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 |   The Good Life. |
I am a professional musician  , worship leader , small business owner , songwriter , aspiring author and freelance nonfiction writer with a chemical engineering degree . But that's just my resume. My profile of qualifications is only one of the ways in which I am unique. Here I chronicle my personal and professional goals and my efforts to achieve them. Occasionally I fail. Mostly, I take daily baby steps toward all my long-term goals. Much like the stories I pen, the songs I compose, and the businesses I run, I am always a work in progress. ![Merit Badge in Music
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To a dear friend whose talent for writing music is sensational. May you have a fabulous New Year, (((Brandi)))!!! *^*Kiss*^*
Big hugs,
Sherri *^*Heart*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Music-1050.gif) ![Merit Badge in Organization
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I don't know how you do it, but I assume there's magic involved *^*Bigsmile*^* I have really enjoyed this month of planning and preparation for NaNoWriMo and I love how organized it all is. Thank you for hosting a great challenge and for your dedication to helping so many of us prepare with confidence and trepidation for National Novel Writing Month (known to sane folks as 'November' *^*Laugh*^*) at your [Link To Item #1474311]](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Organization-1150.gif) ![Merit Badge in Leadership
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For your hard work, commitment, talent and innovation in running the October NaNoWriMo Preparation each year, which helps many of us get our scattered thoughts together for November's novel-writing. And also because this badge has ducks on it.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Leadership.gif) |
| ...and it's not just my hard drive. I had a vacation last week, so you would think I'd be refreshed. I'm not. I'm going through the motions. Our student count has been depressing, but today we're "up" to 253 after a whopping 14 enrollments (8 private lesson and 6 samplers) on Monday alone. Maybe we're out of the woods. Maybe we aren't. I'm in a holding pattern. Waiting to see what happens next. Frozen. Meanwhile, I have projects: two websites (MTMS and church) in the pipeline for renovation; one website (local food pantry) for implementation; paperless timekeeping at work, among other paperless transitions; electronics upgrades and replacements; and, I suppose, the usual writing endeavors. All of this on top of judging for Ohio Idol (which gets less and less fun each round), performing at an increasing number of venues this summer, and managing my employees. I bought an expensive pink Dell laptop maybe five years ago. After three hard drives and two motherboards, Dell finally agreed that the unit was a lemon (later proven by the class action suit against the video card manufacturer). I got a replacement Dell "of equal or greater value," which, to my dismay, was at least twice as big and heavy and refused to fit into any cute laptop purse I could find. It was also black instead of the pink I'd specifically purchased, and it did not include software I'd purchased. But it did okay and lasted another two years or so. Then the WiFi card started to fail, and the computer politely declined to stay online. I purchased a used HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop less than a year ago, and now Windows has warned me of "imminent failure" of the hard drive. Frozen laptops don't help my waning momentum. I feel like I need a Win. |
| I've been reading an e-book with author advice from one of Penelope's Facebook friends (The Writer's Adventure Guide: 12 Stages to Writing Your Book . It's okay, as far as advice goes, but not particularly well-written or engaging, so I'm glad I snagged it when it was free. It reads like a giant checklist. I will admit that I agree with the section about branding, and it got me thinking about my brand. I'm doing a great job of branding myself as a musician, educator, kid-friendly personality, and entrepreneur. I'm not sure how "writer" will fit into the mix, unless I'm sticking to the existing brand, which means I can write about music, education, kid-friendly stuff, or small business. And everything I've read (and agree with) about launching a writing career (read: writing "business") suggests you should find a niche and stick to it. You want to build a reader base who loves not only your books, but you, the author. They love you when they come to expect certain things of you. Since I already have a brand that I've worked hard to cultivate, it makes sense that I should stick to that brand, if I'm going to use my stage name as my pen name. And it makes sense to use my stage name as my pen name, because I've already worked so hard to cultivate the brand. Why start from scratch? I'm mulling all that over. I need to evaluate the projects in the pipeline and see where they fit the brand. If they don't, they're out (or, saved for a different brand - i.e., a different pen name - though "out" is more likely, since I doubt I have the energy to brand two different pen names.) Whatever I decide about writing, I need to keep working on the existing brand to build the music school business. It's funny, but when I petitioned to get support for the Chase grant, my Facebook fans, Klout score, and Twitter followers unexpectedly skyrocketed. The "votes" campaign took a lot of energy on my part, and I probably rubbed some people the wrong way with my begging. It's such a fine balance, branding. Meanwhile, our student count at MTMS SUCKS, our cash flow SUCKS, and we owe a shitload of quarterly taxes that date back to our initial volume drop in April and May. I thought we were out of the woods on the spring exodus, but I forgot about accumulated taxes. Stupid taxes. Luckily, I have a flexible line of credit, because I'm going to need to borrow to get through this month. So here's hoping we're out of the woods until next April, and that I can come up with a game plan to anticipate this problem NEXT April before it happens. Because if this is a permanent we've-passed-the-honeymoon-phase slump, and not just a spring-and-summer-in-the-music-lessons-industry slump, then I may have a serious problem.September will tell us whether we're opening campus #2 or struggling to pay the bills in campus #1 next fall. All of that makes it hard to think about a writing career. Not that I'm supposed to be thinking of a writing career. I'm supposed to be waiting until "retirement" to do that. But I don't like that plan, because when you stop doing something, you lose the skill. If I stop writing, I'll have to spend time building up the skill set again before I could do anything useful with it. I'd like to be practicing now. I stopped playing six days a week at Potbelly, and now my music performance set list has decreased from probably 20 hours of music to maybe 5 hours of music, and my fingers hurt if I play two days in a row. It takes practice, and so does writing. I never thought I'd ever say this in the summer, but c'mon, September. I need to know where you're taking me. |
| My favorite Dresden quote to date: "Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?" "Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead, and frosting of white." Brwahhhhhh-hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I freaking love Jim Butcher. |
| I'll be spending most of it at home, because the campsite has no electricity. Even at home, we lost and recovered power twice since Friday, and many in our community still don't have it back since they originally lost it Friday. Lucky MTMS is closed for break this week, or we would be filing a business interruption claim with our insurance company. Parents arrive today. I may be scarce this week. I plan to spend the time with my family and my Kindle. |
| I'm so sorry! I hate blog posts like this! So I'll keep it short. Blah. I took off work today, though I'm playing the Mexican restaurant tonight. I've done exactly zero with the time off. Tomorrow, I have to work. Friday, I'm taking off. Saturday, I want to work. Sunday is church, then I'm on vacation! Except for Ohio Idol next Tuesday. And Senor Patron Wednesday night. And a staff meeting and work day Friday morning. But other than that, I'm on vacation. |
| C'mon, lagging enrollment counts! At this point, I'll be happy to clear 250 again. We're at 247, where we've been for what seems like forever. I am BURNED OUT. I am so very much looking forward to break next week... and then we don't have another one until Thanksgiving. My parents are coming, we'll have the kids, we're camping, and I have one MTMS workday to plan and one Ohio Idol judging day already planned. It doesn't seem like much of a break. I'd like to work on websites, but I don't have reliable WiFi at the campsite, and I'll have all these people around. The trouble is, I can't work on big projects like that without big, uninterrupted chunks of time. They don't exist in my life except during breaks, but I have to spend that time with family, because I need big, uninterrupted chunks of time for that, too. I'm going to start taking Fridays off again. Especially now that Senor Patron has moved to Wednesdays; Friday will be a legitimate, nowhere-at-all-to-go, day off. I may take Saturdays off, too, on non-summer camp weeks. Fridays will be work-at-home days. Saturdays will be hang-with-family days. ...and I'm going to lose 30 pounds this summer. And hell is going to freeze over due to the flapping of all the wings. You know. From the flying pigs. |
| Must learn some Harry Connick Jr. by my 6pm gig tomorrow (Sunday) sans piano or big band (neither of which the client has on hand, and neither of which will fit into my Jeep.) I'm not sure what that's going to sound like on a guitar, but when I figure it out, I'll let you know. Speaking of new music, I've been on an Elton John kick, which I haven't done since... oh, senior year of high school? Primarily on piano. I'm also trying to learn requested "I Don't Want to Wait" by Paula Cole; it sounds fantastic on a piano, but I'm working out the translation to guitar, again, for portability's sake. That stupid piano just won't fit in the Jeep (especially alongside the new sound system I just purchased!), and I'm afraid the wheels will break off if I try to tow it. On a related note, my weekly Senor Patron gig is moving from Fridays at lunch to Wednesday nights effective next week, so I ought to see a much better crowd (and a slightly higher paycheck.) I'd still like to find a lunch gig closer to the music school for branding purposes. Much like I'd like to create a custom database for the school, update the websites for the school and church, and implement about fifty neat-o ideas I stole on Pinterest. Alas, I'm too busy trying to get enrollments back up over 245. At least I'm writing. And learning new music. And gigging. Especially that last one, because it pays the bills, seeing as how enrollments are so ridiculously low. Pardon me while I go play with my new sound system. Did I mention I got a new sound system?  |
| In high school, I had a boyfriend who used to make me raise my right hand and repeat after him: "I am competitive." It's sad, really. I'm generally a nice person, and I try to do the right thing, but I've always measured my successes against competitors' failures. I suppose that's good for a capitalist entrepreneur. It's bad for an aspiring author, though. Because it's the reason I stopped competing. I got tired of not winning. We need more competitions like the Prep (preparatory NaNoWriMo challenge I run in October.) First, because I created it, so it must be good. </arrogance> Second, because I need tests of endurance and dedication to keep me in the game. Third, at least if I'm writing, I can still get reviews with helpful feedback. "You win" vs. "you didn't win" doesn't tell me anything about the marketability of my writing. I'm interested in marketability at the moment. I don't believe in the "write for yourself" dribble that heartbroken twenty-time publishing-house rejectees swear by. I do agree with the recent trend toward self-publishing, but that doesn't mean I'm going to write whatever junk comes out of my head and try to sell it. I'm a businesswoman long before I'm an artist of any kind, which means I care about the sale, and I want to know what resonates with audiences rather than what feels good to get out of my heart and onto a piece of paper. Maybe I should be an agent. On the business side: MTMS student count = 244.5 versus a target of... oh, about 290.Maybe I shouldn't be an agent. |
| Enrollments are still down at MTMS . Last I checked, we were still below 250, which isn't a good thing. This June is in no way repeating last June's performance. But we've cut back on some spending, and cash flow is holding steady. The past two weeks has been chaotic. At work, the receptionist's dad fell seriously ill, so the office manager and I have had to pick up a lot of unexpected work load, including the receptionist's duties and training backup receptionists. Also at work, we're on our second week of summer camps and threw a Graduation Party last weekend, which involves planning, executing (sadly, not by gun squad), photographing and blogging. Related to work, I judged Ohio Idol the past two weeks and saw a lot of really good and really bad performances. Watch for my upcoming blog post: Top 10 Songs Not to Sing in an Audition. And then the air conditioner went out at my house. Today, my cranky-o-meter registers a tad lower than it did yesterday. Now two days removed from Idol (at least, until the next round), I feel the tension draining out of my pores along with the sweat. So that's good. The A/C guy should be by sometime this morning. My next feat is to replace my weekly lunch gig. Senor Patron is getting on my nerves. They're super nice guys, don't get me wrong. But I have to chase down payment every damn week. And last week, I ended up not getting paid because he thought we were ahead, I told him we were ahead the previous week but were now caught up to even, he said are you sure? I looked it up on my fancy-schmancy new Quickbooks App for Android and said, I could have sworn, but by golly, you're right. Yeah. He was wrong. Android App FAIL. So now I'm out a week's payment because I already said he was caught up. If the freaking proprietor would just go on autopay or keep decent records, the discrepancy wouldn't have happened. And frankly, I don't like asking someone to hand me a check. That's my office manager's job. She sends out an invoice, people pay her, she puts the money in the business account. This whole standing-around-with-a-guitar-in-one-hand-and-amplifier-in-the-other-waiting-for-my-check routine is getting old.</rant> If I had a little more time, I'd invest it in browsing for something closer to the music school, just for branding purposes. Senor Patron is close to home but far from work, and I'd like to make it convenient for customers and students to come see me. So that should go on the alive-and-thriving goals list. I'll get right on that. |
| auric posted a cute captioned photo on Facebook referencing Monty Python , right after I spent some time browsing around about the Creekside Blues and Jazz Festival going on this weekend in Gahanna (home of MTMS ), and I got all philosophical. I thought to myself, "Self, how many hyperlinks can I cram into one sentence?" Kidding. Haha. I got to thinking about how much time, effort and money people invest in entertaining themselves. Which is probably suicidal thinking, since I'm in the entertainment business on pretty much every count. But it's impractical. Why do people bother with leisure? Biology dictates that we do everything we do for survival purposes in one way or another. From a strictly biological standpoint, does playtime serve any purpose? My dog seems to think so. My best conclusion is that we use playtime to develop relationships, which give us a sense of comfort, because if we're ever - you know - dying or something, people will actually care about us. I'm reminded of something a character from the Dresden Files told Harry when a bad guy cast an evil death curse on our hero: The secret is, we all die alone. We can't take anyone with us when we cross over, regardless of the number of supporters kneeling at our deathbeds. I'd like to thank auric for leading me down this delicious train of thought toward my own mortality. |
| I've always been the quintessential "Jack of all trades and master of none" that you hear about, and I'm kinda tired of it. I wanna be master of all trades. Okay, fine, maybe just master of two or three: Music, Entrepreneurship, Writing. But apparently, that's still too many. I've been surreptitiously entering writing contests. Don't try to find my entries; they're hidden, they're gone, you won't find them. It's an experiment, and one that requires anonymity to tell me the truth about my writing. It's been awhile, but I entered a lot of contests when I first joined WDC, and I discovered at the time that I wasn't Number One. I wasn't even Number Two or Number Three most times, where three places were there to be had, at least not in the opinions of the judges whose opinions mattered. Apparently, I'm still not Number One, Two, or Three. Well - occasionally I am, but not nearly often enough to be called "Master." I've also been reading a lot in the last year or so, and I'm noticing things that make good writing superior. But I can't remember them by the time I get to the end of the book. I'm getting old, I'm not taking notes (mostly because I read in bed and in the car - with headphones, don't get excited), and I have too many other things in my brain. This is why you can't be master of more than one trade. You have to FOCUS on one trade to really master it. You have to study it. Dissect it. Emulate it. Do it over and over and over again. I honestly can't decide if I would want to be a professional writer. At times, I think, I want to create something like that awesome book I just read. I have the imagination, but the execution isn't there, and it won't be without practice - the kind you get with an eight-hour-a-day job. Do I want to invest that kind of practice? Obviously, I don't want to right now. If I did, I'd be doing it. I'm doing other things, as many of you know. But I'm a project girl - and shhhh, don't tell my staff - but I'm the kind of girl who would establish a company and then walk away and let it run itself. I'm still in project mode, because while the first campus is a success, I haven't expanded into multiple campuses yet, and that's a project in itself, and one that I intend to tackle in 2013. But after that... I just don't know. I've got the writing itch. I don't know how long it can simmer on the back burner before boiling over. (Look at that - cliche and alliteration all rolled into one! Who says I'm not a master writer?) |
| Student count: 244. Yep, it's that bad. Summer camps have yet to break even, which is more good news. The first one starts next Monday. On the bright side, I may be writing again. A snippet or two, anyway. Because that's what I need. More unedited, incomplete original work. And now, back to my regularly scheduled web updates... |
| As a New Year's Resolution, I committed to BALANCE this year. I've done very well at allocating more time to family and less to work, especially in the last two months, since we bought a camper and rented a seasonal spot at a campground. But this morning, I ran across this, which, of course, I Pinned: Patient: Doctor, I don't feel well and I'm not sure why. Doctor: I want to you meditate for 20 minutes, twice a day, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, avoid processed foods, eat plenty of organic fruit and veg, spend more time in nature and less indoors, stop worrying about things you can't control and ditch your T.V. Come back in 3 weeks. ...I didn't miss the irony as I read that online, on my laptop, from the comfort and laziness of my indoor couch. Tomorrow, I start Weight Loss for Hunger. I have devised a new daily schedule which includes exercise and scheduled feedingsmeals eight times a day, because my obsession with food causes me to constantly think about food. Meanwhile, I've spent approximately ZERO time on writing. I created a schedule again. The color-coding shows a fair amount of balance, and I've managed to schedule in everything from eating to exercise, reading to writing, work to leisure, family to church, practice to performance. The trick will be sticking to the schedule. So on the agenda today: figure out how to use my calendars to send phone alerts that actually work. PS: please consider sponsoring me at http://weightlossforhunger.com. I'm going to meet my goal this summer. |
| A topic near and dear to my heart, as anyone who scrolls through the last year or two of this blog will see: Goals. I haven't set any good ones in awhile, but Chase and LivingSocial forced my hand. Now I'm re-evaluating the rest of my goals. 1. Chase/LivingSocial Grant. We reached our goal of 250 votes, which is the intermediate milestone. Thanks to your support, we are now eligible candidates for twelve $250,000 small business grants. Whether we win one of the grants is in the hands of unknown decision-makers who must read through hundreds of applications, including ours, to pick the most deserving. Here's hoping our business plan and amazing employees sell themselves. GOAL: MET. 2. Student Count. ...is at 253 and WAY under budget. June withdrawals are still trickling in and will continue to do so for another week or two. After that, it should be uphill. But we have a lot of catching up to do. I hoped to be at 300 by August, in order to meet our rent hike. We will keep running our sampler sale all summer long, which brings in beginners. The sampler promotion is doing very well. Most samplers are full, and we even accidentally overbooked one of them. Unlike United Airways, we were able to find a seat for our extra body. GOAL: 300 STUDENTS BY 8/1/2012. 3. Summer Camps. Eh. Lukewarm, at least compared with our hopes. We have our Grand Prize drawing on Friday, in which one student will win a free camp. After that, we have some last-minute promotion ideas to boost enrollments. By next Monday, we should know for sure whether it worked and whether we need to cancel any camps. GOAL: DECIDE CAMP STATUS FOR ALL PENDING CAMPS BY MONDAY, 6/4/12. 4. Weight Loss for Hunger. Amid pleas for votes and summer camp drawings, this has almost fallen by the wayside. I plan to continue allowing people to sign up through the month of June, just to allow us to pick up more momentum. If you don't know, some church friends and I brainstormed this idea to collect money for the hungry if we met our summer weight loss goals. I created a website at http://weightlossforhunger.com, but have barely done anything to promote it besides post something in the church bulletin and mention it maybe twice on Facebook. GOAL: PERSONALLY LOSE 30 POUNDS BY 8/31/2012. COLLECTIVELY RAISE $??? IN PLEDGES BY 6/30/2012. I obviously need this intermediate goal: DETERMINE PLEDGE GOAL BY 6/4/12. 5. Performance Evaluations. This is getting ridiculous. I need to finish them by Friday (because that's June) and hand them out, then also talk about updated expectations for this year. I'm tired of some things the teachers are doing, and I don't have much of a leg to stand on, if I don't set expectations and communicate them. GOAL: COMPLETE AND DELIVER EVALUATIONS BY 6/1/2012. 6. Website Updates. I'm trying to get the MTMS and church websites to a place in which others besides me can update them. I'm on a serious roll, but have a ways to go. It will benefit me to finish this project, (1) because both sites will look better and have mobile versions, and (2) because I won't always be the go-to person for every little update. GOAL: COMPLETE WEBSITE UPDATES BY 6/30/12. 7. Writing. No comment. I feel like there's something else, but I suppose this is a good start. |
| If you don't know, MTMS applied for a grant from Chase and LivingSocial. . We have 213 votes out of 250 need for grant eligibility with Chase. I'm starting to think we may actually get there, though it's been an uphill battle. I've literally had to privately message almost every one of my 600+ Facebook friends, send emails to friends, and walk customers through the steps (sometimes on my own laptop) in the school lobby. Everyone is delighted to do it, including customers in the lobby, which amazes me - first, because customers care about our success, but second, because I can't believe they haven't somehow already seen the plea. We've been talking about almost nothing else for a week. But then I think, I only really posted the plea for votes on Facebook and a few private emails. I realize that communicating with people is hard work. And isn't that what we're always talking about as writers? How to reach an audience? I'm here to tell ya that as more and more methods of communication appear, each one is less and less effective, because they're washed out in the flood. I used to complain that I couldn't reach our teenage employees by email and had to rely on Facebook; but now they rarely even get on Facebook. Text is the communication method of choice. Just to prove the point: I created a fake Facebook account awhile back. I listed a WDC connection in my profile and friended a few WDC'ers. It took less than a dozen friends before the list of "suggested" friends - all authors, only a small percentage of whom have WDC accounts - started to grow. I friended writers like friending was going out of style. (Actually, it IS going out of style, as my teenage employee communication dilemma demonstrates, but I digress.) In a couple months, my fake Facebook account had more friends than my real Facebook account, which has been accumulating friends for years. I legitimately know every single one of my real-account friends. I know almost zero of my fake-account friends. So in this fake account, I see all kinds of activity. The typical forwarded visuals like captioned photos and funny or thoughtful quotes. The complaints about boredom and lack of sleep and illness. The photos of babies and grandbabies and graduates. But I also see articles about the publishing industry. Book launches. Trailers. Author and book pages to "Like" (which, I do, every single time someone asks, just to build trust among my "friends.") I have not read - let alone purchased - a single book from this network. Not one. So what good is a huge network of authors to an author? I'm not sure, except that the graders like marketinggrader.com and klout.com like the huge number of friends and interactions. I created a Twitter account, of course, and use it to follow agents and publishers, so I suppose I at least keep up with the industry. But if I posted a plea on that Facebook account asking my "friends" to vote for my business grant application, would I get a single vote? I'm pretty sure I'd get as many votes as books I've read from this network. But I might get someone to vote if I sent a personal message. "Hey - I saw your book just launched, that's great! Congratulations. By the way, will you vote for my business?" Personal interaction goes a long way. When I ask someone in the school lobby to help me out, they are delighted to do so. They sincerely tell me they hope we win, and they ask me to let them know whether we do. I'm talking about customers I've barely met, customers who are brand new, customers whom I never see because their lesson time conflicts with my work schedule. Here are the steps I take to garner lobby votes: (1) Make eye contact. (2) Smile and ask, have you voted for us yet? (3) They smile and shake their head, so I ask, "Would you like to?" (4) They say, "Sure, what's it for?" So I explain that we could win $250,000 to open new locations and employ more staff. And they practically hand me their phones and say, "Show me what to do." Of course, you can't sell thousands - or tens of thousands - or hundreds of thousands - of books using personal interaction. In my business, we have repeat customers who come back every week, so it's easy to develop relationships with these people, and we do so liberally. But we've been tracking the success of our marketing tactics, and you want to know our top three sources for new customers? In this order: 1. Our thirty-foot sign facing a major road. 2. Word-of-mouth referrals. 3. Google. I'm working on bumping Google up the ladder, but notice that paid advertising didn't make the top three. We pay hundreds of dollars for a single ad placement in a newspaper, coupon book, or postcard-style mailer. Each. And. Every. Single. Time. Advertising is very expensive. And it doesn't even make the top three, whereas #1 cost a one-time up-front investment that has long since paid for itself, #2 is free, and #3 costs nothing but the cost of maintaining a good website (we pay more, but it could be as little as $20 per year.) Word-of-mouth referrals are free, and I bet they work for books, too. I haven't studied the publishing market as extensively as I've studied my market, but I can tell you this: I have rarely ever read a book that someone didn't recommend to me. When I was a teen, I read A LOT, and I volunteered in a library. I did bring home books by the bagful every week, and those I selected by the cover art and back-cover synopsis, so those are important, too. But overwhelmingly, throughout my life, my book choices have been driven by word-of mouth referrals. Now, let's say you work your tail off referring your book to everyone you know - not your network of writer "friends," but people you actually KNOW. Let's say they love your book and talk about it to their friends. Let's say said friends buy the book and talk about it to their friends. Next thing you know, you're struggling to meet buyer demand, and wouldn't THAT be a sweet problem to have? So, who do I KNOW? The majority of friends on my "real" Facebook account are people I actually know, people whom I felt comfortable enough begging for votes in private messages and believing they would actually vote. And you know what? Out of 600+ friends, 200+ have actually voted. Considering I've sent the messages in the last few days, it's possible some of my friends haven't been online or on FB, so let's be generous and say another 50 come back and vote later (which would ROCK, by the way.) That's still less than 50% of the people I asked. And it took HOURS to private message all those people. I'm not exaggerating. And that's not counting the time it's taken to grow and cultivate a list of friends who sincerely care about me, not just my association with their network. Meaning, my fake account "friends" only care that I'm a writer, I may be of some use, I may be a potential audience, and I boost their friends number. Those "friends" don't care about ME any more than I care about THEM. My real friends, conversely, care about me because I care about them in return. It takes a lot of time and effort to care about 600+ people - routine, everyday effort. Reaching an audience is hard work, and it should be an integral part of any book marketing strategy. Set aside time for it. Maintain real friendships with people. Support their efforts and dreams and goals. They will be happy to return the favor when you're ready to launch your book. If the book is good, they'll read it and love it, because it's good and because it's you. Your network will grow as word-of-mouth referrals grow, and it will be even bigger when you're ready to launch the second book. Just remember to pick your niche and stick to it at that point, so you don't let down the audience you've worked so hard to grow. But that's a topic for another day. Happy networking! |
| The official count is 255 students. I believe we've bottomed out, and that the number will start to climb again. First of all, the majority of students who planned to stop for spring sports or summer have already done so. Second, we have a slew of samplers and preschool classes overflowing with students right now, all priming to dive into private lessons, once they choose their instrument(s). Third, last June was our biggest new enrollment month EVER, and that was without a sampler promotion. So I'm confident we'll get our numbers back. I wish I could be so confident about our summer camps. They're so darn fun, though. The ones with students in them may not have a lot of students, but they have enough. These kids will talk about how freaking much fun they had. I'm hoping it just takes a few years to get a summer camp program off the ground, which would be the preferred explanation for why we aren't bursting at the seams with camp enrollments. Instead of, you know, my complete ineptness when it comes to camp marketing. The summer is shaping up to be a busy one for me. I'll be judging at Ohio Idol and performing at Pearl Market (a downtown summer-long farmer's market) in addition to my regular gigs leading praise band, playing at the Mexican restaurant, and overseeing the summer camps. I'm also looking into a second lunch gig, hopefully somewhere closer to the music school. And now I'm campaigning for a small business grant, which, if we got it, would mean some fast-paced business expansion planning. On that note, have you voted?? We're at 150, we need 250, we have 38 days left (they're ticking away!): missionsmallbusiness.com - open the site, scroll down, log in with Facebook, scroll down, search "Michelle Tuesday" (leave city and state blank), and click "Vote" - easy breezy. Thanks to everyone who's done this already. I'm aching for time to write. I'm on a novel kick again. I'm just so long-winded, I need tens of thousands of words to get the story out. To get the first part of the story out. And I haven't even edited the two I've already written. *shrug* I guess we're all motivated by different things. Looking at my summer schedule, squeezing in novel writing time could be tight.  Peace. |
No, our students are not bleeding. We are bleeding students from our roster. Don't you love literary ambiguity?  We are currently at 251 private lesson students. That's not pretty. But, luckily, we are in the midst of two major marketing campaigns, neither of which is designed to directly bring us more private students. Because we're marketing geniuses like that. On the bright side, our new "hold your spot" policy seems to be working (or that number would be pathetically lower.) People who tell us they're stopping for June or for the summer are offered the chance to hold their spot on the teacher's schedule (day and time as well as teacher) if they prepay their return month (e.g., pay for September now.) Customers seem to like this option, because they're used to their time. We like the option, because even though it's logistically tricky to keep those spots open, we know the student will return. Students who stop for the summer tend to have amnesia about music lessons come August, when it's time to call us up and get back on the schedule. It's bad enough that students go three months with no practice and want to pick up where they left off, but even worse when they never come back! So the pre-pay is motivation to overcome that amnesia.  Just call us Dr. MTMS.Meanwhile, we have a great opportunity to win a $250k grant from Chase and Living Social. It requires us to get 250 votes before they'll even read our application, so please check it out if you haven't already seen a message from me on Facebook. Go to this website: http://missionsmallbusiness.com , scroll down and log in on the right, then scroll down and search for Michelle Tuesday Music School, then click to vote. If you have multiple Facebook accounts, please vote using all of them, because we're a long way from 250. </spammyjunk>Is it November yet? I need an excuse to write something. #nanowrimo |
| = 261.5. Not good. Invoices went out today, so I expect to see a few more withdrawals. Very not good. This business is seasonal, so the drop is not wholly unexpected - though it's much more pronounced than this time last year, which means either (1) last year was still the honeymoon period, or (2) we've hit a plateau. (!) I'm thinking (and crossing my fingers) that #1 is more likely, but that doesn't help our sagging cash flow situation. Mom gave a good pep talk. She said this is why companies - all companies - maintain lines of credit. I have one, of course, but hate to use it because I hate debt. But she said her company has like a $60 million line of credit and a budget line item (around $1 million) for loan interest, because that's just what companies do to maintain cash flow. Cash flow does not define a company's success - profit does. And we're profitable. So, I feel a little better, as usual. Last year, June was a banner month for new enrollments, and we've got several full samplers and summer camp enrollments. Hope is not lost. |
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Aw, thanks, 
