This week the When I Grow Up Coach posted an inspiring guest post by Tara Gentile that discusses You’re Ambitious.  Now What?  You’re going to love this one!

Ever wondered what rich people do different?  The Feel Good Lifestyle shared a list of 17 Things Rich People Do Differently.  You’ll be surprised by what’s on the list.

Jess of Epheriell Design posted an amazing guest post this week that delves into the difficult question, How Do You Realize Your Creative Dreams AND Stay Sane?  An Interview with the Maven Circle Girls.

Is ‘write an e-book’ on your to-do list for 2012?  If so, you’ll definitely want to read this post by Giga Om that explains Why E-books Will Be Much Bigger Than You Can Imagine.

This week Expert Enough wrote a great article that discusses 5 Avoidable Things Keeping You From Getting Good.  If you’ve wanted to get good, and I mean ‘really good’, at your creative work, you’ll want to read this post!

{Featured image via Dear Lillie}

Link Hype 2-24-12 originally appeared on Create Hype on February 24, 2012.

So let’s talk some more about mission. While every potential customer might be initially impressed by amazing products and smart marketing campaigns, savvy customers want to get behind brands that are doing something good in the world.

Check out these stats from a study by Nike comparing Generation X consumers to Generation Y—it’s kind of fascinating:

-61 percent of 13 to 25 year-olds feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world.

-81 percent have volunteered in the past year.

-69 percent of Gen Y consumers consider a company’s social and environmental commitment when deciding where to shop.

-83 percent will trust a company more if it is socially/environmentally responsible.

Not only is “mission” important to drive your business, it’s clearly important to drive your buyers. This is not to say that you need to make thousands of dollars in donations to non-profits or start the next Tom’s Shoes. But you do need to root your business in a mission & live it authentically every day. It could be as simple as partnering with a local charity for an event or simpler still be a mantra you spread every day through your marketing efforts & interactions with customers, or even within the products you create.

So I’m going to put a little challenge to you if you have yet to discover the mission that roots your indie business. Four questions. Journal it, ponder it, blog it, create from it. Just do it. Get those roots dug in & get growing.

1. Why do you do what you do?

2. How do you want your indie business to change the world (even a little bit)?

3. What are some big initiatives you can work on with your tribe to further this mission?

4. Now let’s simplify. Can you think of 3 uber-easy ways you can live, breathe, and

communicate this mission every day?

I’d love to hear your answer to #1 in the comments!

The “Why” instead of the “What” originally appeared on Create Hype on February 23, 2012.

When you’re first starting out, it’s tempting to price your product according to your
competitors’ prices. But working from your competitors’ line sheet doesn’t take into
account what it costs to deliver your finished product into your customers’ hands.

To find the actual cost of your product you’ll need a few numbers:

Labor: What it costs to assemble your product and pay yourself. If have a staff member, their pay can go in here too. While it’s often tempting to devalue your personal labor, because you’re doing what you love, resist it. Paying yourself a fair wage lets you keep doing what you love by putting food on your table and money in your bank account.

Material: The cost of the raw materials that make up your product. This can include
packaging and hang-tags.

Overhead: The cost of doing business, including rent, power, phone, internet, shipping
and any other expenses you incur while doing business.

One of the easiest ways to work out your COGS is to take it monthly. Figure out your
monthly labor, material and overhead expenses, and divide it by the number of
products you can make in a month. It’s also wise to add in a small margin, 30% or so, to
cover any extra costs you incur.

Labor + Material + Overhead = Cost of Goods Sold x 30%

As time passes, the numbers in this equation will change. Your power bill may rise,
you’ll decide to rent a dedicated workspace, or you could even find a more competitive
materials price. Reevaluate your pricing equation at least yearly to ensure you’re not
losing money.

Before you find your wholesale price there’s one more number to add into the equation:

Profit: This is what your business earn from your product.

Profit is often misunderstood as the money you pay yourself, but it’s actually what you will invest back into your business to help it grow by doing things like hiring staff, buying
equipment or renting a workspace. Profit is key to the longevity of your business, so
build it into your pricing from the beginning.

Now your equation looks like this:

Labour + Material + Overhead = COGS X 30% + Profit = Wholesale price

Now on to retail pricing. For many new companies, the most simple method is
multiplying your wholesale price by 2.

Wholesale Price x 2 = Retail Price

This is the amount you’ll charge direct consumers who buy from you face-to-face, online
or at a trade show. As your business grows, you’ll want to raise the number by which
you multiply your wholesale price as high as 3 or 4.

As I said at the top, pricing is part art and part science. You’ll have to work with your
numbers to find a price that works in your market, brings in the money you need to
sustain your business, and considers the funds you’ll need to take your business to the
next level.

{Featured image via Regina’s Studio}

Pricing Your Products Correctly originally appeared on Create Hype on February 22, 2012.

The You Economy levels the playing field! The last 150 years of business have been about “bigger is better” or rather “bigger is the only thing that matters.”

The Great Transition and the coming You Economy mean that you are in control. You’re in control of what you buy and what you sell. You’re in control of the values you infuse into your transactions. You’re in control of how much you make and where that money goes.

The You Economy thrives on creativity & innovation — it’s what we’ve been lacking! — and creative entrepreneurs have that in spades.

Technology has made it easier than ever to communicate your message and share your art. The public is hungry for it. Commerce comes naturally.

Speak from your heart. Don’t worry about being “professional” just worry about being a professional YOU! You don’t need to put on a mask or create a caricature of what a business owner is supposed to be.

Write in the first person. Use the language you actually use. Employ video & audio whenever appropriate to tell the story. Talk with your customers not just at them!

The Art of Earning LIVE will teach you a complete way to look at your business – from start to finish. You’ll discover what the foundations of your business need to be for people to rally with you. You’ll learn how working with & observing your customers allows you to serve them better. And you’ll learn how selling is a learning process — not just tired old techniques and used car salesman language.

It’s my most complete business training to date!

If you’ve ever wanted to see how Tara could rock your business beliefs, you’ll definitely want to check out the virtual Art of Earning LIVE.  And don’t forget, today’s the last day!

Last Chance to Spend a Whole Day with Tara Gentile! originally appeared on Create Hype on February 21, 2012.

Product: 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion

Creator: Tara Gentile

Claim to Fame: Blogger and business coach extraordinaire behind TaraGentile.com

Star Rating: 4 Stars!!

What it includes:

• 41 page e-book
• Planner to help you schedule 12 months of posts

What I loved about it!

The prompts!  This book is called 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion for a reason!  Tara gives 52 prompts to inspire an entire year’s worth of posts!  The prompts range from obstacles you’ve overcome, in-progress products, asking for suggestions, introducing a friend, and spotlighting a customer.  Are you getting excited?  The best part is that each prompt can inspire more than one post!  Also, Tara stresses the importance of changing up the format of your blog posts so there’s no need to worry about writing tons of content for each post.

What makes Tara’s e-book unique?

Tara showed me how to get into the ‘why’ of my blog.  How can it convey the specialness of my business?  What do my fans want to read?  Her e-book really helped me delve into the passion behind my business, which is what needs to shine through my blog.  After all, people don’t follow blogs because they have great SEO and high Google rankings.  They follow them because they connect with the voice and passion of the blogger.

Best of the best?

Planner!  At the end of the e-book, Tara threw in a little planner (for the  whole year!) that helped me write my ideas and schedule my posts.  No more midnight rush to finish a blog post for me!  I feel so confident about my blog now that I know what my next post is going to be days before it goes live!

Are you ready to take charge of your blog and truly inspire your fans?  52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion will help you come up with enough posts to keep you writing for an entire year!  Tara understands the fears behind blogging but if you want your business to shine, you need to let your fans get to know you and the desires that fuel your big, beautiful, business dreams.  Tara’s ebook will only be available until March so grab it before it disappears!

52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion by Tara Gentile originally appeared on Create Hype on February 20, 2012.

This post is written for writers but it applies to ANY business.  A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing destroys the myth that Amazon Will Destroy You.  Great advice to make your business last!

Twitter can be a major time waster so I’m happy that Kikolani shared this great post on Buffer Review: My Favorite Time Saving Twitter Tool.  You’re going to love it!

Tara Gentile hit it out of the ballpark again with her post that proclaims, No More Excuses: Claim Your Work.  Get ready for some strong reactions.

This week Men With Pens write a no-nonsense, eye-opening post on Why You Should Embrace ‘Icky’ Sales and Marketing.  This is something every business owner needs to read.

Tara Sophia Mohr shared some wonderful and powerful advice this week when she laid out the 10 Rules For Brilliant Women.  How many are you already following?

{Featured image via What Katie Does}

Link Hype 2-17-12 originally appeared on Create Hype on February 17, 2012.

Possibly you feel overwhelmed by the thought of adding one more thing to your to do list. Perhaps you feel like you have nothing to say in a newsletter. Or maybe you think it is too difficult, time consuming or expensive to send out a quality newsletter.

It is time to dispel those misconceptions and embrace email marketing as the perfect strategy for any type of biz, of any size and at any stage.

Here’s why:

1. Signing up for a newsletter gives people something to do when they come across your business and like it. Not every visitor to your business is ready to buy: some are just browsing; some have happened across your business by accident; some are just curious; some are just plain not ready for what you sell. A newsletter is a simple, low risk call to action for fans, customers & visitors.

2. When people sign up for a newsletter, they are telling you they want to hear from you. They are giving you their permission to contact them about your business. The marketing you do with your newsletter is directed to people who are already interested in your business. That makes clicking ‘send’ feel so much easier! It is a lot easier to sell your thing to people who want to hear about it.

3. Most marketing we do for our business puts the ball in the consumer court. You hand out business cards, post facebook updates, get your website online, or place ads for your product – these all rely on the hope that a.) customers will come across your site/ad/update in their busy lives and then b.) remember to visit again or call you when they need your thing. A newsletter lets you control the ball. You get to send the right information, straight into the hands of people who want to hear from you.

4. The question I get asked the most from little biz builders is “What are some ways I can promote my business?” Everyone is looking for a low cost but effective way to do marketing. Guess what? This is it. if you use a platform like mailchimp, email marketing is

• free (for a very long time anyhow)
• very easy (mailchimp takes care of sign up forms, subscriptions, autoresponders, branding, templates and more!)
• and won’t take much time (once you have everything set up all you have to do is pop in your content each time you send out a an email)

5. Email marketing is flexible. You can make your ‘newsletter’ be anything you want it to be – a letter, a magazine, an image gallery, a link round up, an ecourse, a newspaper…. the sky is the limit really! Create something fabulous to match your brand, appeal to your right people, and express your own unique expertise and style. Give your newsletter a great name and have the mission of blowing the socks off of your subscribers.

I always tell the biz builders I chat with to do what they love, to not get overwhelmed by all the things they ‘should’ do, and to do things their way. The reason I like to recommend newsletters as a biz strategy is because you can make it fit with your own biz goals, priorities and style. And it does not have to be another ‘thing’ to add to the list, newsletters fit in really well with strategies you are already using such as social media marketing, blogging, word of mouth, strategic business relationships, generosity marketing and much more!

When done well, list building and email marketing can be one of the best strategies you add to your business. It doesn’t have to be perfect right away, just get started. Have some fun with it and your right people will too. You can perfect your ideas as you go. =)

{Featured image via Design Work Life}

The Top 5 Reasons You Need A Newsletter For Your Little Biz originally appeared on Create Hype on February 16, 2012.

In case people don’t know about you and your amazing business, would you mind sharing what you do?

I spin web dreams into reality. Or, in a less esoteric way, I build online spaces for creative entrepreneurs. I help them find their visually-charged voice with a lovingly ruthless vision and a gentle touch. We write love letters to their People and bask in brilliance. Beautiful design for beautiful people.

A certified, card-carrying code monkey from the trenches of computer science, I bootstrapped my way into business ownership with fifty bucks on my credit card and a head full of dreams.

Since launching violetminded Design in 2009, I’ve helped over a hundred gorgeoustacular people take a step towards their Big Dream through Bold Design that truly captures the essence of who they are, what they do, and why they do it.

I ruthlessly (and lovingly) get to the root of “why” in order to get to the very visual “what”. The violetminded process is a combination of psychology, science, and good ol’ intuition. Each step is designed to delight and dazzle as we dance our way into the history books.

You get to rock out with so many amazing ladies and gentlemen at violetminded Design!  What has that opportunity allowed you to give to others and what has it given you?

My very first real paying client was Allissa Haines. She paid me the most money I’d ever received for a design and said to me, “Amanda, I think you’re brilliant. Now brilliant up my website.” She took a chance on me. It took one person to believe in me and my biz to bolster me from shoddy-broke-ass-n00b to brilliant-breeds-brilliance-biznez-owner.

Because of that investment, I’ve taken myself more seriously (in a non-serious kind of way) and been able to focus my fire on delivering a luxurious process alongside a beautiful end-product. All it took was one person. And now? I get to BE that one person to my clients. How awesome is that?

Did you ever imagine you would do so much in your creative business?  From web design to biz advice, you seem to do it all!

If you sat down and had a conversation with nineteen-year-old Amanda, she would have laughed in your FACE if you told her everything twenty-something Amanda had been up to. She’d tell you, “I’m not biznez minded. No WAY I’d be working for myself. I don’t have the discipline…” Etc. Etc.

That said, no. I honestly didn’t see myself where I am today. Not only am I running an incredible location independent web studio, I’m doling out biznez advice about how not to suck in your first year. Because seriously? I SUPER SUCKED. You don’t even want to know. (Okay, maybe you do. More on that later.)

How long did it take you to embrace and rock your personal voice, which comes out shining on your site?

I struggled a lot with finding my biznez voice. If you look back at my Twitter feed over the last four years, I’ve remained fairly consistent in my conversational style of writing. But in biz? Oh, the biz writing kept faltering and failing and just… ugh. It was awful. I would try this crazy trick where I would mix corporate with conversational only to end up with a garbled mess of insanity at the end of the sales page.

Bad. News. Bears.

When I put violetminded’s site on hiatus in August, I took a full five months to figure out how to retool my writing and offerings. I was sick and tired of sounding disingenuous when I’m anything but. When it came time to restructure my site, I knew that it was time to go big or get gone. So… I did what any love-struck biznez owner would do: I wrote a love letter to my People. And then I turned it into a sales page.

Since relaunching in late January, I’ve made it my mission to let my voice shine through everything I do. From sales pages to writing articles to conducting interviews — if you can’t feel the love shining through my voice, I’m doing something wrong.

You and your business have evolved so much over the past few years.  Was there ever a time where you worried about failing or met a hard obstacle?  How did you overcome it and push forward?

OH GAWD YES. In my first year of biznez, I almost gave up entirely. I was fed up with terrible clients that didn’t respect me and wanted the cheap-o option. I wasn’t worried about failing anymore. I was ACTIVELY failing. It was in October of that year (around the same time I found out I was pregnant with my son) that I fell smack dab in the middle of a deep, dark place of sad-face-making.

I was ready to pull the plug on violetminded and head back to a life of being a Code Monkey.

It was around that time that I started to work with Molly Mahar at Stratejoy. She encouraged me to try out for her Season Four bloggers to help me work through this Quarter-Life Crisis. It was a combination of cathartic writing and fierce determination — no way in hell was I going to head back to the salt mines of software with a baby on the way — that helped me to claw my way to… today.

Along the way, I’ve had a lot of doubts — both about myself and about my abilities as a biznez owner and designer. I’m not a classically trained artist or graphic designer. Hell, I can’t draw and I taught myself design principles from books and designers I admire.

But what I discovered during a session of biznez coaching was that that’s not what my thing is anyway. I’m not just a web designer. I do more than move things around in HTML and CSS.

I’ve created an EXPERIENCE around a process that never stuck out as positive. People would come to me and say, “Okay, my last designer was a nightmare…” I didn’t want that anymore. I wanted people to come to me and say, “I want your process. I want to understand design. I want to collaborate.”

Since getting really, really clear on my Why, I’ve been able to take obstacles and sinking ships with a grain of salt. If it doesn’t serve my people, it doesn’t matter. I take mistakes and failures as opportunities (even if in the past, I would just curl up in a ball and cry for three days) for improvement and great (r)evolution.

Want to know more about the amazing advice Amanda shares on violetminded Design?  Check out the site!  You’ll find some great interviews with big business ladies.

And darlings, that’s pretty much all I could ever ask for.

Interview with Violetminded Design originally appeared on Create Hype on February 15, 2012.

What’s that one thing? The email opt-in form. What’s that? Every sign-up box you see on other websites where they ask for your email address so you can get a discount/get blog updates/get insider newsletter tips/etc. Why are these so important? Two words: email marketing.

The Direct Marketing Association puts email marketing’s ROI for 2011 at $40.56 for every $1 invested.

Sign-up forms are the baseline requirement for email marketing. Hook them up with an email marketing service like MailChimp, Aweber, or Constant Contact and you have yourself the beginnings of a quality email marketing program.

What makes a good opt-in form? It’s all about conversion – getting your visitors to part with their heavily guarded email address.

The Biggest Mistake You’re Making With Your Website That’s Losing You Business originally appeared on Create Hype on February 14, 2012.

Product: Renaissance Business – Make Your Multipotentiality Your Day Job

Creator: Emilie Wapnick

Claim to Fame: Blogger, coach, entrepreneur, speaker, and multipotentialite behind Puttylike.

Star Rating: 4 Stars!!

What it includes:

• 103 page e-book
• 10 pages of worksheets and exercises
• Launch schedule and checklist
• Free email updates

What I loved about it!

This book was written by a Renaissance soul for a Renaissance soul.  Emilie understands the urge to dabble in everything (she herself moved from music to film to law in college) and she figured out how to build a business that not only supports her multitude of passions but nourishes them!  In her book, she shows you how to build a business foundation, a theme, that encompasses your passions, and then delves into how to let that foundation set you apart from the single-niche competition.  Yes, you can rock your competition’s socks off with you unusual combination of interests!  Promise!

What makes Emilie’s book unique?

Besides embracing the fact that most creative people NEED to play in many fields to feel engaged, excited, and alive, Emilie adds a chapter on facing fear and recognizing resistance.  These two emotions can crush a business dream and limit your growth.  She shares the advice she gives her coaching clients to help you realize that fear means you’re rocketing to your full potential.

Best of the best?

An entire system!  That’s what this book represents: the entire process of compiling your creative passions, turning them into a business foundation, and then creating a site and community that broadcasts your services, message, and products.  It’s the system she gives her coaching clients and it’s what she used herself to go from a college graduate to an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, and coach.

If you’ve never felt comfortable in a ‘one-niche’ business model or if you dabble in multiple areas of study, this is the book for you.  Emilie bucked the system when she wrote this book.  Renaissance Business helps you create that business you’ve always dreamed of, the one that supports all of your interests (even knitting with cat hair), and shows you how to market it to the people who most want what you’re offering.  As a Renaissance soul who loves art, writing, Renaissance history, and folklore, this book made me realize that I could do even more to combine all of my loves and reach a whole new audience of raving fans who love not just my artwork but my writing as well!

Renaissance Business by Emilie Wapnick originally appeared on Create Hype on February 13, 2012.