This is not so much a week at it as a week off.

And yet, here on my Big Couple of Weeks Off I’m feeling On in a few places. Most of the people I’m meeting up with here on my two-week stay in the PacNW, for example, are people I’ve met via online networking sites—Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. At a rehearsal for Ignite: Portland, I met a bunch of other new friends (contacts, whatever) whom I’d never have met were it not for finding out about the event through my friend, Jean MacDonald, of SmileOnMyMac. That’s right—a random happy comment I wrote about a fantastic product I happened to really and truly like led to me speaking on stage in front of (gulp) 800 people, not to mention a fun evening at a ladies-only party in the Pearl District and who knows what else from here.

Plus there was a lovely dinner and meetup with my friend, Chris Guillebeau, whom I also met via social media, and his lovely wife, Jolie (who cooks a mean black bean soup and cornbread, boy howdy). And a great collaborative-planning call with another new friend, Brooks Palmer, declutter to the stars, as well. And three or four meetups over the next week.

This is my point: for so long, when I was in the Big Boy Business World, I looked at things in a very rigid fashion. You had your fun, and you had your business. Now, they bleed over into one another, and instead of it making life weird, it makes it great. And it makes doing business infinitely better. This is one of the great joys of thinking like a self-employed person, whether or not you actually are. (Although, as someone who has basically been fending for herself since 1992, I think I have to say I am one by now.)

Just as my favorite kind of selling is Not-Selling, my favorite kind of marketing is Not-Marketing. More and more, I’m becoming an adherent of the “marketing is the truth of you, translated into the language of them” school of marketing. And that’s just talking to people—about what they do, and need, and where you might be able to help them with that.

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (five at the main blog, one here)
• rehearsed my presentation for Ignite: Portland
• went to after-party for rehearsal
• went to fab lady-party in downtown Portland
• chatted up various local merchants about their businesses (in person! so friendly!)
• wrote/sent my latest newsletter
• email! email! email!
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter

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

During a speaking gig I did yesterday at a local Freelancer Meetup, someone threw out the question of measurement, as in, yeah, sure, we can do all this marketing and networking and social media marketing and networking, but how is it converting into dollars? How do you decide how much time to put in, and when (and how) do you decide whether it’s working or not*?

A very valid question, and one worth looking at as the mid-year mark approaches.

Personally, while I’m nominally (and, to a degree, generally) interested in getting business—speaking gigs and consulting gigs—I’ve had to take a cold, hard look at what my marketing is netting me. And I’ll be honest: I’m not making a mint off this marketing stuff. My consulting business hasn’t gone through the roof, nor am I getting paid bazillions of dollars to speak (yet). Really, this year thus far has been about me building audience and getting speaking gigs, period. As far as those metrics go, life is good: my actively engaged audience is up over 25% from the end of ‘08, and I’ve done 10 (holy cats!) speaking gigs so far this year, with a few more lined up right now for July and August.

Still, I’ve suspected for a time that something is getting in the way of my forward movement. I say this because I’ve been through three different and successful career starts so far in my life—advertising, acting and design—and while they’ve each required as much work as this start, I made much better (faster, more lucrative, more internally rewarding) headway with any of them than I have been with this one. It may be that my current problem resides with my choice of direction, but I’m beginning to think rather the opposite: that it is because of my lack of choice in direction. I say I want one thing, but my actions are pulling me in multiple directions. And in this climate especially, without focus, it’s game over.

So, despite the craaaazy economy, I’m investing some time and money in a couple of classes that I believe will push me out of my comfort zone and force me to look at some stuff I’ve been maybe overlooking, if not flat-out avoiding. It feels a little funny floating that out there—I know that one of the mantras of the self-employed is “fake it till you make it”—but right now, faking it feels like a serious wrong turn. I have a much better idea of what I’m good at (and not so good at) after hitting it hard for these first six months; I’m looking forward to getting more focused so that I can hit the back end of the year not hard, but precisely.

Oh—and because yes, I’m still blogging this process out loud, this week I got my newsletter written and out, posted to my site four times (and this one once), put together a new presentation on getting attention for yourself in a crowded marketplace and delivered it at a meetup, did a few more free sample consultations, got one of the backlog of podcasts recorded and out the door, reached out to a WordPress Thesis theme designer to discuss some business, and even sang my inspirational song for a roomful of strangers at a party.

And Facebook, and Twitter, and yadda yadda yadda. Of course!

*If you’re interested in the maturation of social media in the marketplace, which includes more discussion about accountability, measurement, and mapping of the audience, a good entry point is Chris Brogan’s blog, where he’s begun talking about the subject.

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’s official task was to pull together samples of great newsletters in preparation for putting together your own or, if you already have a newsletter, to aggregate past issues into an archive on a page of your own website. My own tasks this week centered around updating and adding to my online content as needs arose, in addition to keeping up with the relentless, now-regular cold calling duties.

I’m sort of a militant fanatic-maniac when it comes to newsletters.

They have such tremendous potential to deliver great information (to the reader, your prospect or future fan) and they are such a great resource for you (hard to get an email list off of a blog), it horrifies me to see them abused. And they are—so much so that I wish there was a better name for them than “newsletter” (and no, “ezine” is most decidedly not better) so that I wouldn’t have this uphill climb to get other militant fanatic-maniacs to at least test-drive mine.

The archives page is a good way around this. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m in the process of moving all of my back issues from my old design site to my new home base, communicatrix-dot-com. If you’re in a similar situation, I’d suggest at the very least setting up one page on each site you think people might find the newsletters on; I have one on the old site and one on the new, with a note on the old saying—you guessed it—to go to the new for latest versions.

Before I did so much as sketch out a list of ideas or daydream about names, I read dozens (no, really!) of newsletters to see what I liked and didn’t like. You can read my findings here; they’re old, but they stand.

With two years of monthly lessons under my belt, there are some additional things I’d address. I’ve learned a ton from producing 22 monthly missives. (And please let me know in the comments section if that’s something you’d be interested in reading, and if you have particular questions you’d like to see answered.) The chief one, though, is to allow yourself enough time, so you’re able to maintain a regular publishing schedule. Along with rich content, I think that’s the key to building a loyal list of readers.

Planning vs. creating on an as-needed basis (i.e., marketing whack-a-mole)

While my newsletter is pretty much slotted into my schedule at this point, I’m discovering plenty of stuff that needs to be similarly corraled and scheduled. I’m finally starting to get the point behind the individual dates on the calendar (the Veteran’s version says horrible things like “1 Hour Calling”—an HOUR!?!).

Most of my other long-range, nothing’s-on-fire stuff—improvements to the website, adjustments to the website, updating of print marketing materials, etc—I tend to put off until, well, there’s a fire.

South by Southwest (SXSW), the conference I’m heading out to in a couple of weeks, is one of those fires. Having it looming and having made a promise to my friend (and first-time attendee), Gretchen Rubin, that I’d write up a how-to-prep post, finally got me to craft and post something last Thursday. (You can read it here, and do let me know if you’ll be there!)

Similarly, a follow-up on a query for speaking materials forced me to finally put up a page dedicated to speaking: topics, testimonials, video, etc. Sadly, the potential gig fell through when the whole conference was axed because of this crazy economy, but it’s far more important that I got the page up than that I landed one particular gig.

For the next few weeks, I have a list of individual webby tasks I created during my weekly call with Ilise. They’re all about clarifying the information for new visitors and prospects, reducing “noise” and making it easier to find what they’re looking for (and, hopefully, hire me!) They include:

• Streamlining the main sidebar navigation Despite it being a little off-beat, the stuff I do for actors and the stuff I provide for Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis sufferers is a big part of who I am. I plan to keep it, but to craft smaller buttons to sit in the far-right column, so the commerce-type stuff stands out. Also, at Ilise’s suggestion, I’m going to create separate buttons for consulting and speaking. That means…
• Revising my consulting pages, and creating one main landing page for consulting The individual pages will stay “supersecret” for now, as I continue to work on my pricing, but it’s time for one solid landing page that describes my consulting philosophy and technique, along with my ideal client. For the record, I ordered Mark Silver’s mini-course on writing your website to give me ideas. I think he does a great job of letting people know they’re in the right place, and I was curious about his process.
• Testimonials! I have a ton of great ones from all kinds of happy readers and clients. I’m still struggling with the best way to display them; my ideal solution is some kind of randomizer that displays different, funny/excellent quotes with each click. But maybe for now, just a blog post or separate page? What do you think?

Dealing with overwhelm

These are some crazy times, and it seems like we have to work three times as hard to stay in the same place, much less get ahead. It worries me that this pace may not be sustainable. I went to two back-to-back networking events on Wednesday evening, one of which I hosted, and while I had fun and think that both were worthwhile, I was wiped out the rest of the week. On Sunday, after more running around, my body finally succumbed to the cold I’ve been dreading. (On the other hand, a friend’s movie was up for an Academy Award—there’s no way I was going to miss that celebration!)

I try not to get discouraged. I understand it’s a process, and eventually, like everything else, things will fall into place and only need minor upkeep for a while.

In the meantime, I’m doing what I can to pace myself, get things done, and not beat myself up for (always) falling short of what I think I could be doing. What do you do to keep yourself sane these days? And who’s got some tips to give me an extra two hours per day?

This week: Sharing knowledge wisely

This week is all about generating helpful stuff to share with people who come to your site—specifically, a page of links and resources that will be of use to your market.

I already collect and point people to information in many ways—via delicious bookmarks, a StumbleUpon blog, and a trio of resources in each issue of my monthly newsletter (which you can sign up for here). I also have a page of links to blogs I like on my main site, communicatrix-dot-com, and helpful blogs and tools for fellow marketers broken down by category in the sidebar of the Virgo Guide to Marketing (a.k.a. the standalone blog that accompanies this project.)

In fact, I’m in so many places pointing out so much stuff, one of the first things I did with the relaunch of my site was to create a big “aggregator” page with all the places I live outside of communicatrix, and what I offer in each space.

So while I can and will keep refining the pages I use to point people toward The Good Stuff, I thought a better exercise for me this week might be to corral and update some of my own information more neatly—namely, my newsletter page.

How my newsletter page got all messed up

For those of you who are new to the blog, I had a brief, previous incarnation as a graphic designer. In fact, I still do a smidgen of design now for some remaining clients, but as I’ve turned my focus toward consulting and speaking and writing, I’ve let my old design portfolio site molder away.

Worse, while I created a duplicate “round-up” page, I never moved the newsletter archives themselves to current HQ, a.k.a. communicatrix-dot-com. There were a few reasons, but it boiled down to time and technical difficulty—WordPress does not make it easy to embed HTML inside its pages, and it took help from a skilled dev friend and a great plugin to finally make it happen. And as long as I couldn’t get the pages loaded onto the right site, I just let the task slide…until I was a dreadful five months behind in getting the issues up: not a great look for any potential subscribers dropping by to see what the last few issues look like; for all they knew, I’d not published any since August of 2008!

I’m happy to say that as of last night, I’m current, and the last five of the issues are up on the mother ship. I’ll set up a recurring task to upload the previous month’s newsletter once the fresh one is published, and until they’re all up there, I’ll load one more (or two, if I’m feeling ambitious) onto the new site.

How are you customizing the calendar?

This is just my way of making the calendar work for me. You might need to go ahead and do it by the book; if you don’t have a list of resources on your site, I’d at least think about it. One of the things I’m learning about how people get hired (or how they sell stuff) is the whole funnel thing: a free page of resources shows you know your stuff, gives people an idea of the kinds of things you find valuable, and, in a way, lets them work with you on the most fundamental, no-strings-attached level.

Besides, it’s good karma!

Some other ways I used the calendar as a guideline, not gospel:

No networking!

Well, not strictly true. I did a webinar for 100 of my closet alumni last Monday, so I “met” a bunch of new people. (Check out two of my new favorite people, a kickass lawyer in Silicon Valley and a real live Santa Claus! We talked social media shop for two full hours, we had us so much fun!) I could have gone to a bona fide networking event, too, but I’ve doubled up for weeks now, due to circumstances and opportunity, and I needed a break.

I didn’t schedule this week’s event, either…because I’d already done it!

Five cold calls, not ten

Frankly, that’s still all I can muster. I’m pleased with my progress: even though I’m leaving voicemails, I’m much more comfortable doing it; this week, I even used cold calling to procrastinate on some other tasks (namely, writing this post—I’m kind of written out, to tell you the truth.)

I have to keep telling myself it’s not about doing it perfectly, but about DOING it. Which I am. Which you are, right?

Dealing with life

Friends contact me with their own marketing problems they need help with. A stranger knocks off my side-view mirror and I have to deal with it (although happily, I didn’t have to pay for it.) A weird potential job opportunity pops up and I need to take time from my regular schedule to check it out.

I confess to a feeling of disappointment with myself when I do things imperfectly. And yet, as I said in my own recent newsletter—which, happily, I can now link to—it’s critical to remember that perfect is the enemy of the good.

I didn’t get as much done this week as I’d have liked. (I’ll probably never get as much done in most weeks as I’d like.) But as Ilise says, the important thing is to do something anyway. And if you don’t do it, not to beat yourself up over it, but to get back on track the next day.

Where are you in your odyssey? What kinds of things are hanging you up?

And—be honest!—is there a particular task you’re avoiding altogether? What could you do to get the tiniest piece of it done?

This week: Turning your snarl of contacts into a manageable database

If you’ve been around at all (meaning, in business, or even just an adult who’s made friends and acquaintances along the way), you’re going to have a ton of what is, for the most part, raw data. If you’re like me—a great starter who’s not so much with the follow-through—you’re also going to have the added complication of multiple systems in various stages of implementation.

Choosing the right database solution

I’ve set up (and abandoned) systems in Palm, Entourage, Daylite, gmail, Address Book and various combo platters of same. I’ve also suffered more system crashes and database corruptions than I care to either remember or admit. Fortunately, I’m lousy with the former, so I’m not as worried about the latter.

A final borked-iMac situation made me decide to start from almost-scratch and implement a new system with the old data. Meaning, I started out with a clean hard drive, fresh installs of all software and hand-importing and sorting of all data.

After much gnashing of teeth about what kind of contact management system to commit to, I finally settled on Address Book, the vanilla contact system bundled with the Mac:

• it’s light, so it’s not using a ton of system resources
• it syncs to my iPhone (I like having my info with me at all times)
• it syncs to gmail contacts (see above)
• it’s customizable via tagging and smart groups (more on that in a moment)
• it’s the simplest solution possible (Good enough for Einstein, good enough for me.)

If I decide I need something more robust to manage contacts, I’ll research other solutions with my particular goal in mind. Which brings me to my next point: before you set up your database, know your market.

Identify your target market, THEN build your database system

As I mentioned last week, I’m in a slightly unusual position in that I have built up a brand (communicatrix) and a business (design) already, but am trying to move into a writing/speaking/consulting space. Ilise and I talked over my goals and for the foreseeable future, I’m going to focus on creative solopreneurs who need help with their DIY marketing, with “actors” as a kinda-sorta special subset.

For me, this meant Address Book. It also meant going through all my my Address Book contacts, one by one—over 1400 in Address Book along at the start of the project—cleaning up each of them by hand, then coding it with a series of tags that would make the system useful.

Introducing Colleen’s 100% Non-Patented Tagging System

(Note: this works in Address Book, a Mac-based desktop client; if you’re using something else, test your tagging system on a few contacts before spending quality time revising your database.)

I knew I needed to be clear on my goals (target market and desired outcomes) before getting started with  the organizing. My friend and accountability partner (and organized diva supreme) Dyana Valentine suggested that I figure out my taxonomy first, then apply as I went through the list. I’d gone through a similar kind of exercise with my friend (and user experience diva supreme) Lea Ann Hutter before launching version 3.0 of my website and it was really helpful.

The idea was to create as many as I needed and as few as possible, to keep things sane. I came up with:

• #acting (actors and people in acting-related industries, like casting directors, etc.)
• #friends (I use this for friends and family)
• #design (designers and design-related services, fields, etc.)
• #clients (current or past clients)
• #prospects (self-explanatory…I hope!)
• #reconnect (people I know and have fallen out of touch with)
• #develop (people I don’t know so well, but would like to)
• #maven (people who are the best at what they do)
• #writing (anything writing-related—my writing, other writers, etc.)
• #speaking (same as above, but with speaking)
• #reco (people I’d recommend to other people—I like looking smart by passing on good info, and I like being helpful!)

In addition to these, as long as I was going through everything, I added a few more for possible future sorting purposes:

• #admin (emails needed for whitelisting purposes)
• #blog #pr #journalist (for people who are plugged in, in case I have something I need to plug)
• #? (names I had incomplete info for or flat-out didn’t recognize; for GTDers, this is like a “someday-maybe” pile)

I’ll be honest: once I got started, I found a lot more things I wanted to tag for. Stuff like where I’d met people, if at an event (#CFC, #SOBCon, #SXSW, etc.) or time of life (#ETHS, #cornell, etc) or any other thing I might possibly want to remember, use or sort for (#connector, for times I need to reach outside my network quickly; #law, in case I find myself running afoul of it—you get the idea.)

I then set up some smart groups immediately: “Friends,” “Clients,” “Develop,” etc. I intend to start going through these lists methodically, getting in touch—or back in touch—day to day and week to week. I’ll also do another pass with the tags and pull out all of the actors who have requested being on a mailing list for workshops I plan to start up in February.

The beauty of Smart Groups, hashtags and flexibility

Smart groups rule when it comes to this stuff because when you add a new contact and tag them, they automagically get placed in the corresponding group: it continually updates itself!

And now that I’ve (mostly) got everything tagged, I can also do combo platters as the need arises:

• if someone calls for a copywriter recommendation, I search for (#writing + #reco)
• if I need to talk to a journalist who specializes in marketing, I search for (#journalist + #marketing)
• if I’m stuck on a Mac problem, I search for (#dev + #maven)

And so on. I can also search for location: if I’m planning something like my Seattle trip, I can create a Smart Group whose parameters include cities, states, ZIP codes, etc. (Apple, I’d love it if you’d make this stuff searchable on the fly in the iPhone! Oh—and Smart Groups ON the iPhone would be a great start, although I did find a roll-your-own scripting solution for the intrepid.)

Some words of advice before you start

In Address Book, the #hashtags go in the “Notes” section of the entry. The hashtag (#
sign) means that when you do a search, it will pull up only the tag,
not other stuff. For example, if you wanted “service” to be a tag but
didn’t use the # sign in front of it, a search would pull up every
contact that had the word “service” in it instead of just your desired
pool.

Write out your tags on index cards first. Go crazy with the first pass. Write down everything you might EVER have to sort for. Then edit, tweak, refine. See what redundancies exist. See if you can make tags shorter and easier to remember. If you can afford the time, do this over a few days, especially if you’re a nitpicky type like me. I eliminated something like 15 with one pass. (I added in new ones as I went, but it would have been worse if I’d kept those AND added new ones.)

Backup! Backup! Backup! Do it as you go, and keep redundant copies, just in case. ALWAYS perform a backup before you sync to any other program or device. Most responsible sync-ware will warn you before you do it, but be hyper-aware and responsible about it. Data entry is a great task when your brain is fried; syncing data is not. I screwed up my database once after syncing with Facebook (which was great for importing missing addresses and photos, but still) and again with the gmail sync. Backup. Seriously!

I won’t lie: this has been a far, far more arduous task than I’d anticipated. I’ve been combing
through my various databases, email programs (gmail and local Mail.app)
and stacks of business cards for weeks now in anticipation of 2009. If you’ve got a lot of contacts, or have been undisciplined about setting up a system and sticking to it, give yourself time. You’re not just doing monkey work for nothing; you’re investing your time to create a powerful tool for reaching out to your current contacts and building your network as you grow.

The Simplest Solution

If you’re just starting out with a brand new business, you may not need a system even this complicated. What you’ll want to do is just to collect all the names and contact information you have of people, and get it all into some kind of trusted system: an address book, electronic or paper; a series of index cards, alphabetized; a separate piece of paper for each contact that you put in one folder to start, then more as you go.

Start with the information you have, and use that channel to get more. If you have an email, connect to say “hi”, say what you’re up to and send some sort of friendly message. If it’s appropriate, you can ask for more info right there; if not, move slowly, build the relationship back up a bit and then ask for contact info. You want to be real and authentic, not a shark; no one likes to be looked at as though they were chum.

Keep a record of each communication with that person. When I was an actor, I noted each letter, audition or call on a sheet of paper devoted to that person (and kept copies of stuff on the computer.) I also noted things I read about them that might be of interest, like hobbies, achievements, etc., so there would be things to talk about the next time we met or spoke. You can catalog family members, birthdays, job changes—anything that’s not creepy. And remember, people LOVE getting snail mail, if it’s personal. (Well, most people do; if you find out someone doesn’t, note that, too!)

Make the system better!

This is definitely a case where many minds are better than one. If you see flaws in the system, or ways to improve it, please let me know in the comments. And if you have a fantastic, completely different system of your own that words—especially with follow-up, which I know is going to be the weak link here—I would love to hear it.

NEXT MONDAY is WEEK TWO: Drafting boilerplate for email & a script for (gasp) cold calling!

UPDATE: Audio version of Week 1 here.