How’d this turd get on the windowsill?

I got my son a box of pranks for Christmas (because he loves doing practical jokes).

It came with a ice cube with a fly in it, a bloody bandage that lets you pretend that your finger was stabbed through with a nail, and of course, fake poop.

When Calvin first got it, I could see that his mind was reeling with the possibilities of where he should put the poop to get the biggest laughs.

In someone’s shoe?

On Dad’s pillow?

It turned out he casually left it on the window sill by the stairs. And when my husband saw it there he was perplexed.

Who did this?

Was it the baby or the dog?

How in the hell did Ella or George poop in the windowsill?? Is that even possible?

Calvin was more than willing to take credit for the poop (I would have let the mystery drag on a little longer).

Next, the fake poop got left on the floor under the computer. And George’s reaction (btw, George is my dog) was priceless and disturbing.

He saw it and without missing a beat, ate it. Once it was in his jaws he seemed genuinely disappointed that it was fake…

… which is why you never let him kiss you on the lips.

Where am I going with this?

This prank set might be the most played-with present this  Christmas season in my house. I was the one that bought this $20 prank set. It doesn’t really solve a problem, I’m just bored and love it when my kids play practical jokes on each other.

Sometimes we buy things for highly illogical reasons.

And so do our customers.

We may have a list of benefits in front of us, but we’ll never know the quirky reasons for buying or be able to collect the random testimonial unless we keep in close contact with our customers.

And that is why I love daily emails.

It makes it easy for your customers to find you when they need you (because your emails are always in their inbox).

They can hit reply and tell you what they think, good or bad, at any time. All that feedback is a gold mine for marketing.
And it makes it a lot easier to sell most products.

My team is growing.

2018 is off to a heart-pounding sprint, and I can’t help but thank my lucky stars that I have help.
Brit McGinnis is a copywriter from Oregon who has stepped in for me when things get crazy to crank out copy when I need it the most. Her assistance has made it possible for me to meet all of my deadlines and continue to move forward with my business.
And I’ve also gotten some motivational lashes from Misty RHN. Misty is an email copywriting coach and persuasive copy expert who has helped me come up with some big ideas to grow my business and (later this week) will be working with me to improve some email copy for one of my new clients.

I’m thrilled to be working with these two talented ladies. Their support will help me and my clients have a great 2018.

Better than a resolution.

Have you ever set a goal or resolution, only to completely forget about it?
(Like the time I set a goal to run a half marathon, only to get distracted… Later, a friend asked me over lunch whether I “finished my half.” I thought he was talking about dessert!)

One of the most valuable things I learned in 2017 was the difference between making resolutions (which is a lot like wishful thinking) and creating s system of daily habits that lead toward the outcome that you want.
What does that mean?
It means that if you have a desired outcome (I’ll use myself as an example… I’d like to make enough money to finally pay off my student loans this year) break the big task up into smaller bits and figure out what task you have to do every day to reach that goal.
I get most of my business through my email newsletters. So I will discipline myself to continue to write an email every day and find out what offers will be more attractive to the people on my list.
I haven’t set a dollar amount to the goal. I can’t control that… I can just control what I do with my time every day.
If you’ve set some goals for yourself this year, I encourage you to try this approach.
Sean Kaye explains the idea of working backward to achieve your goals in this Monster Mice podcast interview.

WAY too much traffic.

Last night we were driving up 285 toward Carlsbad, NM, (still on the Texas side) when we hit a pothole hard.

The air exploded out of our tire. My husband steered the van onto the shoulder of the road while a speeding semi bore down on us from behind.

We drove as far down into the shallow ditch as we could, dumped a dozen Christmas presents onto the dirt to get at the spare and got to work.

Meanwhile, tankers and other huge trucks continued to speed by… going 80, 90 miles per hour. This was insane!

The narrow two-lane road was in terrible shape, potholes everywhere and yet the drivers were treating it like it was a freeway.
There was just too much traffic.
The oil companies are clearly making lots of money, but the infrastructure is falling apart.
Most business owners have the opposite problem. Their products are ready to go, but they aren’t getting enough traffic to make consistent sales.
If this sounds familiar, we should talk.
I can write the kind of engaging content that will bring new customers to your site, engage your audience, give them a reason to sign up for your newsletter and buy from you.
If you want to get more traffic and make more sales in 2018, let’s get started now.

Another valuable blogging resource from Todd E. Jones.

This week I’m going to be interviewing Todd E. Jones on my podcast.

Todd is a content strategist, copywriter and web designer from Conway, Arkansas.

For the past 15 years, he has been building websites and helping companies develop the content for their websites.
I’m looking forward to hearing his advice on how entrepreneurs can get started on the right foot marketing their products and services.
While you wait for the episode to be ready, check out his e-book, “How To Never Struggle With Blog Topics,” by Todd E. Jones
This is going to be your year to write some great content for your blog that will drive traffic to your website and turn that traffic into sales.
If you want more information about Todd, his website is www.graphixcatmedia.com.

Your blog will be AWESOME in 2018… here’s why.

Did you create the content that you planned to create?


Did your blog drive traffic to your website and did you turn that traffic into sales?

Whether you knocked it out of the park last year with your blog… or fell a little
short… chances are you want things to go even better next year.

And I have something that can help you reach your 2018 blogging goals. It’s my blog
brainstorming worksheet for content marketers.

Download it here.

And if you know anyone who wants to use content marketing to grow their business
next year, feel free to forward it to them. This is a free resource that
I put together to help marketers come up with profitable ideas.

Check out my new LinkedIn profile pic

Last fall, Mary Rose Maguire and I were both listening to Ann Handley’s brilliant talk about content marketing at AWAI’s boot camp.

Ann was explaining the folly of littering your LinkedIn profile with the “constellation of nope” … which is her term for the default cover photo in LinkedIn. When you leave the default photo there you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to tell people about who you are and what you do.

So when Mary Rose offered to make me a new cover photo for my LinkedIn profile, how could I resist?

Not only does Mary Rose know me, and she understands my business, but she also knows the value of having a great cover photo. She was offering me what I needed, just at the time when I needed it.

How about you?

P.S.

Here is what she came up with.

 

Hey! You got egg yolks all over my mattress!

My husband and I want to get each other a new mattress for Christmas because we’ve had our mattress long enough that it’s starting to gross us out.

(One way to sell a mattress is to talk about all the horrible skin cells and dust mites that build up over the years… barf!)

And now I’m getting all kinds of mattress commercials in my news feed and on my YouTube channel.

My favorites are the ones by Purple.

I like these commercials because they find a dramatic way to demonstrate the benefits of the bed. They break raw eggs on the bad mattresses and show that the purple mattress can support a raw egg even when a lot of weight is dropped on it.

It’s entertaining and fun to watch. The “how-to” makes you think you’re going to learn something (and you do) and it’s so off the wall that you don’t mind that you’re being sold a mattress.

… have you tried this mattress?

How to weave stories through your marketing.

Once upon a time, as snow fell softly on the roof of a little cabin in rural Arkansas, Todd E. Jones learned his most important business skill at the feet of his two grandpas… how to tell a story.

 

As a digital marketer, Todd uses his storytelling to entrepreneurs and B2B companies improve their SEO rankings, engage their customer base and make a steady stream of sales. And in this podcast, he shares his tips on how to use weave compelling stories into your marketing mix. Check him out at https://www.grafixcatmedia.com.

 

 

How to promote music events, an interview with Douglas Detrick

I met Douglas Detrick years ago when we were both studying trumpet performance at Lawrence University.

These days Douglas is still playing trumpet (and the banjo!!!) and he’s the executive director of the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble.

In this episode he shares his wealth of experience promoting jazz concerts, selling tickets, raising money for a non-profit and telling engaging stories that get people from all walks of life to care about what he’s up to musically.