I am very excited about the new product MailChimp acquired called, Tiny Letter. It is a very, very simple e-mail newsletter program that is much needed by most of my tiny clients. My team spends a lot of time teaching our small business clients how to set up the whole newsletter sign-up and templates in MailChimp so that they can send out a newsletter. MailChimp does offer tutorials, but there are so many options that my clients don’t even know which tutorial to watch.

Most of my small business clients don’t need anything fancy. They are never going to do fancy internet marketing and A/B testing of their content. But they do need to get a newsletter out to their clients/customers every so often with a great offer or an upcoming event. Love the Chimp, but MailChimp is pretty overwhelming for the very new blogger or small biz owner who is struggling just to get up to speed on their website and all that comes with that.

MailChimp is so smart. The Chimp knew this. Because they are free, people wanted to use them, but then some people were fussing that it was too much to learn and MailChimp didn’t have a stripped down version. They give away their Enterprise level program for free to people with lists less than 2,000. But what to do for the Mom and Pop shops? They bought Tiny Letter to give people for free!

A lot of people that should send out a newsletter, don’t. They might even have a sign-up form on their websites but [Read more...]

I am still reeling by the outpouring of love and support I got last week when I wrote about my dog, Clyde’s unexpected death. Sometimes, when I write my posts and newsletter I have to just “know” in an intellectual way that you all are out there reading my e-mails.  But this week, I got to experience the huge power social media has to reach out and touch us so deeply. I got  almost 400 e-mails from you all telling me you understood, sharing your stories about your pets, your losses, your businesses and so much more. What a huge gift this sharing was. I thank you for this.

If I was the truly savvy social media maven I would have thought to include the “Read More” tag on my newsletter to bring people back to my website where you could leave the comments there. Then, I could share all of the messages with you. But, I didn’t do that and maybe it was just a little more personal that way.

One of my friends wrote a little Haiku. Since it is not a 5-7-5 true Haiku, we called it a Joeku (my friend’s name is Joe)

Clyde died
from a pecan inside
I cried

And on a roll, I made a little modification to a t-shirt that I had.

I think it always helps bringing a little love and lightness to a sad situation.

Again thank you so much for being there.

Love,

Judi

For those of us in a creative field, it can be a bit unnerving to present our ideas or designs to our clients or employers.  I most always have some anxiety around this process.  And like anything in life, sometimes I hit the nail on the head the first time,  and other times, well,  it can take more than a bit longer to get it right and I really do want it to be just right.  This week, I missed the mark with one of my new clients. I know, I will be able to get it right and I think she knows it too.  But, nonetheless,  I really hate when I get it so wrong.

After getting the disappointing e-mail, I went ahead and got myself out the door to my favorite yoga class rather than  reacting to the “monkey talk” going on in my head encouraging me to stay home and work on it,  right then and there.  I saw it for what it was, just my people pleasing anxiety telling me to stop what I had planned and take some action that might calm the anxiety. I know better and sometimes am able to overcome  acting on the “feeling” and do the thing that is better for me.

So there I was in my yoga class, doing the Down Dog and watching those pesky thoughts creep back in with ideas about how I was going to change the design when I got home.  Oh, so relentless.  However, yoga teaches us to bring our thoughts back to the breath and to be there in the posture you are doing right then and there. It teaches us to stay in the room, stay in the moment,  breathe in, breathe out and to let go of all judgement about it. Easier said than done, but overtime it does get easier.

Then I started thinking about what the Honey Badger would do.  [Read more...]

The other day, I helped one of my clients get her newsletter sent out and by the time she returned home, someone called and engaged her services and five people signed up for one of her workshops. Now,the thing is, she knows how to send the newsletter herself, but her life is so busy, she just kept letting her newsletter get pushed to the back burner.

I sure know how that is. I have learned to employ a few cognitive tricks to help me out.  For example, If I didn’t schedule an appointment with my bookkeeper for every Wednesday morning, I know what would happen. I would mean to get to it tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and then the next thing I would know, it would be two weeks later with bills overdue.

Crazy how that happens. I can chase shiny objects all day doing the things I like or that are [Read more...]

Sunday morning, I was talking to one of our Bed and Breakfast guests about creativity, madness and business success (interesting breakfast convo huh?). The discussion was about creative potential and how some believe you have to have a bit or a lot of “crazy” to be creative.  I believe that most of us have creative potential and it is a matter of learning to access it. We don’t need to be living on the edge, manic or schizophrenic to get there.

But when our lives are chaotic or over-structured with obligations, or we are so busy doing the “right” thing or the “safe” thing, our creative inklings and desires do not have a chance to rise to the surface.  I like what Will Rogers said, “You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is”.

I speak from experience. I never knew I was an artist. I went barreling along my life getting a my doctorate [Read more...]