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Archive for July 2011

Pitchmen Enthusiast #1: Informative summaries, opinions and great links from Inc.com’s daily emails/blog entries

July 21, 2011 Economy, Entrepreneurship, Inc [dot] com, Marketing, Retail No comments

I don’t remember how I came about finding Inc.com but it must’ve been through Twitter, through someone’s RT. Last night, as I was up late and couldn’t sleep, I started going through all of the entries that were still in my RSS feed in my email.  Amazing, amazing, amazing writing and very informative and it doesn’t waste your time. They are spot-on. This is definitely the best information source if you own your own business or are an entrepreneurs, follow retail, follow news stories that have to do with tech, social networking and all kinds of marketing.

So, this will begin my FIRST edition of summarizing and noting the great links from INC.com. Now, some of these you might’ve already heard about because they are older by a few days, but I have some things to discuss. 

From July 11th:

Time productivity. As a writer, going by a time schedule is definitely needed for me, as I like to get lost in details and certain parts where I’m very interested. I have to pay attention to deadlines, planning is a definite for me. When I did NaNoWriMo, I HAD TO have a schedule. You have 30 days to write, you have to write certain amount of words per page in order to be done by the 30 days with 50,000 words. I over estimated myself, threw my whole life into this book and finished a few days early. As an entrepreneur or business owner, you are more likely to have the freedom of having the whole day to do things. Get up early, write a list of things to do, get them done and then you will feel so much better in the afternoon. You’ll have time to rest and probably get caught up wherever else you are needed.

We run into this problem: A woman was fired for refusing to dye her gray hair. We come to this one problem: image is everything. If you don’t look a certain way, are a certain size or have what the company’s ‘eye image’ is — you won’t be looked at twice. Unfortunately, this is a terrible, terrible way to play especially while the economy is the way that it is. I completely understand that if you are on TV for commercials, direct response, fitness, news or whatnot — you have to be a certain size. That’s known. But to fire someone over a certain hair color or because they dress their age? Terrible. By doing this, companies are really missing out on excellent workers — ones that are potentially NOT robots.

In the July 11th, Inc.com daily email, they write about  Employees Losing Their Identity. Have you ever been in this situation? I think that anyone who doesn’t love what they’re doing, their identity gets lost a little bit each day. This makes me think about my mistakes from the past. I was in college, getting ready to head into my third year, having had almost all of my classes behind me and a few away from my two year degree. I had an excellent two semesters then, I got a job working retail. I threw myself into my job and lost the focus of what I really wanted to do. I left college because I thought I wanted to do retail. Wrong. Four years later, I pull out of retail and become an administrative assistant / eBayer then… now, currently, I’ve been unemployed long enough and will take pretty much any job. But, with that, I’m not losing focus again. I want to be a writer, I want to find my way to an English degree so I can professionally write and better yet, do social media along with it. Then, I can finally join the wonderful direct response industry that I love so much… and WRITE COMMERCIALS FOR THEM.

Here are some other articles to read for good measure: 

Did you hear about the new patent laws?

This is just depressing. A chart about employment… and the downfall of.

Are your current business plans falling through? Take a look at this, five steps on why you need a new business plan.

The Downside of Traditions - While traditions are nice in a business, they are also holding your company back from staying in the times.

Has it really come down to this? Firing someone for eating leftovers? Are we desperate, ignorant or what?

How to Pitch the Perfect Pitch to Employers [Who Are Not Looking For Employees]

July 11, 2011 Economy, Entrepreneurship, Marketing No comments

Hello, sorry readers it’s been a while. I have got to get it together and start writing regularly on here. I’m currently trying to finish a photography & poetry book, then once that’s done, I’m all yours. 

So, the title of this entry, right?

I’m in a slump. A huge, huge slump. Going on nTH month of being unemployed and I’m getting severely sick of it. I have sent out so many applications and resumes to folks – especially on Craigslist – especially because the people on there are looking NOW for someone. I have been interviewed by a couple of people off of there, but — when I call to confirm a second interview or what’s the status on my application… there’s always someone better. And, it leaves me feeling so unsettled: WHY CAN’T I FIND A JOB? A SIMPLE JOB, A HARD JOB, ANYTHING AT ALL – FOR ANY WAGE AT ALL. And still, nothing.

I broke down the other day. It was the end of the world for me. I am a worker, a hard worker when I have a job. I am a perfectionist. But, I can’t SHOW you anything until YOU HIRE ME OR GIVE ME A CHANCE AND CALL MY OLD MANAGERS / BOSSES AND ASK THEM. Yes.

After getting TWO rejections (one email from a local hotel company and one from text), it just left me feeling so down in the dumps. It was awful.

However, after giving it a day or two – I thought, “Okay, while all of these people are telling me I’m not good enough, qualified enough, not a good fit for companies, not hiring or whatever…. Why not go to companies who aren’t saying anything? Become an entrepreneur in a way, MAKE JOBS FOR YOURSELF, GIRL. You don’t need to be all mopey and sad! YOU can do this!”

So, that’s where I am today. I thought I had my email planned out. I was going to write to companies asking if they needed workers, offering my service to them, tell a little about myself and my work history). Then, SLAP – IN – THE – FACE. My better half is like, “Um, you need to SELL yourself.” Well, shit.

Most of you have been following me regularly for a while now and you guys know it’s a passion of mine to PROMOTE my favorites – companies, shows, individual people. But…. I do a very, very bad job promoting me. What’s good about me? Ho-hum. I talk about me, me, me all the time on my websites/social sites. You can catch me talking about my life on Twitter, I have my own Facebook pages (but only a few members because clearly I don’t know how to promote myself without me sounding all about ME ME ME ME ME and annoying people with it), and so on.

But, I have to make a good enough professional impression for someone to want to hire me. I need to come up with the perfect pitch to offer my services. Wait – what services do I have to offer? What do I know good enough to say I’m good enough to hire me instead of someone else? Well, I know photography but I don’t have an expensive camera. I don’t believe in PhotoShop so please don’t ask me to use it, I have a million other programs I can use to make my photos look good. I have eBay experience, two years+, actually. I could help you with your sales because I had a stable JOB as that for two years. And, I’m quite good at promoting others via social networking sites, as I’m ALWAYS on it anyway. And, I started my working life as a worker in retail for four years, and, if I can help it, that’s where I’d like to avoid at all costs. Loved the visual merchandising part of it, customer service and business math but the rest of it? I would like to avoid, as there are thousands of options out there.

I’m stumped at making the perfect pitch. I want to turn those around that aren’t looking to hire, to hire ME and my services.

I have to come up with something tonight. I think I’m going to have to turn on some Pitchmen because that show usually gets me thinking even more than I do now. The writer in me hasn’t had to experience this side – the side of selling [myself]. I know that one day  I need to know how to do this to become a commercial – technical writer.

It’s tough. It has to be perfect, I KNOW THIS because I’ve paid enough attention to my favorites in the direct response industry to realize that in order for the product to be sold, the pitch has to be successful.

So, here I am….tearing out my brain, staring at a blank page, wondering what to say. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.

But, it’s the HOPE of a promising connection, opportunity and becoming so very money hungry – that is making me WANT to do this and WANT to do it hard, good, perfect. Wish me good luck, everyone.