Category: Growing your business

  • Are your friends really referring business to you?

    I walked into a bar the other day. And I walked out with a terrific lesson about referral marketing. The girl ringing up my tab had gorgeous hair so I asked her where she got it done. Her reply was simply: “My friend, Leslie.” Then she turned and went back to ringing up my tab.…

  • Your business has a bra hooked to its claw, but that’s OK

    There is a family of owls that lives on our property in the high branches of a few 100-year-old eucalyptus trees. On one of those branches in one of those trees you can spy an owl perched majestically facing the sunset. Watching the sunset has always been a habit of ours. Especially if we are…

  • Where the heck are the customers, already? Getting it on with your knight in shining armor

    That pretty website you built, that killer copy, it isn’t going to make customers come. Entrepreneurs, like young single girls waiting for the day their prince will come, often dream that if they prepare enough, if they put out the right signals that customers will swoop in and save them from their life of cubicle…

  • The underused formula to getting all the clients you can handle

    When I was single I was on a quest to date a certain number of men. I wasn’t collecting notches on my bedpost or anything but I saw way too many of my friends meet, marry and then hate the wrong person. I instinctively knew that it was easy to get lulled into the perceived…

  • How I replaced my day job for the price of a couple of beers

    The short story is I unleashed the inner frickin’ awesomeness, gave everyone the virtual finger and plowed through all the negative talk like a horny gorilla that just spotted its mate. The long story is it took a lot of work to get rid of the fears holding me back and to develop the strength…

  • Why lifestyle design can lead to mind-blowing soul-gasms

    Last week I took two mind-blowing days off to find me. I finished up some projects and emailed clients telling them I’d be MIA for a couple of days and joined my husband and a couple of friends on a trip to find that cool, fun girl I was before the chains of responsibility so…

  • First step to changing your world: Wear fancy panties

    Today is the anniversary of the day I found myself in the middle of a Japanese Obon Festival in my laundry day underwear clutching a kimono to my chest. You see, last year I declared it my Year of Awesome—and looking back, it really was. Part of creating my Year of Awesome was to say…

  • Who are you? Why you need to define your business

    Even in a town known for its free thinking ways, the guy in stars and stripes hot pants riding a tall bike down the street in San Francisco stood out. He was as big as Thor, his flowing blond hair brushing across his shirtless back. Besides the hot pants he wore round, purple-lensed glasses and a wide grin. Whether it was drugs,…

  • Spotlight on Entrepreneurs: aSociete

    aSociete   Spotlight On: Vanessa Gabriel Founder, aSociete www.asociete.com   One of the most oft quoted bits of business advice tossed around out there is to stick with what you know. So for Vanessa Gabriel, founder of online discount shopping site aSociete it made little sense that a bunch of corporate suit types could sell…

  • The press release debate: Is it still relevant?

    Public relations is changing. This is a fact that is not lost on PR companies, bloggers or the press. It’s often lost on companies with news to release however. I get queries from a lot of clients still looking for a more traditional approach and who try to rebuff efforts to take a more contemporary…