Notes from the zen kitchen

This blog has moved!

2008-09-15T14:22:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

As of today, the zen kitchen's blog has a new home, at tzk-design.com/blog. It's a long overdue change, and I hope y'all will follow me there.

Thanks for reading, and talk to you soon!

Image is everything

2008-09-11T16:43:00.001-04:00

Recently on the Marketing Mix blog, Ilise Benun and a few commenters got into the subject of typos in company literature - a subject I've thought about a lot since starting the zen kitchen.

I've actually met people online who are even harsher than this - they'll actively snark people who make even a small typo, or folks whose English isn't quite so good yet (i.e. they're still learning). Even though my English is pretty darn good, I've actually left communities because of this habit.

I do think there's some room for forgiveness on the typo thing - but I think that the more likely cause of Ilise's sketchiness around this person's sign is the lack of care it represents. If this is the way the person presents themselves BEFORE you work with them, how will they be if you do work with them? Why should you care about a company that obviously cares so little about themselves?

Your marketing materials, no matter what form they take, represent your business to people who may or may not know you. While many entrepreneurs do find themselves having to "bootstrap" and do things on the cheap, one of the biggest mistakes I see them making is rushing just to "get something up there," and ending up with something that represents their business in an extremely unflattering light.

Think of it this way: say you're looking for a marketing/branding expert to help you market your business. You have a big vision for this enterprise, and you need someone who's going to get that, and help you succeed. Now let's say someone approaches you saying that they're just the marketing/branding expert you're looking for, and they hand you a card that was obviously ordered from VistaPrint. Would you trust them? If they can't do what they say they do for THEMSELVES, can you really trust them to do it for you?

The same goes for high-end consumer products. Customers in this market (think really good chocolate, wine, fine custom jewelry, organic bath/body care, scented candles etc.) are paying as much for the image of the product as they are the actual product. If your packaging doesn't present that high-end image, the customer is less likely to see the high end nature of the product, and more likely to choose your competitor, over there in the pretty pretty box.

It sucks, yes, but it's the nature of things. When it comes to how you market your business, image is everything. What does your image say about you?

Design and Sustainability: You can't do it if you can't sell it.

2008-09-04T16:27:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was contacted by a design student in London who was collecting information on how sustainability can be integrated into traditional design education. As someone who's been practicing sustainable design for some years now, she asked me "what are the resistance points when it comes to adopting sustainable practices?"

Personally, I think that much of the resistance that designers face when it comes to integrating sustainability in their practices has much to do with client management, another thing that tends to be lacking in standard design education. Since adopting sustainable design principles at the zen kitchen a couple of years ago, It's been my experience that many designers are informed about and concerned with sustainability, but they lack the ability to convince their clients that incorporating these principles into their work can be balanced with creating an effective marketing tool. As a result, they're reluctant to bring it up, or to get started with sustainability in the first place.

While it's great that more students are interested in learning about sustainability and it's certainly a valid thing to add to any educational program, all the sustainable ideals in the world mean nothing if the designer can't convince the client of why they should be doing it. So, more than just teaching designers how to work sustainably, it's important to give them the skills to be consultants for their clients/bosses, and not just the girl at the Mac. This is especially important because the skills required to sell sustainability to clients are no different than the skills needed to sell your concept to a client, or convince him that while he may want the logo to be bigger, it won't be as effective as leaving it at a tasteful size. It's all about working *with* your client, rather than *for* her.

How to be a good client

2008-09-01T12:58:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine pointed me to this great post on the Swiss Miss blog. Quite apt, really.

How to be a good client (PDF). By the good folks at Number17.

How not to network; or, how to get people to like you.

2008-08-28T13:01:00.006-04:00

Photo by bluebetty

Recently, I had a fascinating interaction with a woman at a networking event I attend with some frequency. It was the first time we had met, and she was sitting near me at one of the tables as I had just started a conversation with someone else. As has occasionally happened, when the woman I was conversing with heard that my business name was the zen kitchen, she assumed I was a personal chef and got very excited about the possibility of having someone to plan meals for her. Amused, I explained what I actually did, and the fact that one of the things that I love about my business name is that people hear it and immediately ask me "ooh, what's that?"

Without skipping a beat, the other woman sitting near me, who I'd known all of about 5 minutes, told me that my name was confusing. She also mentioned that, as a Feng Shui practitioner, one of the principles of Feng Shui is that if your business name is confusing, "your business will never take off."

After going over a couple of potential responses in my head, I decided on, "Thank you for your feedback, but I've been doing this for three years, and things seem to be going pretty well."

Mind you, this wasn't the first time I had witnessed someone express confusion over the name of my business. The reason I chose this name, and stay with this name, is because it's a very good representation of who I am as a business owner, strategist and designer, and because frankly, I get many more people who love my business name than I do people who don't get it. But what struck me about this particular interaction was the fact that here was a woman I'd barely met, at an event where the point is to make friends and business contacts, and she's literally telling me that my business will "never take off" because of my business name. Why would someone think that's appropriate?

The point is this: expressing an opinion is one thing. Insulting someone is another. Telling someone that their business is going to fail is a completely new ball game, and one that should NEVER be attempted when the goal is to make solid connections.

Please consider the environment before printing this post

2008-08-25T09:50:00.001-04:00

The other day saw a very interesting and heated debate over a hot topic on one of my green business lists - the addition of that little line at the end of e-mail signatures that asks you to "please consider the environment before printing this e-mail." Or it says to "Think Green! Don't Print This E-mail!" Or it says any other of a seemingly endless number of iterations of this single thought: don't waste so much paper.

While I understand the idea, and appreciate it, my objection to these lines is a few-fold:

It assumes that I, the reader, am going to print this e-mail, even if it's just a quick confirmation on something. I'm not.
What if I actually NEED to print the e-mail? The only things I print are receipts, directions, or e-mails that have significant history information related to projects I'm in the middle of at the zen kitchen. This is a total of about 10-15% of my e-mail. Everything else gets deleted or put into a folder. Should I feel like I'm somehow not "considering the environment" because I need paper records of these things?
While e-mail signatures can be a truly helpful marketing tool, we seem to have reached an age where signatures have gone completely out of hand. People are busy, and while an e-mail signature is a great way to give people the basic information they need to check out your business and contact you, adding a bunch of stuff to the end of your signature dilutes your message, clogs their e-mail and, if they DO need to print it, adds to the amount of paper they need to print. How is that "green?"

Finally, while the issue of office waste is definitely vast, it's been my experience at least that much of that waste isn't because people are printing their e-mails. In some cases yes, high-level executives will have their assistants print every e-mail - either because they don't "get" the e-mail system or because the assistants vet their e-mails and print just the important ones. But this is a systemic issue, and telling the assistants (the people actually printing the e-mails) not to print isn't helping anything - they don't have a choice. Further, if an executive truly doesn't "get" how e-mail works, how will seeing that little line at the bottom of a printed page help? Wouldn't it be better to have a conversation and show him how e-mail works? Or better yet, have the assistant vet all the e-mails according to importance and then let the executive view it?

The point here is that, in the 10 years that I spent in various capacities at offices all over New England before starting the zen kitchen, the tremendous amount of paper waste I saw rarely came from e-mail. Rather, it came from:

The endless number of forms that were often required to get anything done (the average office I worked in had at least 5-10 forms to fill out depending on what you needed done, and they were always looking to create more forms for things)
In the case of design studios/ad agencies/art departments, printing a new iteration of a brochure/layout/etc. *every* time they made a change to it, no matter how minor. In some places, you even had to print multiples, which would be distributed among various people in the organization. I once had to print out a new 12*18 sheet for a layout edit that included adding a comma. Really. Nothing more - just a comma.
In the case of mortgage/banking companies (where I worked as an admin assistant before deciding to become a designer - way back in '97-'98), it was filling out a 15-page thick pile of forms just to get a loan package started, then having to make two copies of each package, copies of the related documentation, etc.

Notice, please - none of this involves printing e-mails. So who is that line really helping?

an ad campaign gone too far?

2008-08-21T09:38:00.000-04:00

A friend recently pointed me to a series of illustrated ads for Burger King that she found disturbing. While the comments on the Idea Sandbox (great site, by the way) had a lot more to do with the apparently sexualized nature of many of the ads, I don't know that I necessarily mind that. The illustrations are amusing, very detailed, and I find them kinda funny.

What I wonder about is this: what is their thing against onions? And why do they seem to obsess about pickles so much?

Out of four ads that I've seen (there are a couple of holiday ads I didn't check out), all of them involve onions either as evil dictators (see the Sniper ad) or as victims of humiliation and/or murder (see the Airport and Halloween ads). And the pickles, somehow, are the aggressors in all this. What are they saying about pickles?

All silliness aside, I don't know how I feel about this campaign from Burger King. I've appreciated the up-front approach it takes to many of its in-store campaigns; for example, the taglines on their packaging, noting what an amazing experience you're going to have eating this burger, is always a fun read. But many of their other campaigns, including this one and ANYTHING involving The King, just leave me cold. I guess it's a good thing I don't like fast food.

SEO: Do you need a links page?

2008-08-18T20:55:00.001-04:00

One of the more troubling things I see folks do with their sites is get involved in "link exchanges." I'm sure you've seen this - a business owner becomes part of a network of other business owners, and in the interest of building SEO for the group, they create a page on their site that has a link to every other business owner's site on it - regardless of whether that business is in any way related to their own. Great idea, right?

The fact is, those pages don't really do that much for anyone's search rankings - in fact, it could hurt you more than it helps. Search engines look for quality incoming links, which means links from reputable sites that are related to the subject matter at hand. If you have a page full of random links that exist on the page for no other reason than they belong to the same organization as you, they just don't count as quality links.

In addition, think of what you're doing here. By putting these links on your site, you're essentially recommending this other person's business, regardless of whether you have any direct experience with them. So let's say that someone finds another company's website through yours, deals with them and has a horrible experience. They decided to work with them, essentially, on your recommendation. What does that say about you?

The best way to get quality incoming links is by becoming active online - forums, blogs, e-mail lists and social networking sites are all ways to create quality links to your website just by wasting a bit of time on the Internet. There are new social networks created every day - find a few that are relevant to your business, create a profile with a link to your site and a blurb about What You Do, and see if you can start a conversation with a couple of the members. It's a bit time-consuming, yes, but it's easy, and it's much more effective than throwing a bunch of random links pages up.

What should be in your electronic press kit?

2008-08-14T12:18:00.003-04:00

So, you've got a great product or service that's just dying to get out there to the public. You know the best way to get noticed is to be featured in magazines, newspapers, etc. You've done your research, made a call to that editor you know will be interested in your product, and the editor says, "great! Just send me your electronic press kit, and I'll take a look at it." Then you realize that you don't have an electronic press kit - and you have no idea where to start putting one together. What the heck do you put in this thing?

The most important things to include in any press kit (digital or physical) are:

• info about your company, you and your products;
• any press coverage you've already received;
• basic contact and where-to-buy information (this should absolutely be separate and easy to find)
• print-quality, professional images of your product, and possibly yourself holding the product. You can also include low-res photos with a note to contact you for high-res photos, since most digital press kits will be e-mailed.

Add to this a sample of the product and a professional photo (8 by 10) of the product for editorial use, and the same thing can go in a snazzy folder to make your physical press kit.

Aside from that, you can also think about things like: what section will this be good for? What makes this product newsworthy? Is there anything unique you can pitch to a specific editor's audience that's different from what everyone else might think of?

For example, most publications already drone on and on about the health benefits of green tea, etc. - but what could you bring to the table that's a new way to think about it? Maybe a recipe for cookies or ice cream that uses green tea? Green tea/honey sorbet (which would, by the way, be amazingly easy to make)? Green tea popsicles with mango juice? What are ways that folks can have green tea without having to drink it as a cup of tea every morning?

Mind you, if you really feel stuck with this, then it's probably time to get in touch with a PR professional to help you get the process going. Public relations is an intense, time-consuming process, and a good PR professional will not only take on that process for you, they'll know outlets you might not have thought of, and can come up with good ideas beyond submitting the product to magazines.

Inside the Sustainable Studio: creating a great (and green!) home office

2008-08-11T14:50:00.002-04:00

As both the proprietress of a green business and one of the lucky thousands (maybe millions now?) who are able to work from home, I've been thinking a lot about ways to green my office. Some are fairly obvious: recycle paper, don't print as much, use CFLs, blah blah. But both the challenge and the blessing of the home office is that it's completely yours - you get to do whatever you want to it, and set it up in the way that works best for you. This, oddly enough, is a pretty tall order.

After three years running the zen kitchen out of various home offices (and two years before that moonlighting in Cranston, RI), I've learned the following about balancing sustainability with form/function:

• Natural light is essential. Working in a place with plenty of windows (like my current office, which is basically a closed-in porch banked with windows) not only helps the environment by reducing the amount of energy you need to run lights, etc. it's good for the soul. I can't imagine working by office light anymore.

• Create a pretty space, using low-VOC paint. It's amazing what a coat of paint will do, and using a low-VOC paint (they're all over the place now) costs a bit more, but it gives you the advantage of being able to actually breathe while you're painting with it. I painted my office on the hottest weekend of the year and there was no paint smell whatsoever while I was doing it. Not only is this better for the environment, it lets you get back to work quickly because your house doesn't reek of fresh paint.

• Make meals in advance for the week. It's hard to get motivated to cook a meal in the middle of the day, which makes the temptation for take-out (and all the containers!) a bit too hard to resist. I've found that having things like brown rice, lentils, etc. handy in the fridge makes it much easier to throw something together. Not only does it save plastic, it saves money.

• Print as much as you can on an as-needed basis. Business cards are important to have on hand (and designed/printed professionally!) but there are certain things, like letterhead, envelopes, etc. that you might not need a lot of. These, I've found, can fairly easily be worked into templates to print as-needed on an inkjet or laser printer without hampering your professional image. That said, it's important to assess your actual stationery needs before embarking on a process like this; short-run printing is expensive, and if you use a lot of letterhead or envelopes on a daily basis, definitely get them printed.

• Gang up errands and meetings so you drive less. This is as much a time-management tip as it is a green tip - traveling to meetings and such is an enormous time suck. I tend to group weekly appointments or meetings with my trips to the gym or other errands, so I block specific periods of time to be out of the office, and bring my gym bag along with me.

Any other telecommuters have green tips to share?

How well do you communicate?

2008-08-07T12:29:00.001-04:00

This past Monday, I had a rather frustrating experience. After a long weekend in Maine, I had scheduled myself to attend Constant Contact's seminar on e-mail marketing for restaurants, which according to their website and every communication I received, was happening at the Boston Public Library (BPL) at 10am. I left early in the morning to run a few errands, didn't have time to check my e-mail before I left, but I figured there would be signs pointing me in the direction of the room the seminar would be in, or some kind of communication about where in the library the seminar was being held.

Unfortunately, there were none. When I asked the person at the front desk, they pointed me to the basement. The people downstairs pointed me upstairs to the first person I talked to. I asked if I could borrow a computer to look up the event, they pointed me to the second floor. I looked the event up on the website - it listed the address of the event, but no room location. I asked the woman at the desk if she knew where the event might be happening, she pointed me back down to the basement. I went to the basement, there were no signs, no doors open, nothing to indicate that this seminar might be happening. After 30 minutes of wandering all over the building, I gave up and went home later that afternoon to find that Constant Contact had sent me an e-mail with the location of the event - at 6:30 Monday morning. In addition, someone from Constant Contact had noticed a twitter post I made about my frustration with being unable to find this event and told me where it was - but I would have had to check my twitter account to see the post.

Mind you, I'm not sharing this story just to rant (although I admit that I am ranting a bit). I'm sharing it because this experience made me think of all the ways that we, as business owners, communicate with our customers - and how often we make unfair assumptions about how people best receive information, or what they do or don't already know.

In this case, Constant Contact unfairly assumed that I would have access to my e-mail at 6:30am on Monday prior to leaving for the event, and didn't feel it necessary to make this information available any other way. As a result, I ended up frustrated and wasted an entire morning. In another case, my otherwise terrific printer failed to get in touch with me when a pattern I'd put in a design was clearly not printing the way that it was meant to, and the job (which was already a rush) had to be rerun. In yet another case, I neglected to communicate to my client exactly when that job was being re-run, and this morning I got an e-mail as the reprinted cards were shipping letting me know that she was hoping to change the paper - and I had to let her know that she couldn't do it this time.

In all of these situations, things ended up working out - but I wonder how many complications and frustrations could be avoided if we were all just a bit more thoughtful about how and what we communicate with our clients. After all, life as a business owner is much more fun when your clients aren't frustrated with you.

Twitter as a networking/marketing tool

2008-08-04T16:02:00.002-04:00

There's been quite a bit of buzz lately around twitter's use as a networking and marketing tool, and in some ways, I buy it. But like all social media, I tend to find that twitter has its own special syntax, a way of using it that works best for this application - and really doesn't work the way that some people use it.

For me, twitter is more of a conversation starter than anything, and it's really a *social* media, rather than a marketing platform. Whereas with sites like LinkedIn or Facebook allow you to just sort of have a profile and leave it there, to get the most out of twitter, you really have to use it.

And it's not about just plugging yourself, either - sure, tweeting about some specific thing you're working on can get you some attention, and it's totally fine to plug the occasional blog post/project/etc., but tricks like throwing your business's name into every tweet (a.k.a. twitter post) or making EVERY tweet a link to your latest blog post or project is a quick way to lose followers.

Where I've seen twitter really work is in the sense of community you can build through creating a balance of personal and professional. Since many of the folks I'm following are fellow telecommuters, it's an easy way to share little things and laughs that you wouldn't be able to otherwise, or chat with someone like you would if you were in an office. When combined with the occasional "hey, just finished this project" or "hey, just put this post online - check it out!" you can get some interesting results; I was able to connect with one of my followers (a.k.a. people who read your tweets) recently and point out my work to her after she made a tweet lamenting the lack of good Wordpress themes (the new zen kitchen website is done completely in Wordpress).

So what's the deal here? Why are there so many folks who just use twitter to mention their business 800 times, or to share a link to every blog post they've ever posted? What's the big deal about sharing a personal guffaw now and again?

Trade show materials: know your audience

2008-07-31T17:56:00.001-04:00

Over the summer, I've been fortunate enough to check out a couple of different trade shows; first the HOW Conference in May, where a number of stock photo, paper companies and others gathered to show off their wares, and then the Fancy Food Show, where, well, I got to eat some really amazing food and make contact with Makers of Tasty Things. And during both, I got to see a lot of trade show materials - some that worked, and some that really didn't.

The point of trade shows, quite often, is not just to introduce yourself to the audience at the show, but to a) find good leads to follow up with, and b) give them something to remember you by once the show is over - preferably something that will encourage them to make a purchase. There are all kinds of ways to do this. At the Fancy Food Show, a number of vendors offered samples of their food (I was stuffed within an hour or two!), but little else aside from maybe a sell sheet or postcard. At any trade show you're going to run into dozens, perhaps hundreds, of vendors - what's there to help me remember who you were beyond that one moment of trying your food?

Other folks gave out free samples that you could take home - which I think is a great idea. Buywell Coffee gave me a couple of free bags of their Screaming Monkey coffee, which I've been drinking iced for a week. I can't wait to find it now - it's amazing stuff. But if I hadn't gotten that sample, I wouldn't have remembered them beyond meeting them at the show.

Other companies had really well-designed, almost keepsake, materials. Chocolate Company Pacari's postcards, in particular, were so beautiful that I put them up on my office memo board. Information about the chocolate was on the back of the card, but the front was completely covered by a gorgeous illustration related to one of the specific chocolates.

Another tactic, which I saw a lot at the HOW Conference, is to give away branded merchandise - from notebooks to bobbleheads to the much-coveted Masterfile laptop bag (which I was lucky enough to get and I still carry around with me). This tactic is a definite winner to me; it gives me something to hold onto, and something I can use, which will remind me of that business every time I use it. I have, however, also seen this tactic used badly - for example, the too-ubiquitous coffee mug or stress ball. I don't know about you, but I have more than enough coffee mugs. Why give someone something they likely already have plenty of - and if they don't have plenty of them, then they probably won't have any use for it anyway?

The key to any trade show giveaway is to know your audience. What are these people here for? How can you make yourself memorable? What will they respond to? In the case of the folks at the HOW Conference, they knew that their audience (professional designers, and the vendors who love them) love getting well-designed, useful, really cool stuff. And the booths that were the most popular were the ones giving that stuff away. Meanwhile, at the Fancy Food Show, the folks who did well knew that, in order to really understand what made their product great, they had to taste it for themselves.

Using LinkedIn Recommendations

2008-07-28T10:02:00.008-04:00

One of the things I've always admired about LinkedIn is its ability to not only connect me with people I know (and want to know!), but also to allow me to give anyone who finds me online an idea of what it's like to work with the zen kitchen. The Recommendation feature is a great example of that. I work with someone on a project, it goes along swimmingly, and I ask them to write up a quick recommendation, so that others can see how good I am. Great for the ego, and great for business.

But then there's the occasional person who takes unfair advantage of the system. These are the folks who either ask you for a recommendation 5 minutes after meeting you, or the folks who write you a recommendation without really knowing anything about your work - ostensibly in the hopes that you'll return the favor. My advice - don't accept them, and certainly don't give them.

Here's the thing: a LinkedIn recommendation is basically a testimonial for your brand. And as with all testimonials, the savvy consumer can sniff out a fake one a mile and a half away. In the case of one recommendation I got unsolicited from someone I hadn't worked with before, the text was so generic ("Dani prides herself on providing 110% customer satisfaction!") that I couldn't, in good conscience, keep it active; while I do pride myself on providing 110% customer satisfaction, how does this help the average profile reader determine what it's like to work with me on a specific project? How does this help a potential client understand how I can solve their business's brand communication problem?

The best way to get solid, genuine recommendations on LinkedIn: work with someone on a project. It goes well, write them a recommendation about what it was like working with them on this project, and humbly ask that they return the favor. 9 out of 10 times, they will - and what they write will be INFINITELY better than any generic recommendation from someone you just met.

Where are your clients?

2008-07-27T11:04:00.002-04:00

I just happened upon this post by Jeff Fisher, one of my creative buddies over at the HOW Forum, who speaks about the geographic boundaries often imposed by creatives upon themselves. In the post, he expresses surprise that so many creatives think they have to restrict themselves to their specific location:

Huh? I don't think I got the memo about the Federal government building walls around local communities to keep designers, writers, photographers and others trapped in their hometown environments.

Admittedly, when my initial Internet presence went live in 1998, my website was intended to primarily serve as a portfolio for a predominantly local clientele. I wasn't expecting email requests for information about my services from potential clients across the United States - and then from around the globe. Suddenly there were no restrictions to the target market for my business. In the decade since, 80-85% of my business has been for clients outside of the State of Oregon.

He makes a great point. I, too, have had great success with clients from around the country as a result of maintaining an active Web presence and being active on forums, e-mail lists and the like. But one thing I'll add is that, in my mind, there's a lot of good to be said for working with local clients. For one thing, it's often easier to make solid connections, since you get instant face-to-face contact. For another, I for one find that collaboration is much easier when you can get face time with a client - as wonderful as the Internet and cell phones are, it's just no match for being in a room with someone hashing out what needs to be done. And for yet another, I just happen to enjoy supporting my local economy.

All this said, I don't think that focusing on either is really the best choice. Currently, I'd guess my clients are about 50% local/50% non-local. The key, in my opinion, is not to rule either out, but to figure out who you want to attract, and then set up your communications to speak to those specific people - and then set out looking for those people.

Goal-setting

2008-07-22T14:29:00.002-04:00

This morning, discussing business over coffee with a friend of mine, we got into a discussion of networking groups, and how difficult it was to make that initial connection with people sometimes, especially if (like my friend) you're a bit shy.

Recently, I had my own experience with something similar to this - as the zen kitchen grows, I've found myself having to break into - gasp! - cold calling. And it was scary at first, until I took a moment to ask myself: "what's the goal here?"

In my mind, part of the reason networking events (or cold calls, for that matter) can be difficult for some folks is because it's hard to tell what the point is. What are you looking for? What do you expect to happen? What would you LIKE to happen? And often, I've found that just articulating that one thing before you get to an event, or before you call a prospect, can make all the difference between leaving the situation feeling like you've gotten something done and leaving feeling like you've just wasted your time.

For example, in my recent cold calling efforts, I decided that my goal was just to introduce myself, and learn more about the organization I was calling, what kind of materials they outsource, etc. If I could send them more information, or add them to my newsletter, even better - but the primary goal was just to get a conversation going. And knowing what that goal was (and leaving it pretty easy to manage) made it inconceivably easier to do calls, to the point where I actually started enjoying them. Plus, the relaxed attitude I had towards the call actually made the calls more productive, since the person on the other line felt more like they were having a conversation and less like they were being sold something.

I take a similar approach to networking events - after figuring out who I want to meet and finding a meeting where I'm likely to meet those kind of people, I spend a couple of minutes before the meeting setting a goal for the event. Some nights I want to meet 5 people who'd be good to follow up with; other events I want to find 3 people I can give helpful information to. It helps me get a meeting off to the right foot, and it helps me get back on track if, on the odd occasion, I start feeling a bit shyer than usual.

What are your best strategies/goals for networking?

Working from Home: a perspective

2008-07-14T15:38:00.003-04:00

As you may or may not know, the zen kitchen is a virtual studio - which means that I, along with my programmer and anyone else I happen to collaborate with on a particular project, work from home. Normally, this works out quite well - but as many other home-based entrepreneurs I know can attest, it takes some serious getting used to.

Recently, I've been thinking a bit about the stuff I've needed to figure out since I started working from a home office. As attractive as it sounds to the cubicle slave, working from home is really not an easy thing - especially if, as I am, you tend to be a bit too much of a multitasker. I've had days when I was so productive I forgot to eat lunch, and I've had days when I spent so much time on laundry, the gym, the dishes, my garden, etc. that all the stuff I had on my studio to-do list went by the wayside.

So what's a girl to do, then? How do you run a business out of your home without either burning out or wasting the day on home chores?

I can't pretend to know all the answers, but here's some of the stuff I've learned along the way:

Get up early, but don't get too caught up in getting straight to work. Once I started waking up around 7am and easing into my day instead of waking up around 9ish and trying to get straight into my day, my productivity increased about 150%. I can't say enough about this - it really, really is key. I also try to fit my gym time into the earlyish mornings so I can get my workouts done before I have to get focused on other things.
Have an actual office, or some system that clearly delineates "work space" from "home space." A spare bedroom is best, but even if you have to set up on the dinner table, find a storage system that allows you to put your work away when you're done for the day and not look at it until the next day. One of the biggest challenges of working from home is that your work and home life can get so intermingled that you feel like you need to be at work all the time, and that'll make you resent your home - you need to be able to separate the two.
Make your workspace pretty. It seems fairly elementary, but it's really not - if your space is poorly organized, or cluttered, or generally unattractive, it's not going to help you get things done. Recently, I realized that one of my major issues with my current workspace was that the walls, which were painted about the color of butter, were so bland that I just couldn't feel creative, and the space generally felt cluttered and icky. A couple of coats of paint and moving around all the furniture later - I've had a string of productivity that's in its third week and shows no signs of letting up.
Make time for little breaks during your day. It's very tempting to work straight through the day, but you need those little breaks in order to stay on track. I take about 5 minutes every hour or so to go out and visit my garden, and it's been much easier to get back to work after that bit of breathing room.

If you're one of those who works from home, I hope that these tips help you. What are your strategies for working from home?

What are your materials really selling?

2008-07-09T09:42:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I happened across a great marketing article written by Stacy Karacostas on Biznik (which, by the way, I suggest checking out if you haven't yet). In it, Stacy points out an important mistake that businesses often make in their marketing materials.

“If you were looking for a chiropractor, bookkeeper, massage therapist, or other service provider, what would you need to know in order to choose them over anyone else?”

Chances are it would be things like:
A bit about the types of services they offer
If there is anything unique or different about what they do
Whether or not the specialize in, or have experience with, your particular issue
Who else uses them and have they been satisfied
What you can expect and how long it will take
How they are better or different than the competition
Where they are located, their hours and how soon you can get in
If they accept credit cards or your insurance
What to do to make an appointment
What you probably don’t want—or need—to know are the basics like:
What is massage or chiropractic or bookkeeping
The history of massage (or chiropractic, or bookkeeping)
Why you need a massage therapist, chiropractor or bookkeeper
Yet time and again this is exactly the type of info service providers focus on in their marketing.

The result is that they end up spending all their time and money trying to convince people they need a particular service. What they should be doing is trying to convince prospects to hire them in particular.

Interestingly, how many designers (or coaches, or green retailers/manufacturers) make the same mistake? How much time do we spend trying to convince people of our basic worthiness to people who don't get it instead of looking for the folks who DO get it, and convincing them that we're the best person for the job?

The way I see it is this: the more you try to convince people that what you do is actually worth paying for, the more it seems that you feel people need convincing. And this raises the question: do YOU believe in what you're doing? And if you do, why do you seem so convinced that other people won't believe in it?

In my experience, half of success in selling comes from confidence in your product - and that means knowing what you're worth, and sticking by that. Your job is not to convince the non-believers. Your job is to find the folks who already believe in what you do, and convince them that you're better than the others.

Green the office coffee station

2008-06-24T17:55:00.003-04:00

Okay, yes, I drink my coffee at home now - but as someone who spent years in a variety of office parks doing design for major companies, I know a thing or two about the Office Coffee Station. It seems that everyone does them differently - some serve great coffee, some serve this odd sludge; some have plenty of reusable dishes available for use, others make you use styrofoam (gasp!), or those individual plastic cups of grounds (which I personally refuse to use).

So how do you up the green factor in the office coffee/lunch station?

From what I've noticed, the goal in greening office areas is to make it very easy for folks to make greener choices (i.e. without really noticing a difference); otherwise, you create a situation that a busy manager, for example, can't deal with, and you end up with folks opting for Starbucks instead of drinking coffee in the office. The goal is to give people plenty of options, so it's easy to make the right choice.

My thoughts (and these are just thoughts, mind):
• unbleached, biodegradable coffee/tea filters;
• clearly marked compost bins (with signs that say "coffee grounds/teabags go here") that are emptied daily by someone (to avoid nasty odors);
• provide plenty of reusable mugs and glasses for folks (can't count on people to bring their own) - refuse to use paper/plastic cups;
• choose fair trade coffee/tea (but expect that a few folks are going to randomly bring in their Lipton);
• choose local dairy from smaller farms (most use organic practices, even if they aren't certified) in cartons rather than the little "mini-moos" so many office parks are stocked with;
• raw sugar in a jar instead of sugar packets;
• plenty of reusable spoons/silverware (this is especially handy if the coffee area is also a lunch-storage area, as many are).

And of course, on an individual level, you can just opt to bring your own coffee in a travel mug each morning - which is actually preferable to the coffee in some offices (ahem!).

So what do you think? How many things can you add to this list?

How do you differentiate when "green" is no longer enough?

2008-05-27T18:06:00.003-04:00

This week on the Co-Op America Business list, one of the members brought up the question of green going mainstream. How do smaller green businesses compete now that corporate America is riding the green train?

My question is: Is being green enough of a reason to convince people to use your company? Personally, as I've mentioned before, I don't think it is.

Last year, I decided to adapt the zen kitchen's business model to the rising trend in green design/marketing by making green a non-issue. My clients know I'm green, they know they're going to get the greenest product I can provide for them and that I *get* what they're trying to do. However, most of my clients come to me because I'm a great designer and I specialize in helping women entrepreneurs and green businesses create their brands. They're looking for my brain and my talent - the fact that I'm eco-friendly is just gravy.

In my mind, if the green movement is really going to gain momentum, it has to move from a conversation to an expectation. This doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about being green; but it should be an "also" rather than a sign of uniqueness. As such, green businesses need to stop trying to justify their decisions, or explain why it costs so much more to make a green product; instead, make it clear that you have a better product that works just as well if not better than the conventional product.

If there's one thing I've learned in three years of running the zen kitchen, it's that it's much more effective to treat the green thing as a given than it is to try to justify it to your clients. The moment you start justifying, it erodes consumer confidence because it seems like *you're* not confident in why they should choose you over the competition.

Another thing I'll mention is that competition doesn't just come from the big corporations who are just getting the hint that green is good. Every green business, no matter how small, has competition from other small businesses who sell very similar products and have a very similar mission. I'm certainly not the only designer in the world who works with women entrepreneurs or with green businesses - I've met and become friends with some who could be considered my direct competition. This is why differentiation beyond green is so important - you're not the only green company in the world, and even more rarely are you the only green company who sells XYZ.

Green Design: Where did that paper come from?

2008-05-02T17:11:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, at a seminar on FSC certification and paper held by Kirkwood Printing, several paper companies and a representative of the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) got together to discuss paper's impact on the environment. The discussion focused around such issues as responsible forestry, the paper companies' renewable energy initiatives, and why recycled paper isn't always the greenest option (1. there isn't enough fiber to meet demand; 2. the fibers downgrade over repeated recycling, which means you have to add new content to make it strong enough; 3. the recycled content gets sourced from all over the place). But all of this helped me realize something rather striking: a piece of paper's carbon footprint goes a lot deeper than the paper company itself.

This is the deal: Papermaking isn't just "have tree-make paper." It involves cutting down the tree, turning it into pulp, making paper from the pulp and then distributing the paper. Each of these steps requires a seperate set of trucks driving to a separate facility where each step happens, and most paper companies don't handle every step of the process. They buy their pulp from an outside source, which means that the pulp needs to be shipped to them, after being shipped from the forest. But for the life of me, I can't figure out where it gets shipped FROM.

Finch paper and Cascade (who specializes in recycled) was the only company at the event yesterday that mentioned that they source locally. Cascade actually collects and pulps the paper themselves for their sheets (they're in Quebec). Finch owns the forests that provide much of its pulp, and they buy the rest from small landowners in the New England area (mostly Maine and Vermont). Crane's, Mohawk, Monadnock, Neenah and Sappi were also there (among others), but they didn't have time to speak to the issue in detail. Although many of the companies' sites have extensive information about their environmental stewardship (and most are doing some seriously impressive stuff), I can't seem to find information specifically about where they buy their pulp.

What all of this means is that we now have yet another consideration as green designers: not only do we need to think about how much recycled content, where the paper itself comes from, etc. but we have to think further back along the supply chain: where did the pulp come from? Where were the trees harvested from? How were the rights of the workers and inhabitants of those forests impacted?

FSC certification helps with this by making sure that the forests paper comes from are being managed sustainably, and with respect to the rights of the workers and inhabitants of the forests. But what about the carbon footprint of the two steps prior to paper becoming paper? How can we make sure our paper is coming from responsibly-managed forests while also minimizing the carbon footprint all the way down the supply chain?

I don't have an answer. But I want one.

By the way, what can you do when you're choosing a paper for your next project? Here's a couple of ideas:

• Find paper companies that are as local to you as possible, and look for sheets that are FSC-certified, preferably with a significant amount of postconsumer recycled content.
• If you can, talk to the paper company about where they get the materials for their paper.
• Explore alternative-fiber papers, like cotton, kenaf, sugarcane and bamboo. These have their own carbon-footprint issues (after all, they don't grow sugar in New England, right?), but much of the alternative fiber used in these papers is taking material directly out of the landfill. Crane's sources its cotton from textile industry byproduct (i.e. cuttings that can't be used), and Neenah's sugarcane pulp (in the Environment line) comes from the material left over from the sugar refining process.
• Talk to your printer about what mills are closest to your area, and ask them for advice on the best sheet to use for your project.

Online Networking 101: Don't be rude to your market

2008-04-15T10:33:00.005-04:00

As many who read this blog know, I'm a pretty avid online networker. I blog, participate in forum and list discussions, and I'm a fair regular on a number of different sites. Have been since I started the zen kitchen back in 2005.

In any networking situation, there's a certain etiquette involved in meeting people and getting them interested enough to keep talking to you. There are also certain ways you can immediately turn people off - I'm sure you've met people who do this, online or off. The only difference between online and in-person etiquette is the structure that things take; in the online world, changes in tone normally suggested in conversation by a change of voice or use of hands isn't available, so users have come up with all sorts of tricks to hint at changes of tone, or emphasis.

Today, I came across an article on Biznik that utilizes two of the most common forms of online emphasis: TEXT IN ALL CAPS and *asterisked* text. Now mind you, the article makes great points. Many websites do focus too much on "me" instead of "you." The use of these online tools of emphasis to bring the point home (although asterisked text is one of my *biggest* online pet peeves) isn't an online sin in and of itself.

In my mind, the issue here is an issue of tone. The tone of the article is already pretty derogatory towards the very people the author is trying to target (he even includes a warning that he fully expects to get hate mail as a result of this article), but when you add the double-punch of asterisked text and all caps being completely overused throughout the article, the whole thing comes across as, well, trying too hard to be controversial and not hard enough to offer something genuinely helpful to the reader.

When these tools are used once or twice in a piece, it can provide needed emphasis; when it's used in this way, it's the online equivalent of getting in someone's face and screaming at them about how stupid they are, veins popping and breath reeking of bad networking event coffee. It's not respecting your audience enough to believe they can *get* what you're writing.

This, of course, is just my take. What are your thoughts?

New Work: Botsford EcoTech Brand/Website

2008-04-14T22:40:00.004-04:00

Recently, 5-Trees LLC, a long-time client of the zen kitchen, decided to rebrand as Botsford EcoTech Partners, a move precipitated by founder Krista Botsford's decision to move her practice to Nashua, NH from its Burlington, MA location.

Botsford EcoTech Partners provides private consulting services, educational seminars, and an innovative web-based software solution to help technology companies navigate the ever-changing landscape of global environmental compliance. The brand needed to communicate not only the professionalism and considerable expertise that Botsford brought to the table, but also the approachability and down-to-earth attitude that Krista is known for.

Working with Krista, the zen kitchen created a logo, website and marketing materials (still in development) that focused on a clean, professional, but approachable look. The brand and accompanying website focuses on clean lines, white space, and easy access to key information - a must when communicating with an audience of engineers and top executives.

To visit the new Botsford EcoTech website and see the brand in action, visit BotsfordEcoTech.com.

The excuses we make

2008-04-14T22:04:00.003-04:00

Recently at an event, I was chatting with someone in my network about marketing and strategizing. When I mentioned the importance of taking time to strategize and visualize the type of work you'd like to be doing, my conversation partner immediately said, "oh, I just don't have time for that kind of stuff. I know I should do it, but between kids and work and everything else, I'm lucky I have time to breathe!"

So many of us have an excuse list like this for anything that's really good for us. How often have you told yourself you don't have time to get to the gym? Eat right? Send out that marketing e-mail you've been meaning to? Yet, in my experience at least, the moment you move away from the excuses and just do the thing you're putting off, you realize that it wasn't that bad to begin with, and it actually helped you accomplish more.

Just as an example, for the first couple of years I was running the zen kitchen, I went from a daily yoga/meditation practice and regular walks in my neighborhood to making every excuse under the sun why I couldn't work out, citing a packed schedule, a poorly laid-out apartment, all sorts of stuff. As a result, I've gained 40 pounds in the last 2 years, and it was only until the last couple of months that I've been able to turn off the excuses and get to the gym that I started losing weight again. Now I'm down 8 pounds and counting - and I'm still able to get my work done.

Success in anything - whether it's losing weight or growing a business - depends on quieting the excuses. Instead of listing all the reasons why you CAN'T, you have to think about how you CAN. What needs to shift a bit in order to fit in a daily workout? Who do you need to negotiate with to get time to write that business plan, or visualize your ideal client? Who do you need to hire in order to take over the stuff you aren't interested in so you can focus on the fun stuff? How can you find a way to pay for that?

I invite you to take some time this week and think about all the excuses you make for yourself. Where do they come from? What would happen if you just forgot the excuses and did it anyway? You might be surprised at what you get done.

Why a great website isn't enough

2008-04-08T17:03:00.003-04:00

Recently, someone on one of my lists posed the question: "How many of you get business from your website?" In my mind, this is the wrong question to ask. Rather than posing it this way, what I think you really want to ask is "how do I get people to my website so they can learn about my business?" and "how do I set up my website so that, once people end up on it, they'll be inspired to work with me?"

A website isn't a magic bullet that will make all your business dreams come true; it has to work in concert with all the other things you do to promote yourself. For example, many of my customers (almost all, in fact), have seen my website by the time they hire me, but they don't just randomly happen upon it. They find me through one of my various online communities, or meet me at a networking event, or find this blog. They connect with something I've said on a forum, or taught in a class. That intrigues them to look at my site, and since it's well-built and the work is good, I get business.

But if I didn't do all these different things to promote my site, people wouldn't find it, and I wouldn't get business from it.

If you want to get business from your website, you need to put in the effort to build it well, to create a professional presence with engaging content, and to promote it - otherwise, it just becomes another bit of noise in an already-polluted Internet.

Palm and E-Waste

2008-03-25T22:02:00.003-04:00

Recently, I ran into an issue with my Palm TX. I'd been having issues syncing it with my Daylite software for weeks, and finally it just stopped. No reason, just stopped. When I tried to reset it, it stopped again. When I did a hard reset, it stopped again. Just froze. With this little bar flashing across the top.

After trying a number of things to get it to work, I called Palm to see about repairing it, and the lovely customer service representative informed me that if I wanted a repair, since I hadn't bought the extended warranty when I purchased the Palm two years ago, would cost me $150.

$150. About $100 less than just buying a new one.

Now here's my issue: what kind of message is this sending? You create a product that's going to fail around two years after you buy it, and then charge almost as much to repair it as it would cost to just buy a new one? In my mind, you're basically telling the consumer "we really don't care about the e-waste that's filling up the landfills; we just want you to keep buying our products." It's creating a situation where the average consumer is just going to say "forget it, I'll just buy a new one." Good for the company's profit margin, maybe - but bad for the environment.

In my mind, we need to find more incentives to repair instead of replace. We need things that last longer, not things that break down and have to be replaced after a couple of years.

For the record, I had to replace my Palm with a Blackberry Pearl - mostly in the interest of combining my phone with my organizer, and also in the interest of moving away from Palm products that weren't working with my computer. But I am using earth911 to find a place to recycle my Palm.

Building your brand: beyond the logo

2008-03-19T17:31:00.000-04:00

About a week ago, a friend of mine came to me with a question. She'd been selling a line of hand-crafted clothing and accessories on Etsy for a year and had found pretty good success with it, but when someone asked her at a networking event "Where's your logo?" she got a bit stressed. Did she have a logo? Did she need one?

Here's an interesting secret: you don't always need a logo.

I know, I know, it's what I do and here I am saying that you don't really need it - but hear me out.

When you're building a brand, you're communicating three things:

Who you are (or what your business is);

Who you're speaking to (or who your audience is);

What you need to say to them (or, your marketing message)

Anything you use to market your business - logo, business card, website, even your appearance at events - has to be able to answer those three questions. What logos and websites can help you do is create a consistent image in the consumer's mind when you aren't in the room. They can also help you reach a wider audience, and can definitely help you achieve more success/credibility/etc. - and it can give you more confidence that yes, you ARE an actual business.

But sometimes, especially when you're a solo entrepreneur who deals with primarily local clients, you don't actually need a logo to achieve that. Sometimes success lies in how you present yourself in person; how you deal with clients, how you showcase your product. I've seen folks go for years in business - successfully - without having a logo.

Then, when you're ready for a logo, you can find the right person to help you bring your company to a wider audience.

Marketing takes time

2008-03-12T17:05:00.002-04:00

One of the more interesting comments I hear from entrepreneurs often involves some marketing effort that they undertook - whether it's a direct mailer, an advertisement in a magazine, or even a networking group that they belong to. Whenever they mention it, it's always in terms of results gained in a short period of time.

"I sent out a mailer last year and only got three calls from it. I'll never do that again."

"We placed an ad in this magazine and only got one call from it. We'll never do that again."

The challenge with any marketing activity - no matter what it is - is that it takes time and repetition to work. If you have a blog, you have to update it (no comments from the peanut gallery, please). If you do a mailing, you have to repeat it. If you run an ad, you have to run it again - and again - and again - to get the results you want. If you join a networking group, you have to go a few times; be noticed, be engaging.

This is one of the reasons that, as entrepreneurs with (sometimes) limited funds, techniques like blogging, e-mail newsletters and online/in-person networking can be so valuable. Any marketing activity has to be done again and again to work; but these techniques have the advantage of a significantly lower cash outlay - and often, they're significantly more effective.

Where are your referrals going?

2008-02-21T12:00:00.002-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of coming across a terrific article by Biznik member Mark Silver (who, interestingly enough, calls himself a Business Tenderizer) about what he deems "the Bermuda Triangle of Business Referrals."

I'm sure you've experienced this - I certainly have. Your clients adore you, and send you this lovely e-mail about how they've referred so-and-so to your business because they think you're the bees' knees (really - do bees have knees? Am I spelling it wrong, or is that really how it's spelled? Anyhoo...), but nothing ever comes out of it. No calls. No e-mails. Or worse, the people who DO call or e-mail are The Wrong Sort - those folks who have a great idea, but not enough money to actually afford what you could do for them.

So what do you do? You make it easy for your clients to refer The Right Sort to you, and make it easy for The Right Sort to get over the fear, uncertainty, or other things that might be preventing them from actually calling.

My friend Joanna Scaparotti of My Solutions for Stress was a great example of this. She does Reiki and wellness coaching for busy professonials, and I'd been getting fairly frequent Reiki sessions with her for a few months, after which I got an e-mail titled: "Where can I find more people like YOU?"

The e-mail went on to not only tell me how fabulous I was as a client, but it also shared the specific traits that she was looking for in potential referrals, and gave me an easy way to get folks in contact with her so I could share referrals.

Even though this was an e-mail sent to multiple clients of hers and not just me, Joanna's tone in the e-mail was professional, it was personal, and it made me happy to offer her services to anyone I came across who fit her profile.

To read the full article, click here. To learn more about Joanna, click here.

As for me, yeah - I know I've been a bit lax on the blogging thing, and I promise that I'll get better soon. Fortunately, I've had a ton of work in, and I'm working on getting deadlines out the door for a while. But no worries - there's more in the pipe for the blog.

Crafting your elevator pitch: what are you promoting?

2008-01-31T21:55:00.000-05:00

So, if you're anything like millions of entrepreneurs, you didn't just quit the day job and rush headlong into running your fledgling enterprise. In fact, you might even have a day job right now that pays the bills while you build your business (carefully, at night, and not on company time, RIGHT???). But what happens when you go to a networking event, and people ask what you do? Do you start off with "well, at my day job I wait tables, but really what I do is act and dance?" Or do you say, "actually, I'm an actor. I just finished doing Schindler's List: the Musical off-off-off-Broadway, and now I'm looking for the next great opportunity?"

Okay, well, neither of those things is probably true for you - but still the question remains: do you need to mention your "day job" to potential networking colleagues, or do you stick with what you want to be doing?

Networking maven Ilise Benun mentioned in a recent post, after mentioning that some folks felt compelled to talk about their day job:

You don't have to tell "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." While I am absolutely not advocating deception, I do suggest you carefully construct (with marketing in mind) an answer that will lead you in the direction you're headed, and answer that will help you build your part time or freelance business into something more substantial, if that's what you want.

and I agree with her assessment. But I'll also add that in every networking (and even every employment) situation, it's important to remember what you WANT to be doing before you answer the question "what do you do?" Because ultimately, what you SAY you do will always be what you end up getting more of.

Case in point: back in 2002, I was going to school for web design while making money as a) a registrar for the Girl Scouts, b) a busser at a restaurant, and c) a sexual health activist for a local nonprofit (it was a LONG YEAR.) At the time, my resumé was very focused on what I "did" at the time, which was administrative work - and guess what I ended up getting? Administrative work. I didn't want administrative work. I wanted design work.

So, in 2003, I decided to completely redo my resumé, and take out any reference to administrative work - instead, I focused on the 3+ years I had spent doing freelance design on the side, and the work I was doing as a prepress artist and designer for a local printer (and had done for local printers before that). As a result, I haven't done a lick of administration work (outside the work I have to do for the zen kitchen, that is) since 2003.

Was it lying to omit the administrative work from my resumé? Not at all. That work wasn't who I was, and it wasn't who I wanted to be - all omitting it did was put me in a position where I could assert what I was - a designer - and put that information in front of the people who could help me succeed in that.

So the next time you're at a meeting and feel compelled to talk about your day job when someone asks, "what do you do?" don't be afraid to say "I'm a designer," or "I run a business that makes hats for dogs," or whatever it is that you really want to do.

Whole Foods to Stop Offering Plastic Bags

2008-01-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine forwarded me this article by the New York Times which indicates that Whole Foods (where I just picked up some stuff today, in fact) will stop offering plastic bags to their customers by Earth Day, April 22, 2008.

From the article:

The Whole Foods Market chain said Tuesday that it would stop offering plastic grocery bags, giving customers instead a choice between recycled paper or reusable bags.

A rising number of governments and retailers are banning plastic bags, or discouraging their use, because of concerns about their environmental impact. San Francisco banned plastic bags last year unless they are of a type that breaks down easily. China announced a crackdown on plastic bags a few weeks ago, while other governments, including New York City’s, are making sure retailers offer plastic bag recycling.

The rest of the article is here.

For me, this is great news. Plastic bags are notoriously difficult to recycle, and although many supermarkets will take them back for recycling, not enough communities actually have recycling facilities for these types of bags, which means that many of them (despite our best intentions) don't actually GET recycled. So go Whole Foods!

I just hope that this will entice people to bring their own bags more often.

Networking: Morning or Evening?

2008-01-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

This morning on the Marketing Mix Blog, self-promo rock star Ilise Benun posed the question: do early risers make better networkers? In her experience, Ilise seems to prefer morning events, but will they work for everyone?

I think it all depends on how you work. In my first year promoting the zen kitchen, I tried a number of different types of events, and I found the few morning events I got to quite unproductive, for a couple of reasons. For one, the time it takes to actually get ready and head down to a 7am networking event would literally have me up sometime around 4:30-5am, given the long commute into Boston via public transit, and that just didn't work for me. I'd show up with hair still wet and making a beeline for the coffee and breakfast, and while I did meet a couple of folks, they were almost never folks that I kept in touch with.

And since so much of my work is with entrepreneurs (literally 80% of my business at this point, and I'm happy with that), the folks I found at the morning meetings were mostly folks that were in the area anyway, which in most areas of Boston means mostly corporate types and folks in the financial industry.

In general, your first year of attending events is really an evaluation period to find out what types of events work for you - try a bit of each of them, and stick with the ones where you enjoy the people you meet there, you feel focused and confident, and you get out of them what you intend to. For me, it's lunch/dinner events where you actually sit down and talk to people, and where there's a good mix of people but it's not an enormous crowd. Cocktail events don't work for me, and I despise crowded events. You might find that a different mix works for you. That's the beauty of so many options - you can pick and choose the mix that works.

So, what are your favorite types of events?

tzk news: Marketing on a Shoestring class

2008-01-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to mention that, on January 25th, 2008, I'm going to be teaching a class in Marketing on a Shoestring for the Center for Women and Enterprise in Providence. As it's a subject close to my heart, the class will likely turn into a series of blog posts and/or an e-book somewhere down the line. For now, though, I'll let you know how things go. Ta!

Some Marketing Resolutions to help you build your business in 2008

2008-01-03T14:08:00.000-05:00

My friend Jess Sand over at Roughstock Studios posted a terrific list on her blog about marketing resolutions that you can make to help you grow your business. It's a great list, and even if you implement just a few of them this year (along with the right professional to help, in some cases), you can see pretty tremendous results.

For the zen kitchen, I've been taking a lot of downtime the last couple of weeks to figure out and redefine Who I Am, What I Do, and Why People Care - and it's been an interesting experience. Impending New Years are great times to sit down and evaluate; what works and what needs to be dropped, which direction needs to take precedence now.

Given that, I thought I'd share my goals/focus for 2008:

Spend more time on the blog, and on writing in general, including a personal book project in development;
Have more focused content on the blog, especially in the area of self-promotion and branding;
Focus the zen kitchen's work on branding and helping entrepreneurs learn how to promote themselves, a focus that's been a long time in coming;
Clarify and document systems that I've developed within the business, so I can delegate work as needed.

I'm pretty excited about this, since I've come a long way since I opened the studio back in 2005, and this new focus is the first time since I started the studio that things just felt like they were clicking into place. Let me know what your resolutions are - any goals you want to achieve by year's end?

How you're remembered after you leave the room

2007-12-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

At a recent Ladies Who Launch event, I was chatting away with a couple of fellow attendees about What I Do (you know, like I do), and we got to the subject of business cards and logos, which is one of my pet subjects here at the zen kitchen. As we got to chatting about the importance of having a logo that effectively represents you and your business, I said "after all, your business card is how people remember you when you leave the room."

I got a great reaction to that testament (including notes that I should trademark it), but I can't help thinking: is this true? I think it is, but I have to qualify it a bit.

Your logo, business card and associated materials are part of your professional "package," so to speak. Working together, they create the image that you present to the world, whether or not you're physically in the room. While networking is certainly an important way to build your business (it's certainly done wonders for the zen kitchen's numbers), if you've ever been to a networking event, you know that you can meet a LOT of people in one night. You're not going to remember them all. So really, your business card is going to be what folks remember about you after that night is over, along with maybe a couple of quick thoughts depending on what you talked about. It's an invitation to learn more about you, to keep in touch - and your website is a way for them to learn still more about your business after they've gotten home that night.

So what does your business card say about you?

When Blogging Goes Bad

2007-12-19T10:43:00.000-05:00

One of my close friends has just gotten into deep trouble at work. The reason? His MySpace blog, in which he shared information that was a LITTLE too personal, and a LITTLE too not-happy-with-work. One of his colleagues apparently forwarded a not-so-complementary post to one of his bosses, and well - you know how it goes.

As more folks take up the torch and start documenting their lives online, employers are starting to take notice, and more people are getting into trouble at work over things that they say or do in their online lives. As far back as 2005, ABC News posted a story about just this type of thing.

It sucks, yes, but it can be prevented, with a bit of foresight.

For one thing, it's really not a good idea to insult your clients, coworkers or company in a blog post - especially if you're in a high-profile position. Even if you don't name names, it's just not a good idea. In a world that gets smaller by the minute, you never know who you know who knows the person you're talking about.

Also, it's a good idea to monitor who gets to read your writing. In the case of a blogging software like MySpace or LiveJournal, you can actually set blog posts so that only specific people can read them. This isn't foolproof (I believe they can still come up in Google searches), but it helps make sure that some of the saucier (or less professional) bits of you don't get through to folks that you don't want reading it.

Lastly, ask yourself before you write: who am I writing this for? How would I feel if my boss/mother/person I'm talking about read this? If it's not something you'd want someone that close to you to read, don't put it online. Personally, I suggest having both an online and a paper journal, or just sticking to the paper journal.

While these notes are definitely more geared towards personal blogs, a lot of it holds true in business blogging as well - if you're afraid of person X coming across a post you made in your business blog, it's a good idea not to post it. This is another reason why I recommend having an informal "blog content plan" when you start your business blog - if you have an idea of what types of things that you want to share with people, it's not only easier to write, it's easier to figure out things that won't be a good fit for the blog.

The trouble with Templates

2007-12-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

If you're a business owner on a tight budget, pre-designed web templates might look like a great answer for you. And there are a ton of them out there, ranging in price from free to $500+. In addition, there are plenty of companies that let you build "custom websites" without having to hire a pro designer, at relatively inexpensive rates. Pretty great deal, right?

Well, it can be. But more often than not, templates are not your friend, for several reasons:
• They're not as "customizable" as you think, especially if you don't know HTML already. Sure, there are some things you can do, but for the most part, you're stuck with what you get... and as your business grows, this lack of flexibility becomes even more annoying, not to mention bad for business.
• Support is often insufficient or non-existent. Some companies that provide what's often billed as "website solutions" do provide a high level of service, features, etc. for the price you pay, and can be a good option if you really don't have the cash to spend right now - but most of the lowest-cost options offered through these services are still a Do-It-Yourself situation, which gets frustrating quick if you haven't done this before.
• It takes time away from activities that you're already good at, and takes you away from growing your business. When you went into business for yourself, was it because you wanted to learn HTML, SEO or logo design? Unless your business is graphic or web design, the answer is most likely no. Forcing yourself into a situation where you are doing all of the marketing, logo design, etc. for your business not only takes your valuable time away from your business, it forces you to do a lot more work with a lot less results than if you had found the right designer to partner with on your materials.
• It sends the wrong message to your customers. Let's face it - you're a professional, and want to be viewed as such. When you do your own website, it shows.

As a fellow entrepreneur, I completely understand the desire to keep costs down - when you're first starting out, it's hard to shell out the bucks to have a professional do your stuff. But a good designer does more than just put together your website - they can provide support and encouragement, and help you separate the things that will work well for you from the "great ideas" that, um, aren't so great. So while a template might get you by for a while, it's worth it to make the investment in your business and work with a professional.

A bit of fun for a Friday

2007-12-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

My buddy Heather Castles over at the Illustration Castle blog has officially tagged me to list "5 Things About Myself" and encourage others to do the same. So, being in a bit of a silly mood (Decembers at the zen kitchen will do that to me), I submit the following:

1. If there's one thing I've learned in the past 30 days, it's that cinnamon and tomatoes are just about the world's best combination.

2. In my late teens, I was a theatre major. In my early 20's, I was a karaoke diva. In my mid-20's, I was a performance poet. Now, I blog.

3. I made the mistake this year of submitting my work to a ton of books and not keeping track of their names or authors; as a result, I have the distinct feeling that my work is in at least a couple of books I don't know about. Keep an eye out, will you?

4. Although I currently live in Watertown, MA, and I started the zen kitchen in Somerville, MA - I'm actually from Providence RI (born and raised!), and have only lived in MA since just before starting the studio. The reason? I kept getting work in MA, and I was done with the hour+ commutes.

5. My favorite yoga pose is Upward Bow (picture courtesy of Yoga Journal):

I tend not to do it near a wall, though.

Hmm... Now, not being much of one to "tag" other folks to do this kind of thing, I'd like to invite anyone who reads this to do it, and leave me a comment pointing me to the post. It'll be interesting to see what you come up with!

Can a blog replace a promo site?

2007-12-03T22:16:00.000-05:00

Recently, someone on one of my lists had a question. While he knew that it was important to have a website and he'd heard a lot about the SEO goodness and other associated benefits of having a blog, he wanted to know which was more important - the blog or the promo site? Could you just go with a blog instead of a more static promo site and still get the same results?

The answer is a bit complicated, but I'm a firm believer in having both - for a variety of reasons.

Blogs are great for SEO and getting recognition for your business (especially establishing you as an expert in your field, which is marketing gold). The challenge with using blogs instead of a more basic promo site is the fact that a blog, while it can give lots of great information about your field and things you do within it, doesn't accomplish the main goal of a company's website - to outline their offerings and show a potential customer why they should choose them over the competition.

While you can use a blog to provide information that enforces the points made on your company site (as I do with this blog and the zen kitchen's site), the promotional site, to which the customer can turn for basic information about the company, its mission, contact info, etc. is still an important piece of the puzzle that shouldn't be overlooked.

The goal of a promotional site is to make it extremely easy for the customer to get the information they need to know whether they want to work with your company - that means contact info, client case studies/testimonials, a breakdown of what you do and why you do it better than the competition is right there in front of the customer, and extremely easy to find (preferably in the top navigation, which is where the average user will look). Traditional blogs, with their emphasis on throwing all the most recent posts on the first page, make it harder for folks to answer the key question a user will ask when they visit your site: what is this company, and why should I work with them?

Given this, you can use most blog software to create a site that accomplishes both goals, and updating content regularly (for example, posting to the attached blog) will enhance the SEO of the site, as will being active on other blogs and social networks. So, unless you're looking for special advanced functionality (which would require custom programming and can drive costs up), a talented designer can create a site that maintains the structure of a promotional site while having the SEO benefits and (relatively) easy updating of a blog.

Here's a thought

2007-11-30T22:11:00.001-05:00

inspired by this post from new acquaintance and fellow cat-lover Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious:

What if each day, for about 5 minutes, you wrote a "love letter" to a client or friend telling them how much you cared about them, how much you appreciate the way they've touched your life - and then you sent it to them? What if, rather than trying to figure out five things to be grateful for about today, you thought of five things to be grateful about in regards to a specific person? It's like a lovely double-duty bit of grateful; you feel good, you make them feel good, which makes you feel double-good - it's a veritable orgy of goodness. And we all love orgies, right?

I might try this for a while.

Ads that clean the streets? Cool!

2007-11-30T16:14:00.000-05:00

My buddy Colleen Wainwright, a.k.a. the Communicatrix, just sent me this super-cool link. Full-service guerilla ad campaigns that not only use only water, but they actually clean up dirty streets. Too cool!

An excerpt:

The idea for the [Street Advertising Services], which launched last year, came to founder Kristian Jeffrey out of sheer frustration. Jeffrey explains: "I run several small online businesses, and was searching for cost-effective advertising to attract consumers to my sites. My potential customers were walking around me every day, and it was when I was walking through the dirty streets of London that the idea came to me: why not take advertising literally to the street? Having experimented with several different methods, we wanted to apply a technique that was not just eye-catching and effective but also friendly to the environment. What could be more natural than water?"

The full post is here. Now how cool is that?

When Sustainable Isn't - a Green Marketing Dilemma

2007-11-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

David Baker from ReCourses had a great newsletter this month about the ubiquitousness of terms like "sustainability" and "branding" in marketing speak today, and why in order for a business to truly be sustainable, it needs to do more than just employ green practices; it needs to run itself in such a way that your financial health, corporate culture, and all the things that keep a business going aren't being ignored in favor of being seen as "green".

An excerpt:

Acting in more sustainable ways is a very good thing indeed, but if we are not authentic (and aligned internally as we pursue it), the brief moments we get on stage will turn open consumers into skeptical critics. Here are some suggestions about having a deeper impact on the world around you.

First, start internally before you preach externally. Assess and then embrace the true cost of following your conscience and lead by example. It's very popular but entirely too easy to suggest how other people should spend their money. Start with your own.

Second, don't ignore the broader definition of sustainability. Your carbon footprint matters, but I'm not sure it should matter more than running a genuinely "sustainable" business. That would be one that cares about financial health, management culture, work/life boundaries, doing effective work for clients, and even the sustainability of your own role. Taming chaos today by solving the same problems you fixed yesterday doesn't ooze sustainability. The best way I could synthesize this point is as follows: control follows viability, and impact follows control. Be the right sort of firm in order to give you the sort of control that can be wielded on behalf of clients that need it (even if they don't know they need it).

Third, be yourself even if it isn't all that sexy. Generally ignore what others are doing and craft something that's real, authentic, and substantive, so much so that you'll still be energized by it a decade from now. That's the sort of real differentiation that accompanies genuine branding. If you've done it right, the message on your web site can remain virtually unchanged for years and years. That, my friends, is a component of sustainability, and throwing my Venti Latte into the recycling container is more lip service than substance.

It's time to broaden our perspectives and be more balanced and authentic marketing partners who tell the truth, regardless of where it leads. It's time to drop flippant uses of the word branding, and it's time to take a more sustainable approach to sustainability. Seldom have larger businesses embraced a message as significant as this to marketing firms, and whether genuine or not, we have an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation and move from the transactional work we've been doing to the consultative role we've longed for. Just keep in mind that good consultants aren't always popular, but they do have a point of view and they are honest.

The full text is here, but I'm not sure how much longer it'll be up there.

Word of Mouth Marketing is Big Business

2007-11-26T14:12:00.000-05:00

According to a recent article in the Boston Business Journal, word of mouth marketing is the Next Big Thing - so much so that companies are investing over a billion dollars collectively on word-of-mouth campaigns, in a trend that's only expected to increase soon.

But you already knew that.

Let's face it: what makes you buy? Certainly, commercials and ads have their place, but people are more likely to buy something if they hear its praises from someone they know and trust. Your friends, current clients, colleagues - all of them can provide great word of mouth for your business (and much cheaper than paying an ad agency to get it for you) - as long as you give them some guidance about a) what to say, and b) who to say it to.

Now, the basic idea behind this isn't about creating some puppet orchestra amongst your friends; it's about helping folks understand what you really do and what kind of folks you want to be doing it for. It's marketing 101 - know your audience.

For example, let's say that I have a client that I do some basic production for, but not much creative. I love working with her, and would love to get some referrals to grow my business. But she doesn't really know what I do - the zen kitchen specializes in identity and marketing design, not in production - so, in order to get the most qualified referrals from my client, I need to let her know the range of services I offer, and the average pricing for those services, so that she can refer me to clients who need the specific services I want to offer my clients.

So what do I do? I take her to lunch, talk about what I do, and ask her if she knows any business owners who are looking to invest in quality identity design and marketing to grow their business. If I get referrals, that's great. If I don't, I had a nice lunch. But, now she knows what I really do, and she can more likely spot a good potential client, which works well for both of us.

The same idea, by the way, goes for family and friends - while we love them, they don't always understand what it is you really do. One friend of mine consistently calls me a "webbie" and keeps referring anything and everything Web-related my way, even though I have to outsource Flash and any type of programming applications. By letting folks know the TYPE of leads you're looking for, you get much better leads.

Want to get noticed in the blogosphere? Keep it simple and relevant.

2007-11-26T12:53:00.000-05:00

I just read a great post by my buddy Jess Sand over at Roughstock Studios (whose recent post on hormone-free milk labeling just got picked up by superblogger Seth Godin. In the post, she talks about how she serendipitously managed to get Godin to link to her post in his own blog, sending ridiculous amounts of traffic to her blog.

How did she do it? She kept it simple, kept it real, and kept it relevant.

Simple.
My email was short and sweet: I briefly introduced myself and explained my reason for writing. I didn't reference my own blog post until the end of the email, and then I signed off. The entire email was less than 200 words.

Honest.
My intention was never to get Seth to link to me. My intention was to get eyeballs on the issue of the Pennsylvania ban on "rBST-free" labeling, and I told him as much. I included a link to my post so he could read my own take if he so chose. Happily for me, he did.

Relevant.
My email to Seth was right after he posted his "Conceal vs. Reveal" entry, and it referenced a story that was a direct illustration of his point. More importantly, because I'm a regular reader of his blog, I know that he values fairness and consumer respect—values that played a big part in this particular story. I come across things every day that would probably interest this guy, but I knew that this one in particular was exactly suited to what was just on his mind.

This is great advice, and has definitely worked for me in the past - not to the exact level that Jess just experienced, to be sure, but some of the most valuable networking relationships and publicity moments I've gathered in my time operating the zen kitchen came from a short, honest and relevant e-mail to someone I admired - and often those e-mails were more notes of appreciation than requests for a plug.

So today's lesson? It pays to take notice.

And by the way, if you didn't catch the link above, you can read the post here.

tzk news: new article by Dani on Creative Latitude

2007-11-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

I just heard from Derald Schultz over at Creative Latitude that one of my recent articles has just gone up for publication on the site. In the article, called "the seven deadly sins of e-mail marketing," I go over some fairly basic, but still noteworthy blunders that I see folks making when it comes to their e-mail newsletters.

Creative Latitude is a worldwide community that unites various creative disciplines for collective promotion, education and ethical business practice. Dani Nordin of the zen kitchen has been an active member since 2006.

Staying Sane Through the Holiday Networking Rush

2007-11-17T20:19:00.001-05:00

One of the crazy things that I notice about holidays is that, despite my natural inclination to stick around the house in my pajamas and read books with a cup of tea until it's finally warm outside, I'm constantly busy... not only do I have family and friends to deal with, holiday cards to send out, and presents to buy, every networking group that I am involved with has their Annual Holiday Event - that one night that is, apparently, Not to be Missed. I do more networking in November and December than I do almost the entire year, and it's a bit of a challenge keeping up with it all.

Somehow, however, I manage to stay sane through all of this, and here are a couple of my tips to help you stay sane as well.

1. Loosen up your expectations for events. Holiday events are a chance to reconnect with your group, have good conversations, have a glass of wine. Don't stress out so much about getting a ton of business cards (even though you'll likely meet a ton of people) - you're much better off finding 2-3 good folks to keep in touch with. Trying to keep track of a dozen cards each night will just stress you out. This is also a good tip for regular networking events, but it's especially important during the holidays.

2. Set aside ample time for yourself. Read a book, take a bath, enforce a few hours on the weekend that's devoted to just you. I'm serious about this one - do NOT skimp on it. Today, after a long week of networking events, appointments, and other such busyness, I spent the entire morning reading Winnie the Pooh and relaxing on my couch. It was terrific.

3. Don't overdo it. This goes for wine, food, talk, and even the events themselves. It's tempting to go to all of them and stay all night, but it's really not going to do anybody any good if you're exhausted all the next day. Check in with yourself periodically to make sure that you're not about to drop, and don't be afraid to leave a bit early, if you don't have the energy to keep going.

Happy holidays, and happy networking!

What I'm loving about Facebook

2007-11-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

Having heard many of the various opinions on Facebook's use as a social networking tool and the next Big Networking Site, I decided to give it a shot about last week. Having been burned (or rather, extremely annoyed) by MySpace last year, I wasn't expecting much.

Turns out, now I'm addicted. There are many reasons why, but the primary reason is that it adds a more personal level to professional networking - I can get to know people on a deeper level than just their work history or immediate needs. And this, to me, is what real "networking" is all about - creating a network of mutually supportive people.

Some other things that I'm particularly jazzed about:

1. The Visual Bookshelf Application: This is one of Facebook's many add-ons, but I love it because, being an avid reader and someone who is always finding books that would be just GREAT to read if I have the time, I can actually compile a list of not only the books I've already read, but the books that I notice in magazines, blogs, etc. that I really WANT to read. Very helpful - and there's something gratifying about the narcissism of showing off your vast reading experience to folks. Just sayin.

2. I can import my blog directly into the "notes" section of my Facebook profile. This is a great time-saver, and gets the blog (and my work, now that I'm starting to post work updates to the blog as well) additional exposure without requiring extra time from me. HUGE plus.

So, anyone else on Facebook? What do you like about it? What would you change?

New Work: Peg O'Connell logos

2007-11-08T17:35:00.001-05:00

Peg O'Connell, an independent bookkeeper based in Brookline, MA, started her own business after years of working in a large firm. She needed an identity that would hint at her naturally friendly and cheerful personality while still projecting the professionalism required by her - well - profession.

The bold, yet simple and elegant treatment of the final logo created by the zen kitchen speaks well to Peg's intended market - creatives and other independent professionals. It's sophisticated without being stuffy, casual without being unprofessional.

Included in the system are a notecard/business card combo that Peg can use to followup with folks she networks with as well as thank her clients for working with her. A website is soon to follow.

New Work: Kitchen on Common Website

2007-11-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

It's been crazy with the work-finishing lately; just crazy, I tell you! The most recent addition to this flood of productivity is also one of the most exciting for me: the unleashing of the Kitchen on Common website (click the link to view in all its glory). Kitchen on Common is a new restaurant located in Cushing Square, just a stone's throw away from my office in Watertown MA (literally, I can walk there - and do. Quite often. It's just that tasty.)

Chef Joh Kokubo, a Lexington MA resident and owner of Kitchen on Common, is committed to using fresh, local ingredients whenever possible - no small feat in New England! But he does an amazing job, providing a terrific meal at reasonable prices, and creating food that's worth going back for as long as it's available (since much of his cuisine is dependent on local growing seasons, items don't stay on the menu for too long).

This design came together with fresh, simple imagery (much like the food at Kitchen on Common itself), and elegant typography. In order to make it easy for Joh to update the frequently-changing menu, a simple template was created for both the lunch and dinner menus that Joh can simply export to PDF and replace in the site files, saving both time and money on frequent updates.

In addition to the recently completed website, the zen kitchen designed the identity, business card, signage and menus for the restaurant, and will be helping with ongoing marketing in the near future.

New Work: Christine Tetreault Website

2007-11-04T17:39:00.000-05:00

Christine Tetreault, a freelance journalist and copywriter based outside Boston MA, needed a new web presence to help her focus her work away from the technical copywriting and editing she had been doing and lean towards more travel, outdoors and wellness/spirituality writing, her current passion. Working with Dani Nordin of the zen kitchen, a comprehensive identity package and website was created to help her showcase her work.

Feedback has already been positive for the new site. Says Christine, “From my first meeting with Dani, I found it impossible not to be energized and inspired by her positive energy and willingness to share her learning and experience as a creative artist and successful small business owner. Dani's business and design guidance have been invaluable in helping me to craft my writing goals and web site style, format, and content. Dani is a breeze to work with as a business partner, be it in person, by phone, or via email -- comfortable, open creative exchange, diplomatic artistic discussion, and above and beyond results! I highly recommend Dani and The Zen Kitchen for any creative graphic design, marketing, web project. Her green commitment is an added bonus to her exceptional talents.”

Check out the site here.

Forums and E-Mail lists as a marketing tool

2007-10-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, I do a LOT of online networking. I love it - I'm a bit of a homebody anyway, and online networking allows me to keep in touch with folks, talk about stuff I'm interested in anyway, and feel just a little less alone when I'm at home working in my pajamas.

But, the question one forum friend asked recently, can it bring me business?

Well, in my case, it has - just in the last three months, I've fielded about a dozen inquiries from folks I met on a couple of forums that I'm active on, several of which have turned into profitable jobs. The best part is that, since I was active on the forum and they'd been reading my opinions on topics that mattered to both of us, these folks had already checked out my work, often read my blog, and knew that I would be a good fit for them before they even called me - which saved me time prequalifying, and led to much more productive and interesting conversations.

So how do you do this? There are a few main points to consider:

Choose the right forums: the best forums for you are ones where a) your market is likely hanging out (you do know your market, right?), b) there's a decent amount of activity on the list, meaning that there are plenty of interesting conversations going on that you can jump in on, and c) the topics are ones that you can get interested in and contribute to.

Be active, be authentic, and be passionate: what's worked for me is jumping in on conversations that I care about and can offer something worthwhile to - whether it's about business, marketing, design, or even product/service recommendations. Sometimes, I'll even just step in and rant a bit. The point is to be real, show off your personality, and to remember that this isn't about a sales pitch - this is about connecting.

This isn't about a sales pitch - this is about connecting. Seriously - nothing will turn off a bunch of forum-goers sooner than coming in with this big sales pitch every time you join a conversation. Leave that for other marketing vehicles, and focus on the conversations at hand. The only exception to this rule: it's perfectly fine to do a quick "here's my company" intro e-mail when you first join a forum, it's fine (and actually recommended!) to do the occasional post if you get an award or some press coverage, and it's fine to offer folks a link to your site if they post a message looking for a product or service that you offer.

Have a good e-mail signature. This can not be stressed enough. Your signature should include the basic contact info (your name, company name, brief description), along with your phone number (if you want folks to call you), URL and blog URL (also if applicable). It should also contain a bit of info that makes it easy for folks to figure out what your company is and what they'll find if they go to your blog or site. My signature, for example, introduces my URL by saying "see a full portfolio at tzk-design.com or read my thoughts on marketing, design, life and other trivialities at zenkitchen.blogspot.com." By ending things this way, people read what I say, and then I've made it easy for them to know who I am, what I do, how to learn more about me, and how to get in touch with me. The quick "and other trivialities" at the end lets them know that while I'm passionate about what I do, I don't take myself too seriously. After all, I'm in my pajamas.

Don't be a jerk. It's fine to be passionate - great even. I swear to you that the most common times for me to get calls from forum members is when I've written really passionately about something - even when it's not related to my field. But badmouthing another member or being generally pushy, rude, or obnoxious is a major no-no, no matter where you are. Be passionate, but also respect the opinions of others. Don't, however, hesitate to speak your mind (professionally) if it needs speaking. Remember, casual doesn't have to mean unprofessional.

While forums and e-mail lists can be a great marketing tool, the important thing to remember is that this, as with all the marketing things that you do, should be FUN. The great thing about forums and e-mail lists is that it's like marketing that isn't really marketing. You're having conversations, making friends, developing community - and in doing so, you're helping your business grow in a way that should be natural, fun and best of all, organic.

Triple Bottom Line: Marketing and personal responsibility

2007-10-23T20:10:00.001-04:00

There's a great post on Seth Godin's Blog about marketing and personal responsibility. Yes, it's old (June 14th, to be exact), but it's a good one, and one that hit a personal note with me.

When I made the decision to become a designer back in 1996(ish), one of the things that became very important to me right out of the gate was this question of getting the paycheck vs. doing what I felt was right. As a result - not that I had the opportunity - I refused to ever work for a cigarette company, no matter how much they would offer me. When I accepted a short-term freelance gig at a marketing studio that counted both an environmental agency and a major oil company (not kidding!) as their clients, I made it clear that I would NOT do work for the oil company. I made what were, for me, tough choices - and choices that went firmly against what well-meaning folks told me I "should" be doing.

I stand by those choices - and I still make them today. And you know what? I'm doing just fine.

"Disarming" difficult client requests

2007-10-15T20:38:00.000-04:00

I just got turned on to this great entry from Ideas on Ideas about dealing with, ahem, challenging client requests.

Among the requests:

Can we make the text bigger?

I'll know what I like when I see it.

My neighbors/wife/cat don't like it.

Someone in accounting mocked-up a really neat idea for this.

If you're a designer, you've probably heard these (Lord knows I have); if you've worked with a designer, you've probably SAID these. And I have to say that the author shares some good ideas, especially in responding in a way that looks outside the knee-jerk reaction (really - your accountant? hmm.) and gets to the root of what most of these requests are - an attempt by the client to communicate what you want to your designer when you don't necessarily speak the language.

This is the thing that some designers tend to miss in their haste to be annoyed at the client's comments; oftentimes if you look past the specifics, what they're really saying is that something isn't quite right, and they need your help figuring out what that is and fixing it. Sometimes the only thing you can think of is "I think this should be blue" when what you really mean is "this color doesn't feel right to me; I want something more friendly/steadfast/elegant, etc."

It's a pretty good read, for designers and non-designers alike: check it out here.

marketing: what makes you so special?

2007-10-03T22:04:00.001-04:00

So, you make a great product, or provide a terrific service. And you think that your product or service is just the best thing ever. Wonderful!

But what's so special about it?

This is something I run into all the time - even with my own business. I love what I do, my clients love what I do, but what makes me so special compared to the hundreds of others that do comparable work, sometimes for significantly lower prices?

For me, it's the passion I put into it - and the fact that I don't stop at just design. Never have, in over six years of doing design professionally. My mission is to make sure you succeed, and sometimes that means helping you out with some hard truth about what you really want to be doing with your life, sometimes it means helping you figure out what you want to CALL this thing you're doing or how you need to talk about it, and sometimes - and this is happening more and more often - it means being your biggest cheerleader when you're starting to doubt that you can really do this.

Great marketing isn't just about saying, "my product is great because it has all natural ingredients and it's good for the environment" or "we really care about our customers." It's also about saying, "my product or service will help improve your life, and here's how." And, it's about saying, "yes, we ARE different from the rest, and here's why."

So, what makes YOU special?

Dani Nordin in the Huffington Post

2007-09-27T13:12:00.000-04:00

As part of the Ladies Who Launch series on the Huffington Post, I shared the REAL reason I started the zen kitchen, and my thoughts on entrepreneurship and sustainability.

An excerpt:

For me, "freedom, control and flexibility" means a number of things. Of course, it's important for me to wear what I want to work -- but it's also important for me to take on projects that truly appeal to me, and to work with people that I genuinely like. Not only does this result in better work for my clients, it just makes life a lot nicer. It's also important to me that my business fits around my life -- not the other way around.

The full text is here.

The Quadruple Bottom Line - people, planet, profits, and PASSION.

2007-09-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been very focused on what my fellow "green" business owners (and, more recently, mainstream business owners) call the triple bottom line - creating a business where profits don't come at the expense of people and planet. It's a wonderful idea, and one that I've seen work very well in a variety of businesses - from (mostly) solo efforts like my own that are primarily service-based to the various local retailers and manufacturers in my network to larger companies like Whole Foods and Aveda. All good companies, doing great things, all while making sure that we are treating our people (including, in some cases, ourselves) and our planet as gracefully as possible.

But lately, the question that's REALLY been bugging me is, why just the three? How about adding a fourth element to this - to me, the most important element of all - passion? For as long as I can remember, I've had a secret mantra, which has always kicked me in the pants whenever I've ignored it - "If you don't love it, why the heck are you doing it?" It pops up in certain moments - relationships, jobs, activities, friendships - whenever I find myself too deep in a rut, those words come running back into my mind, and I know it's time to change course - no matter how painful that will be. And this is why I ultimately started my own business - because I couldn't for the life of me find a "day job" that I really loved. I had to carve my own path.

Here's the thing - when you finally do decide to start your own business, if that's your path, why are you doing it? Is it because this is what you live and breathe and you'll just DIE unless you get to do it every day, or is it because this is what you know? Or worse, it's what your father or your mother knew and want you to carry the torch of, and you can't stand it? Is your passion what you've been doing professionally all your life, or is it something completely different - something you've always secretly dreamed of, but never thought it was possible? And what about your day-to-day operations? Are you working in a way that's true to YOU and your values, or are you doing things the way that everyone tells you they should be done - the way they've "always" been done?

I invite you to take a step inside yourself sometime and ask yourself questions like these. You might find that you've got things all wrong - yes, you've been consulting on software all your life, but your real passion is making homemade jam. Or, on a happier note, you could find that you've been doing everything just fine, and maybe a couple of minor tweaks will bring you ultimate happiness. Either way, you'll be better off for the asking.

Figuring out your marketing budget

2007-09-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

As a nod to the marketing budget craze I've been on lately, I've been in a number of conversations with folks on my various lists the last couple of weeks about marketing budgets - what to spend on, what to save on, what works, what doesn't - and it occurred to me that a number of folks taking the entrepreneurial track, at least in the smaller sense, find themselves stuck in one of two modes:

1) they get overwhelmed the moment you start talking figures and refuse to set a marketing budget; thus, they end up spending either too much or too little money on things that they guess MIGHT work, and often end up jaded and losing profit;

2) they get caught in this self-doubting cycle of "I can't afford to market my business," which results in a further cycle of either NOT marketing their business, or marketing ineffectively, which keeps them in the cycle of "I can't afford to..."

To both of these categories of folk, a marketing budget is a big, scary thing. It's money not in their pocket. It's also the fear of the unknown - what if I spend the money, and don't get results? What do I do then? How much am I supposed to spend on this anyway?

Well, I gotta tell you: marketing requires two things - time and money. The less money you're willing to spend, the more time you're going to have to put in. And both, unfortunately, are necessary expenses.

So how do you figure out what's right for your business? While every business is different (and I can't claim to speak for every single business out there), there are a few things that you should never, EVER skimp on:

1) your logo,
2) your website,
3) your business card and associated marketing materials (especially brochures).

These are your visual identity. This is how your audience - the people who will ultimately put the roof over your head and keep clothes on your back - witness and form impressions of you and your business. You can't afford NOT to spend some money on these things.

But how much? The answer depends on a number of things - the size of the business, how much income you expect/need, what type of things you absolutely need in terms of marketing materials, website, etc. An e-store or a rich Flash-based site with widgets and gadgets all around, for example, will cost significantly more than a simple "here I am!" site.

But give yourself some money, and be generous with it - the rule of thumb I often hear is 10-20% of your annual income should be spent on marketing. And I agree with this - especially in the first year, when you're just starting out and getting all your initial work developed. Let yourself spend that money - but do some research and find the right people to spend it with. In the years after, you can modify it a bit, as you figure out the methods that work for you, and you discover easier, lower cost methods.

Why you need a marketing budget

2007-09-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love about working with entrepreneurs is that they are, very often, incredibly passionate about what they're doing - whether it's creative writing, or personal/business coaching, or making handcrafted organic soaps (you'd be AMAZED how many people make handcrafted organic soaps!). They start their businesses because they think they've stumbled on something great - and they want to share that with the world. This is a beautiful thing.

One of the areas, however, where I constantly notice entrepreneurs getting stuck is that, because they are so passionate about what they do, they pour everything they have into the product or service that they're trying to build a business around, and they scrimp on their marketing efforts, hiring the cheapest designer for their identity and website or - even worse - deciding that they "can't afford" to hire somebody and try to take on the whole shebang themselves. In rare cases, this works out just fine - I was lucky enough when I started the zen kitchen that I was a very capable designer (after all, it's a design studio), and was able to learn a number of things myself fairly quickly. All too often, however, the DIY route doesn't go so well. Oh, sure, the company will do okay - maybe even succeed for several years - but at a certain point, the DIY route proves to be too much work for too few results.

Here's the thing: if you're a designer, your business is design. You've likely spent years learning design, and you know yourself and your intended business well enough (quite often) to do your own marketing and design; and indeed, you should - since it's the best way to show potential clients what you do. But what if you're NOT a designer - what if you're a coach, or a soapmaker, or a writer? Which would you rather be doing - the stuff you're good at and you truly love to do, or learning how to code websites, or use templates, or design logos? And if you've spent the time learning all this, are you satisfied with the result? Does it speak to you and what you do, and does it convey this message clearly to the people who need to hear it?

It's altogether possible that it does. But it's much more likely that it won't. This is why it's important to figure out a marketing budget and spend it on getting the right people to help you market your business - because not only will you get better results, you can take the time you save and spend it on more important things - like, say, running your business and living your dream.

What should you spend on marketing?

2007-09-12T12:23:00.000-04:00

Marketing Profs had a great newsletter recently about budgeting for marketing. The basic point was that every business is different, but you should be able to figure out not only your marketing objectives (how much do you want to make this year? how do you want to reach your market?) but costs for three distinct areas:

The one-time start-up expenses (my note: this should include properly positioning and branding your business, as well as creating a website and the basic marketing materials you'll need)

Amount needed to successfully market the product (my note: this should include things like monthly advertising, e-mail newsletters, trade shows, etc.)

Fixed costs that will be incurred while achieving the objectives. (my note: this should include things like web hosting, e-newsletter services, marketing/salesperson salaries, etc.)

The full newsletter is here.

Dani Nordin featured in The Savvy Girl's Guide to Online Networking

2007-09-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

Just got word from Diane Danielson that her new book, The Savvy Gal's Guide to Online Networking (Or What Would Jane Austen Do?) is now available on Amazon - and I'm quoted in Chapter 8. I haven't read it yet (my copy is on the way to me), but I'll share a link to what fellow blogger Wendy Darcy had to say, along with a quote (note: NOT MINE) from the book:

"In some ways, modern networking is no different than what took place in Jane Austen’s novels: it’s important to know many different people, attend a myriad of social events, and, above all else, have proper manners at all times."

The rest of her entry is located here.

It's nice being almost sorta famous!

How not to offer a greener option - PDFs that won't print

2007-09-11T13:26:00.001-04:00

So, when the lovely salesman over at the Boston Business Journal called to offer me a handy-dandy new (and cheaper!) downloadable PDF subscription, I thought, "great! It'll be good for finding leads, and I can just print out individual articles rather than dealing with a whole huge newspaper. What a nifty green option!"

But then I started getting the PDFs. I downloaded a special pass-word protected file, started reading in Acrobat. Found a company that might be a great lead, and went to print the article.

The problem? The page won't print.

That's right - the PDF edition of the Business Journal is specifically set up so you can't edit or reproduce the file in any way - you can't extract specific pages for future reference, you can't print individual pages. You can't even take a screen capture of the page and print it (believe me, I tried). So how are you supposed to remind yourself of the information you gleaned from the paper?

PDFs are a terrific way to offer folks a greener way to subscribe to their favorite magazine; it gives you the ability to enjoy just the parts you love of the magazine without the paper waste and bulk associated with a printed piece. But a publisher (especially of a mammoth publication like the BBJ) should respect how people sort and store information. I don't need all 104 pages of this PDF - I need, MAYBE, five. And I need to be able to store those 5 pages in some way so I can pay more attention to them later, when I'm focused on new business development. So let me print those five pages. I promise I won't sell them.

21 Things you didn't know you can recycle

2007-09-11T09:54:00.001-04:00

This morning, Co-Op America sent me a great list of things you may not know you can recycle. I suggest checking it out – among them were two things that I had wondered about for a while: Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (bring them to an IKEA) and CDs (send them to AuralTech for refinishing).

The full list is available here.

How do you work?

2007-09-10T21:58:00.000-04:00

I am, I'll admit it, a bit of a multitasker. Oh, okay - A LOT of a multitasker. And I know that it's bad, and I know that it's less productive, and I know what all the personal productivity experts say - but still, I just can't help myself sometimes. On the other hand, I'm also a compulsive break-taker. I think it started in the years I spent stuck in jobs I hated - I'd be very productive for about 45 minutes, take a 5-10 minute break, then get back to the "salt mines" (read: mindless production work and/or GASP! data entry). And I was fast. And efficient. And my bosses HATED IT.

Now that I work on my own, I still find myself multitasking - and taking a lot of breaks. And for a long time, I have felt really guilty about this habit. I feel like I should be billable. I feel like I should be "working." I understand how my former bosses felt. I feel that way too - about ME.

But tonight (well, the other night by the time I post this), while relaxing in a Maine bed and breakfast waiting for my boyfriend to return from a bachelor party - we're here for a friend's wedding - I noticed something. If I just let my mind switch when it needs to and I don't judge it, I'm actually remarkably productive. Thus far in about three hours, I've completed SEVEN blog entries (which will be posted over the next week or so), made several comprehensive to-do lists and organized them by category (so I can access them more sensibly), finished two testimonials that have been waiting for me to do them for about 2 weeks now, played 2 rounds of BeJeweled, and finished reading a book I started last week.

The difference? I'm relaxed, and when that happens, things flow better. This is the problem with pushing myself to be "productive" all the time - most of the best creative ideas come when you're just chilling out. And now, well, I get to do the creative stuff (almost) exclusively. So I HAVE to relax.

The key, I think, to productivity isn't in how many lists you make, or in doing things the particular way that this or that "expert" recommends - and it's certainly not always in the way that your boss insists that you do it. It's in knowing yourself, and knowing how you work, and making that work for you. From now on, I let myself take the breaks. As long as I can focus when I need to, and break things into manageable bits, I know I'll be just fine.

Make your To-Do's a Ta-Da

2007-09-07T10:10:00.001-04:00

So, if you're anything like me, you have a LOT on your plate. And for me, that's not a problem - Until I try to figure out what comes first. Or sort through the ever-growing Generic List of Doom.

Enter Ta-Da List, from the good folks at 37 Signals. It's completely free, and I can actually break everything down into lists and sub-lists, and separate what I've promised to others from what I've promised to myself; I might even do lists for each day of the week to keep in my ongoing file!

What I love about this is that I can actually create long-term lists; i.e. books to read, blog entries to write, etc. - and then I don't have to worry about them right away. They aren't in the "do today" list. And thus are not taunting me with the inevitable weight that Stuff to Do brings with it. Plus, you can log in from anywhere and figure out what you've got to take care of!

I'm just getting started with this thing, but already, I am in love. Much thanks to the Marketing Mix Blog for pointing me to this initially.

What to do with your press releases?

2007-08-31T14:03:00.000-04:00

Recently, someone on one of my mailing lists asked our thoughts about submitting releases to places like PR Web, which allows you to submit your press release to thousands of media outlets, sometimes free, but often for a fee.

Writing a release and submitting it to a place like PRWeb can definitely get you SOME traffic; however, I have found that it’s much more effective to create a list yourself, and start making friends with editors.

Some questions to get you started:

Who are you trying to reach? How old are they, what level of income/education/etc.

What are their interests?

What do they read? What shows do they watch/what radio stations are they listening to? What trade magazines might they have subscriptions to?

Where are they? Are you looking for local or national?

From there, you should have a pretty good list to start out with. Once you have that, you start looking for contacts. Magazines and newspapers are the easiest – in the first few pages, you should be able to find editor’s names. Give them a call and introduce yourself. Ask if it’s a good time to chat and let them know that you’d like to submit some press releases to their organization, and would they be the person to send them to? What format would they prefer – e-mail, Word Docs, snail mail? Make a note of all this in your contact management software and then, when you have a release that’s perfect for their outlet (make sure it’s newsworthy and something they’d be likely to publish; editors HATE getting press releases that have nothing to do with their magazine/paper), send it to them along with a note saying, “thought you’d be interested in this thing I’m doing; thank you for taking a look!”

It takes a while to do all this, but it’s MUCH more effective than the “spray and pray” approach of places like PRWeb, although using this approach in conjunction with PRWeb would be a good thing – they can get attention from a wide array of outlets you might not have thought of. And mind you, this is just a very basic outline of PR; if you want to REALLY get into this stuff, work with a PR professional that specializes in your type of business. They'll often have contacts that you don't, and you'll save time and stress in the long run, and get better results!

Want to build a great brand? Start with yourself!

2007-08-29T15:27:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks have been illuminating (to say the least). In the midst of some personal unpleasantness and the (normal, all-encompassing) stress of running the zen kitchen, I started thinking long and hard about myself, my life, and what I want to do with it.

And I learned a number of things. For one, I'm incredibly good at telling stories - and at helping other professionals tell theirs. I'm great at working with creative professionals, entrepreneurs, and folks who are genuinely passionate about what they do and want to make sure they can do it for a living. Not only that, I am TERRIFIC at helping these people, in some cases, figure out what they love and what they should be making a living out of, and then figuring out how to position them so that they can actually achieve that.

This is my brand. I help people create businesses that align with their passions and values and market them in ways that help them succeed. And sometime tomorrow, I'll think of a cleaner way to say that - but for now, here it is.

And the key to creating these brands is helping these people - often folks that want to make a difference through their work, or who want to follow a particular passion of theirs and turn it into something they can make a good living out of - understand WHAT makes them passionate about this business, WHY they're putting themselves on the line in this way, and WHY it should matter to the people who will, ultimately, determine their success.

So what makes you passionate? What ideas give you that fire in your belly that just won't burn out? I'll bet you can turn that into a business.

That communication thing

2007-07-23T18:20:00.001-04:00

This week I've been reminded quite a bit about the importance of communication - not only in business, but in life. So much has been going on at the zen kitchen lately, including a move to Watertown from my 2-year home of Somerville - well - Sunday, that I've run into a number of random communication issues lately, mostly in terms of expectation-setting. What can my clients expect from me? What do I expect from my clients? How can I continue to stay on top of client work and marketing while dealing with some personal drama (which will go unexplored here), planning a move, staying on top of my marketing, and finishing up the last Harry Potter book - which, by the way, is AMAZING?

Right now, I'm not sure quite what the answer is to that question - but it involves sending a lot of e-mail, and setting clear boundaries with friends and clients in terms of when I can be where, and where I can't be/what I can't do. It also involves a great deal of self-reflection and brutal honesty with myself. I'm a people-pleaser by nature, so when someone comes to me with something I can do that will please them, my auto-reaction is to say "yes, sure" and TRY to fit it in, even when I know I can't. The last few weeks have seen some of the first times in my life that I've been able to listen to someone's idea, honestly evaluate it, and say "thank you, but I don't think I'll have time," or "thank you, but I won't be able to fit that into my schedule."

And the best part? The earth didn't fall down. Imagine that!

It's my birthday!

2007-07-20T13:52:00.000-04:00

Okay, so - between the fact that I'm moving and other *ahem* stuff going on in the universe of me, I haven't had a chance to post much of late. But I did want to pop in and announce that it is my birthday, and as such, I am taking a short amount of much-needed time off, most of which will be spent reading a certain work of fiction that should reach my doorstep - well - sometime tomorrow.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The power of keeping in touch

2007-07-09T14:33:00.001-04:00

So, recently, I got into a very unfortunate and stressful situation that forced me to rethink the way that I do my contracts. In almost 2 years of being in business, I've never had a lawyer (I used LegalZoom to set up the zen kitchen back in January of last year, and haven't really determined what kind of legal needs I'd have; I also had a lawyer ex-boyfriend of mine approve my original contract), and now I needed one - and fairly quickly - because what should have been a fairly straightforward situation turned nasty quicker than I wanted it to.

Enter Jessica Manganello of Exemplar Law in Boston. I met her at a networking event back in Marchish and we kept in touch over the months afterwards. She's been very thoughtful about sending me articles and info about things she knows I'm interested in (I've even blogged about some of the sites she's pointed me to), and when I realized that I needed help with the stuff I'll be dealing with, she was the first person I thought of. We're meeting for lunch tomorrow.

This is the power of keeping in touch - not just on the monthly newsletter level, but on the occasional "just thought of you" level that so many marketers tend to forget about. It's a more personal - and dare I say, feminine - way of marketing, and some folks do it phenomenally well, while others - well? Yeah.

So here's an idea. When you meet someone at an event - Chamber, Women's Business, whatever - find out a bit about them and make a note of it on the back of their card. Put it in your contact management software. Then, if you happen across something that might be interesting to them, pop them a quick e-mail. It's quick, dirt cheap, and can grant you the helpful, thoughtful image that might just get you the sale. Not that hard, is it?

Still got some floppies lying around? Turn them into something!

2007-06-29T22:52:00.000-04:00

Remember floppies? They were so cute. But now what are you going to do with them?

Treehugger just had a really cool bit about arts and crafts with floppies, including this nifty notepad, available on Etsy:

I think it's a great idea - not only do you get to keep these puppies out of the landfill, but it's a great tribute to hard-core geeks like (I'll admit, to an extent) me. Heck, I remember 5-1/4s. I might even pick a few of them up for a couple of my more old-school geek friends.

"I'm sorry I have to leave you now; I've got The Fear."

2007-06-28T22:35:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been reading a lot on the subject of fear. As the zen kitchen gets closer to its second anniversary and things are starting to explode faster than I honestly thought they could, the typical entrepreneur fears - WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!! - pop up more frequently than ever, and I have to take a step back now and again to look back at all I've accomplished in the past couple of years in order to actually get through it and be productive.

The funny thing about fear is that, all too often, it's unwarranted. In fact, a recent Yoga Journal article had a great Mark Twain quote that I thought particularly appropriate when it comes to those nagging fears:

I've been through some incredibly horrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

While I certainly can't say that I've never had bad things happen to me, or that I've never had a real reason to be afraid, but I can honestly say that the majority of the time that I've been deathly afraid of failure in some particular aspect of life/business, the moment I just said "hello" to the fear and did whatever it was anyway, not only did I succeed, I realized that nothing I had feared was nearly as bad/tragic as I thought it was. Then again, I am prone to drama.

The Marketing Mix Blog had an interesting post about just this topic recently. Sherri Loomis of SL4 Design (and oh look - she's a green designer too!) shared her story about the fear of cold calling, something I can't say I don't share with her. It's a short, but good, read.

Just remember one thing about fear - if you're afraid of it, it's probably good for you.

That is, unless it's a guy chasing you down the street with a knife. But really - that doesn't happen that often.

Keys to Blogging Success: Keep it Real

2007-06-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

As you probably have guessed by now, I love blogging. And, if I dare say, I'm pretty darn good at it. But not everyone is a great writer, or even enjoys writing. So, should they hire a ghostwriter to blog for them?

It depends. Some folks, like my fellow HOWie Jess Sand from Roughstock Studios, have had success blogging on behalf of clients. Others, like Walmart, have been found out, and thus ostracized from the community they so needed to tap into. The difference? Jess, and others like her, keep it real.

Among other various opinions that have been blogged about the subject, Joan D'Amico's recent post on the Walmart debacle speaks very eloquently about why the Walmart blog failed: a liberal dose of insanely obvious marketing messages.

Nobody wants to read marketing messages in a blog. Nobody. That's not the point of a blog. It's. Just. Not.

The problem with marketers trying to get their hands into the blog space is that they're marketers - this is what they know. They aren't comfortable with just talking about stuff that interests them - they have to turn it into something that will hopefully generate a sale. And this doesn't work with blogs.

Bloggers (and their readers) are looking for some honest, down-to-earth insight from the real people - got something you love to do? Blog about it. Have a rant about some political issue, celebrity mishap, or just want to share some stories from your life? Blog about it. That's what people want to read - real people, dealing with real stuff, and - perhaps - sharing some real life.

This is the new age of marketing - the age of dealing with people as people, and not as demographics, or points on a sales graph. Get used to it.

Some great copywriting advice

2007-06-22T15:21:00.000-04:00

So, in running through the backlog of blogs that I've been meaning to catch up on, I came across this great copywriting post from Joan D'Amico's blog, Integrated Marcom Minute. In general, it repeats the point that you should always include the actual keywords you're using in your meta tags in the copy for your site, but it also brings up some interesting points about getting more specific when it comes to Pay Per Click keywords:

Broader search terms drive more traffic to your website--great for brand awareness, but bad for your PPC budget. Here's why...

...Now consider pay-per-click (PPC). If you're using the same general terms as in your keyword list, then you're going to pay for clicks that will never yield any business. Plus, some of the more generic terms are very expensive and highly competitive--the only way to get a page-one position is to bid more.

Consider PPC words and phrases that are more specific to your product or service. The goal is to get more conversions. And that doesn't necessarily mean going with the most expensive terms. Instead of apple or Macintosh apple, try "Macintosh apples for baking" or "best apples for pies."

For the full article, visit Joan's blog. And stay a while to check out some of the other stuff, too.

Logo Design Faux Pas: Copying a well-known brand

2007-06-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday after my evening yoga class at Healthworks in Porter Square, I stopped into Cambridge Naturals to pick up a yoga bolster and a quick snack to tide me over after my workout. While I was at the counter, grabbing a few Flavor+Fiber bars (man, the chocolate brownie flavor is good), I tried a quick sample of Foods Alive Golden Flax Crackers and was instantly hooked. They're quick, crunchy, really healthy and insanely good. I tell you, this is my new PMS food - HANDS DOWN.

Unfortunately, they also have THIS as their brand:

See that thing on the left hand side? That's their logo. Recognize it from anywhere?

Yep - it's Target's logo with some text over it. And even if it wasn't, what's the concept behind this? What does a bullseye have to do with crackers made of flax seed?

Now, mind, I don't mean any of this as a diminishment of the company - they produce a, frankly, amazing product and one that I really want to see on the market for a very long time. But this is the reason why cheap/do-it-yourself design so often fails; because designers are paid to make sure that what they design is unique and appropriate to each business they deal with, and often that means looking around to make sure that what they're thinking of hasn't been used by someone else. When you're doing it yourself for your own business, too often you end up with quick solutions that are either boring, don't really speak to your business does, or in some extreme cases, look exactly like another company's logo. I won't get into some of the other controversies surrounding other "cheap" logo services; those have been long rehashed by the design community, and I can't add anything that hasn't already been said by about four different people.

So what to do about this? I sent the company a quick and friendly note letting them know about the faux pas and thanking them for making such a great snack. Aside from that, there's not much left other than hoping that they find someone to create a more original identity for them.

How do you start your days?

2007-06-20T23:24:00.000-04:00

Lately I've had ritual on my mind - a routine, something to shape my days into something that can accommodate the incredible amount of work involved in running the zen kitchen. The hardest part is balancing all the different activities - between a growing roster of clients requiring my attention, attending to everyday administrative work and marketing stuff, and - well - having a life, some days I end up feeling enormously unproductive, even when I'm constantly busy.

That's what got me thinking when I read this post on the Marketing Mix blog, one of my favorite online haunts. Everyone's ritual is different, to be sure, but I was intrigued by the idea of having a set of activities that you do every morning aside from the typical "get up, take shower, brush teeth, fart around on e-mail for an hour" routine. Especially working from home as I do, that lack of separation can be deadly for productivity.

So now, I think I've discovered a routine that works for me. For one thing, I find that I'm most productive if I get up before 9 am (I know - there are some of you out there that will HATE me for saying that!). Any later, and the day just falls apart on me. Also important is the daily stretch, 5 minutes of quiet time/meditation before getting out of bed, and a cup of green tea with breakfast. Oh, and shower. Must have a shower. Then I go into my office, close the door (this has turned out to be vital), light a stick of green tea incense and a candle at my desk, and breathe for a moment before I start my day. I also take a look at the day's priorities and thank my lucky stars that I get to do what I love for a living.

Thus far, after a couple of months with this new ritual (almost!) daily, I've noticed an incredible spike not only in productivity, but in how I FEEL while I'm working. It's amazing; I can always tell when I've missed a piece of it, because my productivity drops right down to the floor.

So how do you start your day?

Avoiding "Green Marketing Myopia"

2007-06-19T13:24:00.000-04:00

In a followup to my recent post about whether being green is enough of a reason to hire someone or buy a product, I happened across this great article on what the author calls "avoiding green marketing myopia."

In other words, people won't buy a product JUST because it's green. They have to LIKE it, too. So your marketing messaging should, yes, include credible information on how/why your product is green, but it also has to answer the ultimate consumer question: "what's in it for me?"

A quick excerpt:

Green marketing must satisfy two objectives: Improved environmental quality and customer satisfaction. Misjudging either or overemphasizing the former at the expense of the latter is what can be called "green marketing myopia."

In 1960, Theodore Levitt introduced the concept of "marketing myopia" in a famous Harvard Business Review article that is still studied by business students. In it, he characterized the common pitfall of companies' tunnel focus on "managing products" (i.e., product features, functions, and efficient production) rather than "meeting customers' needs" (i.e., adapting to consumer expectations, anticipating future desires).

Levitt warned that a corporate preoccupation with products rather than consumer needs was doomed to failure because consumers select products and new innovations that offer benefits they desire.

Similarly, many green products have failed because of marketers' myopic focus on their products' "greenness" over the broader expectations of consumers or other market players (such as regulators or activists).

You can read the full article here. It's really quite interesting.

So what are your thoughts on the subject?

Dani sightings: I'm in HOW!

2007-06-18T17:37:00.001-04:00

Okay, so it's not a HUGE mention, but I'm there: on page 80, in the article called In the Greener Good,, I'm one of the various experts (I guess I'm an expert, anyway) that author Roberta Cruger quotes on the topics of green design and building a greener studio. Not too shabby!

The only quick correction I should note is that I'm not in Northampton, I'm in Somerville, and soon to be in Watertown (August 1st, baby!). But that's okay - Northampton rocks.

Holistic Marketing: look at the whole picture

2007-06-18T17:37:00.000-04:00

There are a TON of marketing ideas out there. More of them crop up every single day, and every single one of them will work for somebody, somewhere. But should you hop on every last thing just because it's hot? Do you REALLY NEED a viral marketing campaign with some goofball doing something ridiculous in the name of your company? Do you really need a blog, or an e-zine, or a web forum, etc.?

I'll tell you a secret: you don't need ALL of it. What you NEED is to do some soul-searching and find out what will actually WORK for you. This is what I call holistic marketing; it's looking at the whole picture of your business, and of you as a business owner or marketing manager. By doing some of that internal work before jumping on the next hot marketing trend, you can save yourself some serious time and money.

When it comes down to it, there is no single marketing "magic bullet." In order to really get the marketing thing down, you have to come at it from different angles, and you need to spend time really looking at yourself, your business, and your capabilities to determine what those specific angles should be.

For example, when I started the zen kitchen, I knew certain things about myself, and about the business I wanted to create:

I didn't want to spend a ton of money on marketing (since seriously, I didn't have a lot of money, and I have the added advantage of actually BEING able to do my own design work)

I REALLY didn't want to spend a lot of money on direct mail pieces that were just going to get trashed anyway; although I do a couple of key mailers (for example, holiday cards), regular direct mail pieces involve too many resources for too little return in my line of work

I really love talking to people, I'm not remotely shy, and I love writing.

I spend entirely too much time on the Internet.

Given all these things, it was important to do as much of my marketing online and in-person as possible. So now my "marketing mix" (I actually prefer the word "toolkit" myself) includes regular mentions, listings and articles on various sites, networking with local businesses, being generally helpful on forums and listservs, this blog (of course!) and my newsletter, along with keeping thoughtful contact with folks in my network, and a yearly holiday card. And all of these have gotten me as much business as I can handle - and I never know where clients will come from. I now have an equal balance of people calling me based on my various online appearances and people that I connect with personally and keep in touch with.

Now, is this what you should do for your business? It could be. But if, for example, you're insanely busy with all that you're doing already and your hair is ready to fall out, you might not be ready to go as hard-core online as I have. And if you hate to write, you're not going to be motivated to keep up a blog. And in certain industries with certain businesses, other, more traditional marketing activities might work better - some businesses, for example, do actually really need printed brochures. Others (for example mine) really don't.

The point is to do some thinking while you create your overall marketing picture:

What do I actually enjoy doing? Can I build any of that into my marketing?

if I am looking at all of these lovely online opportunities, who do they seem to work for? Does it look like something that would work for my business? Are there any other businesses like mine doing the same thing?

Do I really have the time/energy to devote to this?

Is this something that I'll enjoy doing? This is especially important for online marketing efforts; blogs, for example, take a while to get really going and working for you, and you have to commit to it.

Happy marketing!

Here's a networking tip: give away FEWER cards

2007-06-15T17:30:00.000-04:00

When I first started the zen kitchen back in January of last year, I was a networking FOOL. I went to every event I could get my hands on, from BNI to the Boston Women's Network, to various other events that landed in my e-mail box with rather obnoxious frequency.

Some events worked really well for me - for example, I love dinner events and discussion groups, partially because I love to eat and I love to talk (can ya tell?). Overly crowded events don't really work for me - especially when it's all drinks and no food (why would you give people alcohol and not FEED THEM?) and goodness help me - morning events just do not work for me. I don't know about you, but I didn't go into business for myself to wake up THAT early.

But the more events I went to, the more I found that I was giving away insane numbers of business cards with no results. My first box of 500 was gone within 3 months - some might call that normal, but I call it wasteful - especially when half of those cards were the result of the common practice of some events (no names will be given here) to make you pass around your business cards to as many people as you can without talking to them first.

After a while, it gets expensive - and wasteful. How many business cards that you get in this manner do you actually ever keep, or feel remotely comfortable contacting after the fact? For me, the point of networking is to get to know people, and determine whether you'd like to get to know them more. That first conversation is like a first date - you're feeling each other out to see if there's a good fit.

Now, before I give my business card to anyone, I chat with them for at least 5-10 minutes to make sure they're someone I even want to keep in touch with. During that first conversation, I'm looking for four key things:

are they doing something I find interesting, and would like to know more about?

are they someone I get along with personally (good conversation, likable, common interests, etc.)? I'd really rather not lock myself into extended contact with someone that I find boring and/or just a jerk, thanks.

are they someone that I can help in some way, either by working for them or providing some type of resource?

are they someone who might be able to give you work at some point, either for their business, or for someone they know? This is a special bonus, although I've learned it's not REQUIRED by any means as long as the first two are in place.

The reason I say that the last is not required is because, honestly, anyone COULD give you work at some point, and often I find that I'd rather take time getting to know people that I really get along with who are doing interesting things than people whose only attraction for me is the fact that they're working for a company I'd like to work with...if I don't like them, I won't want to work with them.

Once I've done a mini-prequal on them and I've decided they're someone I want to know, THEN I exchange cards and ask if I can sign them up for my newsletter. I also tend to write a little note on the back to remember things about them - interests they might have, family members, things we might have talked about. The next day, I follow up right away with the folks I had a really good connection with or the folks I wanted to share resources with, and I load the business cards into my contact management software, then add the folks who agreed to be on the list to my e-mail news list.

Doing things this way, I use nearly 1/3 of the cards as I did with the previous method, and my networking efforts have been significantly more successful. Not only does this mean less paper waste and printing expense (which makes me SO very happy), it's less time and energy wasted - which, as a REALLY BUSY GAL of late, has proven just wonderful. The "more money, less work" thing is nice too.

More E-mail Marketing: Getting Those Names

2007-06-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

As a followup to my recent e-mail marketing post, I wanted to share some more e-mail marketing goodness with you. In a recent discussion on the HOW Forum, one of my fellow HOWies, c55 from Saltline Studio (who's right on the Cape - yay!), was wondering how to get more folks signed up for their studio's e-newsletter.

Now, when I first started the zen kitchen's newsletter in March of last year, I had about 120 names on the list - mostly folks that I had culled from the insane business card collection I'd been amassing over the previous few months since opening my studio that January. Previous and current clients, select friends and industry contacts also got put onto the list. Since then the list has grown to about 280 names at last count; still pretty modest, but it grows every month, just in folks who sign up on the site directly, and I've been quite pleased with the growth. Personally, I think it's the recipes (tee!). And I'll also mention that, since the list is small and has grown organically, I have a pretty phenomenal open rate - 40-50% on average, with plenty of clickthroughs (especially with the new format!). The key, I find, is quality, NOT quantity.

Now, how do you start growing the list organically with a good balance of contacts who add themselves and contacts that you add from your networking adventures? There are a few ways that work for me.

In terms of getting folks to sign up, it's important to let folks know what they're getting and how often they're getting it. In networking events, after I've chatted with the person a bit and determined whether they're someone I want to keep in touch with, I say, "do you mind if I keep in touch with you through my monthly e-mail newsletter? It has a case study, some notes from my blog and a free recipe from my own kitchen!" It's incredibly rare that someone doesn't say "yes" (I tell you, it's the recipes!). If, by some chance, I forget to ask them if they'd like to be signed up, I ask in my follow-up e-mails, or if I've sent a newsletter recently, I'll actually forward it to them with an invitation to sign up. Most of the time, you'll find that this practice works just fine - especially if they're someone you got along well with.

In terms of getting them to sign up on the site, you should NEVER, I mean NEVER EVER, have just a little box that says "sign up for our newsletter!" They just don't work. If people don't know what they're getting, and can't figure out whether they WANT to receive it or not, they won't bother signing up. My signup box includes a brief description of the newsletter, and the newsletter signup page has a more detailed description of the newsletter and a call to sign up. Since making the change on the new site, I've seen a significant increase in signups.

Also, feel free to collect more information from the signups (I definitely recommend at least first/last name, company and title, as well as snail mail address for additional marketing if it's deemed appropriate), but don't make it all mandatory for signup. The only thing that you REALLY need is the name and e-mail address; the other stuff is just really good gravy.

Another key way to get more signups is to just be visible - go onto forums where your audience (or hey - your friends!) are hanging out. Make comments on blog posts. Upgrade your e-mail signature. And on all of it, make sure that folks are able to visit your site from your post/e-mail and sign up for the newsletter. I even invite folks to sign up for it in my e-mail signature. In time, you'll build a solid, well-qualified list (and yes, a fair share of folks who are just tagging along for the free info - but I don't mind them. Heck, it's not like it costs me extra if they get my e-mail too!).

Green Design Dialogues at Green Options

2007-06-13T17:50:00.000-04:00

Green Design Dialogues on Green Options

Recently, myself and a bunch of other designers got together for Green Design Dialogues, an article series that my fellow HOWie Megan Prusynski is putting together for the green blog Green Options.

Along with myself, Bryn Mooth from HOW magazine, Eric Benson from renourish. Eric Karjaluoto from smashLAB and Design Can Change, Jess Sand from Roughstock Studios, and Megan talked about our experiences with green design, as well as our thoughts on where design needs to go in order to really head in the right direction.

A quick excerpt from the article:

Each designer's journey to sustainability is unique, and we've all had our stumbling blocks along the way. We discussed that each person approaches green living and green design differently, making different tradeoffs and decisions. It was certainly apparent to all of us that our industry was changing, and the green design movement was certainly getting traction. Eric K suggested that the surge of interest in green design stems from An Inconvenient Truth. What began as a grassroots movement has become a mainstream dialogue that is leading to action and change.

Check out the full article here.

E-mail Marketing 101: Mistakes to Avoid

2007-05-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

A number of folks I know have started to get into e-mail marketing for their own businesses, some with better results than others. Those who get the zen kitchen's newsletter know that, while it's not the only thing I do to promote the studio, I'm a big fan of e-mail marketing; it's an easy, cheap and effective way of keeping in touch with a growing base of people who care about your business so that, when they do eventually need your services, you'll be top of mind.

If done right, and e-mail newsletter provides value to the reader in a way that doesn't intrude on their time, and helps them get to know you much quicker than the traditional "cold calls, several coffee meetings and occasional e-mails to each of 50 people I'm trying to court right now" route. If done badly, however, you can lose readers, get lost in SPAM filters, or what's worse, completely embarrass yourself. Here are a couple of quick mistakes to avoid when crafting your e-zine.

Mistake #1: a nondescript subject line, or none at all.
Your subject line should give the reader a clue of what's inside; on my newsletter, for example, I usually give a 2-word description of the blog entries I'm featuring along with the name of the recipe and a case study name, if I'm doing a case study that much. Whatever you do, don't ignore the subject line; it's a sure-fire ticket into most SPAM filters, and you risk readers getting annoyed or deleting your e-mail without reading.

Mistake #2: using Outlook or a personal e-mail program to send mass messages.
There are so many problems inherent with doing this it's almost too long to list. For one, many programs set limits on how many addresses you can send to; it's not too bad for 10-12 people, but at 50 names and up you're risking e-mails getting lost in transit. Additionally, programs like Outlook and Lotus Notes often don't have intuitive ways to hide the e-mail addresses of recipients; if you aren't savvy, this automatically creates the potential for readers to not only request OFF your list, but to be really aggressively mad at you. People are very protective of their privacy; respect that and they'll respect you.

For my newsletter, I use Constant Contact; not only are they local to me (an acquaintance of mine in Saugus, MA works for them, in fact), but they have reasonable prices, easy-to-modify templates, and they take care of all the list-management stuff for me, make sure the e-mail gets to the recipients, and they send each e-mail individually, which means that there's no list of addresses floating around. Plus they have really cool tracking features that help you figure out how successful your e-mail campaign was - last month's newsletter, in fact, seemed to be the most successful yet, as I had launched the new tzk website and changed the format of the newsletter to something shorter. I've also heard wonderful things about Emma (which, for those of you who are designers yourselves, offers a really cool "Emma Agency" feature I just found out about for sending campaigns for your clients - something I'll definitely have to look into).

Mistake #3: Having a FROM field that isn't a real person.
People want to open e-mails from people they know. Having a FROM field that reads "Sell your house NOW" is, frankly an instant ticket to the SPAM folder. You have two options that work well for the FROM name: one, which I personally use, is name and phone number (this makes it really easy for clients to recognize who it's from and reminds them to call me to chat about their project); the other, which also works well, is [business] newsletter. You can also do the name of the newsletter, which works especially well if you have different kinds of newsletters to send.

Mistake #4: stressing out about folks who unsubscribe.
When I had my first two unsubscribes on the zen kitchen newsletter, I'll admit I was a bit bummed. Did I do something wrong? Did I offend someone? Nowadays, I'm much more relaxed about it; the list has grown from about 118 folks in March of last year to 272 at today's count; and of that total, about 40-50% actually open the e-mails when I send them (which is pretty darn good for e-mail marketing, from what I've heard), and maybe one or two unsubscribe each month.

Unsubscribes, honestly, are a fact of e-mail marketing; while it's important to keep an eye on who takes themselves off the list to make sure they aren't someone you REALLY want to be marketing to (that's a sure sign you need to fix up the newsletter), most of the folks who unsubscribe are either really busy and need to pare down some of the things they subscribe to (as I do periodically) or they're people that aren't really in your target anyway. Don't worry so much about it. Rule of thumb: if you get more than about 1% of your list taking themselves off after a series of mailings, it's time to revamp the newsletter.

Mistake #5: no call to action.
This is a biggie - after all, this is a MARKETING piece, remember? Your newsletter really shouldn't be too sales-y (unless, of course, you're having a sale!), but it should have some easily-located info that helps the reader figure out a) what you do, b) why they should work with you, and c) how they can get the process started. And it should be brief; on my newsletter, the call to action is a total of two sentences at the end of the intro, along with a brief "about the zen kitchen" blurb that repeats the call to action at the bottom. That seems to work very well for me.

Mistake #6: making it a pain to get off the list.
I see this a lot with big corporate newsletters and with nightclub/discussion list newsletters, and it annoys the heck out of me: it's these lists that require you to either a) log into an "account" to get off the list, or b) CONFIRM your unsubscription by clicking a link in another e-mail. If someone wants off the list, let them off. Don't send them more e-mail asking them if they're SURE they want off; just let them off. You'll make a lot more friends that way.

Mistake #7: buying a list, or putting folks on your list who haven't agreed to be on there.
It's very tempting to take the "spray and pray" approach to e-mail marketing by purchasing a list of 600 strangers and sending them all your newsletter (and I'm sure they're dying to read it; really). But the reality is that doing things that way will upset more people than it's worth; not to mention that it puts you at risk for excessive SPAM reports, which will put you out of commission faster than you can click "unsubscribe." The same goes with adding the folks from all those business cards you collected at that BNI meeting you attended; if you haven't chatted with them for more than a minute, and you haven't specifically asked them if they'd like to be added to your list, don't bother.

Now, this doesn't mean you should just throw away all those business cards you got at the networking event you attended. Take a look at them and see if they're folks you want to keep in touch with; if they are, send them a quick e-mail thanking them for giving you their business card, introduce your business a bit and invite them to join the newsletter list. You'd be surprised how many people are happy to sign up.

There's certainly more to e-mail marketing than just these mistakes; my buddy Neil Tortorella has a good primer for getting started with the e-mail THANG. And if you have any questions about how you can improve your e-mail marketing, feel free to drop me a line sometime.

"Being Green" as a Marketing Tool: is it Enough?

2007-05-25T19:37:00.000-04:00

The other week's discussion of Dreamhost's decision to purchase carbon offsets being marketing-driven got me thinking about a recent discussion I had with Mike Harder, one of the founders of Boloco (which, by the way, is doing some really cool things) about the whole idea of marketing oneself as a green company. The question raised: is being green enough of a reason to convince people to use your company? Oddly enough, I don't think so.

Here's the thing: the zen kitchen is a green company with a fairly strong social mission, and I want to work with companies that have similar values and missions, both as a service provider and as a customer. But beyond the values lies another key component which, in fact, actually comes BEFORE the company's mission and values - do I like what the company does? Are they providing a product or service that a) I genuinely need, and b) is good quality?

The same holds true for my clients' expectations of my business; I can be as green as I want and they love me for that, but the main reason clients work with me is because a) I'm a great designer, and b) I get really excited about their business, and they pick up on that. It's that extra level of commitment to their needs that gets me the business - the green thing is just gravy, and helps me weed out the clients that aren't in line with where I see the zen kitchen going.

Mind you, I'm still green, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

SEO: Some more basics

2007-05-23T11:51:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been getting a lot of questions about SEO - what it is, how to do it, do I do it, can I help them? To be honest, I don’t do what some people call SEO – I don’t submit sites to search engines, or buy adwords, or any of those other things that people who publicize their SEO services. But what I do - well, do - is build well-put-together websites that Google seems to like very much (for example, my website is currently #4 for Somerville MA Graphic Designer) using clean code and web standards with appropriate keywords, descriptions and indexing calls so that search engines can find it. I also consult on content to make sure that the appropriate keywords are actually in the body of the website – this convinces search engines that you legitimately fit with that keyword. Just to give you an idea, I’ve seen sites where “photographer Boston MA” is a keyword, for example, but nowhere on the site did it actually say that he was in Boston MA. Result? No Google.

That said, SEO is an ongoing process – you can buy adwords to get to the top of Google, for example, but if you want to get there for free, there’s a lot of sweat equity that goes into it – most of that is getting your URL in as many other websites as possible. Blogs and forums actually make that pretty easy, but it does require reading blogs/forums that are relevant to what you do or what your audience needs and leaving insightful comments on the posts. The software gives you a free, easy and completely legit way to insert a link to your website, and you’d be surprised how much traffic I get from that method. Also, getting in as many appropriate (and legit!) directories as possible is always a good thing. I’m listed on quite a few directories, and gotten work from all of them.

Some things that I’ve learned along the way in terms of SEO:

Search engines like well-built sites, especially sites that are built using standards. Since standards naturally separate content from presentation, it’s easier for them to figure out what a page is. This means higher rankings.

They also love pages that are updated frequently (note, this DOESN’T mean dynamic. Search engines often actually have problems with dynamically-driven pages). This is one of the reasons that blogs are so popular – they’re always well-built, have tons of content to search through, and they’re updated frequently.

Search engines HATE FLASH. They can’t read it, they can’t use it to figure out what the page is or what’s on the page, and unless your average user is a teenager with way too much time on their hands who wants to sit there playing web games, users don’t really like it either. The average user wants to get in, find the information they’re looking for, and find out how to get in touch with you. This is one of the problems I tend to have with a lot of designer websites – it’s all Flash with no substance.

The best way to draw people to your website, ultimately, is by advertising it everywhere – in your e-mail signature, in your signature on posts in blogs and forums, and on all your marketing materials. E-mail newsletters are also good ways to keep your site top-of-mind. The biggest myth people seem to buy into regarding their website is that a) people are just going to “find it” once it’s built and you don’t have to put any effort into promoting it, b) metatags and keywords are all you really need to promote your site, and c) once they find it, they’ll stay on it and pore over every page. They just aren’t. You need to make the content interesting, and you need to spend the time promoting the site through giving people the URL and talking about the site.

Green Trade Show Graphics?

2007-05-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

Recently, I had quite the dilemma here at the zen kitchen; Krista Botsford, owner of 5-trees (and one of my first clients when I opened the studio), asked me to do some tradeshow graphics for an event that she will be doing in June. Mind you, this is not quite a challenge for me graphically; I've done all kinds of print design from book layouts to packaging and back again. But the main concern was how to make the graphics sustainably - after all, the tradeshow industry is huge but wasteful as all get-out, and environmental concerns don't usually seem to be something that even blips on the radar of most folks who do print for tradeshows.

Fortunately, a fairly extensive Google search led me to Eco•Systems Sustainable Exhibits, a company based in Michigan that makes a variety of exhibit systems that meet LEED standards for greenness. A quick look at their exhibit materials is pretty fascinating; from flooring made with recycled tires to boards and panels made of sorghum, bamboo or PET (made from plastic soda bottles), it's certainly an impressive list of sustainable materials.

I haven't had a chance to try them out JUST yet, but the pricing looks reasonable as well; drop them a line to get more info. I'll let you know more after I try them!

Marketing 101: Do Your Homework BEFORE You Waste Your Time

2007-05-20T18:42:00.000-04:00

One of the advantages of having a business name like the zen kitchen is that it's intriguing; I can't tell you how fun it is to have people walk up to me after they hear the name and say, "I really want to know what your business is!" It's really one of the smartest marketing moves I've made to date.

The drawback, however, is calls like this:

Caller: "Good morning Maam, I'm calling from [stupid company name] dot net; we are a professional web hosting and web design company. I'm calling to see if you have a site online."

Me: "yes, actually—I am a professional print and web designer."

Caller: "oh. okay - thank you for your time."

Me: "yes. have a good day." *after hanging up* "schmuck."

Lately, it seems like I'm running into instances like this fairly consistently - where some business or another, that sells something that I either DON'T need or something that has NOTHING to do with my business, calls or e-mails me trying to sell me something, and they obviously haven't actually even bothered to check out my website to find out what my business actually IS. Twice now, I've gotten e-mails from random individuals informing me that they've placed a link to my website in some random directory and asking me to return the favor - only to find out that said directory is for places that sell kitchen and/or restaurant equipment. And what's worse, repeated e-mails informing these folks that my business has no reason to be linked to their site have gone unheeded. Honestly, how do these people expect to actually get customers like this?

Actively researching and targeting potential clients is one lesson that I've actually learned for myself fairly recently when I re-examined the studio's marketing plan - I realized that if I was going to find clients with budgets that would support the studio and convince them that the zen kitchen was right for their needs, I had to spend time learning about the company to find out a) what their needs might be, and b) whether their corporate culture, mission and style were a good fit for the studio.

It took a while to get the list together (and it's still growing as I meet more people and learn about their businesses), but since I've moved in this direction I've felt an overall shift in the direction of the studio - I'm getting more projects that I'm truly jazzed about, and I'm getting more clients with larger budgets whose needs go beyond the simple brochure or business card into more comprehensive marketing packages - which is exactly where I want to be. It's much more effective as well - while I spent hundreds of hours last year going to networking events, meeting people wherever I could, and having meetings with potential (unscreened) clients that ended up netting me moderate results, I'm finding myself doing less work overall, and I'm able to be more choosy about the events that I do attend - so I can save my time for more fulfilling activities.

Terrapass does weddings now!

2007-05-11T02:34:00.000-04:00

Since it’s coming up on June, and so many folks are gearing up to get hitched, I thought I’d share this tidbit from a recent TerraPass newsletter: they can now help you make your wedding carbon neutral. The amount of travel involved in planning a wedding, on the part of both you and your guests, is the single biggest eco-impact your wedding will have.

Now, I realize that there’s been some debate about the whole TerraPass/Carbon Offset THING (especially on TerraPass’s usually interesting blog), but honestly, I think it’s a great idea. While it would be wonderful if we could all switch to wind or solar, and all drive hybrid cars, the reality is that some of us are bound by location and/or finances to be unable to do these things; for example, the electric company that services my part of Somerville doesn’t have the option to use renewable energy (although in my former home, in Cranston RI, I did actually use 100% renewable), and honestly – I can’t afford a hybrid right now. So, I compromise by driving my car surprisingly little (I think I’m down to three days a week, maybe?) and walking or using the T most places. Plus, I donate pretty heavily, and have volunteered design and marketing services on occasion to green organizations. To me, TerraPass is a good option for those who don’t have the alternatives available; since it helps fund renewable energy products. With more funding, more renewable energy becomes available; more renewable energy, less fossil fuel dependence; and then, one hopes, the Terrorists will Lose.

Want to make your guests’ travel even more eco-friendly? Try to pick a location that’s close to the bulk of your guests, and see how many of your guests can ride down together or take the train instead of flying.

Theatre as design training?

2007-05-08T14:36:00.001-04:00

I don't really talk about this TOO often, but I didn't start off my career as a designer. In high school, I discovered a love of the theatre that I have (in a much more limited capacity, admittedly) to this day. I switched schools my junior year to join Hope High School's Theatre program, and I chose Rhode Island College for undergrad because their theatre program was considered one of the best in the country. And I was pretty darn good, too, if I must say so.

But somewhere in the middle of that, while working at Kinko's in my second year of college, I discovered that design was, well, kinda fun. And I was darn good at that too. And so, given the choice between taking on a career in theatre (where I'd likely never Make It Big), and a career in design - well, you can already tell where this is going.

But a while back now, I was chatting with a reporter for an interview that appeared in one of my regional newspapers, and we were getting into the whole history of who I am and where I've been, and he asked me what I did with my theatre training, and why I wasn't doing it anymore. I think the answer I came up with was that I still do presentations and public speaking on occasion, and I worked my theatre training into those activities - but honestly, that felt lame, and it didn't feel true to me.

The other day, while chatting with a new client about what I do and how I work, something hit me that I haven't been able to shake, and it has been making me smile all this week. I realized that what I do for my clients is actually incredibly similar to what I did as an actress, and I love design for all the reasons that I loved acting. Great design tells a story, and creating a great brand is really no different than creating a great character - it's up to you to get inside that character's (or in this case, a business's) head, figure out what their story is, and play out that story to the audience watching it. That's what I loved about acting - not just the attention (because, I mean, COME ON) or the applause, but the fact that I had an opportunity to literally experience what it was like to be someone else for a while. And now, I get to do that again, but this time, I get paid better for it and I don't have to stand in front of a room full of people and explain why my headshot doesn't look like me (which, by the way, is because I've seen exactly TWO pictures of myself that actually looked anything like me in person).

So, how can you (as a designer) bring a bit more theatre into your design work? By asking yourself, and your client, the right questions - and remembering that ultimately, you're doing this to tell a story. It's your job to find out what that story is, and who needs to hear it - and to tell that story visually in a way that means something to the people watching. The Creative Brief is an important part of that story, as is all the deliverables that come along with it - whether you're doing a full-out branding campaign, a website, or even just a simple brochure or business card. It's all about the story, and who needs to hear it.

And, every once in a while, applaud yourself when you do something really special. If others can join in too, even better.

Green Hosts: David vs. Goliath?

2007-05-05T12:54:00.000-04:00

It looks like my recent post on green web hosts has gotten a bit of attention from another green host, Ethical Web Hosting in Canada (which looks like a good company as well. Hi there – thanks for stopping by!). In the comments, Ethical applauds Dreamhost's recent decision to go green, but questions their motivations for doing so:

While i applaud dreamhost's move (well done) I don't feel its actually done in the spirit of caring about reducing their GHG's but rather jumping on it as a marketing ploy before the other large hosts do the same thing. I think it is more important to support the smaller guys that do a lot more in all that they do to reduce their GHG's such as living in an area where you don't NEED a car to get to one fo the 2 offices, but can take the subway, walk or better yet, work from home.

He raises a good point - after all, I started the zen kitchen partially so I could decrease my carbon load by working from home and taking public transport more often. At the same time, however, I always get a bit bothered by arguments like this because they ignore a few key things:

Big business is (and will continue to be) a part of our culture, whether we like it or not.

Big businesses use more resources, and as such, a decision on their part to reduce their GHG's, no matter what spirit it's done in, has the potential to make a huge impact. Can you imagine, for example, what the impact would be if Wal-Mart (which, mind, I still won't buy from until they reform their labor policies) decided that they were going to power all their stores with wind energy? We'd have new turbines up all over the place in a year!

Whether we tree-huggers like it or not, all the high-minded idealism in the world isn't going to sway the leaders of big business until they see how it relates to their bottom line. They move on these things sometimes because it just makes good eco-sense, but usually it's because climate change is on the minds of their shareholders and customers - THAT'S what makes them move.

And honestly, what's wrong with that? In my opinion, a step in the right direction is a step in the right direction, even if it's grudgingly taken. And while I still support many smaller local businesses that are doing the right thing (just ask the folks over at Cambridge Naturals - I'm in there every week!), I do believe that it's also important to support larger businesses that are doing the right thing. Sending them the message that you're going to refuse shopping there because they aren't independently owned only sends a message that you, as a consumer, don't care whether they get involved in the climate change conversation, which makes it less likely that they will make the effort. There's room for everyone, and there has to be - positive change can't occur if we're excluding a large portion of the population.

That's just my 2¢ on the situation - what do you think?

Eco and Foodie Joy at Trader Joe's Cambridge

2007-05-02T19:01:00.000-04:00

I have a couple of posts for you this week, which I'll work on tomorrow (I promise!) but I had to share this: when I was doing some food shopping at my local Trader Joe's in Cambridge (right on Memorial Drive, near the Charles) I was not only able to pick up the most INSANELY GOOD baby heirloom tomatoes and some orange-muscat champagne vinegar that's going to make a mighty tasty vinaigrette tonight, but, because I brought my own bag, I was offered a chance to put my name in for a drawing that this particular Trader Joe's is having to show their appreciation for helping them save paper by recycling bags. Apparently, once a month the grand Tiki God statue at the front of the store will spit out a name (much like in the Harry Potter book) and the lucky person will receive a $25 TJ gift card.

So if you're local, show them some love (and get some of these tomatoes - oh. my. goodness.)

More green hosting options from Green Options

2007-04-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

In the interest of further exploring the green web hosting thang, I happened upon an article by Megan Prusynski, a fellow designer/greenie and member of the HOW Forum (one of my favorite hangouts on the internets).

In the article, Greening the Web: green hosting options, Megan provides a decent list of web hosts that are either powered exclusively by renewable energy or they offset their energy use by purchasing renewable energy credits. I still recommend Dreamhost, but it's nice to know that there are other companies out there doing their part.

Dreamhost goes green!

2007-04-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

The other day, I got the best news ever from my friend RJ over at Plenty Magazine. Dreamhost, the amazing web service that I've been using for two years to host the zen kitchen's websites, has just become carbon neutral.

In addition to purchasing Green-e certified renewable energy credits, they've also purchased Carbon Credits from The Gold Standard.

For more information about Dreamhost's green commitment, visit the Dreamhost website.

Freelance isn't free

2007-04-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

The other day I was hanging out on one of my many designer forums, and a regular on the forum posted a rant about a potential client who had contacted him about his services, gushed over his portfolio, and said that they'd LOVE to work with him. Sounds pretty good, right?

The problem was the next sentence in the e-mail, which read:

"Just so you know, this is a freelance position, so it will not be paid. But after this is done, we will need other materials, such as brochures and websites and flyers, and if all goes well, we will be able to pay you for those.

Now, mind, I could have some strong words to say here, but I won't go there. What I will say is that this is one of the reasons that I personally, even when the zen kitchen was just me, have strategically avoided using the word "freelance" to describe what I do.

It's that word "free," you see. It has so many connotations to it - from the idea of a freelancer being someone who lacks commitment to your business (which anyone who knows me will tell you is not the case), to the idea of a freelancer being someone who will work - well - for free. Not all clients believe this, mind you - I have several clients that I occasionally do freelance for, and they respect my work and my time, and pay me well for it - but there are enough naive clients out there that do, in fact, believe that they can get work for free from designers (and enough poor unsuspecting designers who actually WILL work for free on the vague promise of more work down the road) that being a freelancer is a ticket to being taken less seriously.

So what do you call yourself, if not a freelancer? I'm an independent designer, or I run my own design studio, or I'm a zen warrior princess. You choose.

My #1 e-mail marketing pet peeve

2007-04-23T11:17:00.000-04:00

So, as can be expected, I am signed up for a LOT of e-mail newsletters. Publishing one myself (which you can sign up for at the tzk website - I'm so good with the self-promotion I is!), I find it nice to see what others are doing in the e-mail marketing arena, and occasionally I like to get updates on things I've become interested in.

But after a while, you realize that my goodness, you have too much to READ lately. And some newsletters prove less interesting than others, or they lose their pertinance to my life over time. And in this case, I have no problems taking myself off the list - and maybe I'll even come back someday.

But every once in a while, when I take myself off a list, the list manager program the newsletter publisher is using does something incredibly annoying. In my inbox, after I update my preferences to let them know that I don't want to get any more e-mail from them, I GET ANOTHER E-MAIL FROM THEM asking me to go to their website and CONFIRM that I no longer want to receive their e-mail. In the case of this morning's deletion of the Boston Streetsweeper notices (because I no longer live on the streets they're telling me about, and haven't in almost a year), it was just the one e-mail. But in the case of one list I took myself off (for a nightclub running nights I'm not really interested in anymore), I received an e-mail asking me to confirm at the website, then ANOTHER e-mail confirming that I confirmed.

This is the thing with e-mail marketing: in certain cases, it's a good idea to have someone confirm that they want to receive your e-mail. It's an extra courtesy to them, and it keeps those annoying SPAM accusations at bay. Engineers really like to confirm e-mail subscriptions. Your average Joe Consumer typically doesn't. But I can't imagine ANYONE who would unsubscribe to a list and be pleased when they get another e-mail from the list they're unsubscribing to asking them to confirm that they DON'T want to receive your e-mail. Seriously - it's just bad karma all around.

Pushing the web envelope

2007-04-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

I just happened across this incredible site for author Miranda July's new collection of short stories, Noone Belongs Here More than You. What's great about this site is the concept - a story told on the top of the author's appliances with dry-erase marker, and links to outside sources to actually purchase the book and read more about the offer. It's brilliant - simple, entertaining, and it fits the author's personality (and the personality of the book) perfectly. If you have a second, definitely check it out.

Getting into the Marketing Flow

2007-04-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

One of my biggest challenges since starting the zen kitchen almost a year and a half ago has been fitting in time to do all the marketing necessary to keep the business afloat (and, frankly, keep the workday a bit more interesting). While I actually managed to achieve all the goals I had set forth in my initial marketing plan (and in about the timeframe I had set forth too - without even looking at it again!), it's still a weekly challenge to get myself motivated to do all the things I've decided to do to market myself, evaluate what's working and what needs a shift, and do all that lovely strategic thinking that I'm just so GOOD at doing for the zen kitchen's clients.

So what's a gal to do? For me, the answer involved hiding out for a while and taking lots of long baths and meditating. It ALSO, however, involved revisiting my marketing plan and setting new goals for the next two quarters, as well as finally making good use of my paper planner (yes, I know, paper - but what can I say, I'm a journaler!) to keep me on track and note progress in the areas I've defined as my focus.

Some things you're likely to see from me over the next six months:

• More frequent blog posts (goal: 2-3 per week), and likely shorter ones;
• A more consistent schedule for my e-newsletter (which you can sign up for at the tzk website). I'm going for the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and might move to the 2nd Wednesday if that turns out to work better.
• A new, shorter format to the e-newsletter (right now it feels unmanageable, so I think I'm going to scale back on some of the more extraneous bits)
• A new website (finally), scaled-back on initial launch to include some basic info on why you should work with the zen kitchen (because you should, really!), but adding more features over the course of the next six months, including links to articles I've written and (eventually) some e-books.
• A new focus on ethically-driven businesses, and an unapologetic incorporation of food metaphors (after all, it is a kitchen, right?)

So hopefully, that'll take some of the overwhelm out of the whole marketing thang, and I'll be able to get this down. I'd love to hear about how you get into your own marketing flow. Drop me a comment and let me know what you're up to in your business (and I mean any kind of business).

Local vs. Chain: is one more "responsible?"

2007-04-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

Lately, there's been a fascinating debate going on within my local community regarding supporting local business vs. supporting larger chains. This is mostly due to a local chain, Boloco, that recently took over one of the buildings in the area due to the community's general lack of interest in the local business that was in the building. While it is a local chain (started in Boston, near Berklee), the feeling of one particular group in the community is that anything resembling a "chain" doesn't belong in the Square, and that people should be supporting local independent businesses instead of the larger chain. To this group, supporting local businesses seems to mean you're being more socially responsible than those who go to chains.

Now while I'm all in favor of supporting local businesses (Cambridge Naturals in Porter Square, for example, is a regular shopping destination for me), this entire debate begs the question: does being a local (i.e. non-chain) business somehow make you more "responsible" than a larger (i.e. chain) business? Does your moral compass somehow get misdirected because you have more locations? And, if you decide to give your business to a chain instead of a smaller business, does this somehow make you less socially responsible than others who base their purchase decisions on how small and/or local a place is?

I guess I have different criteria than others. What I look for in a business I support is a business (no matter how big or small) that offers a quality product/service, is actively working towards creating a positive experience for their customers and their employees, and the environment. Sometimes this means I'm getting my groceries at Whole Foods or coffee at Starbucks. Sometimes this means I'm eating dinner at a local restaurant or buying veggies at the Farmer's Market or a local specialty shop. But when I don't see those criteria being met (for example, the staff are surly and unhelpful, the product just isn't that good, or the place isn't making an active effort to at least reduce waste in their practices or move to less harmful materials) - no matter how small or local the business is - I'm not going to support it. And I don't see anything wrong with saying that.

How do you feel about this? What criteria do you use when choosing who you spend your money with?

Harry Potter Goes Green!

2007-04-03T16:28:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's not often that I mention this in a "business" setting, but I LOVE Harry Potter. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Not so much Harry, but the books. LOVE them. So yeah. Anyway. According to the good folks at More Hip than Hippie, the final installment of the HP series (which, yes, I've pre-ordered) is going to be the greenest of all the books - the mainstream edition will be printed with 30% minimum postconsumer waste, and there's going to be a special "deluxe" edition printed on 100% postconsumer.

Time to check in with Amazon and see if I can upgrade my order...

For the full article, visit this link from thestar.com

Word of Mouth Marketing: Can you Convert the Cynics?

2007-04-02T13:41:00.000-04:00

Today, while chatting with a really terrific potential client, the conversation turned to some feedback that had been gathered quite coincidentally in an online community that both he and I participated in. In it, the poster made some unflattering commentary about the client's business, and a few other folks in the community followed suit, citing similar businesses in the same location that they felt did a better job than them.

Mind you, there were plenty of folks that had positive things to say, but these few folks, who were making negative comments stuck out in the client's mind and visibly bothered him.

Then the question came: "How do we convince these people how great we really are? How do you deal with that kind of negativity?"

My answer? A couple of things.

1) Speak your truth. Be authentically Who You Are and communicate that on every level - from your website to your brochures to your in-store marketing to every single thing you do to market yourself. You know you're doing great things. Tell people. And don't be shy about it.

2) Be open to what they're saying. There's a lesson in every criticism - the fact that someone's even bothering to GIVE it is a sign that they're invested in your brand. Be open to what they say, thank them honestly for their feedback, and tell them what you're going to do about it. That doesn't mean that everything they tell you is something you can (or even should) put into action, but just the fact that their opinions are being considered is a positive thing in the eyes of the customer.

3) (and this is the most important piece) Don't focus on converting the critics - focus on treating the people who already love you well and getting them to spread the word. Let's face it - there will be catty, negative people no matter where you are. It's a fact of life. Your job as a business owner isn't to convert them. Your job is to find the people that love you already - the folks who call you time and again for work, the folks who come in every Wednesday at 6:30 on the dot and order the same thing. Treat THOSE people well - ask them what they love about you and what they'd love to see more of, and let them know how much you appreciate their business. Then, ask them to spread the word about you and bring others.

That's the true meaning of word-of-mouth. It's not about convincing people who just want to be catty and likely won't listen to you anyway. It's about creating a positive relationship with the folks who already know and love what you do, clearly identifying and conveying what it IS you do and why it matters, and about getting those folks who love you to spread the love to everyone they know.

Green Printing: 12 things you should know

2007-03-30T09:56:00.000-04:00

Today while cleaning out my inbox, I came across this article on Dynamic Graphics, which talks about green printing, and outlines some basic principles. Writer Cassie Hart makes some excellent points, and I even discovered a few new tips to use here at the zen kitchen. A quick excerpt:

Many of us make a conscious effort to practice environmental responsibility. We haul old newspapers to local recycling centers. We use ink refi ll kits instead of buying new cartridges for our printers. And who doesn’t have at least one blue recycling bin wedged underneath the desk?

But is this enough? Noah Scalin, founder of ALR Design doesn’t think so. “Social consciousness isn’t just about making good paper and ink choices,” he says. “A lot more of it has to do with how work is produced.” For designers, this means keeping the environment in mind when planning projects.

Read the full article here.