Nancy Fields

Some days I fear we’re living in the age of illusion. If you can dream it, you can be it. Fake it ’till you make it. The Internet makes it easy — Heck, my website platform of choice, WordPress, allows anyone to download free software and create a website that makes a person look professional and legitimate in one day.

How To Separate the Wheat From the Chaff?

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve fallen for every trick in the book, so, although my experience has come at a high price, I’m getting better at spotting a charlatan.

Take for example a recent sales pitch from someone I’ve been following on the web for over a year. She was selling space at her two-hour live webinar for the first 1,000 people lucky enough to sign up in time. The cost? A mere $197 for an opportunity to ask her a question, plus get more downloadable printed material than you’ll likely ever have time to print or read. The topic? Why you need a Project Manager in your online business, and where to find them.

The sales pitch was impressive: As was her online marketing. In fact, had I not passed it by a professional project manager with over 25 years experience, I would have fallen for that one, too. The real project manager’s response? The presenter didn’t know her PM (Project Manager) from her OM (Operations Manager).

An Even Scarier Story

At my WordPress Meetup last week a web developer shared this story:  A small business owner hired a web development company to build him a new website. For the purposes of this story, we’ll name the small business, New Tools, and the web development company, Slick Web Development. After one month the small business owner noticed that New Tools was not getting any web traffic. In fact, he could not find his website using any of the popular search engines. When New Tools brought this fact to Slick Web Development’s attention, Slick Web Development assured him they could remedy the situation if New Tools would pay a monthly SEO service fee. The owner of New Tools decided to shop around before committing to a long term, expensive contract for Search Engine Optimization.

His inquires lead him to another web developer (we’ll call Mark) whose story I’m retelling. After digging around New Tools’ web site for over an hour, Mark discovered that Slick Web Development put code deep into the back end. What this code did, was make the site invisible to any search engines. Fortunately the owner of New Tools found Mark, a highly skilled website developer, who was able to find the problem.

And The Punch Line Is… 

“I can’t believe the old fashioned way of doing business — honesty and good customer service — actually pays off!” said Mark.

“Wow! Were these 20 & 30-somethings raised by wolves,” I asked myself?

Old Fashioned Vs. Out-Of-Fashioned

At some point the fakers get caught. It might not be for a while, but life does seem to catch-up with them: they loose their jobs, loose their clients, loose elections, loose their money. Loose trust.

How Do You Know If You’ve Found The Real Deal?

1. Ask someone you trust if they would do business with the person/company you’re considering.
2. Check their website for testimonials.
3. Shop around and follow your gut.

…You’ve Cleaned Out Their Locker.

This past weekend I began readying a space for a friend who’s starting a new business and needs a temporary office to get their idea off-the-ground. I’ll also be designing her new WordPress website so sharing my office for the next few weeks made sense. Little did I know what treasures awaited me.

What If The Locker Is Your Own?

While clearing an area I stumbled upon a box full of things from the summer of 2012, including these inspirational quotes:

• “In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.” Lee Iacocca

• “A quitter never wins. A winner never quits!” — has been cited in print since 1918

• “Plan your work  and work your plan.” author unknown

• plus a note to myself “Make a plan!”

By June of 2012, my design business had changed a lot from when it began in 1993. During the mid-90’s until the stock market crash in 2008, I was putting out 70-90 print jobs a year: from catalogues to trade show signage and everything in between. My design for print business was wildly in demand — until it wasn’t.

Going through “my own locker” was an eye opener. I had no idea the level doubt and indecision that had crept into my psyche, and my business.

Looking back, the summer of 2012 was a turning point. That’s because two years ago I decided to try something completely new: learn WordPress and hire a coach to teach me how promote my business online.

WordPress Has Changed My Business For The Better

Today my weekly schedule includes:

• writing an e-zine,
• a blog, and
• posting on Facebook.
• I customize WordPress websites for other small businesses, and
• train my clients virtually, on how to use WordPress and AWeber.

My design skills have not gone to waste. On the contrary, customizing WordPress websites with irresistible free offers (e-books), web headers, and custom logo designs has kept my design sense strong.

The Learning Never Stops

Two years ago Constant Contact was just an ad on the radio. “Email marketing. What’s that?” Today I’ve used Constant Contact, MailChimp, and AWeber (my email marketing program).

A recent request to set up 1ShoppingCart introduced me to VAClassroom. Thanks to their two-week training course I’m setting-up an autoresponder, newsletter and shopping cart later this week — plus designing a newsletter header — which does save my client time and money because the job stays under one roof, from concept to completion.

Copyblogger’s Authority webinars are on my weekly calendar, as are online coding classes from the Women’s Coding Collective.

Who knew WordPress would lead to many new ways of promoting my business — and offer me the opportunity to help other small business owners promote theirs? How lucky it feels to be living and working in rapidly changing times and have the courage to embrace these changes.

Feeling Stuck? Lighten Up!

I’m so glad circumstances forced me to empty that box. It’s rewarding to see how much my business has changed in two years. It’s liberating to leave the past behind and welcome the future with empty hands.

How do you let the world know you’re the real deal? Let others sing your praises!

Testimonials are the best way to sell yourself or your product — and your sidebar is the perfect place to add testimonials in your WordPress website…but it needs to be added as code. Wait! Stay with me on this one. I’m going to show you how to:

• (1) turn your text into code, and
• (2) how to get your testimonial in your sidebar — the easy way!

Create Code The Easy Way

Instead of learning how to write code, let WordPress do it for you. Here’s how:

 

1. Dashboard —> Pages —> Add New
2. Give your page a title like “code only”
3. Add your testimonial and
4. any font styling you wish using the text editor (i.e. bold, italic, colored font)
5. When you’re satisfied with your testimonial text, click Save Draft
6. Click the Text tab
7. Select everything you see in this text box — all the text including the code (see image below)
8. Copy it
9. Now you’re going to head over to your Text Widgets:
   Dashboard —> Appearance —> Widgets
10. If a prompt appears asking if you want to leave the page, click “Leave Page”

 

Here’s Where the Fun Starts

1. Locate your Text widget on your Available Widgets page (see below)
2. Click on the “Text” widget, hold and drag to any sidebar area of your choice*
3. Paste your coded text into the Text widget
4. Give your Text widget a title
5. Click Save
6. Click close
7. Check out your updated site and take a bow!

 

 

 

*NOTE: Your Widget page will not look like mine because I’m using the Genesis Framework and a StudioPress theme called Prose, but you should have a Primary and/or a Secondary Sidebar on your “Available Widgets” page. I’m also using a Genesis plugin called Genesis Simple Sidebars which allows me to create unique sidebars for each of my pages.

If you would like to speak to me about building a powerful and unique WordPress website using the superior Genesis Framework and a StudioPress theme, call or email me today.

Have you ever thought you’ve finished a job, but it keeps reappearing in your in-box?

Five months ago I designed the inside pages of a free offer for my client, Jean, but I owed her a 3-D cover design.When I asked if she still wanted her 3-D cover, Jean told me she didn’t know why she needed one, or what a 3-D cover was.

Her response came as a surprise because when Jean hired me in late December to design her free offer, she had a WordPress site up and running. Five months later, she had not launched her site, nor did she have a way for people to access her free, valuable information.

It then occurred to me she had fallen into the same trap as many new business owners. Someone tells them to get a WordPress site because it’s free, and good for a start-up business, but doesn’t tell them why. Inevitably their site stagnates and they miss opportunities a business online brings.

Why WordPress is Good For a Start-up Business

Yes. It’s a free download, but that’s not why it’s good for start-ups. WordPress began as a blogging platform. Active blogs — those in which new content is added on a regular basis — rank well in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! because search engines search for new content.

What makes WordPress good for business start-ups is:

1. WordPress makes it easy to add new content, and
2. sites that are actively updated draw interested prospects to you.

…But You Need More Than WordPress

You also need a way to capture the names and email addresses of people who are interested in your product or service. If you don’t have this ability, you have a “brochure” type website. Brochure type websites might look fabulous, and have lots of bells and whistles, but it’s like having a retail store that’s full of product without a sales clerk — and the doors are always locked.

Unlock The Doors and Get Good Cheap Help

Start up businesses like Jean’s need to let tell as many people as possible, what her business does. Like all business owners Jean constantly needs to sell herself and sell her product, plus communicate and engage with people who want what she has to offer. Hard as we business owners try, we can’t do everything.

WordPress makes it easy to communicate, but you still need to build your list of interested prospects. That’s where good cheap help comes in — it’s called an email autoresponder.

Email autoresponders capture the name and email addresses of people who enter them in the opt-in box on your website. Autoresponders work 24-7 by collecting names and addresses of interested prospects, and store them for you. Having a database of names and email addresses allows you to continue communicating with people who are already interested in you, and your product. You can also use this same database to roll out new products and special offers to the very same people who are most likely to buy.

The most popular email autoresponders for startup businesses are MailChimp, AWeber, and ConstantContact. FYI: I’m with AWeber because it’s important for me to be able to phone customer service and speak with someone when I have a question.

Free to Fee

Today people want a “free taste” before they buy. That’s where a graphic designer can be your most valuable resource, and that’s why Jean hired me. She had great content, but it looked boring. I took her long, drawn out text and turned it into digestible bits by adding big headlines, subheads and carefully selected bolded words to make her content engaging and fun to read.

Why all the fuss? Because you really do want people to “consume” and find value in your free product. You want them think, “If her free stuff is this good, her paid stuff is definitely worth the asking price!”

Why A 3-D Cover Graphic Is Important

The reason for making a 2-D cover graphic 3-D is because it’s eye catching and gives your ebook or MP3 instant credibility. People only give out their name and email address to a source they like and trust. Your Free Taste is not really Free because you’re getting a lot in return: the opportunity to build a relationship and a potential customer.

TIP: A captivating title helps a lot, too.

Jean’s 3-D graphic is not yet done, but here are some examples of free offers I designed recently:

If you don’t yet have a free offer that provides value to your potential clients, start one today.

My ‘right-out-of college’ years in New York City at Glamour, Mademoiselle and Weight Watcher’s magazines gave me great experience writing and editing, which benefits all my clients.

Call today to book your Irresistible Free Offer — inside and out. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

Do you love to do many things? Do you ever get the opportunity to do them all — at the same time?

Each March I feel like the luckiest designer alive. That’s because one of my favorite clients asks me to add one more page to a truly magnificent book — that I designed over ten years ago.

This job requires me to combine my passions: page design, hand lettering, and collaboration with extraordinary artists.

Welcome Deerfield Alumni is a ceremonial book. Each year, a class representative composes a 300 word essay reflecting upon their high school years. Names of the graduating seniors are entered below the memoir. Immediately upon receiving their diploma, graduates sign their names into this oversized book and are officially welcomed into the Deerfield Academy Alumni Association.

Designed as a single volume for the classes of 2002 — 2011, Welcome Deerfield Alumni was so treasured that a second volume was requested in 2012. All of us who began the project twelve years ago are still enjoying the annual work process.

As the designer and project coordinator it’s my responsibility to:

• typeset the copy and
• send out an electronic file from which plates are made.
• The letterpress printer receives the plates via UPS or FedEx and
• prints 5-8 sheets on handmade paper.
• Once printed, I then add a drop cap by hand and
• send off to the bookbinder to tip in the “best” sheet.

We begin the process in early March for a late May delivery. Lots of steps for one little page, but each year when the book begins its journey toward this year’s completion, I delight in seeing and feeling this oversized masterpiece that has been:

• hand calligraphed plus
• letter press printed by master printer Art Larson of Hadley, Massachusetts,
• hand bound in vegetable tanned goatskin leather by Daniel E. Kelm at The Wide Awake Garage
• and stamped with 18K gold leaf.
• Daniel also designed the paste paper endsheets shown below.

As someone who loves paper, handmade books, and collaboration, this is my dream job.