As you know I have switched up my marketing and business brand this year and it was a very scary thing for me to look outside of the box and not be like everyone else. Then I saw these new U by Kotex commercials. Freaking hilarious and SO right! Why does advertising have to be so unlike normal life? Lots of marketing campaigns are guilty of this; beer commercials, fast food commercials and even online marketing campaigns that promise big payoffs with their webinar series. Personally, I like to think that people work with me because of my personality and my hard work ethic, not on how long my sales page is or how many yellow highlighted areas I can fit into one paragraph! To me quality far out weighs quantity when it comes to business so I would rather have 5 amazingly awesometastic clients than 10 mediocre clients any day!

Marketing, whether you are selling a product, a service or just simple promoting your personal brand needs to come from a place of honesty or else your future clients aren’t going to buy what your selling; and if they do buy they won’t trust you completely.

So how do you find out if you are marketing in-authentically?

• Do you feel icky when you sign up a new client because you are promising things that you may not be able to deliver?

• Do you advertize only with the picture perfect, planets aligned kind of scenario?

• Do your friends think you should have grown up to be a used car sales man?

If you said yes to any of the above you are not a horrible person, you just need to take a step back and decide how you want to present yourself from now on!

Enjoy these videos and think about how you want to portray yourself out in the business world!

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I love April Fools Day!

BUT instead of saying that I’m moving to Alaska to become a moose hunter I have decided to give you all a gift!

Have you ever wondered what the right social network was for you? Do you look at LinkedIn and cry from the boredom of it or wonder who in the world has time to use Twitter?!

Well I have a solution!

Starting today when you sign up for my VIP list you’ll receive a copy of my acclaimed* download,

Social Media for Noobs

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tweet

*By “acclaimed” I mean a few of my friends and family really like it so I’m banking on the fact that they’re not lying to me…

It’s packed full of goodness and will help you see the pros and cons of the major social networks! Click the link above to sign up or you can  take what’s behind door number two… click here!  (I couldn’t resist…hehe)

You’ll need to prove that you’re not a robot first by confirming your email address but once we know you’re a human you’ll get a link to the download! So much excitement for so little work!

Oh and by the way, if you have already signed up for my VIP list you should have/will receive a copy in your inbox without doing a darn thing! Man I’m good.

I hope you all have a fantastic April Fools Day and love your free download!

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I finally ordered my new business cards and they should be here next week! This process really took far longer than I anticipated because I was still looking for the “perfect” card. It was rather like that scene from American Psycho where the lawyers are all comparing business cards. Of course mine isn’t bone or off white, they’re bright and exciting – like me – which is exactly what I was looking for in my cards!

So I ordered them, thinking that I had decided on some pretty unique, memorable and awesome cards to hand out at the IVAA Summit in Phoenix this April!

THEN I found this video and it made me appreciate that no business card was ever going to be as good as this guy’s card so my search for the perfect card was just ridiculous!

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Good Monday to you all!

Who wants to start the week off with some Scorsese, some Dropkick Murphys and a lot of swearing?!

Oh The Departed, the movie I never thought I would enjoy. I can’t remember where I saw this the first time but I’m sure it was only so I could watch it for my yearly Oscar pool. I’m SO glad that I did though! This is a basic cops and robbers with a twist and has some of the best acting I’ve seen in a long time from some of my favorite actors.

Download the podcast here!

Some show notes:

• The podcast now has a name! I Love That Movie! I tend to say that about just about everything (I love that picture! I love that blanket! I love that lamp!) so I thought it would just be an appropriately fun name!
• This movie really REALLY earns it’s R rating so be forewarned!
• Won Best Director and Best Picture of the Year 2007
• Scorsese now has just as many Oscars as Three 6 Mafia
• Mark Wahlberg = Hilarious!
• Microprocessors? Really?!
• This movie says the F word 237 times!
• Total guy flick but I love this movie!
• I watched this with some of my favorite guys so it was fun to hear what they thought about the movie while I watched it with them!
• My Leonardo DiCaprio confession. Don’t judge me! hehe
• Worst sign off so far but I promise to work on the rambling and sign offs for the future! hehe

I’m going to have to give this movie 3 out of 4 expletives because this movie is a wonderful use of the F Bomb!

Have a movie suggestion for me? I have a crap ton, so odds are I’ll have your movie! If I don’t own it I’ll find it, watch it and if I love it you could see it here!

Here is an awesome music video I found of the movie with a great little ditty by an awesome band, Dropkick Murphys. WARNING: There are a fair amount of F bombs dropped so maybe wait until the little ones are out to the room to watch! hehe

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Surprise! So I know you were expecting a blog post but after I wrote out the post I decided it was far too long for what I wanted from this series. SO I am completely jumping out of my comfort zone and starting this off as a podcast! I know it’s a lot to get excited about all at once so take your time…

Just to warn you, this is my very first attempt at audio recording but I must say I’m pretty proud of myself! I think it came out great. Sure there’s a few spots that I wish I could have sounded a little less scatter brained but I think it’s fun that way. This is something completely new just for you so let me know what you think!

Download the podcast here!

Some show notes:

• This week we are talking about Masters of the Universe!
• It’s a pretty shaky plot with some weird side stories but all in all not horrible. It’s not like “Bullet Proof Monk” or “9th Gate” horrible or anything.
• Pop Tarts + my sister’s  She-Ra action figure = Hilarity!
• Skeletor gave me nightmares as a child and still continues to creep me out
• Back in the day Gwildor was super funny but now he’s kind of like the Jar Jar Binks of the He-Man world.
• Perhaps not the cheesiest of cheesy movies but there is definitely a level of Gouda to it…
• I mention at the beginning that I don’t talk a lot in public. That doesn’t mean I’m a hermit or am afraid of the Sun or something along those lines. It means that I’m not a great public speaker so this is a great way for me to break out of my shell. Just wanted to clear that up…hehe
• I noticed after listening to this podcast a few times that I tend to say “um” “basically” and a lot of things tend to be funny to me… I will work on toning those down in the future…
• I mention Wil Wheaton’s two podcasts so here are the links to Radio Free Burrito and Memories of the Futurecast
• The file is 19.3 mb so it’s not small but not huge. I’m still learning this podcast thing so maybe in the future we can make it a bit smaller so it’s easier to download but you should be able to listen in the browser if those 19 mg are just too much for your computer…

Over all I give it two out of four cheese wheels on the cheese scale.

Thanks for listening and

Good Journey to you all!

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I know you’re all seeing dancing refreshments right now so here you go…

I have a lot of movies.

You know how some people collect knick knacks or comic books? I collect movies and books. I have so many I don’t even remember buying some of them! It’s not my fault, it’s the book stores and bargain bins fault for selling them for $1-5.00! How do you pass that up?!

So here’s the deal -

In an effort to show off my strange and odd personality I decided it would be fun to go through my collection and showcase a movie each Monday! That way I can show off my weird taste in cinema and you get to learn a bit about me!

Now you may be wondering, “What about your crazy awesome book collection Sara?” Well, I am trying to decide how to bring those to the blog as well. The problem is that it takes me FOREVER to read a book. Seriously. Ask any of my friends. It once took me 6 months to read Q-Squared… yea… and that’s one of my favorites books! So we will be adding books as I complete them… perhaps… but that’s for another post!

I wish I could say that these movies will be brought to you in autobiographical order but alas, I am not THAT organized. No, this will be pure luck and chance because at the moment my perfectly organized and alphabetized collection is strewn across the room thanks to my daughter who enjoys pulling them off the shelf and making piles all over the living room…

I’ll also be watching each movie again and adding fun facts and quotes about each of the movies ala Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future book and podcast – both of which I love by the way!*

So there it is! Have a wonderful weekend knowing that on Monday you will have some awesomeness waiting for you here!

*One point awarded to me for including a Wil Wheaton reference. I’m on my way toward my goal of Wil Wheaton acknowledging my existence! Score! hehe

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She Made Ordinary Things Extraordinary by thedreamygiraffe

I recently found out that one of my favorite crafty ladies, Vickie Howell, has an amazing blog and website! While snooping around I found where she had done a free podcast series called CRL.

CRL with Vickie Howell is a podcast for those creative types.  Each pop-culture-infused episode brings you an in-depth interview with a celebrity or Craft/Fashion-genre expert, an informative segment we like to call T3 (Tips, Tricks & Trends) and lastly, Vickie’s ramblings about her random experiences as professional knitter and crafty lady.

I’m having a blast listening to these interviews but I wanted to share one in particular that focuses on how to use your creativeness to bring home the crafty bacon with Jennifer Perkins! I won’t go into everything they discuss but I wanted to give you some of the highlights if you’re thinking about or getting ready to step into the scary/fun world of being a creative entrepreneur!

• “Etsy is a built-in wonderland of easiness for you!” – I love this quote from Jennifer because it’s so true! With Etsy and other sites like it there’s no excuse not to sell your awesome products to eager buyers! They take a very small percentage of each sale but this is a remarkably versatile way to promote yourself as well as sell your products!

• Don’t expect to make your first million a month after you open your Etsy shop. Sure, you could be one of the fortunate ones who gets a celebrity to latch onto your awesome home made neck ties or original art pendants but lets be real here for a minute. Yes it will be hard, yes you will have to be persistent but if this is your dream and your love then all that waiting and work will be worth it!

• There are tons of ways to promote yourself for free! Art cards, business cards and your website are great ways to promote your work but places like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Flickr are amazing places to start promoting for nothing but the time you put into them!

• Connect with your potential buyers. Bringing your personality into your blog, your products and your communications in general will give your buyers a better sense of who you are and why they should buy from you instead of some other not-as-good-as-you Creative!

• Just do it!! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. If you have an awesome idea, go out and share it with the world! No one is holding you back except for you.

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Yesterday I was confused.

Not that I’m not normally confused about one thing or another but this time I really thought I was going crazy.

Green.

Red.

Nude.

This is what I saw all day yesterday on Facebook so I finally asked what the heck was going on.

I understand the message and I believe that making the problem known and talking about it can always be a good thing but come on, you have to let us in on the plan!

When I was in college I worked at Mirror Lake Cafe. They had the best subs ever! One day I got a ticket for an order as well as a card  from a customer that said:

She didn’t talk, I knew why and I thought about the issue. Simple and to the point. She didn’t just not talk and expect me to know why.

So basically what I’m saying here is…

Breast Cancer Awareness is awesome.
LGBT Awareness is awesome.
Mirror Lake subs were awesome.

Random unrecognizable Facebook updates, not so awesome.

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Happy Holly Days!!

Oh it’s almost Christmas and this is the first year that I didn’t stress out until the last minute about gifts and whatnot. It will be so nice to just enjoy the weekend and not worry about who got what for who and what I’ll have to re-gift later on!

Since it is a holiday weekend I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite holiday videos because who doesn’t love a good holiday video? (That and I’m too lazy to write a whole post today. I have 5 hours of driving ahead of me people!)

Many of these are new this year but some of them are just good old favorites that I have to bring up every year.

Enjoy and Happy Christmahanakwanzakah to you!

Adam Sandler Hanukkah Song

Bing Crosby and David Bowie “Little Drummer Boy”

Burger King Christmas Song – So annoying but funny!

Jars of Clay – “Little Drummer Boy”

Mr. Bean’s Nativity Scene

Christmas Story – Fa Ra Ra Ra

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Hello from my corner of the internet where most, if not all, of my work is done virtually, digitally and intranetly. (Ok I made that last word up but you get the idea.) I work with several clients who I have never met before because I have the ability to work with them online. I would never have met some of my new friends if it wasn’t for Twitter and social networking. I LOVE the internet but maybe “going digital” isn’t good for everything.

At the begining of the month I saw an interview on The Colbert Report, one of the only news shows I watch – The Daily Show being the other – and Stephen had the author Sherman Alexie on to talk about his award winning book “War Dances” and how he believes the digital age will be the end of book tours and personal contact between readers and authors. Sherman believes that once books begin to be made into digital copies for use online, and for digital readers such as the Kindle, authors will start to have less and less interaction with their readers.  He describes his Fall book tour and  how he did magazine articles, newspaper interviews and book signings but not nearly in the amount that he has done in years past. He even jokes at one point about how he is the afternoon matinée now.

Reading a whole book on a little device is just too out there for me so I haven’t jumped onto the Kindle excitement train like some of my friends. I want to be able to move pages and highlight parts I want to remember. I want to be able to “lend” out a book and then have to buy another book because I know I’ll never see the original book again! (That reminds me, I need to get a new copy of “Q-Squared“…)

This got me thinking about my role in all of this. My job is to help authors to share their personality and their work with the world by using the internet. I use social media and tools such as Scribd to help authors take their business to the next level by putting their work out into the internet tubes. I wouldn’t say that by doing that I’m killing off book tours but I would say I’m giving authors a different way to interact with readers. It may not be face to face but Twitter conversations, Facebook updates as well as blog comments can turn into pretty heated exchanges that feel very intimate. Doing a virtual book tour is a great idea as well if authors want to feel connected to their audience and draw in some new readers. Instead of going to book stores and coffee shops, we go to blogs and podcasts and interact with readers in a great new way.  Plus, this way you don’t have to look at the guy who just threw a shoe at you while you were reading a passage from your new poetry book!

This interview has been in the back of my mind all month so I decided to share it and see what you thought!

(When Sherman describes his people as “Paranoid Indigenous” it cracks me up everytime!)

(If you can’t see the video above click here. )

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Related posts:

1. How To Use Social Media to Promote Your Book : Virtual Book Tour!
2. How To Use Social Media to Promote Your Book : Facebook

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