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In response to my blog post on Monday, the brilliant and creative Denise DiGrigoli, owner of Troy Fine Art Services, Inc., came rushing into my Remarkable Women’s Network event Tuesday evening exclaiming, “I’ve got something to show you!” Denise had written me a heartfelt response to my entry on self-promotion the day before. Last night she handed me this page from Martha Stewart which elaborately pinpoints exactly where you can find Martha–on television, on twitter (or The Twitter as Betty White so adorably calls it), at events, on the radio, on her blog and The Daily Wag which catalogs her pooches’ comings and goings. That’s how Martha is staying connected and letting her fans know where she is.
Marketing is not a passive activity. Build a website and they will come? Not anymore.
In response to Martha’s powerful example, Denise who is nothing if not a consummate go-getter created her own self-promotional version.
I challenge you to cut and paste your own version of Where To Find __________ and understand that a one-time postcard mailing or monthly newsletter is not going to get the big results. Today’s market requires multiple channels of visibility. Martha has laid them out well on her page. Borrow her example and use her variety and breadth of reach as a target.
You can learn a lot about self-marketing from watching the video Isn’t She Great? a fictionalized version of the author’s life starring Bette Midler and Nathan Lane. Jacqueline Susann was the master. When her first novel Valley of the Dolls was published, she and her husband created their own marketing campaign which included arriving at the distributors’ loading docks with doughnuts and coffee and complimenting the teamsters union. She and her husband made a cross-country tour arriving at bookstores (pre-Barnes and Noble days) in every small town to introduce herself and her novel. She memorized the shop owner’s name and birthday and arrived with bravado to introduce herself to them personally.
It worked. Valley of the Dolls is noted to be the best-selling novel of all time at 30 million copies sold.
Why I bring this up is that an artist friend and I were discussing self-promotion and what it takes. As you can see from this example, Jackie put as much into the publicizing of her book as she did into the writing of it, if not more. This friend mentioned a colleague who seemed to be spending more time on social media and self-promotion than on honing her creative skills. Not jealousy, but observation. It sounded to me like this artist would find a more profitable niche actually helping other artists spread their message.
There’s a fine line between being the creator and letting others know about it. In the movie version of Susann’s life, the literati were not exactly flattering. There was a television clip of an interview with Truman Capote about the success of Valley of the Dolls. His quote was, “That’s not writing. That’s typing.” (Interestingly, on Wikipedia the quote is attributed to Gore Vidal.)
I’m curious if any of you struggle between being the business owner and promoting the business. Where are you in the mix?
Check if this feels familiar: A company owed me a check for the books they had sold during a speaking engagement. I had anticipated receiving that money a few days after the event. Now it was closer to a few weeks and still no check. My resentment was rising. I had to take a look at my piece of the transaction.
- Did I have our agreement in writing? No.
- I noticed that I was getting more and more annoyed at the absence of an envelope in my mailbox.
- I then realized I hadn’t even been to my P.O. to check on incoming mail for several days.
- I owned the fact that I had not emailed my contact to be sure the transaction was in process.
- I realized my passivity was an old way of operating and hoping someone else would take care of me.
Once I got to my post office and saw that the awaited check was not there, I sent an email and got an immediate response and a check soon after. There had been a glitch in the system, and now they were on it. Very simple. No one to blame.
I find that I need to identify my old, but familiar relationship with victimhood every once in a while to be sure I’m not feeding myself a dose of adrenaline just for the rush of emotions it brings. That’s a dangerous place to live, and I don’t want to dwell there.
Mark Twain said, “My life has been full of catastrophes, most of which have never happened.” Are you susceptible to this behavior? The best antidote I know is to share the situation with a trusted friend or colleague, shine the light of day on it, and remove it from the dangerous neighborhood of your brain.
Liz Alpert Fay hired me several years ago to make her create. I say that somewhat facetiously, although there’s an element of truth in it. It’s the same reason I pay my coaches and service providers money–to hold me accountable to that which I have previously procrastinated, avoided or languished over.
Sounds kind of crazy, but without the financial commitment and respect for the professional I hired, I had not preciously achieved what it was I set out to do.
Liz is an extraordinary artist with an extraordinary vision. A few years ago she added on a working studio to her New England home. One of our summers working together involved her first committing to specific numbers of studio hours each day. That meant saying no to many requests from the outside world. This is significant. In order to accomplish your visions and goals, saying no is essential. Even if it means turning down a day at the beach, lunch with your mother-in-law or being first in line to see Eat, Pray, Love. People who accomplish big goals have had to say no to hundreds or thousands of temptations along the way.
Back to Liz, who is a master of focus and dedication to her art. Not only did she commit the hours a day to studio time, she also broke out of the mold of the traditional rug hooking medium in which she had achieved such success. Although the images here are small, the tree skirts surrounding the interestingly shaped tree stumps, are all created using fiber arts and textile techniques.
Liz’s work is on exhibit now at the prestigious Peters Valley Craft Center a vision come to fruition through creating the dream, putting in the hours day after day, saying no, showing up and letting the world know what she was up to.
I received this email from a client yesterday morning. I hear this sentiment a lot and knew it was worth quoting directly:
“I am on my way to Charlotte to the WITHIT conference. Women in the Home Furnishings Industry. I feel a bit guilty going so much this month, but that is the way the schedule fell, and I am determined to network more and outside my normal sphere. Driving this time and planning to spend the night with a dear girlfriend on the way home to spend time with her.
“Not many of us can just go when we want to and I am new to this freedom. Pretty amazing. Looking forward to speaking to you next week.”
My response:
“Let go of the guilty feeling for a second, pull back and take a look at the life you have created for yourself. I see a woman on the move and making a living, with friends in all places and the agility to manage the freedom and joy of this independence. What’s to feel guilty about? That others haven’t designed their lives to have what you have? That you get to be happy?”
And hers back to me:
“I have printed this out to read and reread as I travel over the next couple of days.”
We as business owners all know that the way to capitalize on our resources is to spend our time doing the tasks we do best and delegating the rest. When I was new and young in my business I did it all: data entry (handwriting names on 3×5 cards), producing the items for sale (decorated eggs, jewelry), marketing (designing the postcard mailings and applying the stamps myself), etc., etc. I always felt like I didn’t have the money to pay someone else. And besides, it would take longer to explain it than to just do it.
Over time I learned that in order to grow, I needed to let go of the work that I could hire out and that had a lower dollar-an-hour amount in cost. If I could design and sell an egg for $100 and it took me an hour to do that, then anything taking up my time–like filing or licking stamps (this was pre-self-stick stamp days) valued at less than $100 per hour–I would be wise to delegate. Eventually I hired an assistant in my studio at $10 per hour and never looked back.
Nowadays, I spend 90% of my time coaching, speaking and writing for which I have the highest return on my investment. I hire people to convert my online e-newsletter to html, take registrations for my events and outfit me so I look professional and stylish.
Think of it this way if you’re having a hard time letting go. At some point our forefathers and foremothers let go of milking their own cows and trusted that the milk they drank would be okay, even if it didn’t come from the labor of their own hands.
Is there a to-do on your list that you’d like to let go of but are afraid of losing control? Can you trust that delegating this labor-intensive task will free you up to be more productive in your business? Call a goal buddy and commit to letting go of the equivalent of cow-milking. Let me know how it goes.
I’ve been enjoying listening to podcasts of National Public Radio’s (NPR) This American Life via mp3 downloads. On my walk this morning I heard a recent program called Million Dollar Ideas. During one segment there was a discussion about the good old elevator pitch. They talked about venture capitalists meeting with students at MIT who are learning this important communications skill.
I’ve learned and taught several variations of the elevator pitch, aka 30-second commercial. One of my favorite renditions is by Mark LeBlanc who refers to this as a defining statement for your business. One of the elements for success, according to Mark, is that it should be in language that an 8th grader would understand.
While listening to the NPR podcast, this was slightly altered. What the university advised the students pitching the investors was that it be in language that your grandparents would understand.
Anybody else taken aback by that?
It works every time. What’s the first piece of mail you open, should you receive any, in your snail mail box? If there’s something there that is thick and bulky with a first class stamp and a valued name on the return address, my money says that’s what gets ripped open before you reach your front door.
I received such a mailing last week from trusted client and colleague Brooke Feder. It included a beautifully written note thanking me for my part in her Joy Project launch and a cool-looking white plastic container (in photo).
I slid open the top of the device to reveal a stack of colorful cards, each with a phrase such as: seeing an old friend, a local farm stand, as well as the ones you see here. Each of these cards stated a shared joy which is Brooke’s mission: to spread and share joy.
To learn more about what Brooke is up to and to participate, visit her website: www.3minutestojoy.com. Her mailing to me, and I presume several others, is her living her purpose. It certainly brightened my day.
In addition to spreading joy and closing the loop on her goals from when Brooke participated in my Mastermind sessions, this mailing set me in motion. The neat gadget that Brooke sent is from Moo. I had ordered cards from them when I first began my blog. I’ll be attending the BlogHer Conference in NYC next month and realized I needed to re-order for that event. Brooke’s well-timed mailing was just the reminder I needed.
There’s another trick I want to share in this post. It’s called letting go of perfectionism. I know that the image I took of the cards is ‘blown out’ in photography lingo. The flash was too bright on the cards. I could have spent time and effort making it better, but have learned to focus (no pun intended) on what was more important here: Brooke’s genius mailing, and to let go of getting the image just so. Done is better than perfect.
My younger daughter Laura, to whom my book Soul Proprietor is dedicated, helped me out this week by listening to the soon-to-be-released audio version of the book. Line by line, she read the text while listening to the recording I’d spent the last couple of months on. I wanted a fresh pair of eyes and ears to catch any stumbles or other errors in the recorded version.
She did a fine job dog-earing any page that had a repeated phrase, a mispronunciation or missed word from the text. I want this to be letter perfect. I plan to submit it for acceptance in iTunes and know that any boo-boos would throw it into a reject pile. (BTW, if anyone knows the best way to get onto iTunes listings, please let me know.)
When she was all done reading this new edition as well as listening to my voice speaking it, I asked her if she had learned anything new. After all, she’s known me for 28 years. I was pretty sure it would be in her bones having lived with and observed me for the first 18. Laura is entrepreneurial now herself, translating Japanese text daily for an international television company. She works independently and takes on other freelance work as it comes.
“I was not aware of how much help you’ve gotten from other people,” she told me. The book is filled with examples of my reaching out and asking questions of people in my mastermind group, taking courses, attending networking events and otherwise relying on a think-tank of friends and colleagues who have been more than generous with their advice and resources.
“I didn’t realize how many people you’ve hired and how much you’ve delegated.”
“I had no idea how persistent you have to be. You would call someone six times before letting go. I’ve never done that.”
I love that Laura had me so magically powerful–that I had created it all by myself. But, I love it more that she knows the truth and has a realistic sense of what it truly takes to be successful: lots of help and the determination, willingness and self-caring to go for it.
In May I attended my first Savor the Success event in NYC–an all-day program called Rock the World, which I thoroughly enjoyed (and blogged about). Last night I went to the organization’s monthly meeting hosted by founder Angela Jia Kim. The setting, 75 Wall Street – top floor – had a spectacular view of the East River. Here (in photo), featured speakers on the subject of branding gave a talk about packaging products for media attention.
The ride into Manhattan was fun as I was accompanied by Laurie Davis, aka the Glitter Fairy, and Kate Woodman of Sharp Hill Designs. Both are Premium Members, so I got all the details and a hunger for more. Riding home, we picked up two more passengers to Connecticut: Nancy Moon of Moon Public Relations and Robin Horton of Robin Horton Design and Urban Gardens. As Kate said in an email today, the ride was the best part. Which says a lot, because the event was really good. How rare is it to sit with five women (in an enclosed space) and share stories about business ownership! It’s where the truth comes out quickly and the intimacy of the details is savored.
So why would I join yet another network, especially one 50 miles from my home? The women! Everyone I met had an enthusiasm for entrepreneurship that I have not previously encountered. Angela radiates confidence, poise and intelligence. She gave a brief and crisp talk about midway through the evening. It was informative and to the point. She attracts good people and kept the flow of the night pulsing. No small feat.
