My Niche Life

My mentor was a fast talking salesman that made telesales come alive for me – I started to see how much cash could change hands and more importantly, the way a good sale could go …as well as a bad sale. Selling with integrity was a big thing for him, but the more important lessons came from the personal side of the coin.

I’d stay extra to pick his brain, under the guise of resetting a system or some other technical what have you. One day as I was pushing for another pearl of wisdom, he sat back in his chair, fidgeting with a paper clip and said, “Stay out of the dog ring. If you don’t listen to or remember anything else I tell you, remember this: stay out of the dog ring.”

He was referring to the smoke pit out back where everyone would get together, light up, and complain about everything and anything. It was a toxic environment, he told me, because it’s filled with negativity. Yet them tell it, nobody will ever make a sale to save their lives.

Today, our industry lost a legend – Billy Mays. The man could sell anything – I fell in love with his energy on screen. I did buy OxiClean and was pleasantly surprised with the results. I looked with longing at Big City Slider Station and I even considered Mighty Putty – more for comic effect than product effectiveness. After all, how can you not crack a smile hearing, “Hi, Billy Mays here with MIGHTY PUTTY!” Adjectives gone wild. God bless the adjectives, each and every one.

My first reaction was shock – I was in the middle of writing copy and to imagine a man like Billy gone at the very young age of 50 is … incredible. Tears welled up in my eyes. I had dreamed once of getting to meet Mr. Mays when I was a Famous Copywriter to tell him how much he inspired me when I was just a baby in sales.

Clarity and calmed washed over me after a moment – after all, would our dearly departed today want to see me curled up in shock, not writing a single word? Heck no – I suspect Mr. Mays would bring his infomercial pitching self back down here to haunt me up and down both coasts in a fit of rage that would shock both sailors and sellers simultaneously.

Everything I had been dealing with lately clicked into place – getting back into the swing of things meant dropping things that weren’t productive. It meant, as my mentor tried to tell me all those years earlier, staying out of the dog ring.  Online, that dog ring is hearing constantly that this stuff doesn’t work. It’s all a scam. They’re all out to get you. Puff cigarette, draw pictures of you raging against the machine.

Sorry, I’d rather rage for real and not just talk about it. I found that after 16 thousand updates on Twitter, I still wasn’t doing my best effort out here and I was wasting a lot of time. Forums are great. Social web is amazing. I’ve met so many people through it. However, now is the time for hiatuses and hardcore GTD. It’s the time for massive action – I’m willing to grind it out to live a life beyond my current understanding. If that resonates with you – come with me. If it doesn’t – I still love you easily and serve you effortlessly, but stay out of my way.

I understand the “I miss you’s”. I understand that I’m a little harder to catch and my time is being spent more selectively. But I’d be letting myself, my clients and my joint venture crew down if I didn’t carefully swipe a page out of Emeril’s salesletter and kick it up a notch. Okay, more than just a single notch – think four or five of those suckers.

I don’t want to make life pump its brakes when it spies me – I want to stop traffic. Seriously. That’s the staying paid mentality working through me – I am always a Staying Paid Diva, because that’s the only mentality in the world right now that’s going to give me and my family the lifestyle we both desire.

Is that a bad thing? I have a friend that wants to be a photographer – I will quietly leave their name out of this for privacy’s sake. If I’m doing the right moves, I can invest in that venture. Where I plan to go – dropping a professional grade camera in that person’s hot little hands and watching their face light up won’t have a Diva breaking a sweat. “But what if they already have a camera?”

Tsch. Cameras for photographers are like shoes for women. When have you ever seen a woman own only one pair of shoes? (and yes, that includes me too!)

So that’s why I’ve been rather Houdini-like lately. I love each and every one of you. My goal is to serve you effortlessly – gaining more control over my time without fear is to serve you better.

I’ve gotten some heat over this lately. That’s OK. I understand the idea of what I’m saying can be a little scary if that’s not your mentality. I’ve let a few close people go over their lack of support. That’s OK too – true colors and all that. If someone cares for you, they make no demands. Ever.

My birthday is coming – I’m turning 22. Double deuces.  Maybe it’s time to roll the dice and get more serious about really getting things done. After all, this company isn’t called Staying Comfortable, it’s called Staying Paid – and sometimes in order to stay paid, you have to change. That’s it.

I hope you hear that, Billy. I miss you today, more than you know. But you were a salesman that made good, and I definitely want to follow your lead. Goodbye, sir.  Love easily.

“Back to street

Down to our feet

Losing the feeling of feeling unique

Do you know what I mean?”

Panic! At The Disco – Nine in the Afternoon

I think about my average day, and how it differs from a lot of folks. Let’s talk about this – I know a few people were curious to how I actually spend my time. 

I get up whenever I feel like it – I generally try to be in bed by 2ish and up by 10ish. Anything before 10am isn’t important enough for me to wake up with any sort of consistency. I’m actually in the process of having a “morning person”, but I can’t talk about that just yet. 

I do check email when I get up. I depend on email to stay in the loop, and if someone really wants my attention, they know by now to email me first. I don’t check DM’s first. I hate direct messages, really, but it’s the best real-time thing we have I guess. 

I usually pull up my low-tech, little scrap of paper that has my worklist for today and only today. A quick example of my worklist (taken from today’s, actually):

edit Niche Breakfast & email polished copy to DG

tweak wordpress blog – personal

write 3 posts for SP main

record episode #1 – podcast

re-read joint venture content for Sharon McP

submit old SP stuff to distribution channels

build giveaway system

continue to fill out autoresponder – NB

update headline list

prep for #smallbizchat – send bio

build interview bio

test autoresponder links

There’s a few other things on there, but you get the idea. My worklist for a day can include anything from one item to 20 of the suckers. It’s just the way I work. 

Once I have a worklist, I am satisfied that the day will be at least somewhat productive. I generally eat breakfast – whether I wake up at 8am or 3 in the afternoon. I like breakfast food first thing – it’s soothing.  I might pop in a marketing audio / video / scrolling PDF and get some information. I also watch a little television too, just to make things interesting. 

I usually try to pull at least 50 hours a week, sometimes more if I’m in the middle of the project. But Isa, I thought the whole point of this business stuff was to work less, not more! Sure, that’s true – but I like what I do and …how do I say it? I’m on a bit more of an aggressive plan than other people. My “income goal” is a bit higher as well (shhh, I don’t say that out loud)

I do stuff everyday, for generally 6-8 hours, unless I want to work more than that. I divide my day into 2 and 3 hour blocks. I also set certain goals within the worklist. 

As you can see above, a lot of it is writing. So I set a pretty high goal – usually 3-5 thousand words a day. For people who don’t write continously, that’s a lot. However, most of my articles easily end up being a grand a piece, and when you get really passionate about a subject, the words practically fly off your fingers!

I go “underwater” to do my writing, which means opening up a copy of Q10 (http://www.baara.com/q10), putting on the headphones and my music up on high, and minimizing everything that has nothing to do with my work. 

When I’m tired, I stop working. I might go make lunch, or go for a walk – I generally try to walk 2-4 miles a day. I take my music player with me and sing, skip, and dance my way through the neighborhood. One day, a police officer rolled down his window and told me he never saw someone so cheerful as me. 

I think it’s because I’m really where I want to be, and I know the things I must do to get where I wish to go. 

Love easily today, darlings. Your favorite nichelady isn’t feeling so great today so my worklist is going to suffer.  It’ll be alright.

Isa “Niche Lady” Murphy