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During last week’s conference call for The Creative Empire, Tara and I were asked which business books had the greatest influence on us. Even though I recommend different business books all the time, its not often that I think about which books had the greatest impact. So today I’m sharing four books that had a major role in shaping my business philosophy.
The Long Tail
Made to Stick
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
How to Do Stuff Different than Anyone Else. A List Post. 11 (or really just 10) ideas to help you find ways to differentiate yourself from others in your niche market
50 Best Blogging Ideas That Will Keep Your Readers Coming Back For More Because you can’t have enough ideas about what to blog about.
The Fine Art of Connection – How one artist has used social media to fill up his schedule and make connections in the art world.
5 Crippling Beliefs That Keep Writers Penniless and Mired in Mediocrity – You might think you’re just being realistic when you encounter these beliefs, but they keep you from becoming great.
How Long? – Estimating Your Work – Some thoughts on figuring out how long a project (either your art or your business) might take.
Use Twitter Contests to Find Targeted Followers – Everyone says that giving stuff away endears you to new followers. I don’t exactly believe that, but these are ideas to…
Yesterday, I came home to one of my favorite things when it comes to running my own business – three (nice sized) checks in the mail.
These checks weren’t unexpected. They were payments from stores for jewelry I had sent them in March. These were checks rolling in from my NET 30 accounts. And these checks now form the bulk of the income from my jewelry business.
What is NET 30?
Once you start wholesaling your products, you’re likely to run into stores who ask if you offer “terms.” What this typically means is will you extend NET 30 credit to the store. NET 30 means that you ship a store’s order, and they have 30 days to send you payment in the form of a check. (Some larger companies may request NET 60 or even NET 90 – meaning they have 60 or 90 days to pay.)
While I don’t recommend extending NET 30 to first time wholesale buyers (for those I request a credit card up front), I do like to move regular accounts onto NET 30 after a few orders.
Obviously, there are plenty of…
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
Want a Better Blog Tomorrow Morning? Do These 6 Things Tonight – Some ideas to help you clear your metaphorical desk and get a jump on things blog related.
Seems like a bunch of people were thinking about goals this week. Were you thinking about yours?
Support Your Goals with a Creativity Brief
Do Your Actions Lead Back to Your Premise?
To Reach Your Goals, Complacency is Death
We’ve all been to that place where it seems we can’t get it to work out no matter how hard we try. 33 Ways To Overcome Frustration will help us snap out of it.
How A Few Tweets Led to a 370% Increase In My Traffic – A great story about how a little networking can help immensely.
8 Simple Ways To Trigger Your Creativity – Marketing creativity that is. I love idea #2.
50 Ways to Dodge The Blog Burnout Sucker Punch – Feeling unmotivated blog-wise? Here are some ideas to get you back on the horse.
Today’s guest post is from Lisa Verdi of MindfulBIZ. Lisa is sharing some strategies for tweaking your website to line up with the goals of your business. Be sure to read to the end of the post for a chance to win a website critique from Lisa!
Some designers and makers get caught up in the hoopla of starting a creative business and focus on the how-to details while avoiding the difficult big questions. I’m referring to the who, what, and why behind your creative venture.
But that’s not you! You’ve been devouring the wisdom at Crafting an MBA and have a business plan that describes the unique approach that sets you apart, the people who will want what you create and how you’ll attract those people to you.
Great! But have you put your business plan into action on your website?
Your website is your primary tool for promoting and selling your products and services. If there’s a disconnect between your business plan and your website, you’re missing out on a lot of sales.
Most people…
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
One of the best ways to find an audience outside your circle is to guest blog. Guest Blogging Opportunities And 5 Ways to Find Them gives you some ideas to find new opportunities. I would also recommend HARO and Blogger Linkup.
How One Woman Photographer Started Her Own Street Team – A post describing how one woman convinced others to market for her.
15 Blogger Resources Not Previously Featured on ProBlogger – Some great sites that help you with HTML, color schemes, broadcasting, when to tweet, etc. (Also another place to find guest blog posts)
Networking is an essential part of every business, that doesn’t mean you feel comfortable doing it. Essential Tips: Take The Fear Out Of Networking helps you find ways to make it less scary.
26 Ways to Engage With Customers Using Video – An A-Z guide to enhance client communication and collaboration, and help support and drive new business using video.
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
5 Blog Posts Every Artist Should Write – Just starting out on your blog and not sure what people might be interested in reading? Here are five ideas to get you started.
Ten Ways To Give People A Reason To Like Your Page – Sure some people will your page because they know you or just because you ask them to. But to reach outside your circle you sometimes need added incentives.
What To Do About Your Not Quite Right People – How to figure out who your right people are and how to stop thinking about (and designing for) your almost right and wrong people.
Online Visibility Tip – How to Find Where Your Ideal Clients Hang Out – Some more ways to help you figure out who your niche is and how to find them online.
How to Find Twitter People that Don’t Suck – Twitter id full of all kinds of people. This post gives tips to find those that are right for you and ways to improve your interactions with them. (Ideas for both…
On last week’s post on creating niche products, I got several comments from people who felt they just could not limit themselves to one material or idea.
“I’m creative, I just have too many ideas to focus on one thing!”
There is nothing wrong with being creative and having a lot of ideas. In fact, those of us that possess the elusive skill of creativity are often the envy of those who don’t.
But ultimately, if you want to build a successful business, you need to learn to balance the creative brain with the business brain.
The creative part of your brain is the part that keeps you up at night dreaming of new ideas. But the business brain is what you need to edit and figure out which of those new ideas will make it to market.
An important role of the business brain is to edit what your creative brain produces.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they try to sell every type of thing they create.
I have creative skills…
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
5 Ways to Effectively Promote Blog Posts – Are you blogging but it seems like no one is reading? Here are some ways to help people find your posts.
10 Ways for Artists to Use Mind Mapping – I love mindmapping. It’s kind of like a more controlled kind of brainstorming that looks like a chart. Here are some great ways to use this technique to help your marketing, planning, designing, etc.
Use a Facebook Campaign to Find New Fans – A great example of a FB campaign that alone (no other marketing) exponentially increased traffic to the FB page, website, and blog and ways that you can do this with your page.
Write Better Copy with Set-ups, Open Loops, and Emotional Payoffs – A long post that shows how to be more engaging with your writing by using emotion and storytelling.
4 Budget-Friendly Ways To Get More Customers – These are some great ideas to find new customers and to network outside your normal circle. And…
A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links.
8 Hot Social Media Tips From Eight Industry Experts – 8 top social media experts each share one great tip for improving your SM marketing
How to start building your brand on Twitter – This post is chock full of great Twitter advice. If you’re just starting out or need a power boost check out these ideas and tips for improving your Twitter experience.
What Happens After the Facebook Like? 20 Tips To Engage Your Audience After the Like – Are you beginning to realize that it’s not enough to just have 100; 1,000; 40,000 fans on FB, but are wondering how to start engaging them?
Two great posts from Alyson Stanfield on finding and working with a business buddy:
How to Find a Mastermind Partner & How to Run a Mastermind Meeting
Offline Tactics for Growing Your Facebook Fan Base – Some interesting ways to get your real life customers to interact with you online.
5 Ways to Combat Writer’s Block – Great ideas to help…
