It is hard to describe how much I loathe those lengthy sales letters with red ink and highlights and 22 testimonials of perky business owners who transformed their life or business by implementing a revolutionary "turn key system."

What infuriates me more is how despite my loathing and mockery of the format, I feel myself being lulled into buying whatever the horrible sales letter is selling.

I have talked about it with my friends  Havi Brooks and Nathan Bowers and we all agree there must be a way to sell useful things at the right price to people who need them without reverting to Vern the Car Dealer with greased-back hair and "a whopping deal for you."

So it was with great joy that I heard about a program that Havi developed with Naomi Dunford, perhaps the most hilarious copywriter/internet marketer/small business coach on the web entitled Self Promotion for Wimps.

Per their copy:

This is a 6 week power course for creative types, small business owners,and people who are (understandably) too busy freaking out to properly live their dreams.

Six weeks of learning, soothing, ass-kicking, fear erasing, question answering, and some other things that end with "ing".

It's a course for people who want to get their business -- sometimes referred to as "that thing that you've always wanted to do and maybe you might get paid a living wage for it someday but it's not really, you know, a business business" -- rocking and rolling.

It's for people who are ready to clear out the crap that's standing in the way of their awesome life and start having more fun and making some money doing it.

I cannot adequately convey to you how much this is needed.  For those of you who make plans and complete them, set high goals and knock them out of the park on a regular basis without a smidgen of self doubt, I bow to you.

For the rest of us, procrastination, demons, dirty self talk, lethargy and terror get in the way of realizing our dreams.  After awhile, it just becomes annoying, and it doesn't have to be that way.

So if this course fit the bill for you, I highly encourage you to take it. As I told Naomi:

"I saw your program and it looks EXCELLENT!  If I weren't scared out of my mind, doubting my worth, shoving Oreos down my throat and feeling not worthy writing my book, I would join you!!!"

I was only half-kidding.

Havi has a really unique take on procrastination and fear and has developed some ultra-cool tools for overcoming them.  Naomi is razor sharp, understands marketing inside and out and is terribly funny.  She also swears like a sailor, so make sure to hide your kids in the next room when participating in their calls.

They did develop an affiliate program, which I joined and you can use to get a special discount if you use my link.  Naomi says:  "Havi calls it a "partner" program because she's a hippie."

If you want to sign up, EfCN readers get a $30 discount when you type the word "Pam" (no quotes) in the coupon field.  Check it out and sign up here.

But wait, there's more!

Before I leave you, I think the "back story" of how Naomi and Havi joined forces is just as interesting as the program.

Some people tell you that to grow your business, you have to scour the web for "appropriate joint venture partners" that have a certain number of ezine subscribers, or Alexa ranking or press exposure.

In my experience, it is the exact opposite.  You trip over someone through a link on someone's blog, or notice them on Twitter.  And you fall head over heels in love and will do just about anything to hang out and work together.

Such is how Naomi described meeting Havi. And how Havi described the meeting as "Non-gross marketing and my Canadian love child."

This is where the really cool partnerships happen, people, by having fun, real, deep conversations with people you like about things you care about.

If I weren't so busy, I would be jealous.

Have a great weekend!

Two of my favorite mentors have some interesting programs going on:

Rich Sloan of StartupNation alerted me to the 2nd annual Home-Based 100 competition which highlights entrepreneurs like me who do work in the midst of laundry/toddler/toy/crumb-laden environments (wait, maybe that is only me -- the rest of you may have much cleaner home office environments).  If you work from home, check out the categories and enter your business to win!

Dr. Srikumar Rao is offering a new segment of his renowned Creativity and Personal Mastery Course in Los Angeles, California.  Pardon my late reporting since the application deadline is September 5th, but if you have a moment, I really suggest you check it out.  One of my life goals is to participate in this life-changing program.

Details:
Creativity and Personal Mastery(CPM) will be offered beginning October 5, 2008 in Los Angeles. The deadline for application is September 5, 2008.

This is a very innovative course and many have found it life-changing. This article from the Financial Times tells you more about the course and the instructor Professor Srikumar Rao:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df5176e6-5430-11dc-9a6e-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

The syllabus, application procedure, calendar, fees and other details are at:
www.areyoureadytosucceed.com

CPM is the only business school course anywhere that has its own alumni association - a testament to the overwhelming value that those who have taken it feel they received.

This program is not for everyone and there is a deliberately cumbersome application process. Do read the syllabus carefully and see if you think you qualify. It is best to do this early and not wait for the deadline. The application requires thought and takes time to complete.

Good luck if you choose to participate in either of these events! 

This weekend during a wonderful trip to Sedona, I was talking with my son Jeffery about his paintings in progress.  He had done a lot of work on a number of canvases, but found finishing the paintings was difficult.

So I recalled the advice I wrote about a few months ago from my friend Ramit Sethi:  Perfectionists are losers.

Starting a project is the fun part:  imagining what you want to do, scoping it out, creating the big vision, and making the first moves.  Once you get a lot of material drawn or written, however, it is easy to get paralyzed.

• What if it doesn't turn out how you imagined?
• What if no one likes it?
• What if no one buys it?
• What if someone else does it better?
• What if you have been wasting your time and should have done something else?
  

When you get to this awkward, uncomfortable stage, I suggest you pick up Ramit's phrase and start to repeat it:  perfectionists are losers.

Losers, of course, in the sense that by maintaining an impossible standard of achievement, you deprive the world the satisfaction of experiencing your project or paper or book or picture. 

And you deprive yourself the joy of completion.

Not everyone will love it.  But for someone, it will be just the right thing, at the right time. 

And if everyone hates it, including you, you get to recite a powerful and sacred mantra:  Who cares?

So if you are sitting on a project waiting for a majestic wind to sweep in and motivate you to finish it, don't hold your breath.

Just pick up your pen, or paintbrush, or keyboard and get cracking.

I am right with you. 

---

Picture of Jeffery by Ivan Martinez, who you might remember from an earlier post.

My original and only business plan for my company was based on a Dr. Suess book.  I wish I were kidding.

Owning up to my liberal arts major and rebellious roots, I didn't think I needed a "real" plan.  And, for the most part, I did fine for a decade, securing lots of clients and making a good living.

But honestly, I think that I was just not thinking about business planning the right way.  I imagined reams of paper, onerous spreadsheets and carefully crafted mission statements.  Yuck.

Now, Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software and prolific blogger about all things startup, has come out with a new book called the Plan as You Go Business Plan.  Even though his company makes business planning software, Tim felt a bit frustrated by the perceived hurdle new entrepreneurs attributed to business plans.  When I asked him why most people didn't write them, he said:

"What people normally give me, Pam, is “Yes, I’m going to tomorrow,” or “next month,” or “six months from now.”  And then there’s the variant on that: “Yes, I really agree it’s stupid that we don’t have a plan in this business and so-and-so has been promising to write it for years.”  So they the pass the buck.  It’s funny because the drag, what we’re fighting is they have in their mind this huge marathon-like PhD thesis-like thing. I don’t blame them sometimes for thinking, “No, I’m too busy.  I don’t have time for that. I’ve got to run my business.” 

Instead of this perspective, Tim encourages you to think of business planning as a fun and critical part of your entrepreneurial journey.  He says:

“Planning isn’t about writing some ponderous homework assignment or dull business memo; it’s about envisioning the business that you want to create.  It should be fascinating to you.  What do people want, how are you going to get it to them, how are you different and what do you do better than anyone else?”

I interviewed Tim on this topic for my book, but he was generous enough to let me share the conversation as a podcast.  It is about 37 minutes and can be found here.

Before I leave this blog post to get back to writing my own book, I also wanted to share a related story:  The new collaboration between Tim's company Palo Alto Software and John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

Back story:  a few months ago, John came to Phoenix for a speaking gig.  Since we had never met in person, I offered to meet him at the hotel before his presentation.  When I got there, he asked if we could hop in the car and go across town where he had another meeting.  We cruised through Phoenix, and with his iPhone, he had a better sense of direction than I did, even thought he lives in Kansas City and I have been here for four years. Embarrassing!

On the ride, he told me the story of his own company Duct Tape Marketing, which he started over 24 years ago, working with small business clients to help them grow their business.  After doing that for a few years with success, he wanted to scale his business, so organized his thoughts into the Duct Tape Marketing process.  This led to the Duct Tape Marketing blog (currently 216k readers, holy cow!)  Duct Tape Marketing Coaches, then the Duct Tape Marketing book.  And finally, he worked with Tim to integrate this process into Marketing Plan Pro, so small business owners could integrate a practical marketing approach with their business plan.

Isn't that cool?  I loved hearing the story first-hand, realizing that many well-established brands begin just like yours and mine, as a crazy idea in the head of an unknown wannabe entrepreneur.   Throw in a couple decades of hard work, and you get some formidable companies that really serve their markets well.

The software is not available yet for the Mac so I can't test it, but I will as soon as it is available in 2009.

You can read Tim's perspective on the collaboration here, John's perspective here, and get the feature highlights here.

Having gotten to know both Tim and John personally in the last couple of years, I will say that you couldn't ask for a better partnership.  Both have very down-to-earth personalities which understate their significant experience.  I hope the software sales do really well.

After the Escape from Cubicle Nation book is finished, my next step is not software, but action figures.  Do you think we could convince Archie McPhee that I am a good partner for his cubicle set?

Hey Everyone!

All this talk about voting in the news reminded me that we just have a few more days to garner support for the panel idea at SXSW that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. 

Summary of panel:  Me, Hugh McLeod, Kathy Sierra and Ariel Waldman talking about how to turn a blog into a book deal.  You can vote for us here -- kindly select 5 stars, and leave a comment if you wish!

Since my first post, I was graciously invited to participate in another panel by my buddy Jonathan Fields.  His topic is Leverage your blog to create other income opportunities.  I will talk about landing coaching clients through your blog, and will be joined by other great panelists: Jonathan,  Naomi Dunford from Ittybiz (landing marketing clients), Tamar Weinberg from Technipedia, Lifehacker and Mashable (landing social media clients), Anita Campbell from Small Business Trends (speaking gigs) and Brian Clark from Copyblogger (paid blogging).  Vote for this panel here.

Voting for SXSW panels ends this Friday, August 29.

And if you are not tired of voting yet, give a thumbs up to my friend Colleen Wainwright (aka Communicatrix), who is trying to convince Southwest Airlines that she would be the perfect Blog-o-spondent.  Trust me, she would be!  She created a short video where you can see people like me, Mignon Fogerty (Grammar Girl) and Peter Shankman of HARO expressing our enthusiasm.  Vote for Colleen here.

Thank you so much for all your support!

I am up to my ears in book writing, feeling quite overwhelmed at the moment.  Why am I doing this again? 

For you of course.

You may not know it, but you all really inspire me to keep going.  So thanks.

I have been fascinated watching the faces of Olympic athletes just before they compete in a race.  Swimmer Michael Phelps has a quiet and intent look and is always connected to his iPod.  Gymnast Raj Bhavsar has a look of calm and peaceful confidence.

I imagine that they have the following thoughts right before competing:

• I see gold.
• I am meant to do this.
• I am present. All that matters is now.
• Breathe in.  Breathe out.

When the mind is calm, the body relaxes.  And creativity flows.

What most (winning anyway) athletes would not be saying right before a race is:

• Why didn't I train more last month?
• This is an impossible task.
• My competition is better.
• Why did I have donuts instead of granola this morning?

Top athletes know that great performance is really a mental game.  All the physical preparation in the world means nothing if your thoughts don't align with your desired outcomes.

So, in the wonderful coincidence that put the Olympics in my path just as I am finishing my book, I am going to channel Raj from this beautiful story on NBC (link here if you are reading from RSS):

With less than five weeks to go before my book is due (Sept. 15), I am going into my own miniature, suburban Olympic preparation zone.  This means:

• I have copies of my book outline taped everywhere in the house.  At the foot of the bathtub.  In notebooks by the stove in case an insight comes while making spaghetti.  In my purse if it hits while in the parking lot of my son's school.
• I am playing the mental game.  Although I could entertain hundreds of negative "I shoulda" thoughts as I complete the massive undertaking of excavating my heart, mind and soul for just the right information for the book, I am choosing to believe "I will finish.  It will be the right information for the right people."
• I will write fewer blog posts.  It may be a bit quiet on this part of the Southwestern front for the next month, so thanks for your patience!  In a perfect world, I would have written 12 posts ahead of time and scheduled them to auto-publish, but let's get real.  As Anne Lamott said about a fellow writer in Bird by Bird:  "Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every morning-sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone typing away, humming.  But this is a very hostile and aggressive position.  One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this."Quick links or questions or pre-recorded podcasts may appear at random, but don't expect a lot of action.  If I don't cut back on blogging, I will never finish the book.
• I am letting go of the expectation that I will be responsive to regular emails.  I set up a dreaded auto responder that annoys my regular clients, friends and family members, but will hopefully let prospective clients and new readers know that I am not ignoring them on purpose.
• I will delight in the fantastic stories and metaphors that come out of this process, such as the insight that there is a whole genre of writers focusing on "knitting humor" (thanks to Amy) and hearing precious examples of the insanity of corporate life like this from John:
  
  "Our department was asked to do a process improvement project to improve the delivery time of our projects.  I hadn't been with the group that long and pointed out that a) we had no formal process that we could improve and b) we had no baseline data (since we had no process). The logical conclusion was to do it anyway and use our 'best guess' for baseline data.  Our next 3 projects showed a 900% improvement in delivery time.  We were embarrassed that our baseline was that far off. Management, however, celebrated our success.  We were asked to develop a (3' x 6') poster and present at an internal process improvement conference.
  
  
  Later a cross-department project was initiated to define a software development process. 4.5 months later a 4-up (17"x22" at 12 pt font) flow diagram in PowerPoint appeared.  It had 8 stage gate review points and at least 120 individual boxes and diamonds.  One tiny box was labeled "write code".  There was no support for iterations or incremental development. No software developers or development managers were consulted by the analysts that created the flow."

I cannot explain why a ratio of 119:1 peripheral tasks to writing code is so funny, but it made me laugh till I hurt.

I also laughed last night as I thought of the common metaphor that "writing a book is like having a baby."

Having just gone through the birthing process, I can attest that parts of this are true:  pain, agony,  anticipation, fear, joy and overwhelm are emotions childbirth shares with writing a book.

But the key difference is that whether or not a Mom thinks positive or negative thoughts, or meditates, or eats right or exercises, in nine months or so, the baby will come out.  The force of nature that makes this happen is so awe-inspiring that it cannot be measured by a Richter scale.

A book has no such luxury.  It can languish between your ears for months, years, even decades.  People die with great books in their hearts because they could never quite muster up the courage to push through to the end.

So with this post, thoughts of all of you dear readers gently pushing my back, the watchful eye of my publisher and my own personal challenge of tackling an Olympian task, I am going to finish on top.

As Raj says, whatever that looks like, I will already have won.

(photo credit, USA Today)

When I had the great opportunity to talk to the head of my publishing company a few weeks ago, I asked him his advice for new writers.  Without missing a beat, he said "write the book."

This is easier said than done, as my mind always races ahead to the fun part, like marketing and speaking and connecting with my audience.  My editor has been great at helping me rein in all thoughts about book promotion.  But there was one thing that needed to get planned ahead:  A panel at the annual SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.

I don't know about you, but I salivate at the thought of spending a few days with smart, technical, creative, musically-inclined social media maniacs.  It pretty much sums up my ideal target audience.

So when given the opportunity to pitch a panel on "Blog to Book Deal:  How-To" with Hugh McLeod, Kathy Sierra and Ariel Waldman, I jumped at the chance.  I have been a long-time hopeless fan girl of Hugh and Kathy, and have really enjoyed getting to know Ariel's work (Hugh introduced us).

The way the SXSW festival works is they solicit proposals for panel speakers, which the general population votes on in their "panel picker."  The conference organizers take this data into consideration as they make the final conference schedule.

The blog-to-book phenomenon has really exploded in the last couple of years, with people like Penelope Trunk (Brazen Careerist), Gary Vaynerchuk (101 Wines...), Seth Godin (Small is the New Big), Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen), Andy Wibbels (Blogwild), Christian Lander (Stuff White People Like) all landing book deals.

What will the panel cover?

Summary:  Is traditional publishing dead?  Apparently not, as many bloggers are landing book deals that extend and enhance their online work.  Learn the ins and outs from bloggers that have done it including Hugh McLeod, Kathy Sierra, Pamela Slim and Ariel Waldman.

What are traditional publishers looking for in blog-to-book deals?
What are the benefits of self-publishing vs. getting a publishing house?

How is writing a book different than writing a blog?
How do you cull years of posts into a coherent storyline?
What are the advantages of adding a book to your portfolio of work?
How can a book benefit long-time blog readers?
How should you structure a new blog if you have a book in mind?
How can you involve your blog readers in the writing of your book?
What comes first, platform then book deal or book deal then platform?
How can you use your blog to market your book?
• If you're writing a blog first, how much of the the blog should end up in the book, how much to leave out?
• How does having a blog change the traditional publishing model, for both publishers and writers?
• What if you don't get a book deal in the end? ;-)

I will be honest.  I want to do this panel!  It will be a blast and hopefully very useful to those in attendance.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Vote for us!  Go to the Panel Picker and search on "Pamela Slim" under the "Business/Entrepreneur" (update:  it is in Advertising/Marketing)category. Or go to the shortcut here.  In order to vote, you must register, which just takes a minute. Feel free to add a comment with suggestions, questions, etc. There are a ton of great submissions in many categories, so if you have time, vote for others that sound good.  The voting deadline is August 29.

Thanks so much for your help, and I hope to see you next year at SXSW!

I get a lot of questions about blogging from people who are considering starting a business and are new to the social media world. 

So does my friend Nathan Bowers, who is a web developer by trade, and also an artist/musician and all-around renaissance guy. 

Nathan and I connected on Twitter recently and started a whole series of offline conversations which resulted in this 2-part podcast interview. We wanted to reduce anxiety for new bloggers, and also draw the connection between the importance of good technology crossed with good content.  As we both noted, there are plenty of popular blogs with crappy designs, mine included.

Part 1 of this interview covers: (Listen here - 24 minutes)

1. Defining a goal for your blog
2. Securing an effective domain name
3. Choosing a blogging platform
4. Choosing a blog host
5. Measuring the success of your blog
6. Design basics

Interview notes for Part 1:

Seth Godin's advice on naming
Neutron LLC naming case studies

Part 2 of this interview covers: (Listen here - 24 minutes)

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Creating compelling content

Interview Notes for Part 2:

Wordpress All-in-one SEO plugin
Art and Fear Anecdote from the book Art and Fear

As a side note, Nathan walks his talk and recently redesigned Fred Wilson's popular blog avc.com. He made the connection with Fred by commenting on his blog frequently, and suggesting improvements.  Fred was so intrigued that he hired Nathan, proof that valuable business connections come from social networking done with integrity.

Oh, and for regular podcast listeners, I did something different this time and used Skype.  How does it sound?  Thanks Matthew for patiently explaining to me how Skype recording works!

(Update later this evening:  so sorry I messed up a few of the reference links when I originally posted this - fixed now!)

A New York Times journalist is writing a book on people who make seemingly abrupt life changes like picking up a serious sport, or starting a business or returning to school, and about why and how these things succeed.  The request:

"I'm looking for adults who have created transformations, who started out as one thing then became another, and achieved some kind of exceptional success. Maybe it was starting a business, or picking up a serious sporting pursuit, or totally changing a way of life. I'm open. But I'm looking for stories that are engaging or in some way unique, something that someone would want to read about. And though I'm looking for stories about great successes, I'm more interested in hearing about the unique transformations that brought these successes about."

You guys never cease to amaze me with your stories, so I am sure you have some great ones for a book!

If interested, please send your contact info and a summary of your story to story.success@yahoo.com.  Ideas are due Sunday, August 10.

Thanks and I hope your story makes it into the book!