Archive for the ‘Advice + Tips’ Category
This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.
Remember when you were younger and you’d have Opposite Day at school? Why is it that, as adults, we have let go of the idea of having fun (just) for the sake of fun and have to be all proper and (blech!) responsible all the time?
It’s time to reclaim the fun: I hereby declare today Opposite Day.
For the next 24 hours, do the exact opposite of what you normally would do in life and business.
Cupcakes for lunch? Yes please.
Always write long, photo-heavy blog posts? Put up a single sentence and call it done.
Spend your evenings checking up on the blogs of your competitors? Downton Abbey marathon.
It’s time to step out of your routine and shake things up. In a big way. We get so bogged down in habits and patterns that it becomes difficult to see any other alternative. And the alternative way of thinking is the first step to making changes and noticing things in a different light.
The secret of creative businesses is that…wait for it…we get to be creative! So make your own rules, let it be fun, get crazy with your bad self.
Don’t be afraid to take some chances with your business, especially if they are ones that will let you enjoy the experience of running it more. Because if you’re miserable with your business, what’s the point?
In the comments, I’d love to hear: What are you going to differently today? Then: report back and let us know what changed for you.
Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who aren’t living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators — and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.
This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.
As creatives, we are quite skilled at talking ourselves out of things.
Oh, that will never work. Oh, people will think that’s crazy. Oh, I have no idea how to do that. Sound familiar?
What if, instead of spending all of your time talking yourself out of these random wacky crazy-making ideas, you actually acted on them?
Our creative brilliance is found in our whims – those seemingly random ideas that we hear as whispers but hardly ever act on. In fact, we typically move in the opposite direction and dampen the spirit of those ideas until we get to the middle-of-the-road safe space where most of us live.
When was the last time you actually acted on one of your ideas? When was the last time you took a risk in your creative business without having a guaranteed outcome? When was the last time you reached beyond your comfort zone and delved into the unknown?
What if you were able to embrace your crazy and actually push an idea forward? It could be the game-changer for you.
Challenge for this week: Act on your whims. All of them.
If you get the idea to knit with copper tubing, do it. If you get the nudge to write a blog post about Justin Timberlake, do it. If you get the crazy idea to reach out to a famous blogger because something tells you that she would LOVE your idea and want to be a part of your new project, by all means, do it!!
In the comments: I’d love to hear what whims you have (or haven’t!) followed. Any whim-following success stories out there?
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image credit: You Know More by Anthony Burrill
Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who aren’t living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators — and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.
This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.
When talking about making your mark in the online creative world, everyone points to one main source: original content.
But how are we supposed to come up with original content when we spend our time reading each other’s blogs, commenting on facebook, and being generally inundated by everyone else’s stellar original content? We aren’t.
I’ve been noticing lots of sameness out there recently. Yes, there are trends. And trends exist for a reason. BUT that doesn’t mean that tossing in a wild card won’t make you stand out a bit more. Or a lot more.
{Disclaimer: When thinking about standing out and being different, fear often comes up. Fear of being different, of not blending. That’s okay. You don’t have to give in to that fear. Really. You don’t have to.}
You never know where you will find inspiration. BUT, if your goal is to stand out and take risks and be different (read: noticeable), staying online to get inspired will only make you blend in to what everyone else is doing.
Today’s challenge: Go outside. Get dressed for whatever weather is out there and take a 20 minute walk. What do you notice? Patterns? Colors? Birds? Inspiration perhaps?
Now, take that inspiration and DO SOMETHING INTERESTING with it. Take a risk! (Hint: it’s okay! You’ll be fine.)
Then, report back here. I’d love to see what you create.
In the comments: what are your favorite (offline) sources of inspiration? How do you get yourself off the computer and out into the world?
Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who aren’t living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators — and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.
After ten ‘Secrets to Success’ posts, it seems only right for you to spill a few secrets of your own. Only we’re not sharing success secrets today – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Tiffany will explain…
This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.
There is a tendency on the internets to make everything glossy. Sometimes it seems like we’re all having a shouting contest to see whose “LOOK HOW AWESOME MY LIFE IS” can be the loudest.
While this tactic seems to be great for branding and marketing, it often results in the budding solo-preneur (me + you) feeling terrible, like we’ll never make it, like everything we are doing is doomed to failure.
So, for today, instead of seeing who can be the loudest in the bunch, what if we take a moment today to confess our deepest, darkest business secrets.
What could be possible if we all shared this out loud with each other?
I’ll start: I have zero money organizing systems set up for my business. I’ve tried mint.com. I’ve signed up for shoeboxed.com, but the bulk of my financial information is stored in my paypal account and in a drawer full of random receipts. I will be attempting to get my tax information together before heading down to Craftcation (say hi if you’ll be there!) and am panicked at the thought.
Panicked. (Which is why I’ve been putting it off for so long.)
While I know this is a problem (I’m going to be reaching out to bookkeepers when I get home), saying it in a public forum all of a sudden makes it seems less looming. It’s smaller and more manageable now. Just like that.
What is your little business secret, the thing you’re most afraid to say to the world? What dirty laundry do you have hiding in your shame closet?
(I suspect that none of us are alone here.)
Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who aren’t living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators — and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.
(image credit: Brittni Mehlhoff for Paper & Stitch)
This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.
I recently made a mistake.
{Are you still with me? Of course you are! We ALL make mistakes.}
Every month, on the 5th, I ship my Love Letters project. Last month, I realized on Saturday, February 23 that I had failed to ship one of my orders.
Big oops. I felt terrible. But I still acted.
Rather than let myself get paralyzed by the gaffe, I sent an email to the customer right away letting her know what happened and what I intended to do to remedy it.
Here’s the email:
Here’s why it worked:
1. Admit the mistake. Immediately.
I 100% admitted what happened and apologized. Start with an apology and an explanation. Short and sweet. No excuses. Just the truth. (Note: you can explain without over-explaining.)
2. Fix it.
What is your solution to the problem? Note that I didn’t offer choices – I decided what the best solution would be and went with it, explaining to the customer what I was going to do to rectify the situation.
3. Make it right.
Payment refunded, no questions asked. Upgraded shipping, no questions asked. When you are running damage control, be as preemptive as possible in your solutions building.
4. Examine the system.
When a mistake is made, you must be willing to look into what systems (or lack thereof) caused it to happen in the first place. I didn’t have a good orders tracking system in place, hence, the oversight. By examining the root of the mistake, you can take steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
Moral and outcome: I sent the email, and shipped the package on Monday as promised. I heard from my customer on Monday night with the email: “Thanks Tiffany. You rock!”
You can’t always control your customers’ reactions when things go wrong, but by having plans in place for how to handle them when they do, you can be sure that you, as a creative business owner, are showing up in integrity and handling things the way they need to be handled.
Any mistake stories to share? Do you have any creative “make it right” strategies that have worked for you in your business?
Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who aren’t living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators — and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.
