Friday
Business Needs Beauty as an Every Day Thing
With Art Basel in town, there is a ton of beautiful, brilliant, interesting and rich people in Miami who are looking and buying tons of art. I've seen stuff from $150 to 2 million dollars. There are 10,000 artists from various programs and abilities who are here. It's INCREDIBLE.
What I love the most about it is the beauty aspect. Here are 50,000 people (including tons who come on private jets and stay at $1,200 a night rooms) who descend on Miami to look at art, network and buy things. Like a half a billion dollars worth of art is sold. That's not to mention hotel stays, food, coffee, clothing, car rentals, bike rentals and all the auxiliary events that take place in a time that would otherwise be dead-zo.
The unifying factor is that people WANT BEAUTY. They crave the non-utilitarian, the expressive, the incredible, the inspiring, the emotional side of life. So much so it brings Miami more business than the super bowl. Shouldn't we be listening? Shouldn't we be working on creating as much beauty as possible? What are the business benefits of that?
We have an opportunity to take Basel as a lesson. Beauty and Art CREATE commerce. They help the economy EXPLODE.
This is one of my favorite quotes of all time:
“There, with her eye on the ball, she would paint and paint and paint. She would dedicate herself to…well, she’d have to call it “beauty”, for want of a better word. She wouldn’t be sentimental about it, or self-righteous, or even spiritual and pure. And she wouldn’t get defensive when ridiculed or misunderstood. Beauty she would not carry like a banner, nor would she take refuge from the world in it like a hermit in a shack. Beauty would be her everyday thing. – Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All
Why other opportunities to apply beauty to business? Think about that.
Thursday
Prepping for 2013: Use the December Downtime to Kill it Next Year
I read an article about kicking everyone else's ass in January. It got me motivated during this VERY SLEEPY time of year and made me realize what I needed to do, and that I was doing certain things VERY well.
The holiday season is a time to shake hands, eat lunch and kiss babies (and by babies, I mean your clients' asses). Small (often branded) gestures can make the difference between getting that project next year or not. Think quirky. Think the most delicious thing ever. Think things that are shaped like what you sell. (Construction shaped chocolates or branded pens if you are a copy writing company for example). Make your clients think you give a shit about what they do. At least they can drown their sorrows in 20 pounds of caramel corn as they try to wrap up 2012. Cookie bomb them. Blow up their world, and take away from the monotony of this time. Fuel the end of year crash course with cake. Branded cake. Note: Do NOT buy the cheapest stuff you can find. Buy something that is truly delicious. The payback is ENORMOUS.
Take your clients out to lunch. If they can't go (as many large corporations or government agencies don't allow it), still invite them. The gesture is important. Send Christmas cards. Brand, brand, brand. Ad nauseum.
Use the downtime to do other marketing initiatives. Organize that annoying spreadsheet that you don't usually have time to tackle. Update your website, brochures, LinkedIn profile, and twitter feed. Think about a strategic plan, goals, and what you need to get those accomplished. This is delicious downtime for some of us that can be used wisely.
Start making your appointments for January. I already have 2. The new year is exactly 26 days away. Make sure that after you come back from that food coma, sleep dense (hopefully), family time ready to hit the ground running.
To 2013 Being the Best YEAR YET.
The holiday season is a time to shake hands, eat lunch and kiss babies (and by babies, I mean your clients' asses). Small (often branded) gestures can make the difference between getting that project next year or not. Think quirky. Think the most delicious thing ever. Think things that are shaped like what you sell. (Construction shaped chocolates or branded pens if you are a copy writing company for example). Make your clients think you give a shit about what they do. At least they can drown their sorrows in 20 pounds of caramel corn as they try to wrap up 2012. Cookie bomb them. Blow up their world, and take away from the monotony of this time. Fuel the end of year crash course with cake. Branded cake. Note: Do NOT buy the cheapest stuff you can find. Buy something that is truly delicious. The payback is ENORMOUS.
Take your clients out to lunch. If they can't go (as many large corporations or government agencies don't allow it), still invite them. The gesture is important. Send Christmas cards. Brand, brand, brand. Ad nauseum.
Use the downtime to do other marketing initiatives. Organize that annoying spreadsheet that you don't usually have time to tackle. Update your website, brochures, LinkedIn profile, and twitter feed. Think about a strategic plan, goals, and what you need to get those accomplished. This is delicious downtime for some of us that can be used wisely.
Start making your appointments for January. I already have 2. The new year is exactly 26 days away. Make sure that after you come back from that food coma, sleep dense (hopefully), family time ready to hit the ground running.
To 2013 Being the Best YEAR YET.
Tuesday
It's Hard Until It's Easy- What I learned from Multi-Level Marketing
Many of you don't know that my first business venture after college was a Mary Kay Business. This horrified my mother, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a private university education, I decided to sell makeup. (In her words)
I learned a lot in my Mary Kay business about what to do and what not to do in business in general.
Lesson #1: They spent a lot of time teaching you about "warm chatter" which is essentially talking to random people about anything, and stalking them until they come to a Mary Kay meeting. They specialize in networking and persistent follow up skills. I would go up to women in the bookstore, and see if they wanted to start a Mary Kay business. I was determined for 2 whole weeks to make this happen. I warm chattered old, young, beautiful, and busy women all over Chicago. In the COLD. I met prostitutes (I didn't understand how anyone could walk around in a short skirt in 17 degree weather). I tried to get them to get on the Mary Kay train. I wanted to make money, get a pink caddy, and build a business where I could live in the lap of luxury while my consultants plugged away at hawking eye shadow and skin care products.
This is the MOST valuable thing you can learn. It's not always the moment that you meet someone that something happens. It can be months. Years. But staying in touch and in front of people long enough, eventually they will help you. There is a lot of slogging before you make it happen. It's not effortless, but what's hard eventually becomes easy.
Lesson #2: The problem was that fundamentally, I was embarrassed that I was selling Mary Kay. You have to like what you are selling. If you don't like what you are selling, you better like the company you are selling for. The only time I have been successful selling is if one of those two principals, and it's better if both are the case.
Lesson #3: Practice makes perfect. I started by unabashedly sucking at warm chatter. Eventually I got some people to join my team. Learn from your mistakes. Also, don't try to recruit prostitutes. Trust me. It's a time saving tip here.
Lesson #4: Make sure the carrot is big enough for you. This is the part I think is the most crucial. Make sure the goals of the organization align with your goals and that you will make enough money to make the business make sense for you. Mary Kay says that God, Family, and then business are the priorities in that order. My priorities were money to buy shoes/cocktails, boys, and then maybe a pedicure or yoga to get the God time in. I wasn't on board with the mission, it didn't fit what my goals were at that time. I thought the pink caddy was silly. I didn't own a Chanel suit like the sales directors, and I didn't want to. The carrot was too small for me. I realized it was more important for me to find something that I was actually passionate about (in this case business development and creative marketing for job creation).
There was a lot of hard before it got easy in my later business life. There was a lot of networking and marketing fails. There will be more. How I approach the problems has changed. I still stay away from prostitutes, pink caddys, but I have my local Mary Kay lady on call in case I run out of eye shadow. You never know when you need a touch up.
I learned a lot in my Mary Kay business about what to do and what not to do in business in general.
Lesson #1: They spent a lot of time teaching you about "warm chatter" which is essentially talking to random people about anything, and stalking them until they come to a Mary Kay meeting. They specialize in networking and persistent follow up skills. I would go up to women in the bookstore, and see if they wanted to start a Mary Kay business. I was determined for 2 whole weeks to make this happen. I warm chattered old, young, beautiful, and busy women all over Chicago. In the COLD. I met prostitutes (I didn't understand how anyone could walk around in a short skirt in 17 degree weather). I tried to get them to get on the Mary Kay train. I wanted to make money, get a pink caddy, and build a business where I could live in the lap of luxury while my consultants plugged away at hawking eye shadow and skin care products.
This is the MOST valuable thing you can learn. It's not always the moment that you meet someone that something happens. It can be months. Years. But staying in touch and in front of people long enough, eventually they will help you. There is a lot of slogging before you make it happen. It's not effortless, but what's hard eventually becomes easy.
Lesson #2: The problem was that fundamentally, I was embarrassed that I was selling Mary Kay. You have to like what you are selling. If you don't like what you are selling, you better like the company you are selling for. The only time I have been successful selling is if one of those two principals, and it's better if both are the case.
Lesson #3: Practice makes perfect. I started by unabashedly sucking at warm chatter. Eventually I got some people to join my team. Learn from your mistakes. Also, don't try to recruit prostitutes. Trust me. It's a time saving tip here.
Lesson #4: Make sure the carrot is big enough for you. This is the part I think is the most crucial. Make sure the goals of the organization align with your goals and that you will make enough money to make the business make sense for you. Mary Kay says that God, Family, and then business are the priorities in that order. My priorities were money to buy shoes/cocktails, boys, and then maybe a pedicure or yoga to get the God time in. I wasn't on board with the mission, it didn't fit what my goals were at that time. I thought the pink caddy was silly. I didn't own a Chanel suit like the sales directors, and I didn't want to. The carrot was too small for me. I realized it was more important for me to find something that I was actually passionate about (in this case business development and creative marketing for job creation).
There was a lot of hard before it got easy in my later business life. There was a lot of networking and marketing fails. There will be more. How I approach the problems has changed. I still stay away from prostitutes, pink caddys, but I have my local Mary Kay lady on call in case I run out of eye shadow. You never know when you need a touch up.
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