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Q & A: Any Remaining Obstacles?

Main thing I'm asking in the q and a is what obstacles remain, what questions do you still have about all the different things we talked about? We can't really answer personal questions we can't really say I have this situation, I have this client, what should I do? That is really appropriate for the facebook group as well as the free mentoring session, but are there still seemed general questions that we can talk about that maybe I haven't addressed at all? I have a couple in mind if people don't have them, but I want to start actually rain it with you if you don't mind, because I think that one of the things you said to me at the break is that I've been doing this business for a while now, and I thought I knew this stuff or I did know this stuff, and yet I've done all the bad behaviors that you've talked about. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, it was funny because I really feel like so much of this that we learned I've already heard somewhere and I should know and ...

I do know and still I found myself every time you mention an example of bad behavior have you done this? I was like, yeah, I've done that, and I've done that's not every time, maybe it's been a while, but but still I recognise myself in a lot of those things so I think you could just continuously lauren and I feel like I got a lot out of it so in a way that's also why it's important to have this information on an ongoing basis so that the repetition allows you to practice and that you can s experiment so that you can keep improving I really think that's an important point all right? Do we have questions in the room about anything that we haven't covered anything that wasn't clear justin yeah, I'm really curious it sounds like you had a lot of success with your mentoring calls and I'm curious like what? How you structure those if you limit the scope of what those are like, I'm just really curious about how you work those all right? And and I want to answer this from the perspective also of it's a very effective too cool for all different types of creative professionals not just consultants to assess and qualify your prospects toe offer this thirty minute or fifteen minute it really can't be less than that session or consultation or critique or whatever you want to call it right and you may have noticed that jill anderson offers it de jury enzo offers it lots of my client's offer it and it works for them because it's part of their gate that they bring people through in order to qualify them now in my situation basically what I do is I say tell me a little bit about yourself and your situation then let's use this as a working session ask me your questions I will answer them and you will get a taste of how I work, how I think and how my ideas might apply to your situation and we do that and then at the end if it seems like I can help you more then I'll tell you how I work and what it will cost and what it might look like for you but really it's a working session it's not a sales pitch and if you want to work together then I'd be happy to talk about it with you it really is an opportunity for you to suss them out and them two sets you out and it's very no strings attached so it's very, very effective so anyone who has signed up for that mentoring session that's what you'll hear me say to you when we start may I have a question about social media? Um if you are not currently using social media as a way to promote your business but you use them for your person personal life do you recommend setting up a separate account on everything just for business? Yes, yes I do okay for the most part you should keep them separate now there are people who don't because their business is so much of their personal life, and with creative professionals it can be hard to draw the line. But I do think that if you're planning to do it as a full time business and you want to be perceived as professional, it should be something separate and also, I'm sure that there are things in your personal life you won't necessarily want your clients and colleagues to see, and so therefore it should be separate also, who else anyone else e I think throughout the sessions I've been I've been able to achieve more clarity on the things that I have to do with this, a lot of action steps that I have to be taking, and I just wanted to know in terms of who for you, who is your mentor and what are your some of your daily rituals and habits that kind of help you stay focused? I do actually have a teacher who I will not name, but who gives me advice and to whom I talk and go to with my challenges, because I need to be accountable to someone too. But in terms of rituals, I'm a very self disciplined person. And so I like structure, and so I make sure that every day I'm doing something to market my business and practicing what I preach. I'm very conscious of the fact that if I don't practice what I preach, I really can't charge the fees that I dio and I can't really ethically do what I do and so it's very, very apparent to me that that this is really important. Plus, I have to say I love marketing myself, and that is a no advantage that I have, I think, but I try to help people love it, too, to change the perception of what it is and what it means and find a way for people to do it comfortably because that's really the key, if you can't find a way to do it comfortably, then you're not going to do it for yourself. Do we have questions we do? This is a question I really like from mama curie, who really has been following along with you, and lisa has clearly being inspired such says okay, now that I have negotiated to get paid what I deserve as a consultant, how do I meet the expo that and exceed their expectations? I'm now terrified of failing or disappointing them, so I would go back to what I said just at the beginning of this segment about seeing everything as a name experiment and you have to trust in yourself number one that you are going to do the best you can and the idea of failing is subjective right? So what you do people may or may not be happy with you can't please everyone all the time your clients may not be happy with what you do but really all that important all that matters is that you do the best job that you do and if you fail then hopefully you learn you don't make the same mistakes over and over now back I boy is asking a couple of people have voted on this at least how do you feel about using the wee language? I'm a single person a single business but I often feel I need to imply that I have others who come back me up so um the way I often answer this question is it depends on who you're talking to and who your marketing too because there are some organizations and corporations who need you to be a week tohave the capacity of a we in order to feel safe enough trust you enough to hire you so in that situation it is important to speak in the wee in the first person plural and it's not deceptive usually even if it is just you because if you have a team of freelancers who works with you or virtual collaborators than you can very easily and truthfully say we on the other hand, if you're targeting small business, if you're targeting organizations like nonprofits who usually say but we don't have a lot of money, then they may be alienated by the weak, and they may need you to be I so again, as with everything it's not about you, it's, about what they need you to hear now, ladies, being with us, it might be lady apologized for the entire course of thank you for all of your comments and questions and their their start up on dh they have bean very excited about moving forward, so I sent out literally hundreds of emails believing I would get, say, a ten percent response, but unfortunately, I've been overwhelmed and what I've received in my inbox I now realize I needed a team a much more structure. My inbox is now full of e mails that are fully, partially or not even answered. Am I now stuck on damage control? I don't understand a lot lots of emails coming back, really that they would completely overwhelmed by the responses and now they just can't deal with them. And I know how do they deal with the damage control of they just can't get back to people I mean, I know it's a great problem to have yes, I think it's about setting the right expectation, number one and if possible just respond to everyone and say I will get back to you soon and give a timeframe that is realistic and stick to it a simple advice, anything else more treatments you know raina you asked me a question on the first day that I wanted to bring back to the table because I thought it was an important one about networking about certain types of networking events because we were talking about you know, kind of typical chamber of commerce or networking business card exchanges are those of value can you say a little bit more about that question where it came from it came from when I first started to specialize in the food area I went to some networking events because I thought that was necessary and I had a really hard time I I felt like it wasn't doing anything for me I was really feeling awkward and I was going through all the things that you mentioned s o I haven't done it again I've I've gone to other events I've gone to meet ups I've gone to sort of more targeted events um probably also with a younger, more dynamic audience that is more my target group um and that's worked much better for me but it sounded from we a presentation like you really stressed the trade associations and the chamber of commerce like that's really an important parts I just wanted to know about that yeah, I mean, that isn't really the point I was trying to make I I used networking events as a very umbrella term to really mean any kind of event where you confined people like your prospects especially that you could talk to so it could be a business card exchange or it could be a chamber event or it could be a trade show or it could be a conference it doesn't really matter often the mistake I see people making is that they decide whether or not to go to an event based on the topic and whether or not they're interested in it especially if it's a workshop or seminar and if you're going networking for prospects then it doesn't matter if you're interested all that matters is that your clients are interested right? So again, this is not about you this is about what matters to them and where you can meet them. And so if you can fine educational events where your prospects are looking for information related to the kind of work that you do if there's an event if there's a conference like that, I hope the three conferences that you attend justin will be like that for you because if they're in learning mode they're much more open to talking to you and responding to you than if they're in networking mode frankly, because that's when people are a little bit more defensive actually and I would just say this at any type of networking event you want, teo sit at a round table if possible, as opposed to in rows of chair, so I would encourage you if you have a choice to sit it around table, because that makes it so much easier to actually have a conversation. You would be surprised how much more open people are at a round table than in rows of chairs, it's just a little little detailed tip, all right, any more questions before we move on all that I think we'll just cover before we move on let's make things pretty quick. Lately, hawkins set up a facebook group he's, saying, I feel like I have a plethora of great broad ideas but doesn't make sense to repurpose some of that content to create email newsletters that then we'll push people towards my blogged yes, yes and yes, I am all about repurpose ing not recycling, but repurpose ing material and the whole connection between email, newsletter and blogged you can separate the ideas you can take the block idea and just summarize it in a short paragraph and use that to drive traffic to the blogger where there's a much more elaborate, um, detailed description of the idea. Sander and a couple people voted on this saying social media is just she gets lost in the noise of it there just seemed to be so many people chatting but who is really listening and how do you identify who maybe coming through your feet or whatever who could actually be the person you need to work with? I think it's more about identifying the people you want to work with and seeing what questions they are asking if there are questions being asked or topics being discussed that you know about that you have answers to that you can contribute to the discussion those people who are asking are the people that you should be connecting with and that goes especially on linked in in the group's if there are active discussions in groups that's what you should be focused on focusing on those people I think that's fantastic all right zane, you have one more question. Yes I just wanted to know which of the strategies that you discussed the most are effective for you email marketing I love email marketing if I had to do nothing else, I would do email marketing and speaking plus email marketing is the key all right so I mean here I am demonstrating it I'm speaking lots of people are signing up for my tips and my materials and then I will keep in touch with you that's what works