Screamin' babies

Missing: My So-called ‘Normal Life’

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It’s been in my amygdala for a while, but it’s starting to really sink in for the rest of my brain that this Covid Pandemic isn’t going anywhere soon. I say this out loud (online in a cloud that floats by) where there is so much noise; no one may hear it. And that’s OK – because it is just one more depressing realization in a long series and we’re all facing this together.

The really interesting part of this pandemic, is the epiphany of how acutely we all need connection. Yes, even the introverts are getting lonely.

Even for myself (and I talk on Zoom all day), when I’m out in the neighborhood getting my walks in – I’m SO EXCITED to see other real-life people in their driveways, doorways, cars or walking too – all waving happily as we socially distance. It’s suddenly a wish to have the time to chat up unknown neighbors, rather than the old reality of, ‘should I make eye-contact or not with this stranger that could be a neighbor?’

Now, the need for connecting with others in person is like an ache. When you see that friend that you always hug too big, and now you have to settle with touching elbows and keeping a safe distance. You’re listening to what they’re saying, but you’re still paranoid that someones’ PPE won’t be enough, or that you’ll do something silly while you’re drinking together spatially distant, and laugh too forcefully, and infect someone or be infected. There is this underlying tremor of fear.

What will happen to all of us when this is over? Will we ever go back to handshaking and relaxing? When did it become common to get an anxiety attack going to the damn grocery store?!

My hope is that we can get back somewhere near our “normal” without losing the knowledge that we’ve gained in this sheltering in place: that we need one another, and we need to be kind to one another.

My hope is that when this is over, we will appreciate everything so much more and stop rushing in all the wrong directions. Now that I’ve had some serious family time, I’m 1. ready for a break, and 2. so grateful for this time with them.

I feel like with every crap-sandwich life hands you; you learn something. I hope whatever “our new normal” is will have us all appreciating one another more, appreciating the time we have in-person, facing one another, holding hands, laughing loudly without fear, hugging, and spending more quality time with one another. I’m looking forward to it.

Where Creativity and Web Strategy Meet: The Point Collective

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Starting your own business is a daring and compelling feat for any person, but for Jaime Merz of The Point Collective—it’s the ride of a lifetime. Balancing between business woman and creative super designer is a delicate dance, and she rocks it. With her wee barkers by her side, Ella and Ruby (her favorite, but don’t tell!) Jaime starts each morning off with an eager, can-do attitude. Between brewing a large coffee for breakfast and dropping her daughter off at school, she’s already weaving her mind around her daily to-do list. Design is her game and Point Collective is the name.

Even before finishing school, thanks to her dedicated design teacher, Jaime was already taking on freelance gigs. The idea that she could do what she loves passionately and get paid for it too—planted a seed. By the time she was working her first corporate gig, she was already beginning to understand that for co-workers—design didn’t always come first. It still baffles her.

“They didn’t really value creativity,” she said. “And how can you stand behind your marketing if you’re not happy with your brand?”

Carefully, she began planning her escape crafting her business plan during daily carpools. She also attributes her ability to begin to her aunt, who generously offered a safe place to launch her company. After some success she realized, “It was fun and it was cool and I was getting paid to be creative!”

Jaime’s love for her work shines through the instant she speaks of it—it extends almost as far as her enthusiasm for her clients. Jaime’s process begins with getting to know each client and tasking them with a creative brief. Filling it out may be like brain boot camp, but what she gleans from responses is nothing short of magic. She’ll pull your drive, vision, and the design you never knew you wanted, until she shows it to you. Dynamic.

In small business, there is often little time to understand search engine optimization (SEO) and web strategy, let alone figure out how to create a site that makes it happen. Luckily, Point Collective offers something most designers don’t: full web strategy. Jaime makes sure that not only does your online presence sparkle, but that it’s positioned higher on searches, draws readers in, is easy to navigate, and holds a call to action – everything visitors need to reach out to you and increase your business.

Point Collective is all about strategically positioning your products and services online. Jaime makes sure that people not only find you –but when they do, you’ll shine through.

Point Collective also regularly contributes to design work for non-profit clients, because their work is important to her. “I value the client and the project, and I really value the work they (non-profits) do,” Jaime said. She also enjoys the creative freedom and working with people and causes she values.

Perhaps it’s her die-hard enthusiasm that’s so contagious, or how much she truly cares about each of her clients, that makes “working” with Jaime as easy as hanging out with old friends. Her joy for design is infectious at best, inspiring not only your online business strategy, but a renewed belief in the value and inspiration of small business.

 

Interested in learning more about The Point Collective  –find them on Facebook!

 

Building Business Branding Strategy

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When you tell people you work as a writer they think, “Oh, how glamorous!” Then they find out you do corporate communications, and the smile fades to an expression that resembles. “Honey smell this, is this milk bad?” So not all types of writing support glittery movie stars and Harlequin covers, but communicating effectively is still what writing is about. Successful companies require lots of parts to run properly, and often – many of the key building blocks for successful marketing communications get ignored in the process.

Many small businesses wind up so fast – that they overlook key ways to get their business going consistently and to make things easier in the long term as they grow. Are you bored yet? Because here’s the snoozer: a key element to being consistent and recognized by your customers is your BRANDING. Branding isn’t all just pretty colors and logos. Effective branding means, your look, your feel, the tone of your marketing data sheets, the content on your web site, the words in your newsletters and marketing emails: these ALL contribute to your company’s image.

There are three tips to getting your branding on the right track:

  1. Strong Design: Get a great designer! Find someone that matches the look and feel of your customers. Don’t think about yourself, as much as the people you want to reach. Because let’s face it – you already love yourself enough to spend long hours on yours business; you need to convince other people that your services/products are right for them. Target your audience effectively!
  2. Web site: in this day and age, the number one way people will check up on you is look at your web site (or Google you, and if you’re web person does their job – it’ll take them their directly). If you’re targeting your customer, they’ll ask for more information. If you go with something that doesn’t address them (see one above), you’ll be just throwing your mad-money out the door. Sure, talk about yourself in the “About Me” section, but let the rest of your web site set the tone with good content, that’s clear about your mission, and your products and services. Don’t waste time with clutter and too much text; get your message out clean and simple, because no one has an attention span longer than a few seconds anymore (what?!).
  3. Templates: one of the easiest ways to stay consistent with your new design is to build templates for your messaging. An email marketing template and a strong Word template for customer-facing communications are both essential time-saving tools that can keep you on task rolling out messages, but without a lot of time and hassle on the back end. Yes, creating a template can take some time. If you don’t know how to do it yourself, contact a marketing communications geek like myself; we’ll show you how it’s done. But instead of spending too many minutes formatting and applying colors like crazy EVERY time, just do it once; and you’re set up with a structure to hold your messaging with clear branding every time.

Why is branding so important? Well, you could ask Coke or McDonald’s– but really, the point is that with so many messages flying around the internet like bees in a swarm, you need be instantly spotted as the Queen. You want a person to recognize the need they have and make an instant association with your business and service. So every time you send out messages to customers, or put your product and service out there: make it consistent and recognizable. Make customers think of you first!

Self-care is Crucial to Your Business

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People often think that they need to push harder, work longer, and go faster. And yet time and time again, research shows that this isn’t the key to productivity. Studies show that if you increase your workload to more than 50 hours per week, you may increase your risk of heart disease by 80%. No thank you! Other studies show that the most we can productively work in one day, is six hours – so how does that factor into our 10 hours days at the office? Are we simply spinning our wheels?! (Or cruising Facebook for a break?)

There seems to be some understanding that we cannot keep going and going like over-directed energizer bunnies … but what can we really do about it in a world that holds that expectation so closely? When I write my self-help book on this, I’m sure I’ll have the answer for you. Until then, look at these few ingredients to make your life more manageable within the context of work/life balance expectations and pressure.

  1. Take time for yourself weekly– Think snippets. This doesn’t mean you have to run off to Cabo and everything will be better after one long relaxing week. Think manageable, timely chunks here and there that break up your week and make it just a little less crazy. Here’s an example: if you like playing basketball  – make that a priority for yourself. Skip an hour at the office on a Friday or Monday morning (when everyone is hiding anyway, trying to sort through ten million emails they don’t want to read). You can read through your emails later – take just one hour, schedule the time for yourself, and fit it in. The only we reason we don’t get time for ourselves sometimes, is because we don’t SCHEDULE TIME FOR OURSELVES.
  2. Meditation. Maybe this isn’t your thing. Maybe you think it’s a religion and that scares you. Maybe you’re afraid your friends will call you tree hugger and cast rose petals at you. But meditation is used by medical big boys, such as Johns Hopkins to help people heal and deal with chronic pain and depression. If you can’t sit still, there are walking meditations. There is also music, headphones, and fifteen minutes of just sitting, trying not to think, and listening to soothing music. Read some Jon Kabat-Zin and discover the joys of responding, not reacting to life’s craziness; it will help you separate the emergencies from the emerging challenges.
  3. Smile. It takes fewer muscles in your face to smile than frown. So turn it upside down. Smiling at others lowers your cortisol (stress-related hormone) and reduces theirs too. Do yourself this small, itty-bitty favor: smile!
  4. Take your vacations. We’re all a victim of this, especially living in the valley. How many times do you hear people say, “I’ll check my emails while I’m in Mexico?!” Don’t do it. Stop it. Let it go (yes, like that annoying Frozen song). Making the time for yourself to unplug, be with your friends, family, or simply by yourself resets your brain. To rehash an old metaphor, ‘Cemeteries all over the world are full of people who we couldn’t get the job done without ‘. Don’t be that person that works tirelessly until you can’t move anymore. Take a break. Reset. You’ll be more productive when you get back from the break, and you may even have a new, fresh perspective to go with it.

We’ll always have to work – unless those lottery numbers pan out (fingers crossed!). And most of enjoy what we do, which is a relief. But truly, our bodies are not built on a Silicon Valley model, or made to sit all day in front of a computer, staring vacantly at blinking screens. Improving your self, improves your ability to do your business. We need to move, expand, and contract all of our muscles in order for the circulation to keep the brain working efficiently and with style.  We need to interact with one another in a way that keeps our creativity fresh, and our adrenals in check – so get up and get out for a walk; it only takes a few minutes to refresh and re-energize.

 

Can’t I just do this social media thing myself?

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Yes, sure! Of course! Absolutely.

The real questions are: do you have the time? Do you want to keep up on it consistently, week after week, throwing out ideas, writing things down, and flushing them out into a comprehensive blog with follow up tweets and posts?

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Creating content for my business; where do I start?

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A lot of businesses, big and small, work hard and spend a lot of money to get their message out to customers. And yet it’s still amazing that companies spends thousands of dollars on branding and design – they’ll spend significantly less on creating good, solid content that represents their shiny, polished brand.

I visualize in metaphors (and out loud, and write in first person, so bear with me). Imagine – you’re sitting alone, single at a table in a coffee shop, and an extremely attractive person comes up to your table, turns toward you to say something with a lovely smile, and then … not one intelligible word comes out of their mouth. Moment lost.

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