Category Archives: launch

Why Isn’t Sushi Bite-Sized?

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No really?  I don’t get it.  In all honesty, I’m not a native Californian gal and never even had sushi until about 6 or so years ago.  Even then it was only California rolls (I love those things!).  I slowly progressed to spicy tuna rolls. Yes, still rolls.

To be totally and completely honest, I just can’t get into the whole chunks of raw fish on a wad of rice.  It’s not that I’m repulsed by the raw fish (I love raw and seared tuna), but well, it’s just too big.  There’s just now way that I can take a bite out of the fish to make it more manageable and we all know that there’s just no knives when it comes to sushi.

Last night I met up with a LWL gal friend and she was craving, what else, you guessed it, sushi.  I told her that I was fine as long as she knew that I only ate rolls.  All was good (though my CA roll was pretty lame) and as expected, the conversation was great.  But all in all, it still makes me wonder…why isn’t sushi bite-sized?

Sometimes You Just Need to Know When to Call it Quits

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I’ve been focusing so much on expanding my business and taking it to the next level, that I’ve just been devouring every ebook and teleseminar that I’ve come across.  At the same time, a couple of folks have decided that the Aug/Sept time frame is the PERFECT time for back to back to back teleseminars.

Enough is enough. While I appreciate all the information, I think it’s time that I take a break and just focus on the tools that I already have.  There’s such a thing as information overload and it seems to be coming up my path.  I don’t want to fizzle out before I completely get going.

So as amazing as these many, many teleseminars, books and ebooks are, I think I just need to walk away for a bit.  Maybe that’s the message behind overbooking myself with three teleseminars all scheduled for the same time, same day and then falling asleep in the middle of the one I chose to listen to.

I have no doubt that I’ll continue to get the right information for me, as it’s needed – and I’ll continue to share this info with my friends. But for now…I’m on a break.  If I need a little procrastination help, there’s always the upcoming Ireland trip 😉

One of My Favorite Things About the Fall…

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Spa Week baby!  It’s the coolest thing, you can any treatment from botox to a massage to a facial or body scrub all for $50!!!  It’s a great way to check out a spa to decide if it’s one you might want to go back to later. There seems to be less spas participating this fall, compared to last spring, but there’s still a good amount in both LA and the OC.

If you’re in the LA area, I can’t recommend Skin Haven enough.  I had the herbology scrub there last Spa Week and it was divine!  Tell them I sent ya.

All I need now is a pumpkin spice latte and I’ll be a happy gal.  Well, that and maybe some cooler weather.

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Sommer Designs

And now, completely unrelated to the fall (kinda – “end of summer” means fall, right?)…a good friend and fellow LWLer, Sommer Designs is celebrating the end of summer by giving away this bee-you-tee-ful apron.  Just go here and leave her a comment letting her know just how talented she is (kidding, though she is talented).  Good luck!

What in the World Was I Thinking?

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Why did I think that writing up a newsletter on a Monday would be a good idea? Honestly, I seem to have no desire to do much of anything on Mondays.  But nope, I’ve got to finish updating our books, write this blog, a newsletter, a biz blog post and prep this week’s blog posts for my site…today.  Yeah, that’s some motivating stuff.  I’ll work on it all though, that’s for sure.  I’m all about the forward motion lately.

I’ve been participating daily in the 29 Days of Giving (this is the third, different link I’ve used for this event) and I’ve had some very interesting things happen as a result.  I’ve also been focusing more and more on setting my intentions and asking for what I want.  Needless to say, yesterday was an interesting day and brought me some interesting ideas and people.

Yesterday was a local LWL event.  It was held at the Equinox Spa & Gym over in Century City.  Let me just say, this place has an amazing set up.  It’s a perfect party location.  Very cool.  It was a fun event, tons of women, many great ideas, fun nibbles, interesting drinks (mine was just way too strong for me to enjoy, so I stuck to the Her energy drinks and water), and a goody bag to boot!  Aside from the hour or so when the sun was directly upon us, all was good.

I think my favorite part of the event though, was the networking, the mingling about and the catching up with folks.  With many networking groups it’s all about “hi, this is what I do, how can you help me?”  But with LWL, it’s such a casual event.  One minute you’re chatting with someone, the next, they’re introducing you to someone that might be able to help you…but it’s all natural and organic.  It’s not about what’s in it for them, it’s about genuinely wanting to help out your fellow LWLers.  It’s funny how you can just casually say something to someone in this group and the idea just explodes.

Case in point…I mentioned that I have a book idea and a friend referred me to her sister who works in publishing (who I had already been talking to and wanted to hook me up with some authors she knows).  Next think I know, they’re talking agents.  Wow, this could will really happen.

Second example…I was mentioning my upcoming workshop to a few gals and they got me to not only raise my price for the event, but to offer up a test-run class for a half the price (still more than I was originally planning to charge) in just two weeks.  I mean this went from casual mention to actual planned event in the course of an hour!  Absolutely amazing.

Now it’s an hour after I had to step away from this post to take a call, so I’m going to get to work.

I Finally Did It!!!

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I finally took the leap and set up my first paid seminar!  I’m so excited.  I have to figure out how much to charge for it now and write up the actual outline.  Since it’s a bring your own laptop kind of session, it won’t really take all that much creativity to write it up.

I teach regular classes on how to utilize social media and blogging for businesses.  For the most part, the group of women that I work with all get that they should blog, but all talk about how they have so little time and have no idea what to talk about.  As startup solopreneurs, they also tend to balk at paying someone (again) to work on their website or to install a blog on their site.

This workshop will require that they all bring their own laptops and we’ll walk through together, step by step, how to create a blog.  In the end, they will finally have their blog, understand what widgets are, set up their RSS feeds and, the best part, walk out of there with 5-10 (or more) topics that they can sit down and start writing about.  It’s guaranteed to get them started, no excuses.  If we’ve all set them up and can find the time to write in them, then so can they.

Told you guys I’ve been busy working this week!  And I’m not done yet…

It’s the Simple Things in Life

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I’m so happy!!  I finally got around to calling a bookkeeper. No really, this is reason to rejoice.  Our books are finally going to be taken care of.  Best part, I think we’re actually going to use her to actually input our reciepts as well.  This means even less stress for me.  And by less stress, I really mean less tears at the end of the year.  I’m so happy.

I spent a good chunk of this weekend working on our books and our filing.  I still had all of the ’07 paperwork filed in the cabinet and not organized or boxed up.  Which of course meant that my ’08 paperwork was just piling up since I could actually file it away.  Not any more.  Now my desk is not only cleared, but I no longer have mountains of papers threatening to topple over.  Such a good feeling (even though I still have a bit more to file away).

So now I’m going to spend the rest of this week focusing on writing and getting my website up and running the way I want it to.  I’m finally going to get that newsletter subscription service running.  Enough putting it off.  The time is now.

On that note, I can’t say I’ll be blogging all that much this week.  I really do need to get caught up on things (and no, I haven’t even tried to get caught up on my backlog of blogs – though my email is all caught up!)  So bear with me.  I’l be back shortly…

Last Week Was Crazy

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And this week doesn’t look any less crazy.  I think I must have had something going on every day last week.  In fact, one of both of us were so busy, that we only had one meal together at home (not cool).  I actually canceled my Saturday seminar so I could spend a little time at home with the husband.  Now this week isn’t looking all that much better since he leaves on Wedsnesday morning to head out to Chicago for the rest of the week and I leave on Thursday.

I’m doing another LWL workshop tonight on blogging.  But before the workshop, I’ve got a session with a client and dinner with a friend.  At least it should be a short workshop since a good quarter or third of my original attendees probably won’t be there.  I think I’ve had at least 5 cancel already.  Add to that the natural flake-factor of about a third and yep, not expecting much.

I think I’m doing it too soon on the heels of the last blogging workshop.  Which is fine.  It’s just the sort of motivation I need to get out, find a location, opening things up to the general public and start making some money at it.  I’ve been giving it away since January and I feel totally comfortable with my giving back-ness.

And of course, I’ve got BlogHer this weekend!!!  I’m really starting to get excited.  There’s been tons of talk on the BlogHer network about what to wear, what to bring, how to survive that I just can’t help but get excited.  I’m just waiting on a cute dress I ordered for Thursday’s newbie mixer and my postcards so I can promote my website.  I expect both any day now.

If you’ll be at BlogHer and would like to meet up or at least say Hi, feel free to drop me a line.  My goal is to meet people and make some connections, so don’t be shy.

Decisions Decisions

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I’ll admit it, I’m domestic diva (of sorts).  I’ve settled in quite nicely to my work from home situation and have embraced domestication with little fight.  And as the work from home wife, I’ve also embraced Bunco.  Once a month, I get together with other ladies and over a good meal and a nice glass of wine, we roll a little dice for fun.  And honestly, it is a good time.

My dilema…this month’s Bunco get together needed to be held on a different date than normal.  As such, I’m not conflicted on whether to get together with the gals or to head on out to the LA Chamber of Commerce Mixer. It’s a tough one because I don’t want to let my friends down. But on the otherhand it’s a great (and laid back) opportunity to socialize and network.  And well, I’d still like to set up those paid workshops/trainings and this could be a good opportunity to to get the word out.  I just don’t want to appear as a flake to my friends.

What would you suggest?  I have a feeling I know which one I’m going to do, but I’m curious as to what you would do in my shoes?

Talk About Feeling Overwhelmed

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I just got off of a teleseminar with Adam Urbanski and Coach Deb.  Now I know how folks feel when they leave my workshops on basic blogging and basic social media.  It’s a LOT of information to absorb and process.  I just have to remember that I don’t need to do everything all at once.

Today’s session was an in depth discussion about twitter.  Perfect timing too since I was asked to write up an article for the LWL magazine on twitter basics.  This session really helped to come up with some good, clear examples of how twitter can be an asset to a small business.  Now I just need to break it all down to it’s most simplest, bare bones measures since many of the women in the LWL are just learning about twitter and other various forms of social media.

Adam is running this Contact to Contracts teleseminar for two more days.  We still get to hear from Mari Smith tomorrow about Facebook and Nancy Marmolego about integrating social networking strategies.  The teleseminars are free (which is always a good thing), so be sure to register.  If you think you missed out on Coach Deb’s info, then go ahead and order the VIP package with both audio and transcriptions of the calls.  Good stuff.

Now that’s the massive note taking has stopped, I must find a cure for my hiccups and find some lunch.

Let’s Get Writing

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I’ve been asked by our LWL leader extraordinaire to write up some how-to articles for the LWL online magazine.  We’re thinking to focus on the various, mainstream social media outlets and write up some basic tutorials. She’s hoping that I can write one piece a week starting in July. This won’t be such a bad thing, though the pressure along could likely do me in (lol, nothing like being under pressure to get a gal to write).  The good thing, when all is said and done, I just might have a little ‘ol ebook already written and read to go.

First up, Twitter.  Any suggestions, advice or things for me to consider when starting with the most basics of basics?