Do you have the perfect Christmas gift?

When I was pregnant and living in a small apartment in NYC, mother in law gave me the perfect gift.

A month’s worth of house cleaning.
I loved it, because I was getting huge and being pregnant is exhausting and my sense of smell was a million times stronger than before.
Again, I loved it.
Now that I have a couple of businesses, I’m thinking of ways to promote the gift-worthiness of what I sell.
Just this morning I got a message from one of my laundry customers. He bought 10 loads of laundry as a gift for his son. So today I’m going to promote the laundry gift cards.

I’ve done a couple of successful holiday promotions for my marketing customers. Karen Wray had a lot of new customers come in because they saw an article that I published. And The Pig + Fig got some great feedback and some sales off this email that I wrote for them.

What about you?

Are you promoting your products and services as gifts during the holiday season? (Sometimes it takes a little imagination… but I think anything can be a gift).
I’m here to help.

Beat writer’s block with this trick.

I’ve been “working” on a memoir for the past 15 years.
Most of it is in my pile of diaries. I’ve spent a lot of time typing out my notes from years ago and compiling a huge scary mountain of documents that don’t make sense.
…. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and doing nothing.
All the while, I don’t have something that I could just show to someone. I can’t say, “Here is the story from beginning to end. Read it.”
But recently, I started to talk to one of my friends about the memoir, and the story behind it. She said, “That sounds like a really interesting book. Can I read it?”
And she was serious. She wants to read my book that I haven’t written. Every once in awhile she’ll bring it up. I’ll tell a story when we’re together and she’ll say, “That needs to go in the memoir.”
Just knowing that my friend wants to read it took all the confusion out of the project. Today, when I sat down to write, I just thought of her and imagined myself telling her the story. I wrote two chapters.
So if you’re ever stuck with your writing, think of the one person who would appreciate the story the most.
You can even start writing by putting a “Dear Mom” at the top of the page. Tape a picture of your customer to your computer. Choose one real person and pretend they are sitting across the table from you. They’re listening, but they’re also asking questions and raising specific concerns.
Write to that one person.

How Karen achieves a consistent online presence

On Tuesday morning I stopped by the Karen Wray Gallery to take some pictures of Karen painting.
I’ll also be sure to use the pictures in upcoming articles about her art classes and exhibits, in her newsletters and on her Facebook page.
I have been working with Karen for several years. I enjoy getting to know all the artists in her gallery and telling the stories of their creative lives.
Karen wrote a testimonial for my website recently. Here is what she had to say about the experience working with me.
“Mandy is my publicist. She writes articles for the magazine and the local papers and also posts articles on social media. It’s well worth the money, and it gets rid of the headache of ‘I have to write this article.’ Mandy takes care of it.

Since I hired Mandy, I have more of a continuous presence online and locally. People are aware of my gallery, see the articles and appear to read them, and they come in as a result. I have seen an increase in people saying they found me through articles and Facebook.

As a business owner, I was thinking of saving time over saving money before hiring Mandy. For someone who knows how to write well, knows how to place them… it’s invaluable.
I would absolutely recommend Mandy to other people. She works very hard to satisfy [the] business owner. She’s very creative with the placement of articles. Recently, I had someone from Santa Fe come up after reading an article about us. I didn’t put it there!”
I have some openings for new clients in 2018. If you would like to hear more about my services and see if I could help your business, sign up for a free 15 minute meeting where we can go over your marketing needs.

Do you need someone to plow your parking lot or driveway?

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to make a brochure for a group of men who have a local snow plowing business.
Here’s how it turned out.
Front:
Don't get snowed in, front (high quality)
Back:
brochure rear, high quality
If you’re in Los Alamos, call Valente Yoder at 505-692-8422 or Luis Ontiveros at 505-695-0083.
They do residential and commercial snow removal.

 

It was their busiest day in weeks!

Last week my client, Laura Crucet, called me because something was going wrong.

Business was unexpectedly slowing down. That day she got a phone call that let her know what might be the problem.

The caller asked whether they would be providing holiday catering even though they were closed for construction.

Yikes! They weren’t closed for construction at all! There was an article in the paper that said that there was a conflict between the landlord and the fire marshal… a conflict that was being worked out. But people read that article assumed that they were closed.

I wrote this article, and the next day they had twice as much business as they had been getting over the past two weeks.

I’ve been working with Laura and Fernando for almost a year. This is what Laura had to say about the experience:

“I first saw Mandy’s work for other people on social media. We were open to changing over to someone new, and we’re happy we changed over to Mandy. It’s gone from general writing and social media management to helping us curate our personality in the community.
 
The most successful thing Mandy’s done was during our recent remodel. People were confused, thinking the fire marshal shut down one of our locations. Business dropped off. Mandy wrote a press release, got it posted in the Monitor, and cross-posted it on social media.
This was late Thursday night. Friday was our most successful day in two weeks. Our business doubled compared to what it had been over the last two weeks. That’s what she does.
 
Mandy’s also helping us keep our wine events successful. They’re continuously selling out.
 
Hands down, I’m happy we hired her. She knows our style. She understands it’s all business, it’s nothing personal. If Food Network approached us, I’d feel comfortable approaching Mandy about that.
 
Our role in the community is always changing. You never know what’s going to come. We feel like she’ll be able to rise up to the challenge of that.”
 
Laura Crucet,
Owner of The Pig + Fig Cafe
 

If you have an event coming up, or want to get more people to come to your business, a press release might work for you.

This article brought shoppers into the gallery.

People ask me all the time how to write copy for the art market.

Apparently, it’s one of those niches that seem mysteriously difficult to write for.
Whenever there is an event at the Karen Wray Fine Art Gallery, Karen has me write a press release about it.
When we publish articles that show that there is a special event, she will get a crowd of people.
Here is a link to the most recent article, all about how people can get some unique Christmas gifts right now.
Karen said, “Thank you for the article about our Christmas show! Several customers mentioned that they read it and chose to come in due to the article!”
If you have an event coming up, or want to get more people to come to your business, a press release might work for you. Click here to make an appointment.

A musician and an entrepreneur walk into a bar…

I enjoyed getting interviewed by James Newcomb on his MusicPreneur podcast.

We talked about how to build an audience, and be able to reach out to them quickly, easily and cheaply at a moment’s notice whenever you need them.
I hope you enjoy it.

Her secret’s safe with me.

Yesterday I was checking out the comments on another person’s blog and feeling very satisfied with myself.
You see, I had just wrapped up the first month of a content package. And the blog posts were ghost-written by me.
At the beginning of this month, the owner of this particular website gave me a spreadsheet of ideas, bullet points and links to sales letters.
From there, I researched the topics, got to know the products and every week I delivered a 1,500-word blog post and a sales email on a silver platter.
She continued to write blog posts and emails on her own. But this month she had twice as much content and it freed her up to work on her core offerings.
It was cool to see how her audience was reacting the blog posts that I added, and how she was using the content to direct people to her sales pages.
I have some space in my schedule for another client who needs a steady stream of blog posts and emails. Click here to sign up for a free15-minutee meeting.

That was sooo unprofessional!

I’ve been bellyaching all week because a client canceled a project.

He didn’t mark up what I wrote or say anything was wrong with what I gave him.

I don’t think it had much to do with the work at all.

His biggest problem was ME.

I could totally take it personally this time.
He didn’t think I acted professionally. I was late to our meeting. I didn’t seem to be paying attention when he was talking. And he was really offended when he could hear kids in the background when we spoke on the phone.
I get that there are some basic things that I can improve my business life.

I am going to be more punctual, but I am also going to charge people for mileage and my time when they ask me to meet in another city.

I will never again take a call when there will be kids in the background, but that means that if a client calls on a Saturday and asks, “Is this a good time?” the answer will be, “No, let’s make an appointment.”

With those things out of the way, I want to talk about the bigger issue here.

Being PROFESSIONAL.

I am a professional writer… people pay me to do this. But you’re not hiring me because I’m going to show up in the three-piece suit holding a clipboard and an official file.
You hire me because I am going to get to know you, find out what makes you and your business special and unique, and then write something that will connect with your audience on an emotional level.

In the past, my laid back demeanor helps me accomplish my goals. It makes other people feel comfortable, and when they feel comfortable they start to share their stories and give me the kind of material that works.

I want your unique personality to shine through when I write something for you.

P.S. So if you want to be 100% professional, it might not be a good fit. I want to get to know you and show just enough of your quirky side to get people’s attention and get them to buy.

The right way to approach revisions.

I’m working on a book about self-promotion for trumpet players, called “Tooting Your Own Horn – How to Promote Yourself as a Trumpet Player without Being an Obnoxious Blowhard.
I used Fiverr to get the cover made.
And when I saw the first version, I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

It was just… not what I had in mind.
My first instinct was to find someone else to do it. And maybe leave a bad review.
But I didn’t. Why?
One reason was that I didn’t have the budget to hire the person I really wanted to hire.
Another reason is that I hate it when I do something for someone and they stop communicating at the revision stage.
Whenever that happens to me, it hurts my business and stresses me out.
I’m the kind of person who follows the golden rule. I treat others the way that I want to be treated.
So I sat down with the book cover that I didn’t like and I tried to put into words why didn’t like it. The background was dark and murky, and you couldn’t see the trumpet player’s face. My book is all about making friends, connecting with others, and building a trusting audience.
The cover needs to have a fun and friendly appearance.
So I wrote an email to the designer, politely explaining what I didn’t like about the cover and what I was really looking for.

cover of Tooting Your Own Horn by Mandy Marksteiner

Because I hadn’t communicated that information properly in the first email. I had just given her the text with a “surprise me” attitude.
Now that we were in the revision stage I needed to give more specific directions so that we could get the job done without wasting her time or my money.
And a day later she sent me this version and it was EXACTLY what I wanted!
I loved it.
Two totally different book covers from the same designer. Rather than be rude, make her feel bad about herself, or fire her… I respected the time that she put into the project, had faith in her abilities, and used my communication skills to ask for what I wanted.