In my last post I wrote about 3 Awesome Ideas You Can Use to Increase Response to your blog. Another awesome idea is to make sure you’re writing about what people want to read. So I’m here today to check in to see what’s working and what could be better.

The purpose of this blog is to share design & marketing insight that powerfully supports you and your business. Whether you’ve been reading the posts since launch several months ago or have started more recently, your opinion matters.

So if you’d have just a few minutes to comment, I’d love to know:

• What about this blog do you find most useful?
• How could it be better? Are there topics, formats or changes that would help you in your business?

It would be great to have you comment and get some discussion going here. But if you’re shy, I’d also welcome your thoughts to me at Caryn@InspiredRaw.com.

Thanks for reading this blog. I look forward to sharing more content that makes your business the biggest party ever!

Beatrice Johnston of Raw Pathways spoke with me this week as part of her series of interviews for Vegetarian Awareness month.

Check out the interview on my vegetarian / raw path, not only to learn a little more about me, but also to get ideas for your own business. You’ll find out:

• Where I was when I began to go veg and what animal played a key role… then think about whether you have a fun story that’s engaging your potential clients.
• What was the big mistake I made trying to go raw. Are your clients falling into the same trap?
• Which action Beatrice took after the interview. Is it something that would help you or your clients save time and enjoy food more?

Making Inspired Choices for Your Blog

This interview series was an inspired choice for Beatrice and I hope it will spark some creative ideas for your blog. It’s a great fit because Raw Pathways reaches out to people wherever they are on the dietary spectrum and encourages them to move forward with more healthy choices. By presenting a series of interviews, she showed that veg eaters are in a variety of places and got where they are in different ways. The series reflects her philosophy and approach that there’s not one “right” answer.

Bringing in other voices makes Beatrice’s message on the benefits of healthy eating more compelling, because it provides additional validation from others who’ve enjoyed the results. For anyone who may think veg or raw is difficult for all but experienced pros like Beatrice, the different speakers show that lots of people make these changes and that they do it in ways that work for them.

So what can you make work for your business from this example?

1. Consider how your blog content reflects what’s special about your business. Is your “Popular Plus” or point of distinction coming through… or does your blog read just like many others?
2. Can you bring in other voices to reinforce what you’re doing? Are there interviews and articles that would support your message, but with an additional perspective that would help people?
3. How about interviewing some of your clients? What a great chance to learn more about how they chose you and what they’ve gotten out of it. You’ll not only discover important ideas for your business but sharing these stories could bring some exciting new clients your way.

And while you’re at my interview at The Raw Routine blog, be sure to check out the site. Beatrice is a design pro and you’ll definitely get some helpful ideas from the great job she’s done.

Thanks to Beatrice for the invitation to be part of this wonderful series. Enjoy the audio and let me know if it inspires new ideas for your blog!

The ad at left drew my interest when I saw it in the paper. Although I’ve been consulting to animal protection organizations for years, I don’t usually pay attention to the weekly ads for local rescue groups and shelters. But this one stood out.

Why is This Ad So Compelling?

The headline, “Certified Pre-Owned Cats,” links the cat adoptions to purchasing a pre-owned vehicle, particularly Mercedes and BMW that do a lot of promotion in the Washington, DC area. Why would the group attract adopters by doing this?

Well, the image of buying a “used car” is that you are taking a risk on something that might not be any good. And of course the “used car salesman” phrase suggests someone who was trying to take you for a ride.

So some car brands, especially upscale lines, have repositioned used cars as “pre-owned vehicles.” They call them “certified” to emphasize the care they take to provide you a high quality car.

Based on my work in animal protection, I know that people sometimes feel similarly about bringing home a shelter animal as they feel about buying a used car. Potential adopters may worry that they are taking a risk that the animal they choose will turn out to be sick or badly behaved.

The ad recognizes the parallels in how people may feel about used cars and shelter animals. Then it cleverly borrows the car solution for the cats!

• By using a headline related to upscale cars, it immediately raises the perceived value of the homeless cats.
• By noting the “multi-point inspection” and the “CatFacts history” it promotes benefits that enable people to adopt with confidence.
• With the copy “many models and colors now in stock” and “new models arriving every day,” it offers some humor, making the rescue group seem like a fun place to get a pet.

Making Your Ads (and Website and other communications) Stand Out

What can you take from this example to grow your own business?

1. Understand your potential clients and what barriers they may perceive to doing business with you. By recognizing that potential adopters may have concerns about the animals they’re adopting, the rescue group was able to create an ad that addresses that perception. Market research is a great way to learn more about how potential clients think about your business.
2. Look for instant metaphors or stories that help people understand you. People get “certified pre-owned cars” and instantly form a whole new vision of cat adoptions. What language or image can you use to make your business more familiar to people or to suggest something that sets you apart. Oasis Life Resources uses the term “Oasis” and corresponding images to position this coaching business as a safe, relaxing place to explore where you are and where you’re headed.
3. Do something different. This novel approach made the ad and the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation stand out among many other animal group ads on the page. What could make your ad or Website stand out? Look at examples from other companies or nonprofits doing what you do to see what could be different vs. what’s same-old, same-old.
4. Reflect your unique style. Especially if you’re a solopreneur, part of being different comes from who you are. If you’re like me, you may not always want to be too “out there,” because you’re worried that you won’t appear professional. But if you’ve got a professional look to your communications and communicate well, people will appreciate knowing who you really are. In this ad, the rescue group shows some of its organizational personality in its willingness to inject a little humor.

Congrats to Lost Dog Rescue Foundation in Arlington, Virginia for running this great ad and to Michigan Humane Society, that apparently originated the concept. If your ads or Website feel a little lost, consider these tips to bring home more new clients.

Sometimes when people ask me about eating raw, I joke that eating vegan wasn’t “out-there enough.” When you’re part of a tiny – albeit fabulous – minority, it’s easy to worry that people think you’re a little strange. And even to wonder if maybe you are. Or maybe you’re comfortable with being raw, but feel pressure from others that you’re not “raw enough.”

Are you stuck with any negative thoughts about what you’re doing with your diet or your work? Or maybe you have concerns that you go about things very differently than others do. Read on to see that your outside-the-mainstream lifestyle, very special business and unique way of doing things are absolutely terrific exactly because they’re not the same-old, same-old!

Today’s post comes from my business partner Sherry Essig, who helps professionals get unstuck. She and I have worked together as Priority Ventures Group for 15 years.

Normal is a Cycle on a Washing Machine

It’s also a town in Illinois and a style-setting in Microsoft Word.

But beyond that? Really, what exactly is normal?

Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus suggests these synonyms: usual, regular, ordinary, typical, commonplace, and run-of-the-mill.

I don’t know anyone who aspires to be any of that!

Yet at some point most of us have found ourselves thinking, “I’m weird for doing, thinking, saying, wanting [fill in your word] … I need to be more normal.”

But it never works.

You really, truly think it’s important to change. So you keep trying. And now you’re really stuck because you’re trying to be someone you’re not.

Now what?

One of the keys to getting unstuck is acknowledging and embracing who you are – quirks and all. In this case, you got stuck trying to be someone different, but it’s applicable to almost any case of stuck.

It doesn’t matter what works for anyone else; they aren’t you!

My client Barbara got caught in this trap a few years ago when she mentioned she’d been working on self-discipline and miserably failing. She is smart, successful, motivated, energetic, and extremely creative: not the typical profile of someone suffering from self-discipline issues.

“What has you feeling undisciplined?” I asked her.

“I look around at my peers and my boss, and they are all so much more disciplined. They come in, decide what they’re going to do when, and then do it. I need to be more like that; it’s a much more effective way to be.”

Who hasn’t fallen into the trap of thinking you’d be better if you were more like the super-organized, easy-going, or charismatic person down the hall?

Don’t get me wrong. I believe change and personal growth are critical to success and happiness – that’s why I do the work I do. But change is good only when it’s in service of being the best version of you. Otherwise, you become a square squeezing into a circle.

When Barbara actually visualized a more structured day, she blurted out, “If I scheduled my time that tightly, it would wring the creativity right out of me. Now that I think about it, I do get done what needs to be done, and maybe it’s okay that I do it differently.”

In fact, it’s more than okay; it’s what helps her thrive.

I recently came upon this quote from author Alice Walker: “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”

Not only are they still beautiful, they wouldn’t survive if you straightened them out to look more normal.

The same holds true for you.

About Sherry Essig

Sherry Essig helps professionals move from stressed and stuck to happier and more successful.

Executives, business owners, entrepreneurs, and service professionals such as attorneys and CPAs reach out to Sherry to get immediate relief and to continually live and work in a way that’s more fulfilling and centered.

Visit http://www.PriorityVenturesGroup.com to learn more and to get your free copy of “Ten Tips to Get Unstuck.”

In my last post, I discussed lessons learned from my first teleclass, “3 MUST-DO Steps for Websites that Get Results: How to Get MORE CLIENTS, Achieve MORE IMPACT and Earn MORE MONEY with Your Raw-Inspired Business“. Despite these missteps, response to the class was amazing and the recording is a fantastic tool for inspired businesses.

So what went right to get such great results despite some problems?

Value-packing the agenda
One of my mistakes was OVER-packing the agenda. But too many teleseminars deliver too little value, in my opinion. Although people may not pay money for a free class, they’re investing precious time. So I planned very meaningful content and communicated that clearly when promoting the class.

Making it Interactive
This can be scary if you haven’t done it before, but getting participants involved brings energy and realism to the call. The people who spoke on my call also offered some really helpful ideas that I wouldn’t have covered. And even if people don’t speak, or they’re listening to the recording, having them do something along with the class such as an activity or exercise increases the amount they retain.

Day-of Reminder
Because I’d mentioned the class often to my list members, I wondered if a day-of standalone email would be overkill. Hardly! I got numerous sign-ups from people who then benefited from the in-depth info the class provided. It makes sense. With busy schedules, often we don’t want to commit to something until the last minute. And I reminded everyone that they’d get access to the recording if the timing didn’t work.

Friending the Facebook RSVPs
Another mistake I made was not following up with the Facebook RSVPS early and often enough to make sure they’d registered via my site. But I did salvage the situation by sending friend requests to everyone who RSVP’d “yes” or “maybe” that wasn’t already a friend. This would be a great place to use a virtual assistant or maybe even a young neighborhood friend.

Listening to and Editing the Recording
Do you like to hear yourself on audio? If you’re like most people, probably not. But especially if you’re just starting out with teleclasses, listening to the recording is well worth any pain. I was able to identify important ways to improve delivery in future classes. And even more satisfying was using the free audio editor Audacity to smooth out a few of the bumps and produce a tighter, easier-to-listen-to recording that will really help people with their websites and their businesses.

Perhaps one of the best things I’ve done with this teleclass is recap the lessons learned with you! By thinking about what worked well and what could be better, I’m in a great position to maximize the impact of what I do in the future – not just classes, but events, launching new products and more! And since I’ve already received an interview to be a guest on another call (details soon), I’ll be putting my new findings to work right away.

How about you? Do you regularly recap lessons learned from your classes, events and products launches? Do you have any tips you can share?

In the future I’ll have a blog post about lessons learned from transferring my Website across hosts. But one I just caught was updating the source on your blog feed if it impacts your url! So subscribers may have missed a few recent posts. They’re all still  available at http://www.InspiredRawBlog.com.