The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Guest Post: Turning your passion into a profitable business

We go on and on here at the Marketing Mix about how a "real" job is not the sure thing it was for previous generations of gold-watch-and-full-pension retirees. Couple that with the rise in restlessness among an underchallenged, overburdened working population and you have the perfect conditions for striking out on your own. But how?

Christine L. Dennison, a fellow member of that amazing advice resource, the Ask Liz Ryan mailing list, recently answered that very question on the list with her own story about creating her job coaching business. It came from a place I think is so wise--creating a business around your own natural skills and passion--and was so helpful and well-written, I asked her if she minded sharing it here. Chris graciously accepted, and even agreed to author a few more guest posts, which I love: always great to get posts from a professional writer!

I set up my business twenty years ago when I decided that I really didn't want to go back to my corporate life when we started our family. I thought about what I could possibly do that people would be willing to pay for, and that I could do from home. I had been working for 15 years, had just spent 8 years as a headhunter, but had no desire to continue going after corporate clients -- I loved the process, but had always been frustrated that I wasn't getting paid to help anyone but those "perfect" candidates at the top of the food chain. I had developed skills in writing résumés, and I understood the hiring process.

I started by mailing a letter to everyone I knew (previous colleagues, friends, Lamaze class alums, etc.), announcing my new business. I self-published a one-page quarterly newsletter and looked for cheap advertising in school event brochures, village directories, etc. I bit the bullet and spent big bucks (for me) for a one-inch ad in the Donnelley Yellow Pages. Gradually, the business came. When the Internet came along, I added a website. Business was steady.

One challenge for you is to start charging for what you now do for free. You'll want to enlist your current network to help you in your marketing -- maybe continuing to help your current group for free and charging only new clients, especially since your current group is your best resource for new business. Since you're good at networking, you can now apply those skills and use those contacts to promote your business.

Christine Dennison, celebrating 19 years as The Job Search Coach, helps people find jobs they love through her résumé writing and job search coaching services. She offers a wealth of practical advice from her previous experience as a headhunter, as a corporate HR manager and trainer, and in business operations and marketing.

Ask Liz Ryan is the online community based on the workplace, work/life and networking advice of author, commentator and advisor Liz Ryan. Members use the group to get advice from Liz and from one another on careers, business, networking and work/life issues. Its mission is to support working people at the intersection of work and life.

Excellent ideas from my market

Last Friday I took the train up to Boston for the day to give a brown bag lunchtime talk at Sun Microsystems for a couple of their affinity groups: Asian-American Diversity Network and Women@Sun.

This was not a gig I pursued. It came directly from my market. One of the readers of my tips responded to one of them with a request to speak. I don't even know how he got on my list (he couldn't remember either) but it didn't matter. He'd been receiving my tips for a while and felt the material was relevant to him and his colleagues: an audience I didn't even know existed.

So I tailored my "Networking Nuts 'n Bolts" for his group of IT professionals. It was a 90-minute session and I didn't even get through all the ideas, they were so engaged in the hands-on workshop and the actual networking. So I may "need" to go back and give a half day or full day session.

This is what's possible. But that's not all.

After the event, I was approached by a woman in the audience who asked how my mentoring works. She wondered if I could work with her on her networking skills. "I could make it part of my professional development plan for next year."

Yes, what a great idea. Another one I would not have thought of. Helping employees as part of their professional development.

I love it when ideas for new services and new markets come from the market itself. That's what I mean when I say, "everything flows from the market."

Has anything like that happened to you lately?

When the rules change, should you?

A couple of weeks ago, we got an email from a reader about an interesting--and rather horrifying--experience they had while job hunting via the Internet.

After applying for a web creative director position with a major (and I do mean major) financial news brand, this person received a cheery email reply requesting not more information, not a telephone conference, not additional samples, but to submit four--that's F-O-U-R--home page mockups to demonstrate how she'd design for various news events. And the fourth? Was (and I quote):

"Re-designing the website in total, as if you had a blank slate."

To add insult to injury, the email from this potential employer came in on a Friday afternoon; our hero was asked to submit sketches by the following Friday.

On spec. In a week. For a major financial news outlet. For, as one person on KERNSPIRACY, the designers' mailing list, put it, a creative director position--a "big picture", supervisory role, not an in-the-trenches design gig.

According to this designer, who had been working solo for years before deciding to get back into full-time employment, this wasn't an isolated event, but rather "...is typical of what's happened in the Internet market for full-time jobs."

On KERNSPIRACY, most people expressed at the very least surprise, and at the worst, resignation. Changing economy, changing times.

So I put it to you: is that it? Times are tough, the rules are different, go with the flow? Would you give away work for free? Some work? This much work at the very beginning of the interview process?

Ever?

I have my own thoughts on this. I think it's perfectly reasonable, in the course of the hiring process, to discuss with a potential candidate how he might handle certain situations, or to query her on ideas she had for what needed improvement and how she might address them.

But this seems egregious.

What do you think?

Guest Post: How I got a speaking gig in a market I've been targeting

NY-based feng shui and organizing expert Ann Bingley Gallops saw a lot of similarities between her field and that of the professional real estate stager. Here's her story on how she got her foot in the door of a local stagers' association meeting.

I am a Feng Shui and professional organizing expert. I recently taught a workshop on “Feng Shui in the Bedroom” which had several attendees from my association, the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). One of the workshop attendees is an organizer as well as a professional “stager”. Let’s call her Linda.

Staging and real estate in general are markets I am targeting. I provide Feng Shui and organizing insights that help these professionals create an environment that looks great and has good “chi energy flow” so they’re more appealing to potential home buyers.

The next time I saw Linda, a few weeks later at a NAPO chapter meeting, she told me she’d implemented some of the tips she had learned at my workshop and that her clients had been thrilled.

We got into a conversation and I offered to put her on my newsletter mailing list. It just so happened that the newsletter I’d sent out a few days prior had been about the similarities between staging and Feng Shui, so I sent her that one to start off with.

The very next day she wrote to ask me if I’d like to speak to the local association of Real Estate Stagers! So I am on the calendar for one of their upcoming chapter meetings!

P.S. I also asked her for a testimonial for my website, which she was happy to provide :)

How'dja get that!?: Eileen Sutton on the Long Game

Another in our occasional series about how people got great gigs. Eileen Sutton, principal of EF Sutton Creative, describes the means to a very spectacular end. Sometimes, it's less about what you do than what you've been doing all along...

The project was a 6-panel capabilities brochure and several sell sheets for a global financial company. The fee was substantial and I was glad.

How did I get it?

It all started years ago when I joined a professional organization in the financial field. After a year or two, I started doing pro bono work for this organization's yearly events. The president of the organization, Jackson B., was naturally well connected in financial services. He knew me, I knew him, but I wasn't sure I was even on his radar.

When Dave S, the marketing VP for this global financial company, called me for the job -- ostensibly out of the blue -- I was excited to be considered for an ambitious assignment direct-to-client, especially because I wanted to be writing more in this particular financial arena.

When I first met Dave he didn't need to look at my samples. We talked for several hours, and I think he could see I was able to deliver. I had worked for several other companies like Dave's, so he had a natural faith in my ability. Dave also knew one of my clients.

In the final moments of the interview, he happened to mention that he and Jackson were friends, and that Jackson had referred me. I had no idea.

The moral of the story: you never know who your brand ambassadors are out there, and I was glad that my pro bono work paid off. Naturally I am sending Jackson a gift to express my deep gratitude for the referral.

Got a great story—with or without life-changing lesson—of your own? Let us know!

How'dja get that!?: A New Series

In her work with creative businesspeople, Ilise is constantly asked how to go about meeting great prospects, closing sales, and a host of other issues critical to making a business successful.

She also comes across a whole lot of great stories about how people actually landed terrific jobs, and very wisely figured that letting people tell some of these stories would make for an interesting and useful exercise.

So here is the first installment in an occasional series, "How'dja get that!?" and it's a humdinger of a tale about almost losing a big fish because of a small (and, through the oh-so accurate lens of hindsight, obvious) oversight. Sheri L Koetting of MSLK tells the story...

MSLK was approached by Krysten Brown of the Wall Street Journal to redesign their existing Weekend Edition website targeting advertisers. They were hoping to convey the sophisticated mood of the lifestyle content in the WSJ print edition in an effort to attract more luxury sponsorship.

Krysten had recently rediscovered MSLK and had become a fan of our work. When Krysten was still in college she worked under MSLK partner, Sheri L Koetting, at another design firm.  This firm had many interns coming and going, so it was easy to get lost in the shuffle. Yet, Krysten and Sheri had forged a friendship through their working relationship.

When it came time to take on this important project, Krysten kindly thought to recommend MSLK. This was quite an honor because our competition included a world-renowned web design firm.

MSLK had several conversations with the WSJ team, and when we finally met with the key decision maker, we arrived armed with samples of our work and many detailed thoughts about the website. However, the decision maker only wanted to know what we felt about the newspaper. Despite all of our preparation, we had overlooked the obvious. We had never actually studied the paper itself, and we faced a huge embarrassment when the question came up. We left that meeting with our hats in our hands. Back in our studio we proclaimed to our staff that we had lost the job. In all of our project research, we had lost sight of the big picture and the end product.

We really wanted the project, so we wrote a personal note to the decision maker and the team, apologizing for our oversight. The decision maker was impressed with our business acumen as well as our creative talents, and the job was awarded to us shortly thereafter.

This project taught us two very important lessons: a) you never know where your next job will come from and b) never lose sight of the end product.

View the final site here.

Got a great story—with or without life-changing lesson—of your own? Let us know!