Marketing for Solopreneurs

Permission to Play: The Stressed Out Solopreneur

Up at 5am this morning, I've been at my computer for three hours already and it's only 9:10. My self-imposed blog post deadline is today. I have a festival guide to write for a client. It's due Monday. Tomorrow is Friday and I haven't started.

A marketing e-tip and two articles. Copy for MarketingYourSmallbiz.com's brand new website that launches July 8. Final drafts for our upcoming booth at BizJam, the coolest indie conference on the planet.

I am rocking back and forth in my chair, feeling the crushing weight of Productivity and Deadlines and Promises. I want to pull out a stick of black licorice, but it's just past 9am and it doesn't feel right.

I need something, I just don't know what. Or maybe I do.

Play is Powerful

The stars have aligned this week in a strange, cosmic way. The blogs I read regularly, the people I chat with online, the friends I talk to, have all been tuned to the same message: the importance of carving out space for myself.

For we who are creative randoms, it goes beyond running or yoga or watching old movies, though those are all good stress-breakers. For the artist, play is essential to our self-nurturing.

The adult in me disapproves of the silly me. And yet I know that the creative part of me, who I need to show up for work, depends on getting enough play time.

I used to be better at this. I know that being a workaholic blocks my creative energy. I know that the best ideas come to me when I am playful.

And yet it is hard to schedule that time in.

On one blog, we were challenged to back away from our to-do lists and schedule regular self-maintenance.

To create a list of fun things we can do to take charge of the children in us who are lurking inside, waiting to escape. I know. When you're having fun, there's no point. But that's the point.

I am pulling out the toys I have buried. Yes, I'm going to:

• paint with my watercolor set
• find interesting rocks in the woods behind our house
• juggle (yes, I have my own set of balls)
• make something with glitter and Elmer's Glue
• play with my paddle ball (yes, that board thingie with the rubber string and the little red ball)
• sketch a drawing of my cat
• look at the crazy shapes I create with my kalidescope

Have you fallen into the Productivity Pit? Have you ever stopped working to do something absolutely silly and pointless, yet deeply satisfying? If you did, what was it?

I'd love to hear your comments. Better yet, I'd love to hear how it goes if you try it.

Hard Hat Blues: Websites 'Under Construction'

How many websites lately have you gone to and found the dreaded words, "This Site Under Construction". If you are an avid web surfer, they won't fit on your two hands.

The problem here is a Catch 22. Often we come up with our domain name, and if we find it available, quickly nab it and up goes the construction sign. Then, before we can even get started on the site, we print our business cards, letterhead, and other collateral, all with our new web address.

So while you are struggling to get the site up, your marketing has already started, cards are going out, and visitors are arriving.

Is this common?

Yes.

Is it good?

No!

There is nothing more frustrating than finding those "under construction" pages. Sometimes an email will be added, a logo, and a simple, "please come back and visit us soon." Right, I am going to bookmark this site and check back every other day to see if it is up. Not likely...

Think of it this way. Let's say you open a retail flower shop. You are in the process of constructing the building or remodeling. You print up your biz cards, or worse yet, run an ad with the physical address.

So now your potential customers are taking the time to drive there, only to find a construction mess and a closed sign. They drive away frustrated.

Your unfinished "online store" will get the same reaction.

If you have a site that is not up yet, avoid advertising the web address anywhere. Or better yet, make that website a priority. Because web customers are impatient. If they visit and find nothing of value, it is doubtful that they will ever return.

How about you? If you go to a site and it is "under construction," are you likely to go back? I'd love to hear your comments.

Social Media Marketing: Are You Lurking, or Just Listening?

I listened in on a great discussion last week. (Hmmm…or was I a lurker?)

It started at Copyblogger.com. Guest blogger, ad executive Bob Hoffman, compared web marketing to marketing on TV: 'people with stuff yelling at people with money.' He was talking about the one-way, non-interactive web marketing model.

But is social media marketing really as interactive as it's cracked up to be?

Hoffman thinks not. He said that, regardless of what the 'conversation advocates' say, the average customer does not have the time for, or interest in, chatting with marketers.

Hoffman describes interactivity as the ability to interact with the content of the medium, not just the medium. So, viewing a blog or channel surfing on TV is one-way communication, but posting a comment on a blog or forum meets the definition of interactivity.

Hoffman thinks that we (meaning you and I), as 'web geeks,' spend way more time in front of a computer screen than our customers do. And if our customers do use the web, it's passively, hopping from page to page, reading this and that.

Anonymous visitors

Over at the Remarkable Communication blog, Sonia Simone continued the conversation. She said that, even within a community conversation model, in any one online community, no more than 1% of readers ever post comments.

So that means that the body of potential customers who are influenced by a conversation is much, much larger than the number of active users. And, while these listeners are not interacting, they often make buying decisions based on the information and opinions they read.

Who are the 'lurkers'?

I was struck by something Simone said in her second post: "Online media have an unappealing word for this behavior: lurking. It conjures up a picture of some creepy guy hiding in the bushes outside your window."

I've been there myself. Not the part about the creepy guy hiding in the bushes. But I have been a listener— a lurker of sorts. I subscribe to one blog because I enjoy the commentary. I visit that other forum just to see what's going on, to listen to what people are talking about. To learn something.

Does a lurker's motive matter?

Let's say you are starting a new business and want to know the needs—I mean, the real pain— of your target customers. You think you know what's keeping them up at night, but you want to be sure before you launch that new product or service, before you roll out that expensive ad or direct mail campaign.

So you listen in on forums where your prospects hang out. You gather information on their needs and challenges. You lurk.

You may not even want to contribute because you feel that your prospective customers will be more honest if they don't know you are there.

So what do you think? Does the motive matter? Personally, I visit forums and blogs to better understand the issues solopreneurs face. And I don't always contribute to the conversation.

Do you think listeners and lurkers are participants in online communication or just eavesdroppers? And by not revealing their motives are they being deceptive in any way?

I'd love to read your comments on this post.

Synchronicity and the Solopreneur: How Did Spontaneity Get Such a Bad Name?

Plans are good. I like plans. I couldn't run my business without a plan. I even consult my marketing and business plans at least once a month.

With my calendar, I normally schedule like crazy, always with an eye to how to make the best use of my time. Now granted, I usually work from the home office, on an island, in South Puget Sound.

It's messy getting away: a ferry ride, an hour drive to most appointments and, if I don't make it back to the ferry landing when a boat is ready to leave, it's another hour wait, sometimes two. So I try to collect people I want to meet with until I have a full plate.

But this last Monday, I decided to put the plans aside and for one week go with my heart. Follow my intuition and see where it leads me. If I'm really honest with myself, I'll admit that it's really who I am anyway. Random, spontaneous, yes, sometimes even impulsive.

But that's also when I'm at my most creative self. So last week, I decided to release myself and just do what felt right.

I belong to an online business networking group. Instead of just reading new members' profiles, mentally shelving the interesting people for another, more convenient time, I decided to act on my interest—right now.

If I saw a connection I could make between two people, I connected them—right now. If I saw common interest and possibilities for partnerships, I didn't wait to set up a time-efficient, group networking "coffee date." I connected online—that same day.

I was amazed at what happened. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, describes something she calls synchronicity, the experience of finding things that happen in the moment to fit what you are doing.

I may begin with a plan, but as I take small leaps of faith and listen to my inner voice—"do this, try this…"—I find that opportunities just start popping up.

The Results of My Experiment

In one week, I:

• Connected a business colleague with a blogger who is looking to do a story on just her kind of company.

• Found common ground and a connection with a new friend, the owner of a new education-focused organization who wants to explore partnerships.

• Started conversations with another blogger with the potential for cross-promotion and blog links.

• Discovered a cool connection with a woman who is working in an area I'm passionate about: early childhood learning; we are going to meet to explore partnerships.

• Identified two colleagues whose recent articles match the topics of my upcoming marketing e-tips and traded quotes for direct links to their websites in my e-tips.

I'm not really throwing away all plans. But I learned something here. Follow the advice of experts, but don't lose your soul in the process. Do what works best for you.

Have spontaneity and synchronicity ever converged in the perfect moment for you?