Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

The Holiday Vacation Excuse

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Summer in SeattleIt’s easy to drag along in the summer. We make the excuse that everyone’s on vacation, so I will too. But bills still have to be paid, most people don’t take the WHOLE month off, and while the 4th of July falling on a Wednesday kind of screws up the week, a lot of people stick around. After all, summer doesn’t start in Seattle until July 5th!

What are you doing this week and month to grow your business? What prospects do you need to check in on? What client do you need to schedule a 2nd half of the year conversation with? What work aren’t you getting done because you’ve been “too busy”? If it’s really a quiet week, you should have PLENTY of time to get through at least one of those projects you’ve been pushing off.

Hop to it folks! The sun will be out in a few days, and we all know how useless this town gets when that happens! Need some accountability? Let me know, I’m happy to check in with you!

How Can I Help You?

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Hank’s Walk

The other day Hank & I took a walk with a friend of mine who has had a successful business for years and has decided to start working on a nonprofit idea, so we spent a lot of the walk talking about that idea. We also talked about my first year, my clients and general catch up stuff. At the end of the walk when we got back to our cars, she asked “So what can I help you with, what do you need?” And I thanked her and told her. Then I asked her the same thing and she told me.

Do you do this when you’re networking? Do you ask and the other person doesn’t ask in return? Take that as a sign.

Networking is about a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it’s about helping each other grow and build our business, not by hiring each other, but through who we know and how we can help and support one another. Next time you’re meeting with someone one on one make sure to ask them how you can help their business grow. You never know how that will come back to reward you in the future.

Let’s be Realistic About…

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In no way shape or form am I someone who should be giving you blogging tips. I’m still figuring it out, my stream of conscious isn’t everyone’s flavor and hey, that’s fine.

Today I was meeting with a client and he wants to start a blog on his website. Seeing as how the website’s current blog is a canned piece that he doesn’t write, and his tumblr account has two posts from a year ago I asked him for one thing:

Write blog posts for a month.

Just try writing a blog. Save the posts as word docs and just write when you have time. This way if you decide you like it, you have a back stock for those busy weeks. And if after a month you’ve written three posts, you know that maybe blogging isn’t the right fit for you.

And that’s OK. You don’t have to do everything, and if you do decide that your website needs a blog and you aren’t going to be the one to write it, that’s fine. There are a lot of great copywriters and freelance writers who will write your blog in your voice way better (and consistently) than you do.

What do you WANT to do but are afraid won’t work out? Take a month to practice and see how it goes. You might be surprised what you learn!