Realizing A Dream

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I can’t wait to see how the future unfolds for me because I am not done dreaming.  I still have more dreams to make come true.  – Colleen Eakins

The year is quickly coming to a close and I have been taking a little time to do some self-reflection.  I am doing it to remind myself of how much I have to be grateful for, and as kind of a way to slow down, live and relish the moment.  To enjoy the now.  As much as I try to live in the moment, I often find myself giddy with anticipation of the future and what’s next for me.  You see, I am a huge dreamer and a big proponent of positive thinking.  I believe that I can make my dreams come true and my big noggin (I can’t find hats that fit) is full of dreams.

Almost 2 ½ years ago, I decided to take a risk and take my part-time (side hustle) freelance business full-time.  The economy was down and the freelance graphic design landscape was not very promising, but I decided that working from home and for myself, was something I wanted to do.  I had been working as a contract graphic designer for 3M in Atlanta for 4 years and my contract was finally coming to a close.  The last 9 months of that contract, they had allowed me to work remotely from home.  I loved it!  I loved how I had control over my work environment and my 5 minute commute from my bed to my office.  The only thing that would make the situation better was to have total control over when I worked and what I worked on.  That is when I decided that when the contract ended, I would not look for a job and freelance full-time instead.

A lot of people thought I was crazy to not even look for a job.  Not only did I not look for a job, but I turned down interview offers from recruiters.  When friends that knew my contract with 3M had ended sent me job postings, I politely thanked them for thinking of me and trashed the email.  I knew I could make it work and I believed that I could realize my dream.  I felt that I had a few advantages working for me; one of which, is that I grew up in an entrepreneur household.  My father was self-employed for almost my entire life.  My first job was at the age of 8.  I filed files for $3 a week.  When I was in high school, I worked as his administrative assistant, when a family emergency took her out of the country for an extended amount of time.  I worked for him every summer through my freshman year of college and even received a raise!  I learned to type, write reports, operate common office equipment, customer service, client relations and what it takes to run a successful business.

Another advantage I had, was that my business already existed; it was just on a much smaller scale than it is now.  My last advantage was that what I do now, is the same exact thing I did in corporate America.  That does not mean that I had the amount of work and clients needed to make my full-time status a success, but I knew that if I put in the work, was diligent and believed that I could, I would.  Reflecting on all of this tells me that I did.

I am not done yet.  I have more dreams and goals for this business and a lot more dreams and goals for my life in general.  I will realize those dreams.  I know I will, because I believe I can.

Do you have dreams that you have realized or plan to make come true?  What are they?

“I Want to Blog to Make Money.”

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The title of this post is a statement that I hear fairly often.  Very recently, I had a conversation with a childhood friend of my mother’s about blogging.  I have been giving advisement to my sister-in-law, whom I like to refer to as just my sister, about her blog.  It started as a hobby for her and with a little advice, she has been able to turn it into something far greater and is earning a small income from the site in a very short amount of time.  My mother’s friend was looking for a part-time way to earn some extra income and my mother thought she should talk to me about blogging.  She was not entirely sure what a blog was or how to make one, but she knew she wanted to do it to make money.  By the end of the conversation (don’t worry, I told her this would end up becoming a blog post), I had talked her out of doing so.

 

Here is why:

Saying “I want to blog to make money” without any other goals, purpose, etc behind it, is like saying “I want to randomly make a commercial to air on tv.”  To me, blogging for business or some monetary gain is part of a marketing plan.  It is a marketing practice that helps to reach a goal.  The goal could be revenue in terms of pay per click ads on your site.  Another goal could be customer acquisition by putting you and your brand in front of more people.  Being a helpful resource to people of a particular niche is also a goal.  A blog can help to generate revenue in the same way a print advertisement, podcast or tv commercial spot can help to generate revenue.

Things a blog can do for you:

  • Increase the visibility of an author/writer
  • Make you the go-to guru for a particular niche
  • Create brand awareness
  • Create a community of like-minded individuals
  • Create a space for you to engage with an audience
  • Build an audience
  • Showcase your work/portfolio
  • Give insight into your company’s culture
  • Give helpful information
  • A lot more…

A blog can help generate revenue, but a blog with no purpose other than to make money; will not make money.

The other reason why I discouraged her from creating a blog was the time commitment.  The reason why she was looking for something part-time to do was because she had gone back to school and needed time to devote to her studies.  In order for any blog to be successful and especially for her purpose of making money, a lot of time has to be invested into it.  She would not only need to write daily or almost daily, but she would need to promote it, and also respond and engage with those that engaged with her.  My sister did not achieve success by blogging part-time.  She treats her blog as a full-time job.  Her dedication and time commitment to her blog has helped to make it as successful as it has been.  She also had a purpose that was not monetary.

She started blogging as an online journal where she shared stories of relationships with significant other’s, co-workers, family and friends.  I saw the beginnings of a creative writer and she took the concept and ran with it.  She also loves what she is doing which takes some of the edge off of the time commitment, while trying to run a household with young children at the same time.

I explained the amount of time and effort that was needed to my mother’s friend.  I also explained that she might come to resent the blog if her heart was not in it and the sole purpose was to try to make some money.  After explaining everything to her, she agreed that she did not have the time to commit to doing something so tedious.  We discussed some of her future plans upon graduation and I told her how a blog could complement those future endeavors…if the current tech/marketing landscape remained the same.

Although the outcome to the conversation did not help her to start a blog, it did help her get some insight into the “blogosphere” and different ways blogs were used for both business and for pleasure.  Having more insight, I think is what ultimately helped her to make her decision and I thought writing about the conversation, might help someone else that wants to “start a blog to make money.”

Confession: I Don’t Always Take My Own Advice

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It’s confession time.  Hi, my name is Colleen and I am guilty of not [always] taking my own advice.  Wait, before you stone me, hear me out and listen to my excuse.  I often advise clients, family and friends that pick my brain on different ways to market their business and position/brand themselves.  A lot of the advisement that I give, I do not actually do myself.  I am pro marketing plans and strategy.  I am pro digital marketing.  I am pro succinct marketing messages.  I am pro everything that goes into creating a great marketing strategy and executing it.  However, my own strategy is slightly shotgun, which is exactly what I preach against.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Probably.

Here is my excuse:

I am just plain, plum, too busy.  My brain is too full and consumed with coming up with the best ideas, strategies, graphics, layout, logos, etc for clients.  I put a lot of energy and thought into the work that I do for my clients.  As, I tell them, I consider myself to be a part of their team and everything I design, every idea I present, is thought out based on where they are trying to go with their business and what the market and my gut are telling me would be best.  There just is not a lot of brain power left to think and plot my own strategies and what is left is often picked out for my friends and family.  I do not mind one bit, helping friends and family, because I truly want to see them succeed as well.

At the end of the day, there just is not enough gas in the tank for me to plan, evaluate and execute a great strategy of my own.  I liken it to hairdressers that have magical hands and execute the best haircuts and hairstyles, but look like they have a bird’s nest sitting on their own head.  Yeah, it’s kind of like that for me.

WordPress is “Easy,” is Relative to Your Experience

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I love the WordPress platform for building and maintaining websites.  Lots of web designers, entrepreneurs and bloggers love WordPress as well because it’s so “easy.”  When working with clients and explaining WordPress to them, I have branded it as “easy” to use and learn as well.  However, I have begun to realize that “easy” is relative and WordPress may not be “easy” to learn or maintain for everyone.

WordPress is “easy” to me for a variety of reasons.  One, I no longer have to hand code a full site.  Gone are the days of me designing websites based on what I knew I could actually code and make function.  I went to school for graphic design and later went back for a MBA in marketing, but all of my web design skills and knowledge are self-taught.  I am admittedly more right brain than left and the left brain is what sees art and music in all of those lines of code, styling, hooks and calls.  WordPress came along and made it “easy” because I can use something existing as a base to build off of.  Instead of starting from scratch, I can use my coding skills to customize, tweak, tear apart and put back together a site that is unique in look to my client and gives them the functionality they need.  Compared to what I had to do before, WordPress is “easy.”

Another reason is that maintaining what I have built is much simpler and no longer requires the expertise of a client’s webmaster (does that term still exist).  Before WordPress, if a client needed a change or update made, they would have to come back to me to modify the code.  Now the interface looks similar to Microsoft Word although the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor is not quite so WYSIWYG.  Thus, making WordPress “easy” to maintain and update, but again; this is all relative to my experience and knowing what it used to be like.

For someone that is entirely new to websites and is looking to have one made for their business, WordPress may not seem so “easy.”  Especially when they have an interface that is similar to Microsoft Word, but does not really act or function like Microsoft Word.  It can be downright frustrating.  WordPress also requires a bit of technical savvy to really get a handle on how things work on the back-end and how that all correlates to what is seen on the front-end.

While it is great to be able to say what it used to be like and how hard that was in comparison to WordPress today, for a client that needs a business site, it is all irrelevant.  Today they need a site and today they need to be able to maintain it.  If I told them that it would be “easy” with WordPress, then that is what it needs to be.  For that reason, I no longer tout WordPress as an “easy” solution, because “easy” is relative.

Why I Quit Facebook…Sort Of

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I quit Facebook.  Well, sort of.  Before social media became a marketing tool, I was an avid user on the personal side of things.  Like most, I bounced from network to network as they were created and became popular.  Myspace, CollegeClub, and a bunch more that escape my memory at the moment…sad, I know.  When I first landed on Facebook, it was actually after it had been opened up to non-college students.  I had tried to sign-up when it was for students only, but was unable to, because I had graduated and lost access to my .edu email account.  When it was opened up to everyone, I jumped on board.

Fast-forward to now and the current social media revolution as a tool for personal, marketing and professional uses.  I have continued my social media hop, but now I hop and stay for a while.  Also, when I hop, the purpose has changed from being purely personal, to being for business/marketing reasons.  I am on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Facebook with my freelance business (follow me).  What I am finding is that I enjoy the other social media networks more.  I enjoy them more, in my opinion, because the connections I share also share more content that is in line with my interests.  If I follow someone, but later decide I do not like the content they share, I unfollow them…and I do not feel guilty about doing so.

Facebook is a different story.  My personal account is filled with connections from people I have interacted with or encountered at various points of my life.  Some I have worked with, gone to elementary school with, attended college with, etc.; you get the picture.  Although I personally have met or known more people I am connected with on my Facebook profile than on the other social media networks, I feel less connected to them.  Just because I have met or known them, does not mean we share the same interests, thoughts and/or values.  I also feel guilty to “unfriend” people because it feels more personal than unfollowing someone I do not know on another network.

Instead, I have taken a passive aggressive approach and hide posts from certain people from my timeline.  I have started to come to a point where I feel like why bother.  If I did not need the personal account to keep my business page, I would close my account.

So for now, I sort of quit, I keep the account open and only pop in for business reasons.  Does anyone else feel this way?