Vegas, NV. Producers, manufacturers, packaging companies, tea experts, and tea lovers attend this event every year. It is essentially a one stop shop for all things tea.

At the registration table I received an awesome tote bag, my badge, and a drink ticket.

My first class of the day was about creating an online business. This session was hosted by Michelle Pierce Hamilton, owner of beTeas. Michelle Pierce Hamilton is a Nutritionist and a Certified Tea Sommelier. She spoke about her trials and tribulations in opening an online tea shop. Focusing on mistakes she made along the way, and what she learned from her mistakes. Her session was inspiring and I also appreciate the fact that she is a realist. She was very open about the problems that anyone starting a business is going to face.

Some of my take aways from the session that I found to be important:

• buy a spam filtering service or use gmail
• Have you domain name in you email. Example hello@roseglowtearoom.com (I need to work on this myself)
• Spam is inevitable
• Use company emails only with customers and suppliers, not when you are surfing the web (I need to work on this myself)
• Use strong passwords
• Multi-factor authentication
• Secure devices/ wifi/ router
• Be extremely careful with downloading apps and clicking on links in emails
• Educate yourself and staff about software and how to protect yourself (I need to work on this myself)