I’m still in paring-down mode after last week’s meltdown (oh, the good times! the goody-good times!), so this week was a lot less about marketing and a lot more about jettisoning projects that aren’t serving my key goals and cleaning up the horrific backlog that has built up because of my poor past practices.

I’ve already detailed much of what I’m doing to pare down, as well as what I’m working toward, so I won’t belabor it here. Just by implementing a few new practices and removing a few projects, I feel a huge sense of relief, including some hope that I may come out of this year with a much clearer sense of what next year needs to look like, both from an overall sense and a marketing perspective.

The marketing keepers

Since I’ve been doing this marketing and self-promotion stuff for a while now, it makes sense for me to look at not only what’s working for me from a business perspective (i.e., what’s bringing clients in the door, and prospects up to it), but also to really look hard at what’s missing from the mix as well as what’s fun for me. “Fun” doesn’t necessarily mean whoop-dee-doo and hallelujah: it’s more about what I find interesting, challenging and engaging—what is a good fit for my skills and bent.

The newsletter is a no-brainer, as is the blog. In addition to providing the means to share useful information with clients, prospects and fans, they keep me writing and the more I write—my core competency, by a country mile—the better I feel and do. I’m keeping my skills sharp, growing as a writer, and, because of the relentless nature of the writing, discovering by combination of necessity and accident some new avenues for my writing. Poetry Thursday, which I re-started earlier this year after not being able to write one single more long blog post, has turned out to be one of the most popular things I write. And I’ve never, ever identified as either a poetry lover nor a poet. Go figger.

The podcast is a surprisingly fun vehicle for me. I resisted it when Peleg and Ilise first suggested I try my hand at it, but like other things I think I hate until I meet them and fall in love, I’m a convert. What’s more, I’ve been genuinely shocked by the enthusiastic response to it from listeners. To me, the idea of listening to content when the same stuff is available to read is crazy, but that’s just me. And I love doing them, so there you go. Because of my commitment to the calendar project, I won’t starting my own podcast until 2010, but it’s gonna be a hum-dinger, trust me.

In-person networking with Biznik has been richly rewarding. I have really enjoyed hosting the events in the Marina, and it’s been thrilling seeing other people discover the value of them: so much that they’re willing to start up their own events. Having Heather come on as co-host was the greatest single thing that happened in the entire process. If anyone is interested in getting a regular event up and running, I strongly suggest figuring out a great, ambitious, fun, trustworthy colleague to partner with. You’ll each take the heat off of each other, plus you’ll forge an incredible bond. Heather even made me an SCD-legal pie for my birthday! (see pic top right!)

The marketing also-rans

Ilise, I’m ducking in advance, but cold calling is off the menu right now. Honestly, it’s been off since I abandoned the idea of taking my little branding and marketing song-and-dance for actors on the road. The combination of eviscerated university endowments and my split focus killed off my enthusiasm: as the old saw goes, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I’m really, really good at talking to actors about how to market themselves. But it pulls me from other stuff I’m even better at. The good news is that once I have a real reason to pick up the phone and ask people questions, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to. So this isn’t a loss—it’s a real win.

I love my Biznik events, because I’m making great connections while I hone my leadership skills, build something much bigger than myself, and hey—just have fun! (Don’t discount fun, ever!) But I’m going to be far, far more judicious about the number and types of other events I go to. I just can’t hit that many big conferences, unless I’m speaking and they’re paying me for my time. C.C. Chapman has a fantastic podcast episode on what he’s calling Personal Price Tags that addresses this; it’s short and compelling and well worth a listen. I get that it’s going to require more effort on my part to research what are and aren’t good events, but that’s much easier to manage than wasting time at the wrong dance.

The marketing “maybes”

I have to be careful, here, because I have a well-documented and chronic case of Eyes Bigger than Stomach Syndrome. But these are other marketing ideas that have my interest:

A video podcast, series of videos or narrated presentations/screencasts. It finally hit me that after all those years of performance and presenting, I have chops that I’m STUPIDLY letting go to waste. Plus, I love it. I love talking and I love performing. Not everyone is going to want to see and hear this stuff, but some people, we’ve established, like it better. So, untapped market + Colleen Fun = DO IT. Somehow.

A book. Yes, that book—the one that some people have heard me yakking about for years now. I finally have the title and the idea. Well, that’s not quite true: I have two titles and two ideas for two totally different books. Not sure how that’s going to play out, but I have until January 1st to wrap my brain around it. (I plan to start the proposal for one of them sooner.)

A tour. Not sure what this means yet, but I have a vision of myself doing some more extended versions of my now-annual PacNW trip. If you have ideas—or better yet, if there’s a way you would love love love for me to show up in your town, please let me know.

As usual, a huge part of the reason I’m blathering all this stuff in such detail is that I’m hoping to gain some clarity. Seeing it written out is helpful right away, but feedback from objective sources is always welcome. What am I missing that’s glaringly obvious to you? What do I do that’s good for me and for you that I should turn more attention to?

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (four at the main blog, one here)
• attended the second Biznik Chicken Wing Thing
• lots of email (although the system helps when I apply it)
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter
• sent hard copy thank you notes and a thank you gift
• revised one page on my website

Happy summer, everyone! (I know, right? How the hell did that happen!? One day at a time, of course, just like our marketing or anything else gets done…or doesn’t, sometimes.)

This was the first fun week I’ve had since getting sick over a month ago. Because I’m all about post-game analysis—mostly because I have gotten kind of tired of repeating the same mistakes, and also because, as I approach 50, I’m more and more aware of how little time I may have left—I spent some time analyzing why. Since this week is about NEWSLETTERS for anyone working the Veteran’s Calendar, I’ve included a bonus-extra analysis about my most successful newsletter mailing to date.

Hopefully, the lessons I’ve come away with will be useful to you on your own marketing (and other) journey.Reason #1: I felt good

Yes, I can work through pain or fatigue just like anyone else. But I am happier, more productive and more delightful to be around (hence, a better ad for me and my services) when I am healthy. My ill health forced me to sleep extra-long hours for a few weeks; now I’m knocking off and getting to bed in time to get 8 hours, no matter what. I get that it may not be an option for those of you with young children, but for me, especially at my age, sleep is the number one secret to my success. Crazy, but hey—at least it’s FREE.

What’s not free but equally important is eating well. Not richly, but well. Now that I’m back on the special diet to control my Crohn’s I’m feeling much more energetic. This does require me taking time out of each day to prepare food (the diet, while really good for you, is notoriously labor-intensive), but I think I’m making up for it in both quantity of usable work time and quality of the thinking I get during it.

Finally, as part of my new & improved attitude towards work/life balance,
I almost treated the weekend like an actual weekend. Which is to say, yeah, I worked some, but only on stuff I wanted to and only for half-days.

Reason #2: I was doing stuff I loved, work-wise

I got to do another one of my webinars on marketing with social media, which I love doing almost as much as talking about it live and in-person. The further I get away from design, the more certain I am I made the right move. And my own work in consulting, writing and speaking continues to evolve as I discover what I’m best at and what people actually need and want to hire me for. Deidre talked about this in last week’s post, and I think it’s truer than most of us want to think about most of the time. Life is about fluidity and change, not stasis. Yes, it’s all supported by a thorough understanding of our own fixed givens, or at least of values that change less frequently or quickly, but ya gotta keep moving forward.

Reason #3: I challenged myself a wee bit

I didn’t make my cold calls BUT…I made some terrifying (for me) calls—actual CALLS on the actual TELEPHONE—trying to put together more consulting work while I’m in Chicago this July. I may write a bigger post about my preconceived notions going into the calls and how wrong wrong wrong I was about them, but the topline is this: I’m much closer to having a couple of days of work, plus more in the future, and nobody hates me for asking.

I also started making fundraising calls on behalf of PresentationCamp LA, the unconference Cliff Atkinson, Lisa Braithwaite and a few other presentation nerds are getting off the ground. (It’s all day June 20 at BLANKSPACES, it’s only $10, and it’s gonna be AWESOME—if you’re in L.A. or can make the trip, get your tickets now, or check out our planning wiki.)

Now, if there’s one thing I hate even more than cold calling it’s calling asking people for money. But I started by talking to a couple of product evangalist friends (whose products I love and evangalize all the time, anyway)—Tara Anderson of Lijit and Jean MacDonald of TextExpander—was totally upfront about using this as an opportunity to connect, and ended up by having terrific chats (something I never do, since I’m so anti-phone) and maybe scoring a bit of dough for a great community project. I also had a terrific conversation with my new best friend from MindJet, Michael Deutch, and reconnected with one of my idols, Nancy Duarte, via email and Twitter.

Bonus Lesson: Stuff I learned about my newsletter that might help you

I’ve been sending out my newsletter for just over two years now (hey! second anniversary!), and I’ve learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work in that time. My open rates have been consistently in the 50-55% range since leveling off in February of 2008 (before then, it was a small list mostly friends and a much higher rate, probably out of curiosity as anything else), and I could always count on a certain amount of click-throughs for some stuff—usually the very first “useful” link—but I was having trouble getting people to forward it.

This past month, I did two things:

1. I changed the call to action, making it snappier, shorter and more “me” (i.e., making it more obvious without, I hoped, making it appreciably more obnoxious)
2. I nestled it into a small list of other quickie, possible “items of interest” at the end of the main article

Result? Four times more forwards than any newsletter campaign to date! Just for making it obvious what I was asking for. D’oh!

So what does all this add up to?

The past month has been a real source of frustration for me on a lot of levels—I wasn’t able to do half of what I normally want or even don’t want to do—but it’s also been a rich source of learning, and I’m determined to carry on what I’ve perceived to be the most important lessons as I move forward into a new and hopefully more healthfully energetic month…or year…or balance of a lifetime, however long that may turn out to be.

And however long it is, it’s gonna be a helluva lot more enjoyable if I’m in reasonably good health for the bulk of it!

This week: More cold calls, slightly new script, whole new outlook

I’m not sure how many of you who read this are working the Veteran’s Calendar (which I’m supposed to be working) vs. the Start-Up Calendar, or even whether you’re working the calendar at all. While this series is supposed to be an out-loud demonstration of the calendar in action, with all the helpful knowledge that you’d expect from same, it’s not necessary to be working the marketing plan/calendar yourself to get something out of my (and Deidre’s) experience(s) with it.

This week is going to be a perfect demonstration of that. Because unlike the previous weeks, it’s not full of demos and how-tos and tips and tricks, but just one big, fat, cautionary tale about what not to do.

Let me preface this by saying that whatever you’re doing, it’s important to keep doing it, one day at a time, one task at a time. Yes, when you look at the totality of a marketing plan—its lofty goals, its ambitious benchmarks—it’s overwhelming at times. Even doing the individual things is overwhelming sometimes, when the things are things you’re not as good at, or that you’re scared of, or that you just despise. (That’s me and cold calling, for those of you who have not been paying close attention.)

But it is important to do a little something every day. Me, I’ve been doing a lot of something every day—a lot of blogging, a lot of writing, a lot of networking. Sometimes it works out like that: you get some great opportunities lobbed your way, and you’ve got to go for it. My opportunities came in the form of three speaking gigs in the space of a week, plus a lot of other one-time-only networking and meet-up opportunities I felt the need to jump on. Add to that pile the intense load of writing I’ve committed to for 2009, and you can see the potential for it all catching up with me.

Which it did, on Friday. After too many days of cheating sleep, I was exhausted. I could tell, because I started getting snappish—patience is not my strong suit, and it’s replaced by outright bitchy short-temperedness when I get overtired. So Friday night, in a fit of disgust, I went to bed early (for me) and slept for 10 hours.

When I awoke on Saturday, the fog had lifted, and a number of things became clear:

Self-care is not optional; it is the fuel that runs the entire operation. I’ll be writing a review of Leo Babauta’s excellent new book, The Power of Less, very soon, but its core principles—that you must isolate what it is that you truly want and protect that thing with the ferocity of a mama bear—are worth noting now and remembering always.

You can accomplish what you promised, but you must be prepared to make adjustments. For the record, while I’m “doing” the Veteran’s Calendar, I’m really doing a Colleen-ized version of it. Five cold calls these first two weeks instead of the suggested ten. Because I’m (brand-) new to cold calling, and because this particular flavor of business is also new to me. This week, I did my cold calls straight to voicemail on purpose. I knew I could put on a little 15-second show for each prospect and it would be sincere; I seriously doubted whether I had the energy required to interact with another new human being over the phone, much less a potential prospect, and forget entirely about doing it TEN TIMES. Five. Straight to voicemail. Checked off the list. Speaking of which…

You must build in tiny victories to keep going. Small “I did it!”s to keep your enthusiasm up. Stuff you can literally or figuratively check off a list. I write in the public forum for Leo’s New Year’s Challenge to “check off” my 10 minutes of daily guitar practice. You have a calendar with boxes to check off your marketing chores. In true FlyLady fashion, I’ve been making my bed every morning for months now, and it really does make a difference (I recently wrote about FlyLady and the magic of controlling what you can on my own blog, communicatrix-dot-com).

By tomorrow, the worst of my commitment-crazed month should be behind me. I’ve learned a TON from this experiment already, and expect I will keep learning more. Which I’ll continue to share because (a) I promised! and (b) it really is helpful to share this stuff out loud. I encourage you to do the same, in whatever way you feel comfortable with.

Maybe even a few ways you feel UNcomfortable with.

So if you feel up to it, please let me know in the comments what you felt about this. Is is helpful to see me struggling? Or would you rather I shut up and just share tips and tricks? Or is there a winning ratio of wins-to-foibles you find useful and/or inspiring?

Come on…your turn!

NEXT WEEK: Optimizing your online presence

This week: Making cold calls without it killing you

The good news is, I’m still here.

Laugh away, all you brilliant salespeople who pick up the phone over and over (with or without “the good leads”) and sober-dial strangers for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes per day. Until last Friday, I had never made a cold call in my life.

Truthfully, I still haven’t. Ilise and Peleg have very wisely repositioned the dreaded cold call as the slightly less dreadful “research call”—a small but significant shift, mentally. My one non-retail sales job—selling desk blotter ad space one summer between my junior and senior years—had me knocking on actual doors to sell, something that one either has the stones for or that teaches one to find other employment. Much like my brief experience in the food service industry, I chose the the latter.

But I digress. We’re here to discuss cold/research calling…

Making practice calls makes (theoretically) perfect calls

Both the Grow Your Business Calendar and Ilise very specifically state that one should make a few (hundred, if necessary) practice calls on prospects who are not on your “A” list.

For me, selling my little marketing-for-actors talk, that means finding schools outside of easy driving radius of my home who have some kind of acting program where they’re getting training in the artsy/tech-y sides of things, but not the business side. There are dozens and dozens of places less than a half-day from where I live, if not closer; ultimately, I’d like to develop some kind of ongoing relationship with them, where I come a couple of times per term or even get an adjunct professorship. (I very much like the sound of “Professor Wainwright”, although there’s no way I would let anyone call me that on purpose.)

So I needed to find acting schools outside of a 50-mile radius. Preferably, way outside.

Where to find practice “marks”

While I was whining to Ilise during our weekly check-in about who the HELL was I going to call and how the HELL was I going to find them, she went online, did a quick Google search and fired off an email to me with a URL. I believe the very complex search parameters she plugged in were “acting” and “schools”. Without the quotes.

Several of the schools I recognized as so-called “schools”—non-accredited institutions designed to separate desperate would-be stars from their money; live long enough in L.A. and work long enough in the industry and you learn who the bad guys are. I didn’t care about them, but I didn’t want to call them, either: I want people at real schools with real acting programs, just farther away.

One school looked like a likely non-immediate prospect: branch of a large, state uni, stand-alone acting program, roughly 1,500 miles away. After a bit more searching using the the school’s name and a couple of other terms like “professor” and “chair”, I hit the jackpot: a downloadable PDF from the past academic year with the names and contact info of every chair of what looked like every college in the state! I went from having zero practice prospects to enough to practice on for the next four weeks in a few keystrokes.

Eventually, you have to pick up the phone and dial

While Ilise gave me permission to call after hours and just leave messages, I figured since I was doing it out loud here on the blog I ought to at least try talking to some real people. Granted, I wasn’t sure who’d be answering the phone in a theater department on a Friday at 3:45 (this state is two times zones east of here), but at least I made a stab at calling during working hours.

My very first call, someone picked up. (Of course.) She sounded sweet and friendly and very, very young, so she was a good first gatekeeper. I went off-script and chatted about the weather and how lucky we were to be in states where it was good during the winter, then plunged into my script. Sort of.

What I mean is that I definitely used the script to keep me on track—to remember to say my name clearly and slowly, and for a quick way of summing up what it was I was calling about—but with a real human on the line, I felt the need to connect and let things flow. I added some things here and there instinctively, talking about my background in commercial acting and marketing, or adding a bit of embellishment or emphasis about how important it was to learn real-world skills, or just…being human. I mean, we’ve all been on the receiving end of those dreadful telemarketing calls (which is probably why everyone hates cold calling, aside from the potential for rejection); I did not want to be That Person.

She heard my pitch, put me on hold while she checked with her boss, and then came back and asked me to email him some links. Which means, of course, I’ll now have to add a new landing page to my site specifically for this. No matter.

It was a great way to kick off the cold calling fest. It was also the only live human I got; everything else went straight into voicemail, so I had a chance to see how I was with that, as well. (Oddly enough, it was harder. It was easier with the give-and-take of a live human on the other end. Go figger.)

My best advice to those of you heading into your cold calls

I can tell that this is probably never going to be my fave thing; I’m a writer and a performer, not a salesperson. Plus, I hate the phone. But just doing it this once, a few things are a lot clearer, and I think next time will be easier.

• Don’t skip the steps before this. Really. One thing I felt supported in was that I knew with absolute certainty what I had to sell and the kind of people I needed to get in front of. Calling is already a pretty random way of doing things; make sure you can make concrete what’s in your control to do so.
• Work off of a printed form. I now have a list with notes I can use for followup, which is critical. You will NOT remember later, especially if you’re nervous during. But more importantly, I got to check off each name. Never underestimate the power of a really silly motivator.
• Smile. Breathe. I don’t remember if I learned the first from voiceover actors or some marketing book, but it makes a difference. You feel better if you smile, and I swear, it warms up your voice so the other person can hear it. The breathing thing is something I’m constantly having to remind myself of. I think I may put a big sticky note on my monitor next time.
• Write it down in your calendar. If you’re like me, the calendar is sacred territory. If it makes it onto the calendar, I keep the appointment. If it’s just an item on a list…well, that can be pushed to another day. A silly hack, maybe, but it helps.

Next week: More calls! And more (hopefully) illuminating stuff around making calls! And maybe even some feedback on and learning from previous calls!

If there’s one thing I loathe for certain, it’s cold calling.

And that’s not even true, because I have never, ever made a cold call in my life. Just the thought of it sends a chill down my spine.

When it comes right down to it, I’m not a huge fan of the phone, period. My preferred modalities of expression are in-person and written, circumstance depending. I’m guessing it has something to do with fear of rejection: people are less likely to cut you dead in person, and any kind of writing provides the asynchronous buffer of time. But the reason doesn’t matter (much). Cold—or cool, or, if you’re really lucky, lukewarm—calling is something you’ve got to do every now and then if you’re going to move out of the sphere you’re currently operating within.

Two things got me semi-comfortable with the concept of the not-comfy call. First, the very simple but hugely significant shift of renaming them “research” calls. And second, the notion that while the person on the other end might not be prepared for my call, I can be prepared as time, discipline and terror allow. (There’s a third thing, too, which is that I know I’m not a pushy salesman type, but a usually thoughtful, always respectful and occasionally entertaining type, so maybe it isn’t hell on the other end. Oh, and a fourth—that as bad as it gets, the worst will be over quickly.)

Research calling vs. cold calling (or “Having a hamburger”)

The difference between calling to ask questions and calling to sell something is like the difference between doing a first date the right way—anticipation without expectations, mutual exploration, the potential of having Actual Fun—and the wrong way: or what The BF calls the First Interview, which is what he swears we went on in lieu of a first date. (Personally, I think if there’s a kiss at the end of it, that’s a helluva good interview, but whatever. I did pick kind of a grim venue, I guess.)

What a research call does is take the pressure off of everyone by keeping things low-key and focused in the present. You’re not imaging the huge dollars or the long relationship you’re going to have with this client; you’re meeting her and exchanging a little info. Or (back to that first interview analogy), instead of projecting yourself into some kind of magical, married future with 1.8 kids, a dog and a white picket loft, you’re sitting there, having a hamburger.

Ask questions, don’t grill. Be there asking the questions, don’t time travel.

Again, this is all theoretical thus far, as I have yet to actually make a cold—er…research call. On the other hand, there are a few things this Virgo knows about, and one of them is when you’re doing something new, make like a Boy Scout and be prepared.

Prepping the call: Make like Olivier, not like Ryan Stiles

I’ve done theater and I’ve done improv and believe me, unless you are a fearless bundle of encyclopedic knowledge and boundless energy (see Ryan Stiles as Carol Channing), theater is better.

Which is to say, it’s about 10 million times easier to work from a prepared script as it is to come up with one on the spot, at least where there is an audience concerned. And whether there’s voicemail or a live human on the other end, that’s an audience, and you should be concerned!

You can start crafting your script whichever way works best for you: some people like the bullet-point or index card method, where you write down each individual point you want to make as it occurs to you; some people like sitting down and banging out a wildly rambling first draft. If you must bow to the Virgo-perfectionist in you and write it out neatly from beginning to end, fine, but know that this takes a lot longer. And that you should still put it aside and come back to it later for a second (and third) pass.

As I described earlier, I have kind of a weird market I’m going after, since it’s basically creative solopreneurs, with actors being a big subset of that. I have a few things in the works with some trade association-type things, so I decided to make my research calls about the actor market: I’ll be approaching schools with acting programs about bringing my marketing workshop for actors to their graduating classes.

Here’s the script I’ve come up with so far:

Hey, _______. This is Colleen Wainwright, and my number is 323-634-9930. _________ gave me your name. (Alt: I saw your name in _______/I found you via_________.)

I’m calling to find out who I might talk to about giving a workshop-type thing at ________. It covers real-world marketing and networking principles for actors, and I think it might be a great thing to offer your students to help them make the transition from academia.

If you could point me in the right direction, I’d be your fan for life. Thanks, ________, and again, my name is Colleen Wainwright and my number is 323-634-9930. Have an awesome day!

As you can see, the above was drafted for use in the case of voicemail picking up—which, frankly, I’m hoping it does. (Gotta be honest, and I really don’t like the phone, so I’d just as soon ease into this.) If a human picks up, I don’t plan to go into robot mode and read straight from the script, but to use this more like talking points.

I decided against giving out my so-called credentials in the voicemail version of the call—at least, the ones where I’m calling with a referral. It adds length (which I hate in a voicemail) without adding real value; hopefully, the fact that someone trusted referred me will be enough.

I’ll also have the following email followup script handy, in case I need to get into more detail.

Boilerplate text is a marketer’s best friend

After writing your call script, creating a followup email should be a breeze. You still don’t get to ramble on in the followup—briefer is almost always better, said she of the 1,500-word blog posts—but you get a little breathing room, plus you can provide links as well as text.

Here’s the followup email I created for my acting school gatekeeper prospects:

Hey, ________; Colleen Wainwright, here.

I left a message on your voicemail about a workshop I’ve developed to teach actors the basics of marketing (both online and off) and networking (ditto!).

It grew out of a crazy-popular series of articles on promoting yourself with social media and other basic, free-to-cheap tools that I wrote for my column in The Networker, Casting Networks’ monthly newsletter. (You can read the series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4; or you can read yourself blind with the entire 2+ year archive, here.)

I’ve gotten tremendously positive feedback from the actors who’ve taken it. I’d love to think that it’s because of my years on the stage and in front of the camera—I was a working actor for almost 10 years. But I’m guessing it’s mostly because sharing this information is like handing them a gigantic self-empowerment stick: there’s so much you can’t control about your careers as an actor, it’s a relief knowing more about the ways you can do something.

I’d be happy to send you a handy-dandy PDF packet o’ info, or to talk to you or whomever handles this sort of stuff for the department. Or both. Yes, both!

Let me know your preferred flavor of contact. And thank you for your time!

Each of the Parts and the “2+ year archive” in the third paragraph will be a permalink to the pages on my site. I’ll also include some links in my email signature: to my bio, most likely, and possibly my IMDB page, as well a permalink to my acting articles page, in case their email client strips the HTML. (And my newsletter, since I’m always pimping that!)

Once you’ve got something like this written, you have what we in the trade call “boilerplate”: text you can use over and over to answer questions that come up repeatedly. You may have the beginnings of boilerplate already, residing in the bowels of your email archive. Every time you answer a query about something, consider somehow flagging that for yourself as potential boilerplate—via tagging, or saving to a special file or folder. Then, when a similar question comes up, you can pull up the boilerplate and paste it in, making any small adjustments necessary to fit the question or personalize to the sender.

I have boilerplate text about design questions, pricing, procedure, writing, acting—pretty much any question I get now that I take any sort of time to answer, I tag in gmail (and locally, with MailTags) as “boilerplate”. It’s a huge timesaver on the back end, and makes me feel a lot better about spending time on an individual email in the first place.

Final thoughts as I head into the breach

I’m still considering adding a brief line about either my background (working actor, paid columnist for major publication that goes out to a large readership of actors) or the positive response  to the workshop so far. Per Ilise’s instructions, I’m planning to run this script by a friend or two in acting education first. But I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this in the comments: if you were getting a call like this, would credentials coming from me make a difference that warrants the extra length of the call?

Feel free to chime in about the email followup, too. I can always use a few hundred extra sets of eyes. And if you have any contacts who teach actors, I’ll boldly take this opportunity to hit you up for a name. (It really is a fun, useful workshop!)

I’d also love to hear whom you’re targeting, and some of your scripts. Anyone brave enough to share in the comments?

For those of you looking for more info about crafting cold call scripts and followup emails, I highly recommend consulting your dog-eared copy of The Designer’s Guide to Marketing and Pricing. (What?! You don’t have one?) I found pp 114 – 212 especially helpful in prepping my scripts.