This is Week 50 of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I’m applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week here, on the podcast, and at the Marketing Mix blog.
While I’m (hopefully) moving in the direction of speaking about topics like I did at last month’s Ignite event—addressing fear, hanging with change, and other “big” stuff—I still enjoy talking about social media and other communications-oriented topics to the right people. (If you like hearing about the underlying principles to good communicating, online or off, in the “teach a man to fish” spirit, you’re probably one of the right people. If you want a tutorial on Facebook, I’m not your gal.)
I like talking about social media because I’m a big consumer of it and a huge believer in it, and I want to share that excitement and love even as I keep people from “peeing in the well the rest of us are drinking from,” to paraphrase my friend, Merlin, in an excellent talk he gave about social media at last month’s WordCamp Phoenix. Since I quit acting, I’ve met most of the people I know in real life via social media to start with.
This week’s marketing round-up (below) is a perfect illustration of that.
The Biznik event I attended was hosted by my friend (and co-hostess of the monthly Biznik event I started on the West Side of L.A. in January), Heather Parlato. We originally met via Spencer Cross’s mailing list for designers, KERNSPIRACY; I originally met Spencer when we were both blogging for Metblogs L.A. (And I got that gig via—you guessed it—reading and commenting on blogs, as well as starting my own.)
The podcast I recorded was with Alaia Williams, a business acquaintance whom I met at a real-life networking event here in L.A. But I met her because of an online hookup to Colleen Rice Nelson via Ilise Benun, my old marketing coach, and—yes—Biznik, again. (As an aside, I met Ilise via a real-life workshop given by her partner in Marketing Mentor, Peleg Top, whom I found via Spencer on the KERNSPIRACY list.)
The one-on-one meeting I had was with a new friend, Dave Waite, whom I also originally met via the KERNSPIRACY list. We finally met one-on-one after sharing a great deal of online communication via email, Twitter, Facebook (and by reading each others’ posts on KERNSPIRACY), and meeting a few times socially at the monthly Biznik meetups I host with Heather on the West Side.
I’ll throw in one more, only because it helps illustrate the blurring of the lines between “work” and “play.” Last Friday, I made a funny little video with my friend, Adam, whom I met via Twitter, then in real life at SXSW. Adam lives approximately two miles from my boyfriend here in L.A., yet we met online via social media and again in person at an official event 2000 miles away before really becoming friends here in town and making something together (which, of course, we put online).
I’m building a head of steam with this because this email, I got a very frustrating (and to be fair, probably frustrated) email from a reader of my latest newsletter, on creating handles being the best method for connecting in this overtaxed, over-busy world we live in today. My thesis is that rather than badgering people to look at your stuff, to pay attention to you, to come to your thing, you make it easy for them to pull themselves closer to you by creating a handle they can grab onto when they’re ready, to pull themselves closer. This means making sure your product or service—which is herself, in the case of the actor who emailed—is exceptional, then taking equal care to craft ways of making it exquisitely easy and joyful for people to come closer.
As you can probably guess by this wind-up, the email was all about how she could get casting directors to pay attention to her. Because her picture/resume and postcards weren’t working. (Surprise, huh?)
I’ll leave off the railing and wailing and just refer to Beverly Sills’ words of wisdom on the topic: “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” Which I always understood to mean just that there’s no quick way, but the truth is, there’s also no mapped way. You make your way toward every opportunity, but it’s not like there are lines painted on the ground. Part of the joy of purposeful guesstimating is the serendipity involved: you’ll meet people and discover great connections, but maybe not all the exact ones you set out to find.
I know it’s been one of the more gratifying aspects to my journey. And if you have any, I’d love to hear of some of your circuitous connections.
“Marketing” round-up for this week:
- 6 blog posts (five at the main blog, one here)
- Biznik networking event (originally met via online networking)
- Interview for podcast on entrepreneurial business (originally met via online networking)
- One-on-one meetup with colleague (originally met via online networking)
- email! email! email!
- morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Colleen, we’re almost to the end of this year of observing and admiring your progress and your process and, although you and I are on different sides of the fence when it comes to social networking, I do appreciate all you do and all you have done for me and for Marketing Mentor by making your journey so transparent and, as a perk, so much fun to read.
That long sentence (which probably wouldn’t even fit a tweet) is my way of saying thank you.
This post made me realize that I am not doing nearly enough to put myself in the path of future friends or clients. Thanks for the kick in the pants.
@Ilise – Thank you for being such a good sport about my wacky take on things. You’ll notice I did try to keep the swearing to a minimum, out of respect for the upstanding institution that is Marketing Mentor. (Or maybe you didn’t and I did it for nothing. DAMMIT.)
@Chad – Then my work here is done! Which is good, y’know, b/c my work here is nearly done!
I discovered you and your “Growing your business” blog recently. I also have Pelig’s and Ilise’s book. Are you starting something else for the new year? Should I go back and start over? I feel kind of alone when I’m not working in realtime.
MF
Hey, Michael.
The calendar project was a one-off for me: I won’t be repeating it in 2010.
Ilise does have groups starting every month, and I know they work the calendar in them.
Or you could go back to Week 1 and just pretend that I’m posting in real time!
Main thing is, DO it. Get a group together, or an accountability partner, and go go go. Cool?