Craft Your Story

Seth Godin has a cool blog about marketing and other business stuff. I like his direct writing style and he definitely has a "value add" focus in his topics. You walk away from each blog post with useful information that can usually be applied readily.

Seth's topic today was PR vs. Publicity. He makes a good point: PR is about crafting your story and it is composed of all data points that get associated with your business. It's about how you do business, the way you do business, why you do business, etc. Publicity, as he describes it, is "getting ink".

My experience is similar to Seth's: most people think a ton about getting ink and disregard the importance of a good story. And it is cool having a story written about your business. But I adamantly do not agree with the misconception out there that any press is good press. You want GOOD press - and accurate press. People care about integrity and authenticity. Now - when dollars are being spent even more carefully than in previous times - it's the stories that matter (much to Seth Godin's point). People really care that you sew your decorative pillows by hand in your basement. They want to hire an insurance agent who makes house calls to house-bound clients to gather policy information. Money is emotionally charged in new ways - and people look to feel better when they spend. It feels good to spend money on a product or service with someone who is clearly and powerfully living their passion.

Write out your story - the part about why you do what you do. Share the history in your bio or About page on your website. Let them feel your passion for your work when they hear you talk about it or when they contact you to buy your product or service.

And if you can't find that passion and tell a meaningful story, reconsider your work. Or, dig deeper. You really gotta have it.

Ahh, There You Are

I went to a talk a few weeks ago where the speaker, Robert Killen, was telling us how to craft High Impact Presentations. He gave us a number of interesting tips such as telling "power stories" and genuinely seeking to understand what your audience wants before you speak so that you are sure to be of service to them. My favorite takeaway, though, was his reminder of this quote:

There are those who walk into a room and say, "Here I am!" and there are those who walk into a room and say, "Ahh, there you are!"

It is such a fabulous feeling when someone walks into a room with the energy of the latter. It reminds me of my sister Tina who, every time I call, sounds as though she is absolutely thrilled that it is me on the other end of the line. I'm pretty sure everyone else feels this way when they call her... but who cares. I feel fabulous and loved each time she answers the phone.

I have a renewed commitment to nonverbally say, "Ahhh, there you are!" upon every arrival here on out.

Even More Pressure on Mom

I'm often struck by the intensity of the responsibility I feel as a mother. Every decision I make feels like one that has the potential to shift the very trajectory of my kids' lives. When it gets really intense, I remind myself that I am a huge believer in biology (maybe 70 % biology, 30 % nurture - or something like that) and the pressure weakens. Momentarily. Then I am reminded that our biology is altered every day by our environment in so many ways.

Seems shared responsibility for my kids' brain development goes all the way back to my adolescent days (which weren't all organic fruits and writing book reports) - and gets laid on my mom (in my case, my moms, since I have two) and dad and the kind of environment they provided for me. This article says that my environment in childhood may have had effects on my brain that have directly influenced the brains of my own babies, at least if you think mice brains translate to human brains. There goes that whole experimentation stage I kept writing off as just adolescent "exploration".

Outsourcing Domestic Help at Home

The thing about having a communication blog is that, really, everything communicates. Everything you say, of course, but also what you wear, how you spend your time and money, the friends you have... it all says something about you, intended or not. Even accurate or not, it communicates.

So, that's why I feel justified in talking about how to handle domestic chores on this blog. I am a huge fan of outsourcing. Really, I believe in outsourcing virtually anything that is not either one of your personal strengths, something you genuinely want to improve upon for your own internal reasons, or something you hold dear to your heart and soul and therefore do not want to hand over to another person to handle. Often, the three go together so keeping particular things "in-house" is a no-brainer. For example, my friend Lydia absolutely adores gardening. She is good at gardening, she wants to be a better gardener all the time, and she holds gardening dear to her heart. So, Lydia should garden!

I, on the other hand, am lucky if my thumb gets even the slightest tint of greenish yellow in Spring and, when I am honest with myself, I really don't prefer to garden. It can be fun to pick out plants and flowers and even a bit satisfying to stick them in the ground and have an instant remodel of my front flower mound. But really, I'd be equally happy (okay, maybe even more happy) to have our earth-loving, a-bit-too-laid-back, talented landscape designer/gardener work his magic in our garden and then adore his mastery when we have dinner picnics on the front lawn.

Still, sometimes I feel guilty about this position I so passionately hold. It's as though I have some old programming that says that my very womanhood depends on my ability to handle all of the zillion domestic duties involved in caring for a household. That makes sense since my mom really was a brilliant homemaker. Our house was drop-by-visitor ready anytime, she made dinner most nights, she showered every day(!!) and she was always ready to go out with my dad when he got home from work and wanted to see a movie or go get dinner on a whim. When I get particularly insecure about my total disregard for domestic prowess, I like to seek out others who share my position. It's validating. That's why I was pleased to find this article in the Wall Street Journal and then run across this wish-I-could-say-things-this-beautifully blog post a few weeks ago on my friend Melissa's blog.

We have a wonderful woman deep clean for us once a month and we have a brilliant, fun, totally fabulous person come in for two hours three days a week and do whatever makes life easier that day. Some days she just picks up the total crazy mess we've left in every room. She has installed a closet organizer system, reorganized our kitchen cabinets and cleaned out our garage. She has made dinner and played countless games with our girls while she did various things around the house. She is a huge, meaningful part of our lives and I could not be more grateful for the help. It would take a pretty dramatic change in our financial situation (which is not extravagant, by any means) to let go of this amazing gift in our lives.

I'm not sure what this communicates about me - or anyone else who does it any other way. I just want to offer it up to anyone who can swing it. Life is so much better with help. Feelin' the love tonight (and the thrill that tomorrow is Monday and Olivia will be here!), I guess.

2009 Theme: The Year of Sleep

So, I'm exhausted. My kids have all been sick for the last week - really sick, fevers, throwing up (sorry, just setting the scene), whining, "carry me", "I don't feel well" every couple of minutes, closed drapes and too much TV kind of sick. Poor little sweet babies; I wish I could take it all away for them. I would SO be sick on their behalf anyday.

But, I was writing about my New Year's theme here. So, let me tie all this in. I am exhausted all the time. I don't sleep enough. I simply don't want to give up evening and late night hours to sleep when it is such fabulous time to talk with my husband, work on projects, catch up on work, and occasionally sit on the couch and watch TV. Ever since we had babies, I have done this - stayed up later and later to stretch out the time I have to do things outside of mothering. And it's been fine, mostly. I would get 6ish hours of sleep, have a good amount of coffee in the morning and all would be dandy.

Until... sometime recently. I don't even know when. But I either hit the critical point of sleep deprivation - or I suddenly hit the critical point of aging where my body couldn't just push through the sleep thing anymore. Whatever the cause, my lack of sleep started to really show up in my life. I was edgier. I got irritated at the girls unnecessarily. I was short with Jim when it was totally undeserved. The strangest part for me was that I FELT tired so often. I really hadn't felt tired much in my life, except right before I'd go to bed. I began feeling tired even in the morning, which is my super productive, take-on-the-world time.

I decided to test out going to bed earlier to see what impact it would have. I realize this may seem totally ridiculous to those of you out there who already held sleep in its appropriate high-value place in your life, but for me the difference was astonishing! Even just a few nights in a row of solid 7.5 to 8ish hours of sleep made such a huge difference in my outlook, attitude, the way I ate, and, in particular, in my interactions with my family, clients, friends, everyone... which is why I decided to write about it here. Sleep is so very relevant to communication! Now, slap me with the obvious hammer.

I am so enlightened that I have decided that my theme for 2009 is sleep. The goal is 7.5 hours on average a night (averaged weekly.) I am very excited to experience life with a totally full sleep tank. The problem is, I'm going to bed too late right now... hope I can figure out a way to sleep in tomorrow. Otherwise, I have to go to bed at 8pm tomorrow night to make up the sleep hours.

How much do you sleep a night? What is your ideal amount?

Information Fasting

The December issue of True North Parenting is out. This time I wrote an article on Information Fasting. Check it out, if you’re inspired.

I need to revisit it myself. A bit info overloaded again lately… it comes on so unconsciously, you don't even know it's happening.

Funny story: I’m sitting with an associate in my entrepreneur’s group two days ago, waiting for others to arrive to start our meeting. She has the True North Parenting magazine in front of her, having just closed it when I sat down. We started chatting and somehow got onto the topic of focus. She says, “This woman in this magazine just wrote a whole article about how she put away all her books and gave away her magazines and just made herself stop taking in new information for a while. I totally need to try that.” I was smiling, waiting for her to laugh and acknowledge that it was my article, but she didn’t. I said, “You know that was me who wrote that, right?” (perplexed that she hadn’t admitted to the joke yet.) She was totally shocked! She was just sharing the ideas in the article with me, like a good idea resource. It was very cool. I felt like that scene is When Harry Met Sally when Jess says to Marie during that dinner where they are supposed to actually be hooking up with Sally and Harry, instead of each other, “Oh my Gohd, I have never had anyone quote me to me before!”

Networking Fumble. Party Pitch Planned.

Sometimes I go to the Bend Chamber of Commerce events. I was reluctant at first, expecting a stiffly formal, hyper-networky experience. While networking is clearly the goal, and no one is ashamed to admit it, I've found them to be an overall nice experience. It's actually refreshing to be somewhere where the networking aspect is just way out in the open. "Selling yourself" is invited, and everyone is clearly looking for ways to both make new business connections for themselves and to facilitation business connections for one another. I love it when everyone is just up front about what they're up to.

A recent Friday morning I went to an Entrepreneurial Council meeting put on by the chamber. These are educational meetings, with a speaker who shares business tips, insights, strategies with the group. After a few minutes of planned networking, the formal business of the meeting began. The council chair did a few announcements and then, to my surprise, he said he thought we had a small enough group to go around the room and introduce ourselves and our business. There were at least 40 of us! Only my second meeting, I had no idea this would happen. The first meeting I attended had more like 60 people and we did not introduce ourselves.

Now, ordinarily this is a good opportunity. Here's this audience of 40 people waiting to hear about my business. Given the nature of my business, this is my target audience, no less. You can't pay for this kind of targeted exposure! Why am I not thrilled?

I am totally unprepared. And when you are a "communication coach and consultant", you, um, really should be prepared to say what you do. And when your business name is Eloquence Communication, ideally you can say what you do, um, eloquently.

I know what I do, of course. I even have a "pitch" I can say. However, I realized sitting in this room that the pitch I have isn't the right one for two reasons. First of all, it is mostly designed for small business owners and entrepreneurs - this room is full of these AND people from larger organizations. Second, my pitch does not include a specific description of the benefits of working with me. Crazy! While I work regularly with people on these very things, I have not taken the time to rethink my own "elevator speech". Fine time to realize this!

So, I fumbled through a less-than-eloquent description of what I do, counting on the big smile and facade of confidence that are necessary in these types of situations. No one looked phased (great business people never do) but no one rushed up to me to discuss my services either. And now I am working very actively on what I prefer to call my "party pitch language" so that I am never in this missed-opportunity situation again. I'll keep you posted.