practical posts Archives - Page 3 of 4

Progress not perfection: your guide to a better Christmas

On November 9, my supportive Christmas ecourse starts for the second year.

Now, this course is dear to my heart. It’s some of my best work. It’s something I whole-heartedly believe in.

It’s the result of supporting small creative businesses through six years of busy Christmas periods.

The course is designed to provide you with regular dashes of inspiration, support, reminders, and the feeling that you’re not alone.

You don’t have to do anything or learn anything, you simply receive emails (and care packages, if you choose) packed full of ideas and resources to help you stay sane over Christmas.

The idea of Progress, not perfection is just that – a shift from the idea that to have a successful Christmas, you have to do everything perfectly. That if you do one thing wrong, you’ve failed.

No. Enough of beating yourself up and working yourself to the bone.

With Progress, not perfection, you’ll get support throughout the busiest weeks of the year that’s easy to pick up, doesn’t take up very much of your time, but might just make a difference to how you feel and what you do.

I believe the idea of perfection gets in the way A LOT, especially when we’re stressed, busy, and worrying about whether other people are doing it better than we are. It’s easy to get caught up in every little detail, without knowing how to prioritise the mountain of stuff you have to get through in the next 24 hours. (Or, let’s face it, the next 5 minutes.)

So what do I actually get?

Starting on Monday 9 November, for 6 weeks, you’ll get three emails directly to your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There’s no Facebook group or community to be part of (although you can get involved in chat on social media if you choose) – this is about me and you. It’s Christmas, after all, so while you’re giving so much to your customers, I’ll be giving you a little something in return. I give, you receive.

Is it different from last year?

Some of the content will be repeated from last year, but I’ll also be adding in new audio and video recordings and a couple of live chats (like this one) during the course. Because the main aim of this course is to prompt and remind you to take care of yourself, you’ll find it just as helpful this year.

What do the emails include?

Mondays: introducing the theme for the week (ranging from productivity to priorities to gratitude), a printable checklist with practical stuff to do, and a couple of ideas and practices intended to help you through each week
Wednesdays: a gentle reminder of our theme, with a printable reminder to pop up in your immediate eye-line, plus some suggestions of how to make your day work even better for you
Fridays: a feel-good playlist to get you moving and dancing, a little pick-me-up message and chance to check in, plus links to festive treats online.

You can also opt in to get two happy post care packages (one at the beginning of the course, and one at the end), filled with surprise treats for you:

Printed copies of the weekly checklists
Reminders to put up in your workspace
Relaxing, energising and balancing essential oils
Surprise treats just for you

Holistic holidays

If you’ve been following me and my blog for a while, you’ll know that I offer a mixture of practical business stuff (like pricing spreadsheets and writing product descriptions), as well as a more holistic approach to supporting small businesses (like my mentoring).

This course matches that approach – it includes practical tips and reminders that are easy to adopt in busy weeks, plus reminders to eat well, take deep breaths, and make sure you have a healthy dose of perspective.

Let’s be honest. You already know most of this stuff. You know that you need to get sleep. You’re already preparing for Christmas as best you can. You’ll survive – you have to.

What I’m offering is a series of reminders to do it. To get sleep, to keep on top of orders, to keep things in perspective. And, maybe, to believe it’s not just about surviving – it’s about thriving.

Wouldn’t it be lovely?

To have someone who knows how truly, madly, deeply hectic it can be at Christmas pop into your inbox every other day.

To feel you’re not alone, but without having to ask for help. (We all know how hard that can be when you’re already running low.)

To be reminded to celebrate the brilliance of your business, your success, your life when it feels like you’re teetering on the edge of sanity.

To get a parcel of lovely things that remind you to take care of yourself, to keep your eye on the end goal, to focus on progress, not perfection.

You might even end up feeling like you know more about yourself and your business, rather than feeling depleted, on 25th December.

How to get the goodness

For 6 weeks of emails and online goodness, sign up below. You’ll get three emails a week packed full of support and reminders for £65.

For all the emails, online goodness, plus two care packages, sign up below. You’ll get a package at the beginning of the course, and one at the end, and both will be full of helpful, encouraging, and relaxing luxuries – all for a total of £130. That includes emails AND care packages.

Care package participants: This is available for UK only.

About me:

I’m Jenny Hyde – your guide to a better Christmas.

I’m a mentor and advocate for small creative businesses. I believe that looking after your business means looking after yourself, and that business success comes in many different forms.

While working for notonthehighstreet.com, I supported their small business sellers through five Christmases, so I know the rollercoaster of challenges, successes, panics, relief and joy of the season very well.

My speciality is combining practical help with understanding and clarity.

I believe in the power of tea (and cake), and, of course, I believe in progress, not perfection.

Here's the thing: marketing

Since leaving notonthehighstreet.com (almost a year ago!), two things have become really clear to me:

1. Online marketplaces are changing. It’s a great model, but NOTHS and Etsy (and even Folksy and smaller sites) are getting too big to guarantee visibility and sales to all who join. Etsy no longer shows all new products on a homepage or category page. NOTHS is so big now, you really have to be featured to gain page views.

2. Creative businesses who’ve seen success on marketplaces often don’t really know how to market themselves. Because it wasn’t necessary to market yourself when NOTHS did it for you (with gumption). Or Etsy provided the visibility naturally. I’ve said it about a hundred times in the last year: so many NOTHS sellers are at 9 out of 10 for general business skills (because they’ve had to be), but 2 out of 10 for marketing skills (because they haven’t had to).

If you’re reading and thinking, OMG, that’s me, don’t panic. You’re not alone, and there’s so much you can do about it.

The first thing to accept is that everything is a work in progress, because the world evolves constantly, and your business will evolve and grow in the next week, not to mention the next year. Your skills as a business owner will continue to develop even if you don’t do very much at all – the experience of running a business is a guarantee of that, no matter what.

Another thing I encourage you to see is that marketing isn’t a terrifying, technical piece of expertise that’s going to take you a degree and ten years’ experience to understand. It’s not. Marketing is basically flirting, and even before it’s that, it’s just talking to people. Hopefully about your business and your products.

People ask me for marketing advice all the time, and to be honest, it still stumps me on occasion. I still fall to the belief that you have to be “in marketing” to know what it is, or that you have to have detailed knowledge and understanding of Facebook or Google and how they work. There have been times, when faced with so many questions and so much fear, I’ve questioned whether I know about marketing at all! And then I remember that, in fact, I do – and it’s not as complicated or scary as the questions in front of me.

Marketing is not advertising.

Advertising (paid-for ads in magazines, newspapers, blogs, Facebook, shops, tubes, etc) might form part of your marketing strategy, but that’s not all marketing is. And advertising is changing – because consumers are changing. We’re used to online ads now, and magazine ads. Yes, it’s a good way to get visibility and awareness up (if you’re targeting the right kind of people with an ad), but it’s not a guarantee of sales.

If you choose to use paid-for advertising, whether on Facebook or in magazine, see it as an experiment that you’ll tweak next time based on the results. And always, always, make sure you’re targeting an audience who are likely to be interested in what you’re selling. (Extra advice: if someone calls you up to sell you advertising, be skeptical. Even if it’s Vogue.)

SEO isn’t complex.

Geek out over SEO research or other people’s reports if it floats your boat. But here’s my tried-and-tested experience: good content is good content, and if you write well, post good images (with image tags) and build links to your page or site, your online content will get found. There. One sentence. You can totally do that.

As with many things in small business, it’s often better to delegate what you’re not an expert in. But I encourage you to experiment with being your own marketing strategist, because there are charlatans out there. And you can totally do this. You might seek out a copywriter if that isn’t your forte. You may ask someone to manage your social media or advertising experiments, but be involved in the big questions, so that you know what works and what doesn’t for your business.

Marketing is something that you can do on your own terms. So embrace that, and get it working for you.

Here’s the thing:

Marketing is about consistency. Keep sharing your products, your message, your brand with people. And yes, keep sharing the same things with them. Variations on a theme, if you will.

Some things to do:

Find three marketing messages for your business. A basic example: ‘We sell shoes.’ ‘Our shoes are handmade.’ ‘We (and our products) are fun and high quality.’ Make sure every single thing you send out points to at least one of those messages.
Get the big paper out and plan your social media and other marketing. Create a marketing plan that involves regular posts on social media, regular advertising tests (should you wish), and regular press releases. Notice the most-used word in that sentence: REGULAR. You have to keep putting things out there, every week.
Send out press releases and samples to people who will like your products. Find magazines and bloggers who are talking to your audience, who are aligned with what you’re making. Create a press release that tells them, lovingly, about you and your products. Show them nice shiny images, or post them a sample of your product. Tell them where to find you online and how to get in touch. Do this for every new product. And consider doing something now for Christmas.

And I know there will be some of you who are already posting regularly (or not) and feel like you’re sending message out into a black hole, a void that never sees or returns your calls. That may be a signal that you need to shake it up. Post more images, if you’re always posting words. Or make sure all your images have nice captions, calls to action, or discussion points. Post elsewhere, targeting different people. Do something that simply brings a smile to people’s faces. That’s the point of marketing – make people feel good and associate it with you.

I promise marketing isn’t as complex or scary as it sounds. Every business is different and needs different things, so this is all about experimenting with what works for you.

My upcoming course, Inspired Action, will spend an entire week on marketing, and will include a lovely marketing planner. If you’re wondering about how to build your marketing skills and strategy, it might be just the thing for you. Read more and register here.

Have a lovely weekend!

Here's the thing: emails

I don’t know anyone who wins at emails. But I do know this: having a system in place to process emails can add a level of calm and make you feel better about them (and how you spend your time).

As with everything, it’s about finding what works best for you, but I wanted to give you some ideas to try out for yourself.

Use folders (or labels) and rules to your advantage. Have a folder for orders, and get all your order emails automatically sent there. (Google ‘how to automatically file emails in [insert email provider here]’.) You could have a separate one for enquiries, because you process them differently to orders.

I tend to use my actual inbox as to do list items, so I can file emails away when I’ve replied or actioned them. That way, I regularly get down to a handful (sometimes none!) of emails in my inbox, and feel less like I’ve got an endless to do list going on! You may need to do a big clean up to get there, but you could always short cut by setting up and ‘old inbox’ folder, and stick everything in there. It’s all searchable anyway.

Identify emails that are ‘read only’. I have lovely blogs and newsletters I subscribe to that I love to read, but aren’t things I actually need to do. I keep these in an ‘inspiration’ folder, and I read through them at leisure.

Unsubscribe. Don’t just delete emails you’re not interested in anymore. Unsubscribe! Your inbox is a sacred space. It takes up a lot of emotional energy. Don’t let things in that aren’t worth your time.

Schedule email time. I catch up on emails on Fridays. I put aside an hour or so each day to reply to emails. You don’t have to be ‘on call’ for emails every second of every day. Some people check in at the top of each hour, to get enquiries or new orders, and reply to and quick and easy emails. Try putting some boundaries around the time you spend checking email, and turning off notifications at all other times.

Avoid emails first thing each morning. This is a tough one, but I’m going to stand by it. Mornings are often our clearest thinking time, and our most creative time — until we allow other people and thoughts to cloud our minds. One of the best ways you can make the most of a fresh new day is to avoid email for the first hour or so. Try having your breakfast before email. I always write my essential to do list before I check email. Many days, I’ll do some creative work before I get stuck into emails.

Manage email expectations. If you’re usually an immediate replier and are thinking of changing how you use email, consider letting clients, friends and customers know that you’re shifting things around a bit. ‘I’m trying something new to help manage my time more effectively, so I may not be able to reply immediately.’ Some people like to send out auto-respond emails. I shy away from them, because I don’t want to send an email to say I’m going to send an email, unless I’m on holiday and it’ll be more than a week before I can respond. Whatever you decide, your actions speak louder than words, so know that if you always reply immediately, that’s what people will start to expect. And if you reply at night, people will think you’re available 24/7.

Prioritise. What’s most important for you to respond to? I (mostly) prioritise my existing mentoring clients over potential new clients, but I try to set aside time for both each day. You might decide that customer enquiries are your top priority, because it’s easy to prevent problems when they’re replied to quickly. Be clear on what’s top of your list, and consciously allow other things to fall to the bottom.

Ultimately, I want you to know that struggling with emails is universal, and it doesn’t mean your business is failing. But it is something that can make you feel better if it’s working well for you. Experiment this week, and let me know your techniques.

PS Today is the absolute last day to book a place on my retreat in a couple of weeks. I have two places left. If one of them should be yours, book now!

No. Enough of beating yourself up and working yourself to the bone.

So what do I actually get?

Is it different from last year?

What do the emails include?

Holistic holidays

Wouldn’t it be lovely?

How to get the goodness

About me:

Marketing is not advertising.

SEO isn’t complex.

Here’s the thing:

Enter The Forge