I can in halfway through Vanessa Bertozzi's workshop, "Beyond the Comfort Zone: Presenting Yourself Professionally", I immediately kicked myself for not tuning in sooner.
To be honest I didn't learn anything new, everything that they spoke about I have either learnt the hard way, read about or taught myself. But there's something very empowering about having a stranger reaffirm these things. A lot of is common sense (for instant - sort out your money!), but the power for me comes from having someone other than your boyfriend, family, little voice in your head, being the one telling you this information.
Having a professional speak so succinctly and will such enthusiasm really kick started my excitement again about selling online.
Yes, it's a tough road, yes, it's a lot of hard work for not much reward in the beginning but it's all very exciting again.
I sat myself down for April Bowles workshop, "Attract Your Target market - You're not Walmart", notebook and pen at the ready, I felt like I was back at school.
Here's my summary notes of her workshop (I can never do justice to how GOOD this workshop was, but hopefully my notes will give you an indication of the main themes):
- Market to people the way you want to be marketed to. Generate that good feeling when you purchase an item.
- Getting to know your customers. How do you find blogs that your target markets read?
Start with blogs that you like. Hunt for blogs that you like, discover new ones using http://technorati.com/ (a blog demographic site).
- Choices get in or way and lead to decision paralysis. We waste time deciding what to do first. Figure out how to mak edecisions for your business. When we are confronted with too many choices our willpower goes down.
The solution is to take action over and over again. The key to success is continued action, figuring out what to do next to keep moving forward.
At this point I should note that April recommended a great book called "Switch - How to change things when change is hard" by Chip & Dan Lee. Mine arrived this week and it's great.
Next came the worksheet section. Everyone was asked to write down their creative dream goal (this is actually really hard to pinpoint - give it a try).
Actions to take to reach your creative dream goal
Ask yourself these two questions:
1) How much do you NEED to be making....
2) How much do you WANT to be making.....
April stressed that you NEED to be clear on your money in order to make your creative dream goal a reality. You need to know if your dream goal is realistic. You need to figure out your daily/weekly/monthly money targets and know that you can do it.
A great example she gave was that if you're a knitter and you need to knit for 12 hours a day to turn a profit then it doesn't take a genius to work out that this isn't going to happen everyday. Diversifying into selling some PDF patterns of your knitting patterns, perhaps teaching some knitting classes or creating a monthly newsletter with a paid subscription could be alternatives to knitting all day and another way in helping you reach your creative dream goal.
- Feelings attached to your creative dream goal
What feelings will you have when you achieve your creative dream goal? Have a think about that.
Attaching a feeling makes it clearer in our minds, it gives us that extra push.
- Crap Excuses (this is me all over)
This is why you are not achieving your dream goal, crap excuses get in the way.
April spoke about Chris Carr the author of "Crazy Sexy Cancer", an NY Times Bestselling Author. She was diagnosed with cancer and had so many reasons to make crap excuses. Instead, she became an expert on what made her healthy.
Don't let yourself make crap excuses, get to know what your crap excuses are and take action instead. Some crap excuses for me involve, laziness, too tired, I need a break, need some peace and quiet, I can't find any of my stuff in my workroom.
What are your crap excuses? Get to know them and you'll learn to banish them.
- Help yourself to take action, makes things black and white/crystal clear.
For instance I have now decided that come rain or shine each week I will blog each Monday, Wednesday and Friday and add 5 items each week to my Etsy shop.
Think about what needs to be black and white for you to reach your Etsy goals.
What crap excuses are getting in your way?
Help yourself your to your dream goal.
Take baby steps towards your dream goal. Your goal can seem too big and too frightening and unachievable. Break it down into chunks where you can take small steps of action. If you get stuck imagine your friends has the same dilemma as you, what would you tell your friend to do?
- Your Take Action List
Write down 3 things that you will take action on this week (mine were as follows):
1) Get clear on money to figure out if my creative dream goal is achievable
2) Retake 5 photos from my jewellery shop
3) List 5 new items on Etsy
- High leverage tasks, tasks with good rewards
Only fill your actionable tasks with high leverage tasks - you need to see results to continue to be motivated towards reaching your dream goal.
- Goal Setting
Do you produce outrageously long to-do lists that seem out of control? Yes, me too!
April suggested listing 6 things to do each day, each roughly one hour in length (including exercising!). That way you know that everything is going to get done.
You can waste time making choices from a long to-do list. Eliminate that straight away by limited each task to an hour. If you do not complete a task one day then move it to the following day. This will free you up creatively. Make your to-do lists do-able (sounds so simple doesn't it, yet I am so guilty of making my to-do list so ridiculous).
- High Leverage tasks part 2
High leverage tasks will help you eliminate busy time that gets lost i.e. Facebook/Twitter etc. Focus on:
80% high leverage tasks
20% busy work e.g. twitter/facebook/email
Stop doing the crap that doesn't work! (again so simple, but you need someone yo reinforce this in you).
April suggested another book, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins.
Great business focus on what NOT to do as well as what TO do.
Spend time working on things which will make you more money.
Write down what you do each day and how long you do it for. Don't do the stuff that doesn't work and is not productive.
Work out how many hours each day you can devote to your business. If it's 2 hours then this will equal 2 tasks. You have to find time to make your hours count. If you can only afford to spend one hour a day on your creative business then this equals one tasks, so make it a task that is high leverage, one that you will see rewards from straight away.
Most common crap excuse - I don't have time!
Everyone has 24 hours, make them count.
