In late 2008 I decided to see what this blogging thing was all about.  So I started a blogspot that would eventually become the collaborative project known as Clever.  Lots of things have changed since then but my blog was a constant.  No matter what I was working on, dreaming of, or bragging about (yeah I do that), the blog was my soapbox.  And the hub of my online presence.

Then WHY would I kill it?

CUE THE HARMONICA: “No-bod-y knows the troub-le I’ve seen..”

Like any good lawyer, let me expound on the murderous motives.

Blogging is time consuming.  Whether you write once a week or once a month, if you want people to actually read it you need to devote some quality time.  I wrote for Clever once a week and then took that post and either shortened it or wrote  a similar version to use in my newsletter.  I spend anywhere from 2 – 4 hours writing, because most of what comes out in the first round is crap.

That’s a big chunk of my workweek!  Allow me to get real here – the ROI sucks.  The Clever blog had a very diverse audience.  After all, we had topics ranging from business to yoga.  So while plenty of people read my posts regularly, the majority are not my ideal audience.  You cannot waste time on something that doesn’t contribute to the growth of your business.  My blog was a developed platform, sure, but it wasn’t targeted for my business.

In moving my posts here (check out the archives!) I now have a great collection of resources for people who find my website and are interested in our services.  And I will continue to blog at a pace that makes sense for my business.  [Note: I do not tell clients they HAVE to blog, nor do I recommend they get all crazy about frequency.  With any of your marketing efforts, ask yourself what kind of return you can get from your investment of time or money.  It has to be justified.]

Gotta practice what you preach.  My blog was around before my company, so the fact that I had an external blog made sense.  At least it did when I explained it to people (and yes they do ask).  But search engines don’t ask questions and neither do the majority of people who come across the website.  By blogging on a different website every week I have been losing major SEO opportunities AND directing my existing traffic away from my website.  Sounds dumb, right?  I would never advise any of my clients to do that.

I wasn’t committed.  Another big factor in the decision was my level of commitment – across the board.  Spark has been really busy the last few months and I’m so happy for that.  But at the end (and beginning) of each day I am exhausted and I can’t go at this pace forever.  Something had to give.  And the bottom line is that Clever was a side project.  A fun, collaborative endeavor with amazing women that had the potential to be something awesome someday.  But in order to become that it would need a lot of focused energy in developing and marketing it.  I didn’t have that to give and either did my Co-Editor, Nicole.  And looking ahead at the other opportunities in front of me, this just isn’t at the top of my list.

Ask yourself on any project you undertake “am I willing to work for ‘x’ long to make this happen?”  If the answer is No or maybe (also, No) then step off and focus your energy on what you answer YES to.

You’re a business owner so you probably have a million great ideas and projects you want to do.  But…

Being an idea hoarder is not doing you or your business any favors.

Focus is what wins the game.

Closing a door is hard – even when your primary feeling is relief, you will always wonder if it was the wrong decision.  But choose your priorities and move on.  That’s the best decision you can make.

Speaking of focus and hoarding, don’t let your past haunt you.  Clever started as a design blog and morphed with me as I opened and closed businesses on my path to doing what I do now.  Aside from being terribly written, my early posts represent a different life.  One that doesn’t fit with my brand or my interests anymore.

Web presence is so important.  People have a few seconds to determine their next move online.  When someone finds my website from a DIY post I wrote in 2010, or because they’re shopping for a dining table…they bounce.  When my bounce rate is high (analytics term) I can see exactly why.  The wrong people are finding me.

I didn’t have to kill the blog.  I could have taken a break; waited to see what came next.  I was only one of a group of writers and they could have kept going.  We could have restructured, or left well enough alone.  But the same question remained: does this benefit us?  The answer was NO – not in any capacity I just described.  The blog, our readers and all our contributors deserved better.  And now they’re going to get it.

If you’re interested, Nicole blogs about Fashion at the Wardrobe Code

Misha blogs about food at FabBites and her photography biz is Hello Misha

Alycia will be blogging here from time to time – she’s my partner in web design crime.  The rest of the time you can find her at Mupplebee where she helps Interior Designers do it online.

My dirty little secret that had gurus hatin’. No really. They get their panties up in a bunch over this one.

Some people will hate this idea and tell you that it is spam. I will tell you that it worked for me and I may go back to doing it again. As within anything, take my advice with a grain of salt.

The problem was that it worked for me. And it makes it hard to not do it.

Before I tell you how, let me tell you what it did. It got me likes to my Facebook page, everyday. They weren’t always from my ideal client group, but I think that is a pipe dream. Since stopping this twitter trick, I still get people liking my page that aren’t a in my ideal client group.

So what I was doing was adding an AutoDM (Automated Direct Message). When someone followed me on Twitter one of the various messages I preset would say

“Hey, come check out my Facebook page at http://bit.ly/W6HtxI and say hi!”

I set this up with SocialOomph and created a bunch of different auto-dm messages that would rotate. So one message might be like the one above and then I would create another message that read:

“Ahoy matey! Come aboard my Facebook page at http://bit.ly/W6HtxI and talk pirate to me. Arrrrghh!”

Or

“Hola! How are you? I’m so glad you are following my Twitter feed, want to meet up on my FB page, too? No pressure, but if you wanna…http://bit.ly/W6HtxI”

I made it fun and it worked. Now the Gurus of the internet poo poo it and I stopped doing it. They want real communication at all times on Twitter. Like it was real when I made it and I can’t be everywhere all the time, so I did it. Send me to Twitter jail.

Moral of the story. Apparently sending an Auto DM nowadays is spammy. I didn’t feel like I was a spammer, but then again if the Gurus say it, it must be true, right? And this could then also go to scheduling your twitter posts… they say that’s illegal, too.

What say you?

Because you can’t achieve perfectionism, let’s stop the charade. Okay?

Whether it is creating the perfect name for your new service, or the perfect name for your business, or creating the be all end all product for your clients you have to give up on it being perfect. And just release it.

One more month and I will have nailed it.

One month passes.

Wait. I need to revamp this entire thing. I went this one direction and now I’m rethinking the whole vision. I can finish this in a couple weeks.

A couple of weeks pass.

I know I am behind on delivering this but if I let it go out now what will people think? It’s not perfect. I must perfect it. One more week.

One week passes.

Pfft. I meant to be done with this but now I have just learned something new that I want to integrate into this thing. It needs to be totally reorganized to have it all make sense. Alright. One more month, then I will be done.

One more month passes.And it doesn’t effing matter what is going on now. It still isn’t done.

It won’t be perfect. It won’t meet your high standards. It won’t be complete. Ever.

Remember a few things…

• Things can be changed.
• You will change your feelings  on it.
• You will learn something new about it.
• If you don’t eventually give up that goal of perfectionism, you won’t do anything and be stuck in a holding pattern.

What would have happened if Monet kept tweaking his paintings? I bet that even from afar they would look like a mess. (“Clueless” reference… couldn’t help myself)

You can’t be a perpetual tweaker. Life goes on and there is no such thing as perfectionism.

The only question you can ask yourself before you say enough is enough is this.

Did I do enough?

Go, before you are ready. You will always learn something new, and be able to do better later. Do your best now and be okay with it.  It will be good enough.

And when I started Spark Collaborative my goal was not to go it alone.  I knew that in order to bring what was in my mind to life I would need help.  I wasn’t totally sure what that looked like yet but I think I got pretty damn lucky.

Spark Collaborative turned 1 yesterday.

In one short year I feel like we’ve created an awesome monster.  At present we are busier than ever and I am right on track to having my dream job – the thing that would make it better was if I actually was working on a beach…

I have worked my ass on over the last year (I say ‘on’ because I’m pretty sure there’s more there now than a year ago) and I won’t lie by saying it’s been easy or uncomplicated.  It hasn’t.  I’ve given up a lot of time, most of my personal life and, sadly, even a few friends over my work schedule and priorities.  I have lost sleep over frustrating and scary situations and I have vowed never to do certain things again (some of them a few times).

But I wasn’t alone, and that made it so much better.

My collaboratives have gotten me through a lot, and helped Spark achieve something greater than I could have done on my own.

So pardon me as I share a sentimental moment of gratitude to acknowledge the people who mean so (so so so) much to me.

Nothing would be the same without Nicole Longstreath.  Nicole is my Clever partner in crime and my longtime bestie.  But Spark was Nicole’s idea.  I was in a career transition (from Redefine Home, as you may know) not quite ready to give up something that wasn’t really my passion anymore and, frankly, a bit painful.  She pushed me to go this direction and helped me develop the concepts for what Spark would become.  She supported my early freakouts and triumphs and I am eternally grateful.

My husband David deserves mad props – even though he won’t read this :)  But he is the person who has been with me long enough to see how much things have changed and he has put up with my crazy hours and belligerent talking (usually around midnight) about ‘this great idea’ or ‘this terrible nightmare’ I’m dealing with.

Today is our 5th Wedding Anniversary.

Apparently I like to start things this time of year.

Keepin’ it in the family, I would be absolutely crazy if it weren’t for my sister Kari who is also my Assistant.  She works virtually from Minnesota which is awesome for several reasons. A) It got me to truly develop my virtual business structure (because I really do plan to work from a beach somewhere).  I even trained her using screencast videos and Google + hangouts.  Oh technology…you’re the best. B) She is smarter than I am so I know that she can figure stuff out and will always handle herself gracefully.  C) The cost of living in MN is lower so, yeah, I can afford her – for now anyway. D) The tasks she manages are really the key element that has allowed me to grow the business.  It would impossible to do so otherwise.

For months I’ve been working on a project with Alycia Wicker – the talented genius behind Mupplebee.  We just launched our program called Web Sparklers, a branding + web design extravaganza for small businesses and bloggers.  The moment we met, via Twitter I might add, Alycia and I knew we had to partner up.  This experience has been so fantastic and I couldn’t ask for a better collab.  We match up equally in clever ideas, work ethic and best of all – big dreams.  Our partnership breathes new life into my business – and oh the places we’ll go.

Another fab collaboration in the works is with my friend Leah of Emiko Consulting.  She and I have been working on something that I’m pretty sure is going to changes people’s lives (well, at least their business lives).  I’m still mum about the details but we’re hoping to launch this Summer – and once again I literally can’t fathom how I would ever do something like this by myself.

And the rest of the “We” of Spark Collaborative consists of my interns and contractors for all sorts of things.  Just as employees come and go, it’s taken me a while to find the right team of people I know I can trust and call on.  But every one of them has made a difference to me and the company.

One of the craziest things to me is how much business and how many opportunities I get from my competitors.  Yeah, people who do exactly (well, almost) the same thing that Spark does.  Our company is a go-to for several and I have lots of industry friends these days.  I love chatting about ideas and frustrations with people who really get it.  And some very cool projects and clients frequently come out of these relationships.

Okay last one – because, duh, Spark wouldn’t still be here without them – our clients!  I am sooo lucky to have found my peeps.  My clients are some of the most energetic, grateful and excited people I know.  We have so much fun together.  Seriously.  They value what we do and I strive to give them the best of what we offer.  It’s the perfect collaboration.

I lied.  One more – YOU.  The readers of this blog.  I don’t know most of you but I know silly things like where you’re reading from and how you found us.  I wish I knew more and I would love to have a more vocal audience.  But I know that what we write here is seen and shared by people all over the world and that makes me feel really great.  So thank you.

Biz Tip: Surround yourself with people who jive with you.

Not being alone in the world is, to me, a key element of happiness.  The work I do is hard and tiring but also invigorating and oh-so worth it because of the people in my life.  Open yourself up and make an effort to seek out people you really connect with.  And then be grateful for what happens next.

I think it’s funny that just a few years ago, small companies were doing their damnedest to sound like they were a big operation.  But lately I’ve noticed the biggest of the big corps are developing offshoots that appear like….a small business.  They’re no dummies (after all, they have billions of dollars devoted to market research).

What do we want? SMALL!

When do we want it? NOW!

Personally, I’m thrilled about our trending desire to support small business.  When small companies are managed well, everybody wins.  In big business, somebody always loses.

So what does this mean for your small company?

It means that you need to be loud and proud, baby.  People are curious and more trusting of small companies.  They are also more likely to spend (a little) extra money when they feel like it’s supporting something they value.

Here are 3 things people want to know about your brand:

1. Who you (the owner) are and Why you started the business.  Most likely you had a deeper motive than simply profit when you opened shop.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that you have a very personal story about how it came to be.  Tell that story on your website, in your brochures and when meeting new people.  Your ideal customers are going to hear that story and forge an emotional bond with you and the company.  And they will recall it when making a purchase.

2.  What frustrates you. Something about your industry drives you nuts.  And because of that, you strive to do it better.  But you know what?  That same thing drives a ton of other people crazy too, and when they find out that you are different they will be all over you.  So talk about it.  [Careful with negativity or finger pointing though.  We have enough of that in our world.  Be honest, be funny, be crass if you want.  Just keep the judginess in check.]

3. How you do your job.  Similar to the Why, people want to know How things work in your business.  They want to follow along on projects or the making of products.  They want to see your inspiration and how that comes to fruition.  They want to hear about your triumphs and, yes, your bad days.  It’s a form of credibility and celebrity, both of which are great sales tools for you.

As a small business owner you are an essential element of your brand.  You have to be willing to share at least a sliver of yourself with your customers and the general public.  Be proud of the late nights and ‘resourcefulness’ it took to build your business and let people know just how hands on you really are.