my own journey – Page 4 – Michele Christensen

How to use local networking to build your business

(Update: The live call is over, but the recording is available at the links below. Click the link to grab your free recording!)

One of my core business philosophies is to test and revise. I try something I think will work, measure how well it works and revise my plan after that. I did the same with a full year of local, in-person networking and decided it wasn’t worth it and I focused on the internet to build my business.

Another one of my core philosophies is to always be learning. I tend to change my mind a lot because I’m dedicated to truth, not consistency. What I’ve recently learned is that I didn’t network nearly as well as I thought I did.

During the course of my networking year, I met over 200 people (keeping track was part of my measurement process). I sent every one a personalized follow up email, met a few for coffee and offered some of my free material to people who seemed interested. I’m outgoing and curious, so conversation comes naturally to me and I read a lot of “how to network” articles. I thought I was doing great because I was doing so much more than almost everyone I met. Of the 200+ people I met, only a few followed up with me and only a few even acknowledged my personalized email.

At the end of that year, I decided that networking wasn’t worth it because although it was great fun it wasn’t generating business for me. I only generated a small amount of business from my efforts, and when you consider that each of the 2-5 events per month I attended was about a 5 hour investment the math just didn’t work out.

Fast forward to this year, and what I’ve learned is that I didn’t have the right knowledge or strategy going into my networking efforts. To fix this for myself and help you learn as well, I’ve asked sales and networking expert Don Talbert to teach networking skills for my community on a free teleseminar. Don is the founder of the Centurion Group, and after he built his own successful business using networking he began to teach this skill to others. I’ve had many interactions with him both in groups and one-on-one conversations and he really knows his stuff! I’ve learned so much just getting ready for this call that I cannot wait to see what he teaches on the call!

If you’ve tried local networking but haven’t found success, please join me on this call – you’ll leave with strategies and tactics you can use right away. As a bonus, he’ll also be sharing the best way to make sure you are the most disliked person in the room. I’m a little nervous about this one – I hope I didn’t do whatever this is!

Reserve your spot here!

“What do you do?”

What is it about this one question that throws most of us for a loop? Why is it so hard to answer, and why does it cause such angst? It should be straightforward – simply tell someone in one sentence what you do – but rarely is it so easy. Part of the problem is that a lot of solopreneurs do a lot of different things for a lot of different people, and while there may be common threads, it’s hard to group it all under one phrase and convey the full breadth and depth of what we help people with. Most of us care so deeply about our work that to try to sum it up in one sentence feels like we’re negating the value of what we do.

I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this because I was in a lively discussion on the topic last week and I thought most of what people suggested would not work for me if I heard it when I asked someone what they did.

The criteria used by most of the people in the discussion was whether or not the person you were talking to asked a follow up question after you answered “What do you do?” The follow up could be anything such as “How do you do that?” or “Who do your work with?”

This isn’t a bad start to evaluate how effective your one-sentence answer is, but it’s too simplistic. Yes, you want someone to be interested enough to ask for more information, but the fact that they ask a question doesn’t mean they are actually interested. Yes, I know that’s harsh but it’s true. It’s like when someone says “Guess who I saw today?” – I may or may not care depending on who says it and the setting, but since I want to be polite and not hurt people’s feelings, I’ll almost always respond appropriately by saying “Who?” My response is not an guarantee that I’m interested.

It’s the same with your one-sentence business description. Just because it invites a response or question doesn’t mean you hit the mark. There are at least a few different reasons that someone would respond in a socially appropriate manner, and not all of them mean the person is interested.

The discussion started with someone describing an answer he heard at a networking event and most of the comments agreed that this answer was one of the best. When asked what she did, this woman said “I help mature women to look as attractive as possible.” While I agree this is a great way to describe the benefit of working with her, it still doesn’t tell me what she DOES. If I heard this, my mind would be flipping through pictures trying to make a match – is she a make-up artist, stylist, hairdresser, skin care expert, plastic surgeon, Botox practitioner or something else?

A lot of people maintain both in this setting and in marketing that the benefit is what matters and that people don’t care how you get there. I would say that the benefit is the most important, but I can’t be the only one who thinks that how you deliver it is also really important. Why is it important to me? In this case, it will dictate how much time I invest in seeing if we should get to know each other better. If she is a plastic surgeon, there’s not a great fit for me because I don’t know anyone who has plans to get surgery and in my entire life nobody has ever asked me for information or a referral on this topic. It would actually be a disservice to her to take up her time when there are people in the room she’d be better off meeting. If she is a make-up artist who mixes her own chemical-free, cruelty-free cosmetics well then I’m interested because that’s something I’d consider using and I know a lot of people who would also be interested.

My follow up question would be something like “So, um, what do you actually do? Are you a make-up artist?” In my mind, I’d be thinking about how hard this person is making it on me to get the answer to a straightforward question. It would also put them way down on my list of people I’d consider referring business to. Do you communicate this vaguely with clients? Will people I send you have to work as hard as I did to get a question answered?

So, what’s the answer? My current thought is that it’s best to include what you DO along with the benefit you provide, such as “I’m a stylist who specializes in helping mature women look as attractive as possible.” That way, you give someone a full picture that includes everything they need to decide if they want to learn more. I know I’d appreciate being answered in this way!

PS – If you go to networking events or want to start going, check out this free training by Sales and Networking Expert Don Talbert did just for my community: “3 Strategies for Really Working a Networking Event to Create a Continuous Flow of Leads, Referrals and Business.” Grab the audio here: Networking training call

Why it’s good to get some unsubscribes on your newsletter

When I first started with my email newsletter, I took any unsubscribes I got personally. I would look at when they unsubscribed and try to see what I did “wrong.” I always work hard to bring value to people who have trusted me with their time and attention, so I didn’t like to see people unsubscribing. I assumed I did something to drive them away – that either I hadn’t set proper expectations or that I had not delivered something worthwhile.

Now, several years later, I feel differently about unsubscribes. I now know that it’s just part of business – people sign up, and sometimes a few slip away. People change over time, and maybe they’ve moved on from the solopreneur business that made them want to read my newsletter in the first place. Maybe they are deep into some business-expanding projects and don’t want to spend time reading anything new. Maybe the signed up to get to know what I teach and found it wasn’t a good fit for them. Whatever the reason, I now respect that choice and that the lost subscriber is doing what they think is best for their business. It doesn’t sting like it used to when I lose a subscriber. Now, when I lose a subscriber I have a similar feeling as when I bid a friend farewell on a new adventure when they move away from the area. I may wish them to stay, but I know they are moving on in their own best interest, and who can feel bad about that?

If you’re using email newsletter as part of your business and not getting at least a few unsubscribes from time to time, it may be time to step it up a notch. Of course, it’s not desirable to have lots of unsubscribes, and it you get a bunch at one time try to figure out what caused it.

Here’s a few thoughts on how you might increase your efforts and get to that sweet spot of getting just a few unsubscribes:

Are you making offers to purchase something? Your newsletter should include regular offers of things your readers may want to buy. Some people will unsubscribe if they think they are being “sold to” all the time, so don’t overdue it with the sales offers but be sure to make some offers. If someone is offended by appropriate sales offers, then they are probably not a good fit for your newsletter.

Are you targeting your readers tightly enough? If you try to be all things to all people, nobody will feel like you are speaking to them. The more you can hone in on who you are writing to, the more those people will feel connected to you and the more other people will drop away on their own accord.

Are you emailing at an appropriate frequency? The definition of “not enough” and “too much” vary greatly by writer and audience, but not having the right frequency for your situation may result in no unsubscribes or too many. If you rarely send an email, people may unsubscribe in large numbers because they forget who you are or they may never unsubscribe because there are so few emails. If you vastly overdo it, you’ll lose people in large numbers.

How do you feel about people unsubscribing? What number of unsubscribes do you think is the right number for you?

Free call

Updated: The call is over, but you can grab the replay at the link.

Just a quick announcement – I have a free call coming up this week and I’d love for you to join me. Being great at the providing your product or service for customers is only half of what you need for a successful solopreneur business. On this call, I’ll share the other half with you. Click here to reserve your spot.

How to evaluate an adviser you may hire

I was talking to someone I know recently who is thinking of starting a solopreneur business. When I mentioned I could help with this, his replied that the only way he would take advice from me, or anyone, is to know exactly, in detail, how much money I had made in my business. His thinking was that if I had made X dollars then I have something that he could replicate.

There’s a few problems with this response. First, let me state that I admire anyone who checks out a coach or adviser before hiring them. It’s really important to make sure the person knows their field before you trust them. Anyone can appoint themselves guru, expert, etc. so title alone won’t tell you anything.

The first problem with this is personal boundaries. While I understand the logic of asking the question, I would not reveal something like this in detail. I think it’s great when business coaches share their successes in general terms like 6 figures or multiple 6 figures, but that’s as far as I would go. It simply feels icky to me to have to reveal so much personal data in order to win a client.

The second problem with this is that it ignores how long the person has been in business. If I had answered this question within the first 6 months of my business, the figure would not have been very impressive. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t already helping people. I had 10+ years in business in a variety of settings before I ever started my business, so from the onset I was able to offer something valuable.

The third problem is that there isn’t one business model to work from. Just because I have success with mine doesn’t mean someone else, in a different kind of business, could replicate it.

The fourth problem is the difference between revenue and profit. Revenue is all the money that comes into a business, where profit is what is left after paying expenses. If I said I made 1 Million dollars in revenue or sales, that sounds impressive but what if I spent 2 Million bringing that in? That’s pretty dismal.

The last problem using this to check out an adviser is that you have no way of knowing if the person is telling the truth. Anything can be fabricated, even tax returns or account data. The person who asked me this question already knows me well enough to know I wouldn’t lie, but how could you have this knowledge of someone you just met?

So, having established that asking for detailed personal financial information is not the way to evaluate an adviser the next question is what is the right way?

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Know enough about what you are seeking advice on to have a conversation about it. The same way you do your research on a new car before setting foot in the showroom, do your homework here as well. Learn what pitfalls to ask about, and learn some best practices so if you hear something different you know enough to ask about it.

Look for testimonials or ask for references. This is proof that they’ve already gotten results for people.

Look for long-term consistency such as a blog or newsletter. Almost anyone can look good in one conversation but to publish solid information over an extended period of time is a strong indicator that the person has a depth of knowledge and experience to share.

How do you check out someone you are thinking of hiring? Tell me about it in the comments.

Keeping your work at home solopreneur business running

When you work for someone else, there’s a lot of support to get your work done. You have a phone system, computer help desk, human resources, a work space and reference material. When you have a solopreneur business, you need to meet all these needs on your own. One of the biggest places I see a problem in this area is business owners who don’t have adequate computer support. When you work from home, your computer is a huge part of your business and without it you may not be able to function.

What does it look like to have adequate computer support for your work-at-home solopreneur business? Here’s a few ideas:

You have regular backups that run automatically and are stored off-site. Your backup needs to be adequate to get you up and running quickly in the event of a hard drive crash or other disaster, meaning you have to be able to restore your programs and settings as well as your data. Using a manual process may be fine to start, but as soon as you are able get an automated system in place that runs backups automatically. You’re already stretched to the max just running your business, do you need one more annoying thing to think about? How hard will you kick yourself when you let this go and and lose a bunch of data because of it? Store your backups off site so that they are safe in the event of a fire, flood or natural disaster.
Have a plan to fix your computer before you need it. Know who to call or where to go. If you computer crashes, you’ll be frantic enough without calling all over town trying to find the right person to fix it. In that situation, you won’t have the luxury of properly vetting anyone to fix your computer.
If you are able, have a backup plan so you can keep working while your computer is down. This might mean you are able to switch to someone else’s computer or work somewhere else with a secure internet connection. Again, this is something to figure out before you need it. Scrambling in desperation is not a fun place to be and doesn’t position you to make great decisions.

You may be wondering how I learned all this. I had a computer problem last week, and no thanks to me all this was in place already. My husband is an absolute computer genius, and does a great job maintaining all the electronics in the house. Somehow, I had downloaded some sort of virus that was making my computer slower and slower until it wouldn’t function. Thanks to having all this in place, I was able to work on his computer until he fixed the problem. On top of all the regular tasks of running a business, I had a newsletter to get out so it would have a big problem if I wasn’t able to work. The entire experience, and the relative ease of taking care of it hammered home just how important all this is for running a business from home.

What would happen if your computer crashed? Tell me about it in the comments.

Be productive in spite of the experts

Image of mail in the sunrise — Email in the morning

I admit it, I’m a productivity junkie! I devour information on the subject – books, magazines, newsletters, blogs, etc. – I want it all. Apparently, I’m not alone – there’s a running joke in the productivity communities I frequent about procrastinating by studying how to be more productive.

I’m also a big fan of the scientific method and use it in my daily life all the time. I’ll read about something interesting, test it and decide if it works for me. My personal productivity and time and task management are no different. I’ve got an ever-changing system to keep it all together.

One of the rules I hear most often from experts on productivity is that nobody should check email first thing in the morning. The idea behind this is that it is reactionary – you open your email and start handling whatever is there regardless of how it fits into your business success plan. Once you get into your email, it can be hard to get out. By the time you get to the bottom, more messages have arrived. “Just a peek” turns into hours. A quick question and response leads to a live chat. These long email firestomping sessions rarely lead to anything profitable and they take you out of the driver’s seat for your day. I’m sure you’ve experienced being sidetracked by email – I know I have.

Many experts say you should start your day with something other than email. That something could be an activity you decided on yesterday, your current profit-making project, whatever you find most difficult, what your morning energy level dictates or any other intentionally-chosen project you decide on. It makes a lot of sense, given how easy it is to get sucked into the email rabbit hole. However, this is one area where I don’t follow the experts’ advice

I have a list of things I do first thing every day and email is one of them. I love getting my daily business “housekeeping” out of the way and having a clean slate going into whatever I do next. I like having an empty inbox going into my day so I can spot any urgent messages more easily. It’s great to know that at least once a day, my email inbox is at zero messages and I’m no more than one work session away from zero again.

I think one of the reasons this works for me is that I have a process for handling my email and a specific end point which is an empty inbox. Once I process all the messages that I had as of a certain time, I’m done until tomorrow except for urgent messages.

So what’s the point of my telling you this? First, by all means read what experts have to say but then test and assess for yourself. What works for most people may not work for you. Second, I wanted to give you an alternative to what you might read elsewhere about handling your email.

How do you handle email? When in the day do you look at your inbox? Do you ever buck the advice of experts in this area or others? Tell me about it in the comments.

Save time when scheduling

(Update: 10/9/13: Several items in this post have changed since I originally wrote it. I still use and love Timetrade, but it’s now offered on a freemium model and the pricing is different than I describe. It also integrates with iCal now and they’ve added a lot more features. The general reasons I love this tool are still the same.)

If you work by appointment, you know that scheduling can be tough! In the early days of my business, someone would request an appointment and I’d send them 3 or so choices. Then, I’d have to hold those choices open until I heard back from them. If another client wanted to schedule, I’d have to come up with a set of different choices for that client or put them on hold until I heard from the first client. In the meantime, client number 2 has to put his or her appointment setting on hold until they hear from me. What a mess!

I’m so much happier with my scheduling process now that I use an automated scheduling tool. What is an automated scheduling tool? It allows anyone to whom I’ve given a link to self-schedule their appointment at a time when they know I’m available. I get great feedback on my scheduling process and I can’t even guess at how much time it’s saved me and the people looking to schedule with me.

There are several choices for an automated scheduling tool, and the one I use is Timetrade (timetrade.com). After a free trial, it’s about $30 per year and well worth it. Once you sign up, you link Timetrade to your Outlook or Google calendar and set up some rules for appointments such as the days and times you will accept appointments. Timetrade will then offer appointments that follow your rules and are not already taken by another appointment. Visitors do not see what you are doing when you aren’t available.

I work in 15-, 30- and 60-minute sessions by phone or Skype, so each of these choices has its own scheduling page (called “activities” in Timetrade). If a person has purchased a bundle of 30-minute sessions, I give them the pages where they can schedule a 30-minute call or Skype session. Because of the way the system is set up, the visitor can only schedule a 30-minute session which leads to fewer mistakes and rescheduled appointments.

Another great use for an automated scheduler is to avoid playing phone tag! People are so busy and a lot of productive people I know don’t answer their phone whenever it rings to it can be really hard to connect. If I want to talk to someone, I send them to a page where we can schedule a quick phone call at a time that works best for both of us.

There are other great scheduling tools available, so look for the one that will work best for you. The one feature that was non-negotiable for me was using a tool that eliminates back-and-forth. One scheduling tool I tried requires visitors to send you two options of when they want to meet. You then have to get the email, review it and pick one before the appointment is confirmed. This defeats one of the main purposes of using a scheduling tool. I much prefer that my clients and callers can book and confirm an appointment on the spot. Timetrade also sends a confirmation email without requiring your visitor to have an account.

Timetrade is just one of 32 resources I share in my Solopreneur Success Rolodex. Grab your own copy by clicking here and save yourself some headaches!

Should solopreneurs say yes to every opportunity?

Strategy helps solopreneurs choose events wisely — Think strategically when choosing which events to attend for your solopreneur business

I was with a friend over the weekend, and she mentioned an event that she was going to and thought I’d be interested in attending as well. She had told me about it a few years ago and I checked it out and decided it wasn’t for me at this time. When I told her so, she was absolutely stunned! Here she was, presenting me with what seemed like a golden opportunity and I was turning it down. Her thinking was that my business must be at capacity or otherwise I’d be going, but that wasn’t my reason.

The reason I wasn’t going comes down to the #1 thing business owners must have to succeed: strategy. Strategy is everything in a business. It means that everything you do is intentional and has a purpose that contributes to your success. For live events, strategy doesn’t mean going to any and every event that is open to you and hoping that it will help. Strategy means having a specific aim in mind for attending events, and a specific type of person you want to meet. To show how having a strategy guides decision making, I’ll tell you why I turned this event down.

For my business strategy, if I’m going to an event to meet potential clients then the event audience should have some correlation to what I do. There should be something about the event that attracts people who have or want their own solopreneur business. The event my friend invited me to was more or less a random assortment of the public. There was no attraction specifically for the people I feel most called to serve, solopreneurs.

The second factor that led to my decision is that this event required 5 to 8 hours on a Saturday plus prep time. This is a massive chunk of time to spend in an untargeted manner. There was also no guarantee you’d actually get any time in front of anyone. The event is run in a very free-form manner, and people may or may not enter your room when you give a talk and they can come and go as they please during the talk. This isn’t conducive to sharing anything of value with anyone.

The final factor to consider is that I live in the Los Angeles area, and there are dozens of events every week. I haven’t even begun to attend all the events I could that would possibly have people interested in what I do. Until I’ve made a considerable showing at those events, it simply doesn’t make sense to go to an event filled with random people.

It’s easy to pulled off course if you don’t have pre-set goals and strategy. Having those in mind helps guide your decisions and give you something to measure your success.

Have you set your goals for the year and your strategy for achieving them? Tell me about it in the comments – I’d love to hear how strategy helps you or if it doesn’t. If you don’t have a strategy yet, let’s talk and start setting one up. Click here to schedule a call with me.

Realigning my solopreneur business priorities

Solopreneur priorities will evolve over time — Your priorities as a solopreneur will change over time

Over the long haul, your solopreneur business will change. You’ll go through phases, changing interests and maybe even a change of focus. Instead of being surprised, try to expect this and know that it’s normal.

On of my ongoing evolutions is how I prioritize my time. I’ve spent many, many hours learning in the last two years. I absolutely love to learn new things, and as a coach and consultant it’s vital to my business that I keep my knowledge current. I’ve sampled the work of dozens of coaches and mentors with both paid and free information. Something has shifted for me in the last few months though. I’ve become impatient and felt a tug to be doing more. When I looked at how I spend my time, I realized that I was spending too much time learning and not enough time implementing. Sound familiar?

Many solopreneurs fall into this trap. Sometimes it’s fear of moving ahead because we think we don’t yet know enough. Sometimes learning can be a procrastination tool – it’s easy to sit and listen to a webinar or recording but actually creating something can be hard and tedious. For me, I think learning is just so exciting and inspiring that I want to do a lot of it because I love it.

When I first started to prioritize learning about 2 years ago, it was the right choice. I did need to up my skill set and knowledge both for my own business and for my clients. There came a point in the last few months though, where I would get impatient during my daily study sessions. It was almost a feeling of “enough already, go do something!”

It wasn’t until I set aside some quiet time and took a look at my time and priorities and did some realigning. The main thing I shifted was to change the balance between learning and doing. Up until now, it’s been mostly learn with a little doing. Now I’m aiming for mostly doing with some learning.

The reality is that you’ll never know everything about running a solopreneur business. There will always be lots more to learn. There will come a point though, when more learning needs to be balanced out with more doing. Continuing to study without using what you are learning will not help your business. I think sometimes the sheer volume of information available to us plays on our insecurities. It seems like since we know such a small portion of what we could know that we couldn’t possibly know enough to run a business. Don’t believe it though!

Have you been learning without doing? Is it time for a shift? Tell me about it in the comments.