business

LA freelancer june meetup with colleen wainwright

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LA freelancer meetup colleen wainwright

this past sunday, the LA freelance meetup group organized by colleen rice featured one of my favorite people, colleen wainwright, the communicatrix who gave a talk on leveraging your “awesome” via social media. it was so full of good info that i could barely keep up taking notes, and we’re not talking your basic “sign up for facebook and twitter” 1-2-3. she talked about seeking out awesome everywhere, celebrating it, learning from it, and complimenting it when you find something worth sharing.

it was a great talk overall, with a nice mix of freelancer meetup regulars and some new additions. if you are a freelancer, sole-proprietor or small business owner, check into the LA freelance meetup, read colleen wainwright’s awesome blog and 99.99% non-sucky newsletter, and check her schedule for upcoming speaking engagements. or heck, hire her to put some awesome in your life!

the LA freelance meetup group meets the first sunday of every month at 3pm at blankspaces unless otherwise noted.

biznik article of the week

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The Entrepreneurial Life: A Heart-based Business Strategy for Success by Anthony J.W. Benson

this article came on the heels of finishing michael gerber’s the e-myth revisited and touches on many of the same ideas about connecting to your visions and passions when defining a path in business and in life. while benson’s article suggests these ideas as a general approach to life & business, i think it’s also a good place to start when brainstorming on the messaging that goes into the formative phases of brand and identity development. any of you looking to develop a new brand or refresh an existing one may like to use these thoughts as a framework for developing the philosophy that will guide the project.

overnight success with a viral video

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sure, i am partial to the content shown here, but the success of this viral video, created by indianapolis editing firm, scofield editorial, is that everyone in the design community has been posting it, forwarding it, and generally buzzing about it for the past 2 weeks. it has reached about half a million viewers since it’s been out because it’s relevant, meaningful, and hilariously spot on. how’s that for guerilla marketing?

a quick note to any potential clients who think they have a negotiating trick up their sleeves, everyone i talk to has heard more than half of these tactics, delivered without an ounce of irony–and yes, they sound this phoned-in on the receiving end. get serious about your budgets, people, i got no time to throw in highlights for free. 😉

LA freelancer may meetup with dyana valentine

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LA freelancer meetup group dyana valentine

i just spent sunday at the LA freelance meetup group organized by colleen rice with the multi-talented dyana valentine. her workshop focused on writing and refining an elevator pitch above and beyond simply tossing off a job title or business name. and it wasn’t just a bunch of advice of what we could do [and then just as easily leave and put off], she put our feet to the fire, paired us off and had us work on them and present to the group. this gave me a chance to work with fellow echo park chamber member, beth zeigler, owner of bneato, learn more about her business, and give & receive outsider feedback on each of our pitches, which was really helpful.

valentine is an all-around fantastic person, full of energy to jumpstart [and finish] any project. she specializes in helping self-starters self-finish, one project at a time, and is always bursting with ideas, soundingboard energy and advice for her clients. her site is full of great information, including a helpful newsletter, articles, upcoming engagements, and a unique project called “hello, i’m really good at…”

marketing mentor, peleg top

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i just finished a saturday workshop with marketing mentor’s peleg top and couldn’t recommend it more highly. i’ll let his linked bio speak for itself, but the experience of the workshop was energizing and empowering in a roundtable format of various design colleagues. it was a great day to talk about how we run our firms, how we deal with various client challenges, and what works best for each of our businesses and why.

if you’re a creative professional looking to connect with colleagues and get the best business and marketing advice for our industry, check out the marketing mentor site, read the marketing mix blog [where my mixer co-hostess with the mostest, colleen wainwright the communicatrix can frequently be read, among many others], sign up for his biz bits newsletter, and look for any workshops and mastermind groups he does in the future.