Wherein we talk about how to create killer copy for your small business website by painting a picture, and I give you an example of how it’s done . . .

Hello from beautiful Wilmington, NC, where it’s a balmy 60-something degrees on January 28.

But let’s talk about your small business website copy, shall we?

So a few weeks ago I was at a friend’s house drinking wine, chatting, and having a gay old time, as the old-timers say.  On the way out the door, I stopped by her bookshelf – I’m a sucker for spying on what other people read – and spotted a book called The Magic of Thinking Big: Acquire the Secrets of Success . . . Achieve Everything You’ve Always Wanted, by David Schwartz, Ph.D.

(Even though this book is a classic published way back in 1959, I’d heard of it; in fact, it was on my mental list of “inspiring books to read soon.”  A mental list which, miraculously, hadn’t been erased by all that bubbly I drank over the holidays, or I might never have remembered I wanted to read it.)

While the book is certainly worth reading so you too can train yourself to “harness the power of thinking big,” what I want to talk about today is a specific passage in the book that perfectly describes what your small business web copy needs to do, and that thing is “paint a picture.”

This picture you’re painting with your copy is of your ideal customer’s ideal outcome, and if you do this well, these ideal customers will want to give you money for your products and services. 

Say, wouldn’t that be just swell?

Painting a Picture with Your Web Copy

On page 71 of the afore-mentioned book, the author tells us to “see what can be, not just what is.”  Which is a perfect instruction for small business copywriting.

He illustrates this concept by telling us about a successful realtor he knows.  This realtor is selling lots of unattractive rural property that other realtors in the same area can’t sell on a bet.  How does our realtor do this?  By selling the property not as it is, but as what it can be.

As the realtor states:  “I develop my entire sales plan around what the farm can be.  Simply telling the prospect, ‘The farm has XX acres of bottom land, and XX acres of woods, and is XX miles from town,’ doesn’t stir him up and make him want to buy it.  But when you show him a concrete plan for doing something with the farm, he’s just about sold.”

So here’s what successful realtor guy does:  He comes up with three possibilities for what the farm can be, and sells prospects on one of those three possibilities, fully fleshing out the benefits of owning this farm so the prospect can see in his mind’s eye exactly what an idyllic life he will have once the farm belongs to him, revenue-producing possibilities included.

Keep this technique in mind as you’re writing your own small business web copy.  You want to highlight the benefits of your product or service.  (“Sell a good night’s sleep, not the mattress,” as a famous copywriter once said.)  In our example here, the “XX acres of bottom land and XX acres of woods” are features, not benefits.  And while it may necessary to mention features at some point, remember “facts tell, benefits sell.”

The Realtor’s Painted Picture

In my favorite of the 3 scenarios, our realtor paints a picture of the farm converted into a riding stable.  Why does this work so well?  Because the farm is near a big city, which means access to a large, sophisticated market of eager end users of the riding stable. Our realtor knows that big city residents of a certain income level like to escape to the countryside to enjoy the great outdoors on weekends, and that many of those people like to ride horses.  All he has to do now is sell the potential buyer of the lot on this scenario.

So, instead of selling his prospect on XX acres of bottom land, and XX acres of woods, and is XX miles from town, he shares the compelling vision of a thriving riding stable business, with glossy horses and wholesome couples with disposable income riding off into bucolic nature with their picnic baskets full of expensive artisan cheeses and fine champagne. (OK, I made that last bit up – there is no picnic in the realtor’s painted picture, but there would be in mine.)

Using this method, our realtor says, “Now, when I talk with my prospects I won’t have to convince them that the farm is a good buy as it is.  I help them to see a picture of the farm changed into a money-making proposition.”

Smooth, right?   He is not selling the land, the dirt, the acreage – the features, in other words – but the full-blown dream of a horse farm with a riding stable and beautiful couples riding happily through the trees, which they will pay handsomely to do.

So whatever it is you sell, help your clients and customers see what can be for them, in their particular situation. Show them the payoff of using your product or services by selling them the solution, the results, the vision of what can be.

A Real World Example from the World of Interior Design

Now, let’s look at a real-world example of copy that does not paint a picture from the world of interior design.  Specifically, an interior design business’s “About” page.

Why an “About” page, you ask?  Well, here’s what I see over and over again on interior design websites and blogs:  designers using their About pages to list their education and design credentials, when what they should be doing instead is “painting a picture” of their ideal customer’s ideal outcome, while weaving in their credentials and experience.  Because even in your About page, you want to paint a picture of what you can do for your clients. 

This is a much more powerful way to connect with your prospects on an emotional level, which is key to driving more sales in your business.

(And because I would never want to hold anyone up to ridicule publicly, names and specific details have been changed to protect the innocent in the following example.)

Jane graduated from Parsons with a degree in interior design and a minor in studio art. She is an active member of ASID Carolinas Chapter and the local design community.  She attends many conventions and workshops locally and internationally to stay on the cutting edge of design. Jane makes each project unique for each client and has a fine-tuned ability to work with a variety of interior design styles and settings.  Her signature style combines practicality with sophistication.

Where do I begin?

From a strictly writerly perspective, that copy commits a cardinal sin – that is, it tells rather than shows.  We want to know HOW Jane makes each project unique for each client – show us.  Also, it’s boring.  And thirdly, it talks about Jane, not the client.

When looking at this copy from a “painting a picture” perspective can you see that, beyond being deadly dull and not really saying anything very useful to the client, it does not, in any way, shape or form, make an emotional connection with the reader/potential client and show them what can be by working with Jane.

Here’s how we might improve Jane’s copy:

You’re one-of-a-kind.  An iconoclast.  The “rules” you follow in life are your own.  Not everyone gets it. And you want your home to be a reflection of your unique perspective.  Your approach to life can’t be replicated on an assembly line, and your home’s design shouldn’t be either.  

Hi, I’m Jane, an expert in telling your story, your way, through your home’s design. Together we’ll create a truly singular space that boldly expresses your one-of-a-kind personality and translates your unique sensibility into a home that could belong to no one but you. 

My approach to design [here Jane tells us about her – you guessed it – approach to design]. The result?  A home that gives you that “I-can’t-believe-I-get-to-live-here” feeling every time you walk in the door.

Jane could add more “painting a picture” copy here, then add information about her training and design credentials.  But she should lead with painting a picture. 

Now obviously, if I was writing this copy for an actual interior designer copy client, I would meet with said client to get the details about their target audience and their target audience’s needs, wishes and desires so that I could write copy specifically for that audience.

Here the copy I wrote was meant to appeal to a design client who has a strong vision, knows what they want, and wants to work collaboratively with a designer to achieve their dream home design.   The copy would be vastly different if “Jane the interior designer” only worked with Moms on a budget with young toddlers in tow, or a family with teenagers and a grand home on the beach, or empty nesters looking to pare down.  You get the idea.

So that, my friends, is how you paint a picture with your copy.  There’s more to this idea than I can share in one blog post, even an execrably long one like this, however . . .

If you want to know more about writing effective web copy for your small business, download my web copy checklist. In it, I talk about the painting the picture concept and 6 other ways to improve your copy for better sales. Get your {free} copy of the Web Copy Checklist here.

Today’s post is a little different from what I usually write about.  There’s no specific marketing tip or web strategy how-to here, but something much more important to being successful in business.

And that thing is mindset.

[This is a little bit of a rant.  You’ve been warned. ; ) ]

I was recently reminded of this when I had a conversation with a friend who is struggling in her business. She’s trying hard to get it going, but she’s extremely low on resources (which can actually be a blessing), and even lower on self-confidence, which can be a curse.

She asked for advice, so I threw out a few things that helped me get clients when I was getting started.  She rejected nearly everything I suggested, with nary a split second between the idea I pitched and her automatic response, which can best be summed up as some variation of “that won’t work for me.”

To my suggestion to try local networking groups, she responded, “I can’t go to live networking for now.” (No reason given.)  To the idea of reaching out to friends for referrals, “I’ve already asked for referrals and got none,” and to online/social networking, “I’ve tried social media networking, but it hasn’t worked.”

When I hear reactions like this, my first thought is the person is undisciplined and just wants a “magic bullet” of some kind.  It’s extremely limited thinking.  There are no magic bullets.  Or, if you must believe there is such a thing as a magic bullet, believe it’s this:  Taking action everyday on your goals and believing in yourself, no matter what, will create success.

I’ve done the glad-handing, business card-swapping live networking.  I didn’t enjoy it, but I got clients. I have asked for referrals, which I also don’t relish doing, but it worked for me.  I’ve done social networking and gotten leads from it.  I reached out to a very high-profile PR Director of an organization that employs over 11,000 people for freelance work, with my heart in my throat and nervous sweat on my brow, and gotten it.

None of things were easy, and all of them were waaaaaay out of my comfort zone. But I got work.  And now I have a business that supports me.  And have even recently had to turn work away – now that is a place you want to get to.  Which makes the discomfort worth it.

I mean, you have to ask yourself, is your will to be successful greater than your fear of being uncomfortable?  Mine was.  And now I don’t have to work a soul-crushing j-o-b where someone else gets to call the shots in my life.

Of course, some things will stick and some won’t, so maybe live networking won’t work for my friend, but asking for referrals will.  Maybe she’ll kill it on social media or maybe she won’t. You get the picture. But if she rejects everything out of hand with an automatic “that won’t work for me” attitude, then she’s probably better off slaving away for someone else for the rest of her life in a j-o-b anyway.

Because creating a business you love has to start with believing you can.  Even in the face of obstacles.

Now, that kind of touchy-feely stuff usually makes me want to wretch, but in this case it’s true.

And being low on resources?  It’s actually a good thing, because it forces you to get creative and make the best of the limited resouces you already have.  I say this from experience, as I practically wrote the book on being loooow on resources.  Didn’t stop me though.  : )

And  now?

I’m billing 40 hours a week in my business, AND I just got two inquiries today to do some social media and web strategy work which I may have to turn down.

Is it perfect?  No.  In fact, I want to be working fewer hours and enjoying more time freedom.

But where I am now is worlds away from where I was even one year ago, when I still had just one client and a goofy 20-hour-per-week job that had nothing to do with my interests or direction in life, and sucked my soul dry.  But it paid the bills while I was ramping up to where I am now – fully booked, doing work I love, and getting new client inquiries.

And I wish the same for you.

Here’s a quote by Lama Surya Das that helps me when I’m struggling with self-doubt:  Often the Greatest Doubts Occur Just Before a Breakthrough.

And here’s a handy little read on how to stay positive.

In the comments below I’d love to hear your tips for staying positive and getting the work done, or anything else you want to contribute about overcoming obstacles to make your business work.

Go get ‘em, tiger!

Are you familiar with shiny object syndrome?

You know, when you’re diligently working on the task at hand, then something else, something usually way less important – look, a butterfly! – catches your attention, and off you go, tripping into a more interesting field of daisies, from where you may not return for several hours. 

It was happening to me, way more than is good.

So in order to wrestle that little problem to the ground so I can get the work done, while still allowing for random dreaminess, funny cat videos, and other flights of fancy, I recommitted to a productivity technique that I used to use back in my PR days. 

Recently this technique has helped me get a killer amount of writing, marketing and other business-building work done on my business, all while still putting in 40 hours per week on client projects in my business, and still leaving me time to do the fun stuff.  (See above, re: cat videos.)

That productivity technique is called batch processing.

What is batch processing?

Batch processing is simply a form of time management where you dedicate blocks of time to similar tasks.

For example, you sit down and write your next 4 blog posts all at once, or your email newsletters for the next 6 weeks, etc. Or maybe you create all your social media updates for the next month one sitting.

Almost any kind of repeatable tasks in your business can be batched. 

Batching is great because it decreases distraction and increases productivity. Your creativity expands, your mental sharpness increases, and stress and procrastination are reduced.

When I batch process my business tasks, I get far more done than when I spend an hour here or an hour there over the course of a week trying to knock out my to-do list. Batching makes me feel calm, happy, relaxed and unstoppable.  How good does that sound?

For example, my email updates/newsletters go out each Tuesday. I got tired of writing each one on Monday afternoon, when Mondays are actually one of my busiest days for client work, creating a lot of stress for me.  Not good.

 The simple solution?  Batching. Now I write 4 newsletters at once and load them into my email delivery software right afterwards; they then go out automatically each week for the next 4 weeks.  So that’s 4 weeks of newsletters, scheduling included, knocked out in one sitting – aahhh, much better.  Now I don’t have to write another newsletter for 4 weeks, yet my list is still receiving one every Tuesday, like clockwork.

Other tasks I batch process:

Writing blog posts:  I generally spend two-three days per month writing blog posts, days I set aside exclusively for writing.  I get up early, I make the coffee, then write, write, write.  At the end of the day I have 3-4 complete blog posts, and about that many more started, outlined, and keyword-researched. (You may be a much faster writer than I am and get twice as many blog posts written in the same amount of time.  As for me, belaboring every comma, semi-colon and em dash takes a lot of time.)

Creating social media status updates:  Yes, I batch process this niggling old task too. I set aside an hour or so a couple times a week to go to my favorite blogs and websites and read through a bunch of content.  I grab the links to the best articles, write teaser copy for each one, then save the content into a Notepad doc for scheduling into Hootsuite later.  (Right now my Notepad doc has enough high-value content to post out 5 updates a day, for the next 5 days.  That’s 25 articles, with links and teaser copy, all ready to go for next week, so I don’t have to come up with content on the fly. What a relief.)

Commenting on blogs and in forums. I comment on blogs throughout the week as new posts on my favorite sites go live, and set aside an hour or so near the end of the week to check out anything I’ve missed that I think I can add a high-quality, valuable comment to.  With forums, I generally visit my favorites once or twice a week, spending an hour, or even two, answering any questions I can genuinely help someone with.

As I’m writing this, it’s Saturday at 4:59 pm, and I’ve been sitting in front of my computer since 7:00 am this morning, knocking out content creation and other business-building tasks left and right.  Now I can knock off for the day to go meet my friends for dinner and adult beverages with a clear conscience.

 Then throughout the week I’ll happily go about getting my client work done daily, while still getting my business-building and marketing tasks taken care of in an hour or two per day. too This way everything gets done in a schedule I can manage, I’m happier and less stressed, and I have time to focus on larger projects that will move my business forward in bigger leaps.

To be clear, you don’t have to devote an entire day to batch processing – you can actually get a lot done in short one-two hours boosts of activity too – but devoting one day per month to the process will put you way ahead of the game. The key is to give all your attention and focus to the task you’re working on for the one or two or four hours you set aside for it, not letting the pretty butterflies or funny cat videos lead you down the garden path.

If you’ve never tried batch processing, I highly recommend it; it’s worked wonders for me.

Do you have tips on how to increase productivity?  Please share them in the comments! 

 [Hey there, gorgeous. Want more actionable tips, techniques, and how-to’s for marketing your small business online, delivered straight to your email inbox each Tuesday? You betcha! Sign up for my FREE weekly newsletter by entering your name and email address at the top right hand side of the blog now, and let’s get you glowing online.]

Are you ready to get serious about using social media to market your small business, but feeling overwhelmed by all the social media bells and whistles out there?

Maybe you’ve tried a few things – some Twitter marketing here, Facebook strategy there, but you’re not getting the results you’d like, and all this social media stuff is taking waaaaay too much time anyway.  Plus, holy cow, there’s always some new tactic, strategy, or entirely new social media platform coming down the pike that you’re told you need to get on board with right.this.instant.

I get it.

In fact, recently when I was giving a Hootsuite demonstration to a client, we asked ourselves what the next new thing in social media will be that all of us will just have to learn, commiserating that once we learn that shiny new thing, there will be another right after that.  And then another.  Even if we’ve barely got a handle on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus as it is.  It’s enough to drive a girl around the bend, I tell you.

I have been there, and it ain’t pretty.

I’ve attended countless webinars and read scads of blogs on Facebook and Twitter marketing, using Pinterest for small business, blogging, SEO, content marketing, sales funnels, conversions, email marketing and multiple other small business marketing topics.

And the sense of overwhelm was, well, crushing.

That’s why when Laura Roeder revamped her business back in the summer and launched Social Media Marketer, a comprehensive suite of easy to understand and implement video-based social media training courses geared to the small business owner or solopreneur, I signed up pronto.  Because everything I needed was now in one beautifully user-friendly place.

And, as an added bonus, new courses are added to Social Media Marketer regularly, so I never have to worry about the next shiny new social media/online marketing thing, because I know if it’s something that gets small business results, Laura and crew will no doubt be covering it inside SMM. Plus, anytime I need a refresher on any aspect of using social media and other online tools to market my small business to get better bottom line results, you guessed it – it’s inside SMM.  What a stress reliever.

What Made Me Go for It

I’ve been following Laura online for over two years, read her blog weekly, and have attended plenty of her free training webinars in the past, so I knew her advice was solid.

I’d also taken her massively comprehensive and actionable Zero to Facebook course a few months prior to the launch of Social Media Marketer, so I was familiar with Laura and crew’s laid back but effective teaching style, and the easy to follow, do-this-don’t-do-that nature of what was likely inside Social Media Marketer.  That made it easier for me to sign on the dotted line, and I wasn’t disappointed once I ventured in.

If you want a reliable, predictable way to bring in new clients using social media marketing, and you value down-to-earth, straightforward, no fluff training that’s actionable, then Social Media Marketer is a training course worth investing in.  And if you’re feeling apprehensive about parting with your hard-earned dollars, think of it like this:  your business is worth investing in, you are worth investing in.  Once I adopted that mindset, signing up for this course was a no-brainer for me.

What’s Inside Social Media Marketer

Social Media Marketer is entirely online, so once you sign up, you’ll have access to all the course materials right away.  You’ll be able to go through everything at your own pace – take a course a week, a course a month, or go crazy and do them all back-to-back in a month’s time if you’re just nutty like that. There’s even a handy beginners course on social media marketing to get your feet wet if this is your first time. Very useful, that.

Courses include:

Your Backstage Pass to Twitter

Zero to Facebook

Zero to WordPress

Zero to Social SEO

Social Media Traffic School

Pinterest Marketing

Blogging for Business

Your Profitable Website

Advanced Business Systems

Advanced Monitoring and Metrics

Plus courses on Google Plus, LinkedIn and lots more.

You also get:

• Handy checklists for each course, PDF transcripts, and strategy guides created specifically for small business

• A starter series of emails over the first 7 days you’re a member to get you instantly up-to-speed with what’s inside Social Media Marketer and how to use it most effectively

• Social Media Marketer Digest every other Monday  – updates on what small businesses need to do to stay current with social media, full of actionable take-aways.

• Weekly Founder Friday Subscription – more personal emails from founder Laura Roeder with advice and guidance she’s put into practice to grow her own uber-successful small business.

• Expert guidance from topic experts in the SMM community on online marketing, branding, launching, WordPress and more, there to guide you in figuring out how social media applies to your unique business.

In a nutshell, the program is full of practical, simple to implement social media marketing strategies that will get you bottom line results in your business if you apply what you learn. 

The Investment

So what do you have to pay for all that goodness?

$95 per month.  But, and this is big, it’s not one of those courses you sign up for and get stuck paying for for the next 6 months like some other online training courses out there. You can sign up for a month, 6 months, 12 months, or any time period you want, and quit at any time, with no hassle.

In fact, I signed up in July, stayed on for 3 months, then cancelled in October because I was between clients and trying to cut a few expenses.  Now that I’m booked to capacity again for the next 6 months, I’ll be signing up again once the holidays are out of the way, because I want to head into 2013 with all the tools I need to have a killer year in my business.  : )

How I Used Social Media Marketer

Once I signed up and got inside, I got so excited by all the material that I started consuming everything willy-nilly with no rhyme or reason.

I knew this approach wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I came up with a plan:  I’d do one course per month, focusing only on that one course for the month, implementing all I learned with a laser-like focus for 30 solid days.

I made August “Twitter month,” taking the Your Backstage Pass to Twitter course and implementing each piece of actionable advice.  The result?  I took my Twitter following from around 600 followers to just over 1000, turned Twitter into the #1 traffic driver to my website, and lined up a guest post at a blog that also serves my audience, all from my month of Twitter activity following the Social Media Marketer plan of action.

I highly recommend the one course per month approach to keep the overwhelm at bay and give yourself time to really learn and absorb the material, and most importantly, to apply it.

And on the “I’ve been blogging on WordPress for four years, so I’m not going to learn anything new in the SMM Zero to WordPress course” front, au contraire.

There was something fairly technical I was struggling to do on my blog that I couldn’t figure out on my own (something to with my blog’s navigation and creating hidden download pages, as I recall), and boom – when I went searching inside the Zero to WordPress course, sure enough, there was the answer to my problem.  All fixed now, thank you very much.

All that said, I have two very minor quibbles:

• I felt like the Pinterest course could have been a little more robust (although what’s here will definitely get Pinterest newbies up to speed quickly).
• The forums weren’t very active.  To be fair, I was last inside SMM back in October and it’s now December, so that may have changed.  In fact, there was an email from the SMM team directly addressing this issue while I was still a member promising to do what it took to make the forums more active.

For anyone who wants to up their small business social media marketing game and get real results, I recommend Social Media Marketer without reservation.

WTF?

Was there no other place your entire family of seven could congregate?

There I was in “New Biography,” quietly surveying the selection of recently released tomes, when you all decided to have a family gathering/literature discussion in “Biography,” right behind me.

As much as the former English major in me enjoyed your amusing and thoughtful discussion on the merits of the biography of so-and-so, the sane person who appreciates her personal space felt a tad crowded by your teenage progeny hovering 6 inches from my right ear weighing the ins and outs of your family’s gift list.

Now, I realize that makes me sound like a snob, and I don’t doubt each one of you possesses intelligence vastly superior to mine.

However.

There were other people in the store also interested in access to the Biography aisle – I know this because when I looked up from the book I had my nose buried in, I saw them peer hopefully into the aisle trying to gauge the best route in, then abandon the idea because it would’ve been next to impossible to navigate your family’s  literature pow-wow.

You know, your decision to camp there for half an hour probably turned away some sales.  As hard as book stores have it in this day and age of the Nook, the Kindle, and any other reading device that may someday be invented, this is a real shame.

This habit of people treating public spaces as their home turf, while remaining oblivious to pretty much anyone else near, around, or next to them has always been one of my biggest pet peeves.   I’m willing to consider that I may need therapy and/or meds to combat this problem, as there’s no getting around the fact that it happens whenever you enter a public space of any kind, and getting bent out of shape about it regularly is really not very good for my mental health.  At the very least, I may need to sedate myself before venturing into Barnes & Noble anytime soon, or at least until the holiday shopping season is officially over.

Funny, not 20 minutes after the Barnes & Noble “incident,” I went to Target, where there was a guy in the cereal aisle with his enormous shopping cart clogging up half the aisle, while his wide stance in front of the fortified bran section took up the other half.  Even when I edged close to him to reach for a box of Special K just ever so slightly beyond where he was standing, he did not move.

Honestly.

What’s a girl to do?

I hear there are places on the interwebz you can order books and supplies online.  It’s called Amazon, maybe you’ve heard of it.  Maybe I’ll check that out next time I want to do some hassle free book shopping.  Especially since I can shop in my pajamas, all while enjoying an adult beverage.  Hmm, very civilized.

I resisted doing this.

Really, I had to think long and hard before adding to the heap of words on the digital mountain of gratitude you see around the ol’ interwebs this time of year.  (U.S. Thanksgiving, for those of you not from around these here parts.)

I woke up to an inbox chock full of bloggers and online biz owners emailing messages of gratitude and directing me to their blogs where I could read still more messages re the same.

But since some kind of writing motivation lightning bolt struck a couple days ago fairly compelling me to write more often here, and today is Thanksgiving, after all, well, here I go.

Today I’m grateful for:

1. The best group of kick-ass female friends a girl could hope for.  Ronda, Annie, Kristal, Carolyn, Sharon – the brain power, resourcefulness and kindness in that group of five could light up the world for an eternity.

2. Technology.  I’m amazed, and some days, overcome, by how much my life is improved and enriched by all that technology allows into it.  Isn’t it a great time to be alive?

3. And on that subject, I’m grateful for all the eyeballs on this blog and on my email newsletter. And the smart and amazing people connected to those eyeballs.  I may not have thousands of readers, but I cherish every single one I do have.  And that is the truth.

4. The fantastic meal I’ll be enjoying later today at my friend Carolyn’s house, plus the conversation, the laughs, the camaraderie and the fellowship.  Not to mention our friend Katelyn’s famous Cheddar Cheese Apple Pie.  Getting to spend time with the adorable 4-year-old who rules the roost over there is an added bonus.

5. My family, both immediate and extended, who I’m missing this Holiday, but who is always in my heart.

6. The Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Challenge I’m participating in this month.  I’ve benefitted enormously from taking 15 minutes each morning to pause and breathe and reflect on all the abundance in my life.  And Deepak’s soooooothhhinnnng voice as he guides each day’s meditation nearly puts me in a trance. Love that.  : )

7. The brilliant, sunny 62 degree day (on November 22^nd, no less) here in lovely coastal North Carolina where I am blessed to live.

8. And about that . . . I’m also grateful that I get to live here, in Wilmington, NC, a place I’ve been head-over-heels in love with since I first visited back in the 80’s.  I might not go to the beach more than once a year, but just knowing it’s 10-15 minutes away brings me joy.

9. The excellent new client I started working with in October.  How lucky am I that I get to do interesting, intellectually stimulating work among a group of uber-smart and talented colleagues?  Still drinking that in.  Very cool.

10. The challenges put in my path and the hard lessons I’ve learned.  I believe these events are blessings, given to me to benefit from. (Now let’s be honest, at the time, some of those “lessons” were things I cursed and resisted.  As recently as this week.  Ha ha.  But retrospect is a very useful tool, and I’m deeply grateful for the growth that my challenges have inspired.)

11. And . . . . I could go on, but I’m starting to feel self-indulgent, so I’ll make #11 my last list item:  I am grateful for S.N., an extraordinary man I still think of lovingly every.single.day.  And miss.  Though things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to, it’s because of S.N. that I believed I could give up the 9-5 worker bee life and have a business doing something I love.  It was through S.N. I saw first-hand  what smarts and dedication and hard work can bring into your life, and the experience made me believe I could do it too.  Through S.N. I saw what a successful business looks like, and felt inspired.  But mostly, it was through S.N. that I finally got what real love really feels like, and for that I am forever grateful.

And you?

What are you grateful for today, whichever day you may be reading this?  Shout it out in the comments!

And ~ Happy Thanksgiving!!!  ~ to those of you in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Are you a freelancer, solopreneur or small business owner so flush with cash you’re sitting around eating bon bons whilst your servant fans you with a large palm frond?  Or maybe you’re lighting your cigars with $100 dollar bills as Jeffrey your manservant brings around a bottle of rare prestige cuvée, say, a nice bottle of Bollinger Les Vieilles Vignes Francaises.

No?

Neither am I.

So when I take on client work, one of the things I love best is to get paid. Because the above scenario is not my life.  And because paying the bills, eating 3 squares a day, and keeping a roof over my head means a lot to me.  In fact, it makes me wildly happy.  

And since I wholly, totally and completely support myself on the income I work very hard to bring in from freelance clients, when a client takes weeks and weeks and weeks to pay, it affects my lifestyle.  And not in a good way.

Which brings me to this.  

Sometimes you get a great new client who you adore, whose work thrills you, and who you feel blessed to be working with, and who’s pretty crazy about you too, by the way.  It’s just a big ol’ mutual admiration fest going on on all fronts. That’s where I am now with a kick-ass new client.

And yet.  Due to the bureaucracy of this very large organization, it takes about it takes about 6 years to get approval for something as simple as the purchase of a new printer cartridge.  (Ha ha, I kid.  But only a little.)

I billed my first invoice on November 1^st, Due on Receipt, and I’m still waiting to get paid.  On November 20^th.  Now, of course I realize they have a “system,” and said “system” in this organization means they only cut checks once a week, on Wednesdays.  So there was Wednesday November 7, but no check.  Then Wednesday November 14, no check.  Tomorrow is Wednesday November 21^st, and I’m told I may be able to get a check, but no one seems to know for sure.

Now, I could get really annoyed by this.  Ok, I have.  I still am.  I get they have a process, and I’m sure it makes sense to them, but it seems unnecessarily slow.  And I know other freelancers and subcontractors have been frustrated with this organization’s process too  – we’ve done the work, we simply want to get paid.  And in a timely fashion.  Seems like a fair deal to me.

However.

None of this would be an issue if I had done the right things, so I’ve really got no one to blame but myself.  

The business lesson here?

#1:  Always make damn sure you have a backup plan, or a couple months expenses saved up for these situations.  I had a month’s expenses put away as a backup plan, but I’ve been working for this client for a month and so that’s depleted.  So obviously I wasn’t well-prepared.

#2: (and something I should know by now, dammit!)  Never, ever turn down smaller client jobs to make yourself available for the bigger ones, even the high-profile ones that are lucrative and look great on your Testimonials page, until you have at least one paycheck in hand from said client first.

Because I wanted to put all my focus, energy and attention on the big new client and not feel “overwhelmed,” I said no to a couple of short-term things, when in reality, if I’d taken on a couple of those smaller short-term client projects along the way, I might be working round the clock 7 days a week temporarily, but I wouldn’t be stressed about cash flow.  And I’d rather be overworked stressed than cash-flow stressed. 

#3:  Never, ever get lazy and rest on your laurels and stop doing outreach to get new clients, even as you’re putting in 30 hours plus a week for the big new fancy-pants client.  This is a mistake I won’t make again.

In fact, one of the silver linings to this cash-flow cloud, besides (re-)learning the lessons above, is the gung-ho motivation I feel to get busy again marketing myself and my biz so I can fill the pipeline back up with more fabulous clients.

Yeehaw to that!

And that’s what I got for you today on True Story Tuesday. 

What about you?  Got any pointers for sticky cash flow situations in your business?  I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Today I want to share a winning tale of customer service, done right.

(By the way, isn’t it unfortunate that good customer service is so rare that when you do experience it, it’s a big enough deal that you feel the need to sound the trumpets?  Because really, it should be an everyday occurrence.)

So a couple months back, I went to my favorite place for killer pizza here in Wilmington, NC, Slice of Life.  Good times, good times.  And did I mention they have killer pizza?

Anyway, a few weeks later when I got my bank statement, I noticed that there was a $3.00 difference between what I actually spent on the night in question and what was on my receipt, and the amount that I was charged according to my bank statement.  (I’ve worked in plenty of restaurants in my day, by the way, and I know that the end of a long Saturday night when you’re entering the credit card receipts, this can happen.)

So I called up the restaurant to point out the overcharge, and talked to a lovely person named April, I believe.  She was genuinely apologetic and promised to take care of the issue, pronto.  All good, and I’m happy.

What I didn’t expect was to get a phone call from the owner of Slice of Life a few days later, personally apologizing and telling me he was going to:  A, send me a coupon for a free pizza, and B, a check for $20.

I kid you not.  (By the way, thanks Ray.)

I mean, really, I was blown away.  The owner of the restaurant calls to apologize, says “that shouldn’t have happened, that’s unacceptable, and it’s not the way we do business.  I’m going to send you a coupon for a free pizza and a check for $20 to make it up to you.”  Top notch customer service skills, I tell you.

I already loved Slice of Life for their excellent pizza, and I would’ve continued to visit regularly anyway, but this makes me feel ridiculously loyal to the Slice of Life brand.  

Because Ray didn’t have to reach out that way, but he did.  He went above and beyond.  He showed that his customers are important enough to go the extra mile for.  

That, my friends, is an excellent customer service experience.

And believe me, customers remember this, and they tell all their friends about it. 

So here’s your one simple tip: A simple, easy to implement way to stand out from the crowd and build strong customer loyalty is to do for your clients and customers what other people in your niche don’t do, or won’t do.  Like Ray did.  You know, something unexpected. (Like the flower manhole cover at the beginning of this post. ;) )

We all get lackluster, even atrocious, customer service on a way too regular basis, so any effort to do better than that, especially if you do waaaaay better than that, will win you loyal and happy customers who can’t wait to spread the word about the kick-ass thing you did – just like I’m doing here.

And word-of-mouth marketing like that just can’t be bought.  (Unless we’re talking $20 and free pizza.  Ha ha, I kid.)

So what about you?  Do you have any tales of excellent customer service to share?  Please share your story in the comments!

There are the things you plan for and the things you never expect.

Creating a business you love will definitely present you with a few things from each category.

When I started my freelance web writing and social media marketing business, there were things I knew to count on – the occasional flaky client who disappears into the ether and doesn’t pay; the high-maintenance client who expects the world on a silver platter, haggles over every insignificant detail and expects you to make yourself available for phone meetings at the ungodly hour of 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday night, when most sane people are enjoying normal activities like catching the latest episode of Mad Men; the feast-or-famine cycle that dogs you until you finally get your marketing right, and so on.

Then there were the things I never counted on, things I couldn’t have predicted.

Here are five that come to mind:

1.  That one of my best clients would come from answering a craigs list ad, and that I’d still be happily working for her over two years later.

2.  That people would offer $10 per blog post/article/piece of content with a totally straight face, then when you kindly object to working for such a rate, act shocked, haughty, self-important and stunned that you find this insulting. The corollary to this is people who will actually take those assignments.

3.  That I would have to subject myself to a drug screen, a breathalyzer, a TB skin test, a pertussis vaccine, having a vial of blood drawn, and a lengthy discussion about worker’s comp and who would cover me if I got injured on the job, for a freelance writing contract with a healthcare client.

4.  That people find it odd that I’m skilled in, a:  writing web copy, blog posts, email marketing campaigns, case studies, press releases and so on, and at the same time, b: social media marketing and strategy.  I don’t say this to brag.  It’s just that several people – including a few clients – have expressed surprise about someone being able to both write well, and plan and implement effective social media campaigns.  Yet I know many other people who have this same skill set.  Hmm, it’s a mystery.

5.  That the stories I wrote in 7^th and 8^th grade, and the “books” I made with handwritten content together with images torn out of a magazine as illustrations, would be turn out to be good preparation for one day launching a writing-oriented business in my adult life.

Maybe you have similar stories.  If you own a business, whether you’re a one-person show or a 10-person or more operation, you’re bound to.

If so, I would love to hear them.  Let’s all share, shall we?

Please share your story about an interesting or curious thing that happened to you as a small business owner or solopreneur that you didn’t see coming.

This should be fun.  ; )

[Hey there, gorgeous. Want more actionable tips, techniques, and how-to’s for marketing your small business online, delivered straight to your email inbox each Tuesday? You betcha! Sign up for my FREE weekly newsletter by entering your name and email address at the top right hand side of the blog now, and let’s get you glowing online.]

You’ve noticed how text images featuring quotes seem to be all the rage on Facebook and Pinterest these days, right?

I’m sure you have – a pithy or inspirational quote, made into an image, and posted to your favorite social media site.

And if you’ve been paying attention to this trend, you’ve also noticed that these kind of posts get lots of likes, shares and comments, which is exactly what you want if you’re using Facebook to market your business.

Today I’m going to share with you the free online photo editor I use to create these kinds of images, like the one you see above.

Why Quote Images Are Good for Your Small Business Marketing

When you post content to your Facebook page, it reaches your fans and followers, and others who browse your page without officially following.

But when your followers share that content, that’s when things really start to get good, because the potential reach increases exponentially.

And images are the #1 kind of content shared on Facebook. Not to mention that other addictive time-suck, known as Pinterest. ; )

So if you have a few juicy quote images with your website link on them, and these get shared around on Facebook and Pinterest, you can see how your small business could get some extra exposure.

Now, I’m not promising that this technique is going to get hoards of people coming to your website, but it’s one more tactic to add to your bag of tricks. I create and post quote images only after I’ve got all the other big-picture business tasks done, for example.

 Here’s how to get started: 

1.  Spend an hour brainstorming and come with a bunch of great quotes from leaders in your industry, inspirational quotes about your niche, and short tips and tricks you typically teach in your business; save these to a Notepad doc or similar.

2.  Then choose among photos you already have saved to your computer, or find free images with a tool like morguefile.com.  Alternatively, you can just create a plain colored background using something like Microsoft Paint.

3.  Use a free online photo editor to add the quotes you saved to your photos or a plain background, and voila, you’ve got a few dozen quote images to post to Facebook and Pinterest.

*Make sure to add your website link to the image, as I’ve done above, so that when your images are viewed and shared, they lead back to your main hub online – your website.

A Nifty Free Photo Editor

The cool no-cost photo editing tool you can use to create these images is called PicMonkey, a feature-rich online photo editor that works right in your browser, no downloads necessary.  Use it for “fearless photo embetterment,” as they say.

Once there, the process is very simple:

1.  Click on “Edit a Photo”

2.  To add text, click on the “P” in the left hand navigation column

3.  Choose the font you want to use

4.  Click on “Add Text”

5.  A text box will pop up where you’ll place your text.  You’ll also be able to resize and lots of other fun stuff too.

6.  Click “Save,” and you’re done

PicMonkey is pretty intuitive and user-friendly, but if you have any issues, pop on over to the Facebook page and leave your questions there and I’ll answer them.

And have fun “embettering” your photos.  : )

[Hey there, gorgeous. Want more actionable tips, techniques, and how-to’s for marketing your small business online, delivered straight to your email inbox each Tuesday? You betcha! Sign up for my FREE weekly newsletter by entering your name and email address at the top right hand side of the blog now, and let’s get you glowing online.]