I’m excited to announce that my new book – Branding for Beginners: Why Consistency Is the Key to Creating and Maintaining a Brand Image – is now available at Amazon!
Consistency is the key to creating and maintaining a “Brand Image” for your business. But how can you stay consistent without guidelines for how to refer to your business in all of your content? Continue reading
This fall is all about the topic of branding for me. I had previously offered an online workshop, The No Time Guide to a Brand Style Guide, but I decided that I wanted to turn that online workshop into both an in-person workshop, as well as a book!
On 14 September 2018, from 10:00-noon, I will lead an in-person workshop called “Branding for Beginners” in Berlin, Germany. Full details can be found at this link.
My forthcoming book will also be called Branding for Beginners and will be based on the workshop and its easy-to-use template, which can be filled out step by step as you read the book. I’ve got all of the jacket blurbs from my beta readers, and I’ve made adjustments to the text based on their feedback. More details to come…
So that’s what’s been keeping me busy for the past several months. That, and a new part-time job as Head of Marketing for a Berlin-based nonprofit. Yes, one of the first things I did for them was to start creating a Brand Style Guide.
Sure, when Pinterest first started out it was used by lots of people to post recipes and crafting ideas. But that’s all changed now. If you haven’t checked the platform out lately, I bet you’d be surprised to see that Forbes, Wired, Small Business Trends, WeWork, and even Gary Vaynerchuk are all on it.
Before you roll your eyes and say “Oh no, not another social media channel I need to be posting on!” let me explain why I am on it, why I find it so valuable, why I don’t really spend a lot of time on it, and why you should not upload another blog post without making sure you have at least one Pinterest-ready graphic for it (even if you’re not on Pinterest!). Continue reading
I’ve gotten some great recommendations for new podcasts to listen to over the past few months, so you’ll see those appear alongside some of my favorites that I’ve written about in the past. Here are my takeaways from two podcasts that I recently found very useful.
In this episode, AJ and Jordan Harbinger discussed Impostor Syndrome, its triggers, and ways you can battle it. For those who are not familiar with the term Impostor Syndrome, it’s when a person feels like they don’t deserve the successes they experience. They feel like an “impostor,” and that they’ve somehow fooled people into believing they are competent and successful. Continue reading
Some businesses operate year-round, but have a predictable “slow season,” while other businesses have a season (or, at least a month or two) when their business has very little client work at all. Some potential examples of the latter are landscapers, exterior painters, swimming pool cleaners, etc.
With spring on the way in the Northern Hemisphere, thoughts turn to spring cleaning – indoors and outdoors. Some folks will busy themselves doing a thorough cleaning inside their house or apartment, while others will head outdoors and work on their gardens and yards.
I’ve written before about the importance of re-sharing old blog posts to make sure you get enough mileage out of them. Of course, it’s a waste to work hard on something for several hours – or even days – and then forget about it once it’s been posted.
However, it’s important to remember that you can’t just repost links to your old blog posts without rereading them. Sometimes a typo will be missed in the initial post that you’ll be better able to catch after several weeks or months.
Aside from typos, here are four other things you should look for before re-sharing that old blog post. Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Expectation Escalation. Sometimes, we have to go above-and-beyond the usual amount we accomplish in one day. That’s natural. But just the mere fact that we could do it one day can sometimes lead to the expectation that you can always operate at that level. It’s like being able to sprint fast for 50 meters, and then having everyone expect you to run that fast all the time.
On my weekly calendar, I write down what I want to accomplish each week. Then, I break it down by day to fit those tasks in with my daily client work. Some days, I accomplish everything on the To-Do list and then have time to spare. Some days, I add to the To-Do list, figuring I must not have done enough, or I was too easy on myself. Continue reading
