Posts in "sell more of your work" Category — Page 8

market like a mofo, sell more of your work

Make your newsletter 300-ish% more effective.

The way I see it, newsletters as we know ’em are done for. Why?

Nobody wants updates about your company, or my company, or her company, or his company.

We want to hear and see your stories.

What do I mean? Lemme give you an update and a story from Kenya.

Update: Peter is a 4-year-old who came to the orphanage in February. He enjoys pushing tires around, playing with cars, and eating peanut butter bananas. I love him.

Updates speak in generalities and don’t provide the compelling why for any given situation.

So you made new purses to sell? Tell us why you made them, who they’re for, and what you hope will come of buying them for your customers instead of telling us about their dimensions and how much they cost — those details are necessary, yes, but not compelling.

Updates also tend to be brief, as we don’t want to “bother people” or “waste people’s time.”

Story: When Peter came to the orphanage, he couldn’t walk — only crawl — but now he’ll run you down with his tire as soon as look at you. He’s growing like a weed, having doubled in size in the past five months, and he’s absorbing the English language at a mind-boggling pace.

Now I understand why parents go around touting their kid’s latest achievements. “Peter learned to put his shoes on the right feet! Peter learned the words “bus” and “driver,” then drew them! Peter threatened to run me over with his car if I didn’t get out of his way!”

I’m really annoying right about now. I tell anyone who will listen just how much this four-year-old has grown and just how much I’m proud of him. (And when he barges into the kitchen, demanding peanut butter and bananas? I oblige. You would, too.)

If anyone questions why I was here or what made living in Kenya for months worth it, witnessing his remarkable progress is my first answer.

Stories provide less facts and more heart than updates.

They can be felt, they tell the absolute truth, and they give details that “don’t matter” but that make all the difference to your readers.

Instead of sending that September update that says you’re running out of portrait session spots and providing a rundown of how great your summer clients were, why not feature a single client? Why not tell the story of someone whose life you improved or whose condition you changed?

Most importantly, stories help your clients understand why you do what you do.

Whether you make belts because your skinny jeans always had that weird gap in the back or you create portraits because your childhood photos were lost in a fire — your WHY matters.

Once you’ve got a story for your newsletter, you’ll need to issue a single call to action.

A call to action asks people to do something specific: click a link, read more of your article, get more information, share a coupon, buy a product, or book a service.

If I told you to clean your closet, empty your inbox of non-urgent e-mails, brush your teeth, AND redeem your frequent flyer miles at the end of my newsletter, would you take action? Or would you just be overwhelmed, unable to prioritize what to do first?

I can guarantee that you’d be overwhelmed and do nothing. The same thing is true of your readers — of ANY readers — who will respond best to a single call to action.

Finally…I dare you to make a button for your next newsletter call to action.

Whether you want people to buy now, book now, check it out, learn more, or add to cart — a button that sums up your call to action is the simplest way on Earth to make your newsletter about 300%-ish more effective.

But Kristen! What about those pretty newsletter templates that contain three places for updates, eight links to articles, and seven different pictures?

Those templates are pretty, but overwhelming. Try sending a single story with a single call to action, and see how your peeps respond.

P.S. The ultimate newsletter template can help you actually write your people an e-mail today.

…and if you’re like, BUT HOW DO I DO THIS WHOLE COMMUNICATING-WITH-MY-PEEPS-REGULARLY THING, check out How To F*^%ing Communicate.

market like a mofo, sell more of your work

What Peter Pan can teach you about selling more stuff

I just returned from Kenya, which you know means I’ve been showering, using electricity, and enjoying television like a champ in the past few days! While catching up on my TV loves, I saw this advertisement: “Now releasing from the Disney vault, for the first time on Blu-Ray and DVD…Peter Pan!”

Dude. That’s some amazing marketing taking place.

Disney is finding a way to make a movie that came out in nineteen fifty-freaking-three “new,” then giving attention to it as if we haven’t all seen Peter Pan and believed we could fly and watched the epic Captain Hook battle scene already. It’s extraordinary!

You’ve seen this same thing happen when fashion designers find a way to make the Eighties popular AGAIN (Holy Shizballs Almighty, do we need one more pair of sherbet-colored jeans in the world!?); when pop singers offer “Best Of” CDs full of previous hits; when McDonald’s finds a reason to sell more more McNuggets by putting 50 in a box for $9.98.

Repackaging what’s old to make it something new and exciting is an important part of doing business well.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, or coming up with an entirely new product, how can you repackage what you already have?

What’s sitting on your shelves that you can apply your repackaging ideas to and sell anew? What tweak or twist can you add to make your offerings fresh?

Here are 5 quick examples of repackaging to get your gears turning:

Selling hard goods? For anything from lotions and butters to socks and underwear, try bundling old stock with a new title. A “Back to School” package, a “First Day of Kindergarten” package containing a backpack, cute socks, a pencil kit, and a few hair bows? A “Working for the Weekend” package that mixes a gorgeous hat, a new purse, and a few travel guides? There’s no limit to the twists you can create to make what you’ve got more appealing to your peeps.

Sell services? Bundle your favorite items from local vendors with the service you’d most like to sell, and you’ve created an all new “Go Local” package. For example? Bundle a 60-minute portrait session at the park with a book about the park by a local author, a scarf to wear in the park by a local designer, and a set of watercolors to draw the park from your local art supply store. It’s a new, different reason to sell a session in the park, and it supports locals you love.

Got old stock, unused props, or random extras hanging around? Hold a contest to give that stuff away — just package it around a theme and voila! More fans or more followers, less stuff cluttering up your studio.

Got a bestseller? How can you make it even more prone to sell? Can you add a bonus audio track, video, or message that makes it more desirable? Can you add 1-on-1 time with you or with your staff members to push it off the shelves? Adding value to what’s already working makes it even more likely to fly off the shelves.

Can anything come out of retirement? Just like Peter Pan can come out of the “Disney vault,” your old products or services can be polished up and repackaged as something completely fresh. The phrase “Back by popular demand” can work wonders, here.

Whether you’re repackaging, holding a contest, adding value, un-retiring a product, or bringing something back by popular demand, I dare you to get out there and make everything old new again.

P.S. Celebrate your (business) crockpot.

get your biz off the ground, sell more of your work

When should you give a product the ax?

Your business is constantly evolving. You’re trying out new vendors and streamlining your processes. You’re working with new clients and maintaining relationships with former ones, too. You’re adding new products and services to your line-up all the time. But. How the flibbity jibbeting frying pans do you know when it’s time to retire a “perfectly good” product?

Here are five easily-spotted signs it’s time to give a product or service the ax.

Kill-that-product sign #1: dread.

If you feel like hurling yourself off a cliff every time you sell a certain something, it’s time to give up the ghost. Retire that product or service without ceremony and move on to greener pastures.

What’s that? It’s “good money” you get for doing that thing you hate? Right. So, tell me about the that time you went to get a massage and the person giving rubbing you down was just not into it. Could you feel it? Tell me about that time you saw a band perform after being on the road for six months and they were phoning it in. Could you feel that? Or how about that time you called a customer service person for help and they just Did. Not. Care. Could you feel that, too?

Like you, your customers can feel your lack of enthusiasm. Instead of letting that dread bring you (and your business!) down, cut the product or service that makes you dream of becoming a lemming from your business offerings as soon as possible.

Kill that product sign #2: expenses have changed significantly.

If you used to have an unpaid intern who did all your photo editing and album design, but now you’ve got to pay someone $75 an hour to do the same work, your expenses have changed significantly. You’ve got to either raise prices to reflect your new costs or kill the product altogether. A business is a business to be profitable, so eating those costs doesn’t do you any good. Luckily, adjusting costs means this product can easily survive!

Kill-it-kill-it-I-mean-retire-it sign #3: waning popularity (i.e. no longer interesting to your clients).

If you’ve been selling out a class with 100 seats again and again, then suddenly launch a new set of seats and sell…10…you’ve got some waning popularity on your hands. You can retire the class altogether, or just give the class more time between rounds to ensure that demand has increased since the last time you’ve run it. Likewise, if you’ve done 3 rounds of mini sessions in the past year or you’ve been holding monthly specials that are noticeably less effective, giving those promotions a rest will help boost your clients’ demand later in the year.

Die-die-die-product-die! sign #4: boredom (i.e. no longer interesting to you).

Boredom on your part doesn’t mean a product or service has to be retired — unless you’re unwilling to outsource some part of the making or selling of it! If you just can’t give another Mmmm Mmmm Chocolate Body Scrub and Massage or you’ll go postal, you have two options. One, stop offering that service. Two, find someone else to offer that service on your behalf. If you can find someone who’s willing to hit up the Mmmm Mmmm all day long and you’re willing to give them a cut of your profits, you’ve got yourself a winning combination.

Whether you’re bored by customer service or just can’t freaking stand selling one more _______________, acknowledging your boredom and doing your best to get it into the hands of someone who’s wildly enthusiastic about this portion of your business sets you up for long-term sustainability. And profitability, too!

Oh-man-holy-horseflies-just-die-already sign #5: disproportionate resource usage.

Disproportionate resource usage sounds really official, doesn’t it? If 10% of your income comes from something that takes up 50% of your time, kill it. Kill it dead, and quickly. Unless you’re mastering skills that will get faster and easier with time, there’s no reason to keep this time suck in your business mix.

On the other hand, if 50% of your business income comes from something that takes 10% of your time, put effort into growing that portion of your business! This means you’ve got yourself a nice stream of income, and you want to work on building it to make earning more money easier for you.

P.S. Maybe it’s time to play the $1,000 in your inbox game.

get your biz off the ground, sell more of your work

Work from home: are you suffering from “never done” syndrome?

I was talking to one of my business-owning peeps the other day, when she mentioned that she feels like her business work is never done. That’s because it isn’t.

Just like laundry, just like working out, just like eating meals each day…just like life…

There’s always more work to do, more meals to create, and more stuff to take care of — but that doesn’t mean you spend every waking moment trying to “get done.”

If you feel overwhelmed by your business, like the work is never done, it’s time to start scheduling your days.

(I mean really scheduling, not putting vague things in your calendar and then ignoring them.)

Scheduling and prioritizing go hand in hand.

If I woke up every morning and had to start from scratch — figuring out what my biggest priority for the day would be — I would waste an hour making lists each morning. Instead, I add stuff to my calendar as needed throughout out the week, giving myself a full work day every day.

For example. If I’m asked to write a guest post for a blog or magazine, I note the due date and schedule writing time for the article one week beforehand. Instead of being on my to-do list, making me feel uncomfortable and never getting prioritized, it’s on my calendar. I don’t worry about it until it pops up one day.

Same goes for mentoring calls, event planning, writing blog posts, writing books, product launches…you name it. It’s scheduled way before it happens, so my morning fog makes no difference to my priorities. When I wake up, I know what needs to happen.

The more structured your days, the more productive you’ll be.

This is especially important if your time is limited — I’m looking at you, work-from-home moms! If you can schedule your time away from the kiddos to be filled with your priorities, you’ll never again have to succumb to that sinking, spinning your wheels overwhelmed feeling. (Related: how to stop an idea tornado.)

The more productive you are on any given work day, the less “never done” syndrome you’ll suffer from. You’ve accomplished your objectives for the day — just as you fed yourself for another freaking day, right? — and you can worry about what isn’t finished tomorrow.

(Related: I made a podcast series called Structure that Doesn’t Suck to help you do this work!)

Prioritization and scheduling also allow you to be a total slacker.

Say what? When you know you need to accomplish a, b, and c, you can quit working when a, b, and c are done. No hanging around on Facebook feeling guilty because you’re done working but all your friends have 9 to 5’s. No vague feelings of “being productive” without any to-do’s to check off.

You’ve taken the time to know exactly what needs to happen, and you’ve made it happen. Whether you’ve got a free half day or a free fifteen minutes, enjoy it. Make “never done” syndrome a thing of the past!

Write down the things that need to happen today, this week, and this month on a piece of paper you’ve got lying around. Schedule each and every one of ’em, then pat yourself on the back. “Never done” syndrome is a thing of the past.

P.S. Here’s one question to help you create structure for your downtime.

market like a mofo, sell more of your work

5 reasons your last promotion fell flat.

A while ago you figured out how to create a promotion for your business and mastered the way to hold a sale without breaking your brand, so you hit the ground running. You created a few promotions and pimped the shit out of them. But they fell flat. They didn’t get the response you wanted. They didn’t fill your calendar and put a few grand in your pocket. What went wrong?

You don’t suck, your work isn’t terrible, and your people DO care about you. It’s probably just the way you’re promoting, which is easy enough to fix!

Here are five reasons your last promotion might have fallen flat.

PROMO KILLER #1: Too much time.

Give people two weeks to decide and they’ll need three. The more time you give clients to make a decision, the less likely they are to actually make it. This is why short windows for sales and promos work best. 24 hours, the weekend, 72 hours. Those short, sweet time frames force decisions to happen.

Promo Rx: A perfectly good offer can be ruined by going on and on for a whole month. The most effective offers are short and force people to act quickly. They use the marketing principle of urgency to make magic happen.

PROMO KILLER #2: Unlimited quantities.

People who think a quantity of something is unlimited will be less likely to go bonkers for buying it than those who think an item is in short supply. If your last promo didn’t list a specific number of services available, you’ve fallen into this “unlimited” trap.

Promo Rx: If you’re a service provider, your quantities are automatically limited by your time. If you can complete just 8 portrait sessions or 12 massages or 22 consultations per month, SAY SO. This automatically switches your readers into being more likely to buy or schedule. You’ve just activated the marketing principle of scarcity.

PROMO KILLER #3: Too many choices.

I’ve seen promo ads that resemble a big box weekly flyer more than a single offer! While it might seem that more and more choices will help your clients get exactly what they need, it might just confuse the shit out of them. (For example, offering a sale on prints or canvases or portrait sessions or fine art prints will result in selling none of the above.)

Promo Rx: A single offer — take it or leave it — is generally much more effective than a “choose your own” sale of any kind.

PROMO KILLER #4: Lack of reach.

Without an e-mail list and regular blogging, you’re just posting promos to Facebook and hoping for the best. Use this article to get your e-mail list up and running, then start to build your reach.

Promo Rx: Quantity counts! If a reader hears of a promo six different ways, they’re more likely to buy than if they hear of it just once. Life happens. They forget. They “mean to” buy and don’t. What feels like relentless promotion on your part will only just break through the noise of ads on their part.

PROMO KILLER #5: Teeny discount.

Following the great financial collapse of the past few years, we consumers have gotten better at bargain spotting. We snub our noses at 20% discounts and don’t really care about 30% off. It’s only by spotting a deep discount that we begin to pay attention to what’s being offered.

Promo Rx: If you’re holding a straight-up sale, consider holding a steeper sale for a short period of time. The temptation is to offer 20% off for a few weeks — try 40% off for 48 hours. Those are savings your clients just won’t be able to pass up.

P.S. This is part of Introverts at Work, my book about marketing for Quiet-with-a-capital-Q entrepreneurs! It’s pay-what-you-can priced right here.