(yes, that is glitter and a hoola hoop….the hoop shows up somewhere on this site.)

We’ve tinkered with my blog, my biz, and my brand and we are still not done.

But it’s good enough to show the world.

The new business model is also an evolving process.

The core theme for my new business is “Do It Real and True”.

I will help people build True Businesses that support their Real Life.

This work exists in a place of compassionate honesty that nudges people to observe that success comes from a place of true acceptance of our passions, gifts, talents and an awareness of deeper meaning in our success.

With that at the core,  my business is built on a foundation of real true community.

Success doesn’t come to anyone who stands alone.

We are all only as successful as our ability to connect, interact, support and learn from each other.

All of my teaching, coaching and mentoring will take place in a new community I’m calling the “Real True Success Studio.” The model is one of collaborative learning and growth that leads to individual success.

What’s Next

Next week I’m announcing a Grand Re-Opening Extravaganza and there will be a great, awesome deal on coaching for people who are ready to invest in building their Real True Business.

You can read about the Extravaganza here.

If you’re not ready for anything that exciting you can sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar over there —->.

I can’t wait!

But I need to finish up the details first….

So I invite you to poke around the new site. Know it isn’t perfect and I’m sharing that on purpose. I’m doing what I do, real and true.

 

 

 

Are you frustrated hearing the marketing mucky-mucks tell you that before you sell anything you must have a big list of people to sell to?

This is a chicken – egg scenario.

If you are starting a business to make  some money, it’s hard hard to know where to start.

Build a community, a following, a list, OR build something to sell.

When we look for information on building our community, we get hit with a wall of conflicting opinions.

Some say you need thousands of people paying attention to make any money.

Others say build it and they will come.

The truth is somewhere in the middle (isn’t the truth always in the gray areas?)

Here is a truth

You don’t need tens of thousands of followers to make good money in your business.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my list is less than 2000 gorgeous people. I made MORE money supporting this group of lovely folks in 2012 than I did in my face-to-face therapy practice.

I have a friend who has been doing online business coaching for years who just hit a list of 5000 people. She does just fine financially.

How do we make a good living without a huge group of people hanging around?

5 things that work

1. Targeted List Building. I only want my right people in my community. My job isn’t to recruit every Suzy and Mary onto my list. My focus is on attracting passionate entrepreneurs who want to build businesses that matter. That group isn’t tiny, but it isn’t 100,000 people strong, either.
2. Honest Community Engagement. With a big honking list it’s exhausting to keep up with the thousands of little conversations people want to have with you. It’s like walking into a big office park every morning and needing to say “Hi” to every person you see in the lobby, in line at Starbucks, in the elevator and when you walk down the hall into your office. It’s not that you don’t’ want to say hello, it’s just that if you spend the time greeting everyone, you get no work done.  With a small community, I can chat with everyone I meet. A quick email here, a Facebook comment there, a Tweet once in awhile. We get to know each other, we start to check in on one another, we send support when it’s needed and celebrate together when good things happen. These relationships matter when you’re building a small business. And they make work a whole lot of fun.
3. Understanding the 80/20 Rule. The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of the effects are the result of 20% of the causes in any situation. In business this is often translated to mean that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your community.  This is true in my business. I have lots of people who open my emails and ready my sales pages, but 20% of those folks become actual clients and many of them are repeat clients. They get good results the first time we work together, so they invest in more (thank you!.) This means that, while you should be good to all people in your community, offering excellent services and an ongoing relationship with your current clients is worth every minute and effort as this small group will invest in you again and again.
4. Focus on what matters. In our world of constant access to competing information, we could rummage around the internet endlessly to learn new things and end up completely lost and confused. It’s worth expending some effort to resist the pull of endless information and focus on building what is yours. While you don’t need a humungous list of people in your community, you do need some. Focus on finding and serving them.
5. Patience and confidence. Building a strong community takes time. This isn’t the stuff of one-off list building extravaganzas. Be confident that what you are building has worth and meaning. Nothing that matters is built overnight. This is a process, not a product.

Expending a lot of effort to build a great big list isn’t necessary. Instead focus on gathering a group that really needs what you offer and nurture them as a community. The pay off financially, socially and emotionally is well worth that work.

Want more real true business development shizzle with my well-considered opinions thrown in? Sign up for the videos and newsletter, Scout.

 

 Weekly Opinions and Rants! It’s that time again…

When I look at the culture of marketing and business building, I’m tired of the trivial conversations that I hear day in and day out.

Everything is dumbed down marketing speak, appealing to the most simple and basic ideas and concepts.

This, my friends, is what gets us reality TV and political campaigns that make us angry.

Sound bites aren’t a path to success.

And the approach to ‘talk simple’ is what is taught to newbies in the marketing world.

The advice sounds like this:

“People don’t get big concepts.”

“They are conditioned to pay attention in 3 second bites.”

“If you don’t tell them what to do they are confused.”

OK, true, for some people we need to put “This is a tweetable,” in our newsletter (gag).

But do you want people with simple minds as your clients?

Do you consider someone who can’t figure out how to think for themselves and share an idea is going to be a dynamic client?

And do you want to BE that person? Do you want to be so numb that you can’t figure out your own thoughts and need to be told  what to share and how to communicate?

When we market the most simplistic, goofy ideas and accept being fed someone else’s priorities we get lame outcomes.

When all we talk about is money making, “easy secret”s (gag again), “10 ways to succeed” we’re pandering to a public that deserves better.

Because that simple stuff is lying disguised as marketing. (Seth Godin once said, “All Marketers Are Liars,” then he retracted it. Sort of.)

The world is no better for our marketing by manipulation.

Are all the millions of people who read “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” all highly successful? My guess is, NO. Why? Because there are way more than 7 habits in being successful. But the nice neat title sold books, so there you go.

I’m  tired of  the boring conversations we have in business-building world.

Let’s face facts, to build a business that makes real money takes brains and tenacity. Anyone who tries to do it on the easy, simple and cheap is bound to fail.

Does saying that make me less popular? Will I sell fewer classes and have fewer clients? Maybe.

But I don’t want to work with people who are looking for the easy way out. Because I can’t deliver that reality.

No one can.

What I can do is present the concepts so we can have meaningful discourse around them.

I can tell you the truth that building your business needs to be customized to you and your talents and that the systems, blueprints and cookie cutter approach won’t do squat for your bottom line or soul.

I can discuss why I think SEO and measuring social media ROI is  a waste of time for small business, but I can’ t do it in less than 500 words or a 2 minute YouTube video.

We need discourse. We have to be able to tolerate a debate. There has to be room for exploring the gray of an idea and not defaulting to black or white. And we each need to make decisions and choices that will support our personal and business needs.

Success comes to those who are ready and willing to dive deep, tackle big questions that don’t have neat answers. Those that aren’t looking for the 10 steps to success are usually the ones who are successful. They go beyond 10.

Everything that matters had more than 10 steps. [Except telling people you love them. That takes 3 words.]

The world needs innovators, critical thinkers, debates of big ideas and people willing to learn.

I’m all done with the mind-numbingly simple conversations that get us back where we started.

Now it’s time to have meaningful conversations, develop innovative  ideas and undertaking actions that move us forward.

Are you ready?

This op-ed/rant has been an opinion shared with some personal ideas that might help you navigate your business growth. Please use your critical thinking skills to determine if it applies to you and your business. Want more real true business development shizzle with my well-considered opinions thrown in? Sign up for the videos and newsletter, Buttercup.

 

 

I’m cooking up a philosophy that nice people need to have a louder voice.

Part of being nice, is a strong desire not to offend, so often those with kindness in their hearts and smarts in their head keep their opinions to themselves.

Well, you no longer have to worry about my holding back on that front!

Weekly I will share an opinion and/or a rant right here on my blog.

Think of it as an op-ed piece in a newspaper. Only I don’t have an editor and can drop an occasional swear-y word in there for effect.

And I might offend people. Or I might not. We’ll see.

Shall I start now? Yes, I shall.

I have a strong opinion about social media marketing advice given by “experts.”

It’s 90% bull shit. (10% is probably ok.)

Why?

The advice is most often broad stroke yadda yadda,

“Use video. People like video!”

“Pinterest is the new hot social strategy!”

“LinkedIn can get you a job!”

Now none of this is totally wrong, but it just may be totally wrong for you and your business.

Think of yourself as a snowflake. You are unique and so is your business.

When social media marketing expert Bob comes along and tells you that he made a million dollars using LinkedIn 15 hours a day, give him a high five. Then go back to focusing on what will work for you and your business.

Maybe your crowd is knitters. And you want to sell your farm-raised-hand dyed-wool to discerning knitters world-wide.

Are then looking for you on LinkedIn?

Hells NO!

Where are they looking for you?
Maybe on Esty or Pinterest.  Margie Clayman has knitters working together on Facebook to send blankies to Boston after the Marathon tragedy.

Maybe there is a Knitters Group on Linked In, but I’m doubting that would be a top hang out.

So if you are listening to Social Media expert Bob and light up LinkedIn with your kick ass wool, you’d probably hear a lot of crickets.

The same holds true for every bit of the “expert” advice that suggests you MUST do a specific thing, regardless of whether it will really work in your specific business.

Which brings me to expert opinions.

Every blogger out there is opining (even me!)

Keep that in mind.

I will tell you when I’m stating an opinion (on Opinion and Rant days!)

Others won’t be so transparent.

Here are two reasons why:

1. They don’t  realize their idea is an opinion. They did some research on their approach and it worked for them, so they think it is “right.”
2. They know it’s an opinion, but they are stating it as a fact so you consider them smart and buy their shit.

Let’s break these down.

In the case of #1, they don’t realize they are stating an opinion, keep in mind that research methods need to be wicked robust (not an actual research term)  for someone to declare an approach significantly effective. There need to be a bunch of factors considered, but suffice to say an experiment of ONE means nothing.

As Malcom Gladwell has taught us, outliers exist and when we look at one example we have no idea if the outcome could be considered typical or is an outlier.

So when the “expert” says “Hey, this worked for me,” know this is an opinion, and it won’t necessarily work for anyone else.

Now on to #2, they know it’s an opinion but are trying to mesmerize you with their intelligence, so you buy something.

Personally, I don’t like these people.

The folks in category 1 can be forgiven as they don’t know better.

People in category 2 do know better and are being sleazy.

Now in most cases, you don’t know whether your “expert” falls into category 1 or 2 unless you do some recognizance.

Ask them a question and see how they respond.

Questions like, “That approach worked for you, but will it work for people who have knitters as clients?”

If they sputter and posture and say, “Of course!” or get offended that you don’t believe them or delete the conversation from Twitter because you made them look bad (true story) they are in camp 2.

However, if they respond, “ I don’t know. Maybe? Let me think on it.” Or admit, “You know I never considered knitters. You might not benefit from my strategy.” They are in camp 1 and are worthy of your attention, if you choose to give it to them.

Ahh, rant and opining over. Until next week, Friends!

This op-ed/rant has been an opinion shared with some personal ideas that might help you navigate your business growth. Please use your critical thinking skills to determine if it applies to you and your business. Want more real true business development shizzle with my well-considered opinions thrown in? Sign up for the videos and newsletter, Buttercup.