There are a thousand books out there telling you that your marketing isn’t about you, it’s about your customer. There are a billion blog posts that say variations of the same thing.  You might be familiar with it as, “Write your marketing copy as if you’re writing to one single person,” or you may just [...]

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Blogging about your struggles with marketing – tweeting about not having enough clients – describing the loneliness of being self-employed … all that bleeding and struggling and suffering in public is really, really bad for your business. Being in business can feel difficult and lonely.  Been there, done that, and I’ll undoubtedly be there and do it again, over and over.  We all [...]

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I’m strongly opposed to the typical canned “elevator pitch” approach. When you use a canned message, you’re going to sound – surprise! – canned.  And that equates to inauthentic, stilted, and phony. That’s obviously not the impression you want to make.  You want to sound engaging, excited, interesting, intriguing, passionate, fascinating… anything but canned. Yet my [...]

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There are times when I really have no idea what’s going to pop out of my mouth. A few days ago, at a chapter meeting of a local professional organization, we were talking about what had inspired us to start our businesses – and what enables us to keep going. I said, “Having the wisdom [...]

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What is it that makes someone decide to jump off the employee bandwagon and become self-employed? For those who’ve been caught up in the economic turmoil of the last few years, it’s often been a case of being pushed off the employee bandwagon.  I know many people who have chosen self-employment after being laid off.  Whether they’ve gone [...]

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Is there a small business owner or independent consultant who’s never struggled with pricing? If so, I’d like to meet him or her. Especially in the early stages of your business, deciding what prices to charge for your services and products can become the subject of a huge inner debate. What’s it really worth?  Who will pay that for [...]

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What do you know that you don’t want to know? It’s a question often asked by Adyashanti, one of the teachers whose work I follow.  And as he says, it’s a question that causes a “deer in the headlights” reaction for many people. What do you know that you don’t want to know? In living with this question, I’ve [...]

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Companies “type” their employees.  Coaches “type” their clients.  People “type” themselves, doing research and taking online tests. You know what I mean.  Your birth sign, your Myers-Briggs type, your Enneagram, or any of the dozens of personality and style types – you probably know at least one of yours.  Some people pay absolutely no attention to these [...]

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As I wrote in my last post – I’ve been in business now for over five years.  And I still don’t know the answer to that question:  where do clients come from. I’m beginning to realize that I never will know.  That I can’t know.  (And neither can you.) That doesn’t make my mind feel [...]

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How many times have you offered to help someone … and actually had them take you up on it? A few weeks ago, a friend overheard me offering to help someone with her resume, and commented on how generous I was to do that.   Well, maybe.  I mean, even though I barely knew the person I was offering to [...]

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