The Boss of You

Full disclosure: We’re fans of pink. Our website is pink. One of the walls in our office is pink. Our business cards are hot pink and orange. And yes, Lauren has pink hair. In the book we talk about bending the typical “business rules” when it comes to being the Boss of You and not being afraid to let your true self shine through as you conduct business your way, whether that means having pink hair or subverting the “skirt suit” into some professional gear that’s more your style. The fabulous Ariel, author of The Off Beat Bride, has a great post up on her personal blog today about rockin’ her own pink locks at her corporate job for Microsoft, for those of us who don’t like to play by the all of the traditional business rules it’s well worth a gander.

So how about you? What are you doing to subvert the dominant business trend in being the boss of you? What do you most love about setting the rules around the office/shop?

In last week’s Ask the Boss Ladies post, Kim asked what our thoughts on paid Search Engine Ads (like Google AdWords) or Paid SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was the better way to go. Not knowing a tonne about your business Kim, I’m going to try to make this advise pretty general so that it hopefully applies to you and to some others out there.

For starters, I’m going to outline a few assumptions here:

• First, by choosing to pay to get eyeballs on your website, I’m assuming that your website either directly (through e-commerce) or indirectly but pretty darn quickly (say a portfolio or consulting site) will help you generate income.
• Because you’re asking about search engine optimizing or paying for search engine ads (basically paying to show up well in search results) you’re currently not showing up very well in so-called “natural” searches for some the keywords your clients/customers are likely to be searching on.

Running with that first assumption, the best way to evaluate either of these means of improving the likelihood of folks finding your through searching is to keep a solid and realistic eye on what the Return on Investment (ROI) is going to be. In fact, it is this ROI that makes me lean ever so slightly towards Google Ads (or other paid search ads) as a starting point, as they allow you to set up measures that can actually (in the case of having a shopping cart on your site) show you the financial return you’re getting on your paid ads. That said, if you’re not showing up well in natural searches, you may want to consider some SEO all the same, as continuing to pay for search engine ads for the life of your business may not be the way you want to go, but more on this in a minute.

If you do choose to dip your toes in the world of Google Ads, I highly recommend doing a bit of reading on the terrain before you jump in with both feet. A web search on “setting up google ad campaigns” will offer you a fair bit of guidance and Google’s own website is pretty good with the tips as well. One of the other great things about Google Ad campaigns is that you can really be pretty conservative in your initial trials starting with very small amounts of money in play (like a $1 a day). If you are paying for really popular terms like “lip gloss” you may find that a $1 isn’t going to take you very far mind you, but unlike buying an ad in a glossy magazine, paid search engine advertising does let you have a bit more control over your budgets. The other thing to keep in mind with Google Ads is targeting and specialization. If for example, the term you want has a lot of people vying for it (Google will tell you this in giving you information about what your minimum bid on the word or phrase would need to be) try a more specialized variant that applies to your product, so perhaps “hemp lip gloss” and see if that lowers the cost of entry while also helping you limit the search traffic to people who are searching for a product that really matches your own quite closely. The other aspect of targeting is changing the content of your ad based on the keywords you are using. Going with my earlier example, say you sell hemp based beauty products on your website, set up your ads so that the keywords associated with lip glosses and balms relate to those products specifically, while the cleansers talk about “Perfect for sensitive skin” or what-have-you. Keep in mind that whenever someone is entering a search term they are looking for results that most closely answer the question they’ve got on their mind, ie/ “who on the internet has the best/reasonably priced animal friendly organic facial cleanser?” While you can’t read people’s minds, you do want to take this opportunity to try to convince them to check out what makes you so special. The next piece of the specializing puzzle is to also use separate URLs for each ad group, by which I mean making sure your cleanser ads link directly to your cleansers page, and your lip gloss ads to the lip gloss page if at all possible. As with most things on the internet, you’re trying to get people somewhere in as few clicks as possible. This is especially true with e-commerce.

So, maybe you’re not to sold on ads, or you’re really concerned about your search engine ranking in general and want to get some SEO expertise on  your site. Google, again, offers some really excellent information about SEO, which I must insist that you read before you consider hiring or set out to hire an SEO specialist. Unfortunately, there are a number of less than above board folks out there offering SEO services, and a bad SEO campaign (ie/ one that uses nefarious techniques to artificially push up your ranking so you see quick results and are happy with your SEO consultant) can actually negatively impact your search engine placement quite significantly. So caveat emptor when it comes to hiring SEO folks. Now that said, there are many excellent and honest SEO consultants and firms out there — it is in fact a service we offer to some of our clients as well — in the case of a smaller business I would say you should be able to get a basic SEO package that you can realistically envision seeing a decent ROI on. You may actually be able to set up some measurable means of guaging the success of an SEO campaign on your bottom line by watching your sales (seeing if they go up) and also watching your search engine referrals to see if they go up at the same time. Keep in mind that SEO — when done properly — can take a while to have an impact, so have patience and discuss how long your consultant expects it to take to see results. Now for most small businesses, I would recommend finding an SEO specialist who is also willing to provide you with some basic training so that you can apply many of the day-to-day techniques on your site — ie/ how you enter content, tag images, etc. — yourself and not be paying a specialist all the time.

I’m going to say it again, but really I can’t stress this enough: whether you go the route of PayPerClick ads like Google Ads or decide to hire an expert for SEO you must make sure that you’re going to see a reasonable return on your investment.

We’ve all been in a situation where we’re looking for some thing/service to solve a problem. It might be as simple new cel phone that promises features that will make your life oh-so-much simpler, or a new faster internet connection that will allow you to get things done sooner, or even a new account with a financial institution that won’t charge you all the unnecessary fees of your current account. Regardless of what it is, I find that I’m always a little unnerved when the sales rep person I’m meeting with never says no.

Me: “Does this phone make it easy to take and send photos?”

Sales Rep: “Yes!”

Me: “Will this new phone make it easier for me to get ahold of Oprah to tell her about my fabulous new book?”

SR: “You betcha!”

You know what I mean? People who never want to say no. Never want to lower your expectations? Maybe it speaks to what a worse case scenario kinda gal I am, but I’m always much happier to have someone say to me: “No, sorry this phone will not get you on TV and in fact, the battery will wear down quickly if you take a lot of photos, but it takes awesome photos and it’s got a really easy to use interface.” Or some such thing.

Anyway, long story short, I found myself in a meeting a while ago talking about technical specifications and one of the parties at the meeting kept saying “Yes!” to everything my client asked for, which is great… except that it makes me kinda nervous. I’ve yet to really meet/use any technology that really did EVERYTHING well, and I prefer to know what hiccups or limitations are going to be there from the outset. We like to think of this as expectation management, aka making sure our clients know what they’re going to get and what they’re not going to get so that they’re not disappointed or frustrated when we’ve completed our job. And try as I may, I just can’t make peace with the idea that you can always please everyone all the time.

A few weeks back, we had a great chat with Constant Chatter founder Katy Tafoya about The Boss of You, and she has transcribed a good chunk of that conversation over on her blog. She asked us some great questions — such as, “I can see how the ‘elevator speech’ is something you should figure out and have at the ready, but why do we need a mission statement?” — and we really enjoyed talking to her.

She is giving away two copies of the book, so head on over there and join in the conversation!

We’ve been wanting for a while now to carve out some time to profile the marvelous women whose wisdom graces the pages of The Boss of You. We interviewed eighteen entrepreneurs whose businesses inspired — and continue to inspire — us, and who had taken the road less traveled in the business world, carving out niches for themselves that in some way sets them apart.

With all that’s been going on in the flurry of book promotions, we’ve only had time to write a couple of profiles to date: Smoking Lily and Lunapads. That means there are sixteen profiles yet to be written, which sounds like a good summertime project.

Today I want to tell you a bit about Beardwood & Co., LLC, a brand consultancy in New York. Named after its founder, Julia Beardwood, the company has five full-time employees as well as a wide network of freelancers who are brought in for specialized services. Julia has an impressive resume; she worked for many years at a large ad agency, and prior to that for P&G. But she left the big corporate job behind when she determined that it wasn’t compatible with parenthood the way she wanted to experience it. The long, long days weren’t leaving her with time for her family, and she was craving something different. A few years before she headed out on her own, her husband had started his own business, and she kept her corporate job so they’d have one steady paycheque in the family — but once they were sure his business was on solid footing, she decided it was her turn.

Initially, she quit her job and took some time off to be with her kids, but eventually she was asked to bid on a project that was too tempting to resist. She called together a few freelance colleagues and hammered out a proposal, then paused as she was putting the final touches on it, feeling something was missing. She needed a name — a name that would clearly indicate she was the project lead, but also conveyed she wouldn’t be working alone. Short on time, she typed in “Beardwood & Co.,” without thinking the name might stick. Four years and five employees later, it’s still Beardwood & Co., and they’ve created a pretty killer portfolio.

There are two things that stood out strongly for me when I interviewed Julia: Her passion for fostering a positive work environment, and her commitment to giving back to the community. With her big-agency years behind her, her voice became enthusiastic and animated when she talked about how much she loves their office space, the clients they work with, the work they do. She has an obvious love of collaboration and teamwork, and it was clear to me that strong relationships — with her employees, with her clients, and ultimately, with the audience for whom Beardwood & Co. develops brands — are her primary motivation.

She was equally eloquent in talking about Beardwood & Co.’s community involvement, telling me about an organic fertilizer company for whom the small agency had donated their branding and design services. She told me she had seen the products on television and knew they could expand their reach with a stronger visual identity — but guessed correctly they couldn’t afford her services. So she called them up and offered them a discounted rate, which resulted in a project her team could get excited about, even if it wasn’t financially lucrative. Julia explained that one of the secrets to retaining great staff is to give them a chance, once in a while, to work on projects where they can express their passion & creativity without worrying about profitability.

I loved talking with Julia. Her years of experience with large corporations set her apart from many of the other women we spoke to (although there were a couple of others who left big office towers behind when they became their own bosses), and that background gives her a unique perspective on building a small business that can compete with the big fish. She told me she was convinced that being a small, nimble studio gives Beardwood & Co. a competitive edge, and that although there may be some big clients that stick with big agencies for the comfort of the familiar, that there’s always room for smaller players at the table.

I’d say that with clients like Real Simple, Carol’s Daughter, the NBA, and Bath & Body Works, they’re doing pretty well.

Our Victoria event at Silk Road Tea Co. was a pleasure, and we’re grateful to those who came as well as to Daniela, Silk Road’s co-owner, who made us feel welcome and graciously and efficiently organized seating and tea (both hot and iced) for everyone in attendance. I got a chance to chat with Daniela beforehand and learned that they’ve been in business sixteen years, and like so many of the women we talk to, grew the business very gradually in an effort to keep their financial risk manageable. They’ve recently expanded their shop into the space next door to their original location, doubling their floorspace. (Unfortunately we don’t have pictures, as their products are light-sensitive.)

Our favourite part of every book event is the question and answer period that follows our always-brief introductory remarks and reading — and this was no exception. We fielded questions from how to maximize the payoff when you earn a little press coverage, to how to manage a business that has snuck up on you over time (a common issue for consultants, who may take on a freelance contract or two, only to find themselves a few years later working full-time on a variety of contracts, without having created anything resembling a business plan.

It strikes me that perhaps we should bring the Q&A format to this here blog… so how about it? Any questions you’d like us to answer here? Post ‘em in the comments and we’ll do our best to tackle them.

The Province is one of our daily papers here in Vancouver, and a few weeks ago now we had an interview with their careers writer Wendy Mclellan about the book. The resulting article is here, if you’re interested (for now anyway, I think they hide these things behind a subscriber link after a few days). The piece is about our own journey to entrepreneurship, in addition to the book — though of course the two are pretty intimately linked for us. I feel like we’ve been incredibly fortunate in the media interactions we’ve had for this book so far. Wendy was a real pleasure to talk to and didn’t make us feel like we had to overly craft our message or stick too close to “talking points,” we were able to just discuss our story and our values and I’m really pleased with the final piece.

A news story about women business owners and their trend towards being more willing to lean on friends and colleagues for advice than their male counterparts came across my news feeds this afternoon. The study was commissioned in Australia and found that “women are much more likely than men to consult other business owners and business partners, as well as family and friends, when they want advice and support for financial and business decisions.”

We knew going into writing our book that we wanted to include advice and information from other business women we knew or admired, both because we don’t claim to have all the answers ourselves, but also because our own experiece of entrepreneurship has included being on the asking and answering end of that equation so many times. Because I do not believe that anyone out there has all the answers, I find it amazing that there are business people out there who don’t rely on colleagues, family, friends and experts to help them along the way. Being an entrepreneur is so often about facing new challenges and while its tempting to think you can do it all, I learned pretty early on that asking for tips from people who’ve been there or even just workshoping an idea with others who are facing the same challenges can not only save you time, but often result in answers and ideas you’d never come across on your own.

We have a stable of experts — bookkeeper, accountant, IT networking support guy, business coach — and several choice numbers/emails for entrepreneurial colleagues memorized that we make judicious use of and who I can’t imagine getting to this point in the life of our business without. Who do you turn to for advice/guidance when you’re facing a business challenge?

Apologies for the quiet around here… We have the least original entrepreneur’s excuse ever: Work is very, very busy. We’re paying the piper a little bit at the moment, catching up on work we put off while we focused on book  promotions, and now we’re getting close to several deadlines that absolutely need to be met.

There are a couple of things I wanted to let you know about, though. One is our event next week in Victoria, BC — Emira’s hometown, and one of my favourite cities to visit due to its plethora of delicious restaurants, intensely walkable layout, and generally gorgeous and interesting population. We’ll be at the Silk Road Tea Company next Thursday, June 19, at 6:00 pm, to talk about the book, read a little, and talk shop. We always look forward to the discussion portion of these evenings, so please bring your business questions, entrepreneurial challenges, and ideas to share.

Silk Road Tea Company, for those who don’t know it, is a tea shop and spa in Victoria’s Chinatown that sells our favourite tea (Angelwater is the tea of choice here at the office), as well as aromatherapy products and spa services. It’s also owned by two Victoria women — yay!

In other news, Jenny Hart’s latest “Crafting a Business” column is up on Venus Zine, and it’s all about taking vacation, which couldn’t be more apt. We talk about the importance of taking time off in The Boss of You, and I’m excited that Jenny is doing her part to bust the stereotype of the workaholic business owner. Our world doesn’t need more people working themselves to death — we need more people creating workplaces that enhance their workers’ lives (and remember, you’re your best employee). The first couple of the tips are specific to home-based entrepreneurs, but most of them apply to all of us. And even those of us who do take vacation can benefit from a dose of Jenny’s clear-headed perspective… “Ask yourself these perspective-lending questions (I do this myself) if you’re feeling truly stressed and overwhelmed and can’t justify stopping or taking a break: Will someone starve, die, or be harmed if I don’t get this work done today? Will my business fail? Chances are the answer is no.”

One of the fabulous and unexpected benefits of having written this book is the deeply cool, and frequently nontraditional, women’s business groups we’re coming in contact with. A few weeks ago we got an email from Laura Bucci, maker of beautiful handmade things and one of the many people using Etsy to sell her wares. She’s part of the Trans-Canada Etsy Team, a group of Canadian Etsy sellers who have banded together to share advice and support.

Laura has written an incredibly thoughtful and positive review (thank you!) over at the Trans-Canada Etsy Team blog, and she’s also hosting a book giveaway. So for any of you who haven’t yet bought a copy (or who might want an extra copy to give to a friend), why don’t you stop on by her blog and enter the giveaway? The rules are simple:

The giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only. To participate leave a comment below and tell us:

• how you picked your business name (if you currently have a business)
  OR
• what is motivating you to start a business (if you don’t have a business yet)

The contest closes Wednesday, midnight, June 11, PST. Good luck!