Posts

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.

Introducing a better way to promote an art exhibit.

I have a lot of experience promoting man pointing at a painting on a pop-up gallery, while other patrons look onart.
The trick is to get people to come to the gallery.
And usually that involves planning events and parties revolving around the art.
The problem is that people show up in droves for art openings, but once the opening reception is over it’s hard to get people to stop by and keep looking.
Phil Noll is a nature photographer who has an exhibit at the Karen Wray Gallery in Los Alamos, NM.
When people walk in they are stunned by his photos. And they have a million questions about how he managed to capture those images.
So we planned a walkthrough of the exhibit and Q&A session with the artist.
We wrote an article that was published in both of the local papers (one paper published it a few days before the event, the other one delivered it hours before the event). We sent the article out as an email blast. And we shared the email blast on the gallery Facebook page.
Plus Phil shared it several times on his personal page.
We had no idea how many people to expect. I have to admit, I was a little nervous while I waited for 5:00 to arrive. (But I always get a little jittery before events… I want to know that my press releases brought in lots of people!)
We were all pleased when people started to arrive. The main room was packed full of people. There may have been more people at this event than there were at the opening reception.
(That gives me an important clue about the market we’re in. Los Alamos is full of well-educated… and well-off… scientific types. They want to LEARN stuff.)
Once the room was full Phil went from photo to photo and told the story of how he got that image. He gave tips on using the camera, told stories about getting stuck knee deep in snow or mud, revealed his secrets about how he achieved special effects, and he did his best to explain why the light looked so incredible in some of the photos.
My favorite part was how he told us how often there were 50-60 other photographers herding around a certain overlook. Often they would pack up and leave before he took his picture… or they would all be looking in one direction and he would find something incredible just by looking the other way.
It was informative. It was entertaining.
A lot of people in the marketing world call it “infotainment.” And I want you to use it in your business as much as possible because it is powerful.
People lingered after the presentation was over… asking questions. Phil (who totally rocked it, by the way) stuck around and let everyone look at his camera and his camera backpack.
Anyway, if you would like to try using infotainment to increase your sales, give me a call.