synchronistic strategy part IV - do what I say, not what I do with this stuff

My blog is getting a little 'know it all'y and this is not a good thing.

Since we often teach what we need to learn - it is easy to get a little carried away with this stuff and this is a slippery slope for business blogs.

(of course this is only a business blog if you squint from 5 yards while drinking your green tea with honey and doing a sudoku)

I only want to pass on information that is tried and true, in the sense that I have tried it and found it to be true (my truth is not everyone's truth) - we should always, always do what feels right to us.

We never want to take action steps to make up for our own lack of focus. Sometimes we take our inventory too early - we have to trust that life is enfolding perfectly for us, because it always is.

Anyhoo, back to synchronistic strategy and inbound marketing. I am going to be honest here and talk about all the ways I have mucked this up since they are more plentiful than the stuff I did right.

A few months (or weeks, I think my memory has been eaten from my years on aspartame - ditch all diet sodas if you haven't done that yet) after opening on Etsy I was in a treasury that hit the front page. It changed my business.

I started making treasuries - from my very first treasury my treasuries mostly got on the front page - no clue how this is possible but it's true - to be sure there were a lot less treasuries in those days. One day I had 3 treasuries on the front page in the same 24 hour period (treasuries I made, not treasuries I was in). I loved making them.

Anyhoo, people started putting me in a lot of treasuries - I didn't realize at the time that much of this was because I was making treasuries that got to the front page and there was a kind of reciprocity to the system. When my treasury got someone on the front page I never thought for a second that seller needed to put me into a treasury and I never put people in my treasuries for that reason either. Some people did this and honestly it did not occur to me for a long time.

Sellers in the forums were complaining that the same people were always getting on the front page, and if you have ever been on the front page you know it is priceless real estate - it was even in those days when Etsy was much smaller - the real payoff though comes to those who have a consistent presence there.

At one point Uncorked was on the front page at least twice a week and Polarity at least once a week (now I am on the front page about once a year).

The treasury system really helped me to grow my business - now this wouldn't have happened if I didn't have original work and great pictures - but I do not kid myself that the consistent front page exposure was priceless.

(there is a seller on Etsy with more sales than we could ever imagine - their work is absolutely amazing - well, in the earliest days of Etsy - before I was on there and I only know this because I once saw a bunch of screen shots of front pages for a few days on Etsy in 2006 and 2007, this shop was in every single front page treasury - not on the front page everyday but in every single front page treasury all day long - this is not to take anything away from this shop's amazing work - you could say this person helped grow Etsy as much as Etsy helped to grow this shop, but ... I'll just say front page exposure=priceless)

There came a day when the treasuries I made did not get to the front page anymore ... it was a very sudden halt. I wasn't sure if Etsy staff had changed, my eye for making them was gone or I was blackballed. I made a treasury under a friend's name to test my blackball theory and it got to the front page, so I knew that something had changed (probably just Etsy staff, they are people after all - I wasn't really thinking blackball, but it makes this story a little more exciting and I am a proud conspiracy theorist).

A few months (again with my memory thing the timing could be screwy), maybe a year later the treasury system changed and the serious treasury makers formed teams. I know people who are on multiple teams, who make multiple daily treasuries, who know what time of day to make what type of treasury live to get the best access. There is a science to it now. They still get to the front page a lot - although not as much as they used to either. Me - pretty much never.

The lesson here is not that I should still be making treasuries - there is always a gift in letting go and lots of good things have come from the multiple legs this has forced me to grow - although to be honest it was my ego that took me out of the game (if there was no chance of a treasury I made ever getting to the front page, ie me winning the game, I didn't want to play - I'm taking my ball and going home - wah) - the real lesson is about connections - the reciprocity of the treasury system is all about connections, without me making treasuries I wouldn't be in many either.

This is totally in sync with the new connections marketplace.

I did not learn this lesson though

as evidenced by the next thing I did.

back tomorrow with - the next thing I did. 

synchronistic strategy part III - re-marketing campaigns and the jim-jams

lovebirds don't get the jim-jams by Polarity & Mayhem Here

When we were kids and we wanted my mother's attention for a bit too long

(like the summer my sister and I spent memorizing the Sears and Roebuck catalog and reciting it word for word - I still remember much of the hardware section - to my poor mother while she sat cross legged on a blanket in the backyard smoking a cigarette and probably praying for the ice cream truck to make an appearance)

- she would say her legs had the jim-jams and she had to do something else. Standing still was not her favorite thing.

Now that the world is moving so much faster, most of us can appreciate this standing still thing. We probably don't get the jim-jams.

(and actually now that I write this I think maybe she had restless legs because my sister has restless legs - my legs are the opposite of restless - they are "let's rest" NOW legs)

Since we are are all about to get a little 'warm-weather lazy' - this standing still thing sounds like some timely stuff for us to think about.

Now marketing is strategic or operational (see my marketing series HERE) and even though I am talking strategy here let's talk operational stuff like inbound and outbound marketing - both can work for us by attracting the right customers while we sip lemonade on the front porch.

Outbound marketing still has its place for makers (even if we can't fit a Superbowl ad into our budget ... yet) and it doesn't have to be (and in fact can't be) the yucky, salesy stuff we all hate.  

Re-marketing email campaigns to existing customers really work. Put together an email list and use it - maybe 50% of the time to offer the customer something they can buy (think offer instead of sell here, because this is a partnership)

and 50% of the time offering them something free (download, instructions, information, actual freebie product, even a link to someone else's free download that you know your customers will love) - maybe the offer percentage should be even lower and the free higher - see what works.

This will work better and better over time as we grow our customer base and email list. This is the kind of marketing we do for people who already love us.

Blog advertising can work - I know many of us have had bad experiences with it - I have found it must be niche focused.

(think partnership again)

Often it works best for a specific product and not our entire shop (unless we are a one product shop): example - we make a soap that smells like flowers and really gets the dirt off - designing a blog ad for just that one product - with a link to that one product - on maybe a gardener's blog can really pay off (over time).

An advertising campaign needs to be ongoing though and the blog needs enough readers to make it worthwhile - this is more about becoming the go-to girl or guy for our product or service than actual dollars in for a while.

TIP: the only way to become the go-to girl is to be googleable - so the soap campaign needs to be called "wash off the dirt, keep the flower scent" (well, not that, that sounds pretty awful) - something distinctive enough (and short enough) that people can google later and find you. So whatever you call the item in your ad, use those same words everywhere and make it distinctive enough that people can find you again.

If we think our stuff is not niche enough for this to work- either rebrand something and give it a clear niche - or don't do this kind of advertising.

I would suggest if you want to sell on the internet to think NICHE - that scarf you knit may be perfect for subway commuters, who are probably freezing - THEY NEED YOU - so knit their subways entrance and exit points into the scarf ends - personalization always wins - and advertise it to commuters. There are hundreds/thousands/gazillions of ways to do this - figure out yours.

Now even though this stuff is all outbound marketing - it is still about standing still - being in the same place long enough for the right someone to find us.

When I was in banking and we ran direct mail campaigns - we hit (yes, I said hit, we are talking about a bank here) the same people at least 3 times before we moved on to new people - maybe this wears them down, maybe they just get more comfortable with us - I don't know. but I know it works - we got results by standing still.

With blog advertising, hopping from blog to blog looking for better results will just leave our ankles sore and our head hurting - stay put (make sure you have the right blog in the first place though).

With an email campaign - we should be talking to existing customers and people who have opted in to hearing from us - also give them an opt-out so they never have to hear from us again if they choose that - everyone has much too much cluttering up their in-boxes - we are not as important to them as we think we are.

Modcloth has some great email campaigns - they will email me when an item I abandoned is back in stock and when something I had in my cart and removed is about to sell out. They have a wishlist feature that notifies me when an item on my wishlist goes on sale or when my friends buy something I might like (not sure who these friends are, I suspect this is bogus since Olive doesn't shop on Modcloth, but it does get my attention) - if we can figure out ways to make stuff like this happen with our own businesses our email campaigns will work even better for us.

Next up tomorrow Part IV - inbound marketing - the place where synchronicity and strategy connect

(My blog is becoming like a little crystal ball sometimes with the things I write about coming up for me in strange ways very soon after - this makes me think that writing about standing still when I am wanting to move - into a new house - may not be the smartest move on my part and now I just wrote 'smartest move on my part' - ugh - the first time we went to look at another house a few weeks ago, our house literally locked us inside - the deadbolt broke off in the door when we went to leave and we were locked in - I think my house has voted for us to stand still. Now hubs just read this paragraph and thinks I should throw in something about winning the lottery - there we go - just in case, my blog's prophetic powers are the real deal.)

so she posted this instead ....

I am in the middle of a 7 day cleanse. It involves heaping scoops of fiber and a tablespoon of oil poured into a glass of water and drank twice a day (and I know there is something wrong with my grammar here, but since I can blame the cleanse I will just keep typing) - slowly, while holding my nose, while wearing my size 4XL Pat Benatar t-shirt/dress (apparently Pat knows her fans are all older and wider now) and trying not to retch the whole mess up into the sink - hubs gets to watch this entire process twice a day (yes, my sexiness knows no bounds) in case I need medical attention during this process (I tried to get Olive involved but she has spent the week laying on huge piles of random laundry - I'm also cleaning closets - with a very self-satisfied look - I think pretending she just blew up Punky Brewster). I know you are probably not all living the dream like I am here in NJ - please don't hate me for this.

p.s. Back soon to finish that series - in the meantime, here's a little George to get us thinking WEEKEND!

synchronistic strategy for makers part III - this customer belongs to someone else

Now this valuing ourselves part is something we have to think about before we start "standing still" and attracting customers -

without it we will be attracting the wrong customer.

And running a business with the wrong customers will run us right into the ground.

(yes, buried up to our necks with biting ants chewing off our eyelashes - it ain't pretty people)

We cannot please them, we cannot find them, we cannot figure out what they want - because they are not our customer. They belong to someone else.

This valuing ourselves thing often shows up in our pricing, but not always. If we think other people do not value what we do, maybe we are not giving them a reason to. Maybe it's because our makings are not up to snuff or maybe it is because we are not allowing other people to be part of the process.

I used to write about my Polarity Locket - "I simply solder a hook to a car part" - although I have never used a soldering iron in my life and this was never what I did. It seemed the easiest way to explain it in my listings. I had this all backwards. Easy is never going to get us passionate customers, who will find us while we stand still.

(this doesn't mean our process has to be hard; this is about our message - our message can't be easy - this didn't work for us in high school and it won't work now)

When someone printed a story about me on their blog and wrote "Cat simply solders a hook to a car part" I got really annoyed ... with myself. I knew exactly where she had gotten her verbage and exactly what it said about my self-value.

For a while I went crazy, not realizing at first I had just flipped the same self-worth coin to the other side. I started saying "I clean, drill, cut, braze, grind and seal to prevent rust" the car part.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

What a snorefest and I had missed the point entirely.

If customers were going to be passionate partners in my business - if they were going to buy in to my message, which the right people were ready and really wanted to do - I needed to get this right. Eventually I did (but it's a process).

It takes a lot of energy to look for people to serve. The world is like Facebook now - we are all looking at different things. The days when everybody tuned into the same program on Friday night are gone. We can't reach everybody.

We don't want to be running around looking for some way to catch someone's attention because even once we have caught their attention (our attention spans are miniscule these days, most people will never even read this far into this post) and convinced them we are the ones who have what they are looking for we are exhausted (grab a cookie and your snugli)!

So when a customer tells us they are not completely satisfied with our product, policies or pricing we are more than willing to satisfy them. We have gone through so much to get them this far toward  a purchase we are ready to compromise - the truth is, we are too tired to fight. Thinking we will lose the battle to win the war we let the customer win this little skirmish - especially since we know all we went through to get him this far in the first place.

But, if we value ourselves and our business (and have put the proper time and energy into our products, policies and pricing in the first place) we will be more apt to hear that little inner voice, the one that speaks for our instincts, the one that says "whoa girl, slow down, be careful, this one would be more trouble than he's worth - maybe this customer belongs to someone else."

Now this doesn't mean that we write our policies in granite - that we don't change when we need and want to - of course not - the entire point of being small and nimble is well, being small and nimble. We can change on a dime. We just want to be sure that we are not undervaluing ourselves in the process.

Forget competition (think cooperation). Forget "I have to grab this customer before someone else does" (our right customer won't need to be grabbed, she will come to us happily and in fact if we try to grab her - she will probably be someone like me who bruises easily and she will tell 2 friends who will tell 2 friends). Forget "money is money" (if we don't like big corporations - think Monsanto and Bank of America here) doing anything for a buck, we shouldn't be either, change starts with us.

These things don't work anymore. The energy has shifted on our planet - we have moved from the masculine 1 energy of "me" into the masculine/feminine 2 energy of "us". This is why all the old structures are crumbling - there is nothing holding them up anymore. If we build our business on the old paradigm we will be in trouble, too.

Also our businesses are alive (not in a corporations are people kind of way, but in the same way everything is) and just like our own bodies naturally release what is toxic and naturally distribute what is tonic - our businesses will, too, if we keep things instinctual.

Back tomorrow with part IV - "so what is this standing still part again, my feet hurt"