As a kid in high school I remember my guidance counselor asking me what I wanted to do in university, I definitively said "science or business" (hey I narrowed it down to two options that's pretty good for me!), which garnered a strange reaction from him. In the end I took science in school, because science is theoretical and thus meant for university study, but business requires experience and practical applications. So, here I am, a chemist turned holistic therapist and entrepreneur, though for the last five years I have had a little cosmetics company that I see big things for using some of the new things I've learned from unlikely places.
I've always had trouble marketing, because I knew how important it was, but I had no idea about how to go about doing it! Words like niche and target market and ROI, and networking groups and measurable and then with internet stuff, e-newsletters, blogs, facebook, twitter, affiliates, web sites, search engine optimization. All I seemed to do was spend money, when it was (and still is) in tight supply. Due to some rather tragic circumstances (depending on your point of view), I had enough time on my hands to spend in Chapters looking at popular books to develop a new concept of marketing (and then hitting up the used bookstore or library). Some how in my frenzy of signing up for free stuff and then canceling my subscriptions I stumbled upon a series of interviews that led me to more business books.
The trend in the newer business books written by younger authors matched the "other" stack of books I actually bought from Chapters all about yoga and spirituality. In a fan letter I wrote to a business author "I loved your book as it's in line with the yoga principles that I recently learned." Then in an advanced Body Talk class I learned about how to balance the energetics of groups including businesses, which led me to believe that holistic practitioners have tools that other businesses don't unless they have the same belief systems that we do.
In the books written by older people, they had tried and true systems that worked. Because I had heard interviews with many of the authors, their stories and work came from their hearts to help others. I think those would have been a good addition to the books. Maybe for the next editions :) Reading so many books at the same time allowed me to notice how people cross referenced each other, even between the age groups, which strongly suggests they still are relevant.
So this little blog is the culmination of things I have learned to help me explain and cement these concepts together for myself. If all goes well, I'd like to design a webinar or speaker series and yes the blog is about marketing, so I have no guilt about monetizing it :)
S
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