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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.
My head is still spinning from the informational overload, excitement, new relationships and possibilities opened as a result of attending this spectacular conference in NYC last week. I want to offer my own session next year called something like, “So you’re totally inspired by BlogHer ’11. Now what?”
Thought I’d share some of my follow-up to-do list to inform and inspire you, and for you to hold me accountable.
- Check out and spend time on these websites and blogs among others:
tarynp.com
alltop.com
pearltrees.com
topsy.com
tumblr.com
smartbrief.com
- Spend time: researching google analytics for my blog posts, inserting a google tool bar, learning more about feedburner, clicky.com, wompra, postrank, filtering keyword reports.
- Add social media addresses to my email sig file. New business cards with social media addresses.
- Introduce people I met at BlogHer to people I know who would benefit from knowing them.
- Write blogs about each of the subjects I noted, like the fine line between friending and stalking; whether or not to truncate blog posts; what it’s like to be more learner than expert, etc.
- Form a social media mastermind group to help me and others up their tech skills in these areas.
- Spend dedicated time on twitter and facebook daily
I will approach these in bite-size pieces and spread them over the next several weeks and months until using social media and feeling more on top of this becomes second nature. Currently it feels like I’m in the parking lot of my elementary school with my father pushing me on my two-wheeler with unsteady training wheels. I look forward to being on the open roads sailing along on a ten-speed, hands free.
One of the first questions I was asked Monday night during my talk at the Wilton Library was about social media–how much to participate and which venues to show up in. I drew from the wisdom of my daughter Lindsey who is not only a successful businesswoman, but also a whale (she has thousands of followers) on the social media scene. She advised, “If you’re not comfortable doing it, don’t.”
Today there’s an article in the Arts section of the New York Times about Woody Allen’s newest technological venture since “his invention of the orgasmatron.” He’s recording some of his works as audiobooks. This is a stretch for the auteur who is quoted as saying: “I don’t own a computer, have no idea how to work one, don’t own a word processor, and have zero interest in technology.” Gee, he seems to have been fairly successful without all that.
An additional article caught my eye in the same issue of the paper today. The front page, below the fold, featured the best horseshoe thrower in America. Color photo and four columns across. He’s being recognized in the world’s greatest newspaper for what he does best.
If you’re doing what you love and are really, really good at it, the world will beat a path to your door. I’m still dabbling in the social media waters, as I know they’re not subsiding, but focusing most of my time on the things I do best and letting the word spread as it will. I encourage you to do the same at whatever speed you travel.
My committed goal to my action partner yesterday was to complete the design and printing of a mailing label off my MacBook. I just bought a new printer for the job as my HP All-in-One rejects my mailing labels. I unpacked the printer, read through the instructions (the short form, not the manual), did a mail merge with my Pages app on the Mac and Address Book and pushed print.
Nothing happened. Aarghh. This is when I really wish there were a cubicle next to my home office where I could simply ask Mr. or Ms. IT, “What am I doing wrong?” But, no. No wonder isolation is one of the top complaints of home-based business owners. So, I did the next best thing and called the help line. Eventually it worked. I felt inordinately pleased with myself over this accomplishment. So happy in fact, I decided to take on yet one more technology learning–how to work the timer on my digital camera. The motivation was that I wanted to show you with my printed label. Having a compelling motivator made learning this trick quick business.
In my new edition of Soul Proprietor I devote an entire chapter to gaining an edge on technology. When I wrote the first edition, back in 2001, I was using email and not much else. Now, many of my conversations at networking events revolve around technology. I met someone yesterday who is a computer instructor. Before long we were deep into a discussion of the Parallels program for getting PC programs running on Macs. You can learn a lot about a person through the topic of computers.
(To pre-order your copy of the New Edition of Soul Proprietor, click on the link above.)
Kim DeYoung and I drove down to Bronxville last week to attend an event where our mutual friend Mary van der Wiel was speaking on branding. During the ride, Kim excitedly told me about her upcoming tele-seminar series called Think It, Create It, Sell It, which I enrolled in on the spot. It begins today, Monday, April 19th at 1pm EDT. If you’re lucky enough to have seen this, determined it’s for you, and gotten a place on the call, I’ll ‘see’ you there.
Kim feels light years ahead of me on the technology front which enables her to provide so many learning opportunities. For example, she has her website set up so that I already have ‘met’ the other people in the class via the profiles we each created. Through her expert level of technology, Kim has pre-qualified her participants in the same way I like to pre-qualify my clients. There are hurdles to be leapt and knowledge presumed which makes the experience that much richer for everyone–teacher and students–involved. I like it that way.
What I hope to learn from this multi-week course, is how to take my existing content and re-purpose it into tele-seminars like Kim’s, as well as podcasts, videos and other learning tools my community has been seeking from me. It’s not for lack of information, but more “how do I do that?” that has stalled my product progress.
Kim’s downloadble handouts have set the stage for the questions I want answered. I can’t wait for our first session. I’m ready to take notes, make a commitment to this group and be held accountable for my actions. I know that the excitement and creativity of the other entrepreneurs on the line will be a driving force. More to come…
Okay, okay. I know I’m going to convert, but first, as is my way, I need to kick and scream, whine and complain. Forgive me. (I’d be interested in how you take on challenges that are daunting.)
I have committed to becoming savvy about twitter and facebook (LinkedIn can wait–sorry, Linds) and socializing via blog comments. Ugh. Here’s what distresses me. Maybe if I write down all these things, I’ll move on.
Visually I hate the way it all looks. Remember, I spent 30 years coloring in between the lines. (How could I pass up showing my art form on Good Friday?)
I loved the precision of my artwork, how beautifully contained the colors were, and how nicely things lined up and fit together. When I go to comment on someone’s blog, all I see is MESS. Too many options. Too much distraction. No central focal point. Didn’t anyone teach these techies about composition?
Then, I think, how will I ever get noticed, get heard above the noise? If there are already 112 comments in the queue, what possible difference is mine going to make?
I understand that using twitter poorly is frowned upon in the twittersphere. I promise to learn the etiquette and behave appropriately. But, when I tried tweetdeck there was so much noise and constant beeping that I unplugged it in frustration. Plus, all those #’s and bit.ly addresses make me crazy. I don’t know who to follow or why. There’s just too much of everything to sort through. Plus, it seems that anytime I want to find out a piece of information, I’m being sent someplace else. I’ve already forgotten where I was and how I ended up six degrees away.
Because my grown children are using these media effortlessly, I know it’s not genetic. But then, my son Robert was always able to do his homework while sitting in the living room with the TV at full blast and family activity all around. I grew up and studied by finding the most remote carrel in the library. When Macon Leary, the protagonist in Anne Tyler’s Accidental Tourist, got into his car he would turn off the radio and say to himself, ‘They’re playing my song.’ I still adhere to the adage, Silence is Golden.
The survival of the fittest rules, and I will survive by adapting, even though it’s duly challenging the concrete sequential soul inside of me. I’m too committed to running a successful business to not pay attention to social media. I’ve already taken several classes and attended talks as a way to get my feet wet. There was a highly regarded child-rearing book out when my kids were growing up called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. I want a version called How to Teach Baby Boomers to Tweet So They Will Want To. Anyone?
What I know I will do, as I did with starting this blog nearly two years ago, is continue to moan and groan as I sloooooowly put the puzzle pieces together in a way that makes sense to me. I will keep up my self-talk (“Jane, you’re smart and persistent. You will get this and be successful at it.”) I will take more classes and try and fail a few hundred more times on my own until I get it. Until it’s in my bones. And I will quit complaining. Promise!
I was looking forward to meeting Susan this morning for an hour-long walk/talk at the old Norwalk High School track. We’ve previously met and walked on downtown streets, but knowing how deeply intense and focused our conversations are, I suggested that we just walk in an endless loop and move our legs along with our mouths without concern for cars and curbs.
I was not disappointed. We covered at least 10 categories in depth during our time together, never breaking stride. Business issues, household stuff and relationships were the first order of business, but where we covered the most territory was technology. We both attend the classes at the Apple Store (their $99 for unlimited 1:1 instruction) is unbeatable.
“Are you using two fingers to scroll?”
“Have you discovered control T?”
“What about the anagram slide transition in Keynote?”
“What are you doing about converting from ACT?”
I gave my “21 Results Driven Strategies” (aka Things I’d Wished I’d Known When I Started My Business) talk for the South Shore Women’s Business Network yesterday. In it I recommend that business owners embrace technology and stretch themselves quarterly or more often to keep up with the trends–adding a blog, getting on facebook or LinkedIn for example.
After our inspirational walk this morning, I am committing to moving all of my contacts over to my MacBook. I’ve got 3000 in my database now along with complete histories and groupings. Give me till March to fully transition. Then, I’ll get one of those cool iPhones and be PC-free.
Anyone out there want to commit?
P.S. My greatest technological achievement, with a big nod to the help received from the guys at the Stamford Apple Store, is the website I created for my upcoming program with Brad Isaacs. Please take a look. I’d also love it if you’d come…and bring a friend.
For those of you reading comments to my blog on Macs, the problem of them getting cut off has been solved by my illustrious blogmaster, Lena West of xynoMedia. Thank you, Lena!
Kate Eisemann of Kate Eisemann Pictures, the talent behind my headshot selections, is busily de-mottling #4–a favorite among many of the voters on Monday. It’s a horse race between #1 and #4, so we’ll see if that makes a difference.
I’m taking the day off today to attend the Macrobiotic Conference put on by the Kushi Institute. I’ve been adhering to a mostly macrobiotic diet for two years now and feel healthier, more energetic and thinner. I will have some face time with Michio Kushi, the founder of the Institute, this afternoon when he meets with a group and offers his wisdom regarding their best health practices.
There’s a theme in this post–asking for help. It’s one of the hardest thing for us independent women to do. However, it has been so rewarding to me when I drum up the courage to ask that it’s become part of my daily practice to humble myself and admit I don’t know it all. What a relief!
I took my second one-on-one Mac class at the Stamford Town Center Apple Store last Friday at 8am, before the mall even opened. I love that! I didn’t get caught in the middle of rush hour traffic, I didn’t have to hunt for a parking space and there wasn’t much activity in the store. I could concentrate on my lesson better than the afternoon session I’d gone to two weeks before when it was noisy and crowded.
I learned two very cool things that I hadn’t figured out on my own–how to download a photo without going into my picturetrail.com collection (6 steps) and how to download video into i-movie, edit it, bring it into youtube.com and upload it onto my blog. Years ago, this would have been a semester-long course.
I had a staff member click this image of my hair stylist, Donna Lysobey of Noble Salon, and me before Donna fixed me up for my new headshot. You’ll see the afters as soon as I get the proofs back from Kate Eisemann. Deryll, my one-to-one instructor walked me through the uploading steps. Voila!
One thing I know for sure is that I want to work with professionals when it comes to my image. I’ve got Scarlett Debease of Scarlett New York styling my wardrobe and Donna to do my hair and makeup for the photo shoot. That helped me to relax and look my best when smiling for the camera.
Last month I received the NEWBO Woman of Distinction Award. Right before the awards presentation portion of the meeting, I handed my digital camera to Don, my client Jill’s significant other, and said, “Could you record this?” I didn’t even know how to instruct him to zoom in, but he did a valiant job. Deryll taught me how to zoom in while uploading this to youtube, so the quality isn’t perfect. I’m most pleased with the audience’s reaction. I’d love you to watch this first minute and let me know if it translates.
My kids are tweeting their hearts out. They were born to this technological age. In nursery school, Laura was in the dress-up corner playing grocery store and scanning bananas over the toy cash register. I didn’t understand why she was waving the fruit over the keys in that particular way rather than just punching in the dollars and cents amounts. Our next trip to Stew Leonard’s revealed the answer as the check-out clerk there used the same motion. “Smart kid, my daughter” I thought.
I’m trying! We of the Baby Boomers have adapted to answering machines, computers, cell phones and the like, each time protesting, “Who needs that?” before adapting and proclaiming their benefits.
I know I will master this new technology. I know that it’s important. I know I will make great connections and learn lots. But right now, I still don’t get it and am whiny and annoyed. However, I recognize that that’s my style and move forward anyway. I had a wonderfully generous twitter lesson on Friday from Miraim Salpeter who introduced me to tweetdeck. Now there’s a chirping sound coming from my laptop every few seconds as tweets come through along with notification of new followers and those I’m following.
This morning’s reading in Courage to Change, a daily inspirational book, ends with a quote by Confucius: It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
Unstoppable is my middle name.
