My 4 year old daughter came home from preschool last week with a picture of a penguin that she had drawn.

I still can’t see a penguin in that picture no matter how many different ways I look at it.

The thing is, my daughter is very talented when it comes to drawing. At the age of four, she’s actually better to draw than I am, so I knew there was something going on when I saw that picture.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not crazy parents putting pressure on the child to be the best artist in her class, but this was obviously not my daughter’s style.

I was looking at it and going, “Look, Daddy, Casey drew this beautiful penguin at school today.”

Then Casey said, “I copied off of Jane.” (I’ve changed the name to protect the innocent.)

Aaaaaahhhh. That made sense.

I told Casey I would rather see a penguin that she drew by herself without copying off of anyone.

She quickly churned out this photo:

See the difference?

I had to try to explain to my daughter that she could do a better job if she did her drawings on her own, without copying off of anyone else. As I was explaining this to her, I realized that lots of adults still don’t get this.

If you’re marketing your business in the way that everyone else in your industry markets their businesses, just because you think that’s how you should be promoting yourself, did you ever stop and think you’re basically being a copycat?

There’s an excellent chance that if you’re trying to be someone you’re not, you’re stifling something great inside by doing so. Like my daughter’s own penguin drawing.

Market with your own personality. Be authentic. Be yourself. Make your own unique, individual mark on the world and be proud of it.

You’ll attract better clients, you’ll do better work and you’ll have a happier existence.

It’s true what they say, you know, you learned everything you needed to know about life before you finished kindergarten. Think about it. Would your teacher let you get away with copying off your neighbor?

Didn’t think so.

I save the best and worst pieces of junk mail I get in a special folder in my filing cabinet.

The postcard I got last week was shocking. I’ve blacked out the name of the company because I don’t really think I need to go there, but I will say it’s a company that’s been steadily going in the toilet from what I’ve seen and experienced over the past ten or so years of dealing with them. I will quite often go out of my way not to deal with this company these days because the customer service is horrible, the prices are much higher than their competitors and they charge a special fee when you pay cash instead of charging your purchases to an account…but I digress.

Maybe you received this same postcard in your mailbox and didn’t pay attention to it. This is the front:

Let’s examine the message.

First of all…I feel a bit cozy because I always like hearing that I’m a valued customer. This company wants to help me start my year off right by offering me 10% off my next purchase of $100 or more. Wow! (Strong headline – very important)

Notice that big huge 10% off? Kinda stands out. And 10% off of $100 or more…I’m going to save at least $10 on something that will help me start my year off right. How great! (Draw attention to the discount, grab the reader’s attention – very good)

Now I better hurry because as you can see at the bottom of the message, the offer is going to be ending soon. At the end of the month. (Creating urgency, adding a call to action – terrific)

So I flip over the card to find out more and here’s what we see:

Pretty self explanatory. In a big blue box we see that we have a Bonus Offer Number to use when we place our next order of $100 or more so we can save 10%. Great! (Telling me exactly what to do – perfect)

But wait. Look at that huge paragraph of small print.

Let’s take a closer look:

Okay. There are some exclusions to this “any purchase over $100″ and it looks like as a valued customer, I’ve received a 10% coupon that I can only use when I buy more than $100 worth of bedding, clothing, shoes or a small kitchen appliance from this major department store. Oh wait. Maybe not, because apparently if it’s a “shop by phone” item that doesn’t qualify either.

My question as a consumer is:

Why did they bother to send me something with so many conditions? If this multi-million dollar company really values me, why do they have to make me work hard to figure out which items apply for this discount?

If I’m so valued, wouldn’t this company (which is a pain to deal with) try to lighten up and give me 10% off any order of $100 or more without such a huge list of exclusions?

My question as a copywriter is:

Why on earth did this postcard ever get to the printing and mailing stage? If there were so many conditions, wouldn’t it have been a smarter “marketing” move to let people find all that out after they already got to the website and picked the things they wanted and had made a decision to buy them before realizing they didn’t apply with their coupon? Cause then although they would have been pissed off, they still may have gone through with their purchase even though they didn’t qualify for the 10% off because they’d already decided they needed and wanted those items.

I don’t know. If you’re going to call such attention to the fact that your customers are only valued enough to get a 10% discount on a $100+ purchase on small ticket items like bedding and clothing then why bother with that postcard at all?

I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea. If that were my postcard and I was being told by corporate to promote a sale on small kitchen appliances, bedding and apparel (which appears to be what applies in this promotion) I would have made it a big deal that with this coupon code you save 10% when you buy more than $100 worth of apparel, home decor and small appliances and played that up.

Then it would be a sale based on a positive – Look at what you can save on!

Instead of the current negative – Look at what we don’t want to give you a discount on!

But what do I know? I’m just a freelance copywriter working from a little home office.

I wonder how many other people saw that postcard and had the same reaction as me. A big belly laugh and a trip to the recycling bin. Well, in my case, it’s going in my swipe file, but if I was not a writing geek it would be in a blue bag.

What do you think?

Do you think getting 10% off, even with so many conditions, is a great way to start your year off right as they state on the postcard? Was it a good marketing move? A smart promotion?

Or are you with me when I say that I feel about as much like a valued customer as I do when they charge me $2 to pay cash?

Through our chatting, we struck on a very interesting point. Separation anxiety happens to parents just as much or more than to children. I, for example, started my business to allow me to be at home with my children, and it took my little girl’s own prompting to make me register her for preschool (today was her first day). I had big-time separation anxiety and had to get out of my comfort zone to do what will certainly be best for my daughter.

I only have to think back to the day I moved away from home to know that my mother experienced some major separation anxiety when her eldest child was leaving the nest.

Separation anxiety is basically what happens when you’re forced out of your comfort zone.

I learned last night that separation anxiety is most common with babies aged 10-18 months when they gain the ability to recognize people. They know when someone holding them is not their mother, and most children that age make their anxiety known. But I don’t feel like that anxiety ever really goes away. It just changes depending on our situation in life.

I was thinking about comfort zones when I was brainstorming topics for this blog post, and I thought about my friend Sally Kuhlman’s newest endeavor. Sally has been a virtual assistant for years, that’s how I know her, but she recently launched a new blog “Sally Around the Bay” where she blogs about her adventures around San Francisco Bay. She says that one of the reasons she decided to do this was to force her outside of her comfort zone to try new things.

I think all entrepreneurs can take a cue from Sally.

When’s the last time you separated yourself from yourself? What’s keeping you in your comfort zone? What will it take to force yourself out of it?

Are you afraid to start a blog because you’re afraid of how your thoughts will be viewed by the world? Do it anyway. You know, in this day and age you can hire someone to write your blog posts

Have you been meaning to launch an info product but keep getting in your own way?

Is there a brilliant tele-seminar sitting in your brain waiting for you to get the guts to go ahead and do it?

I was terrified before I first spoke to a group about writing better copy. The first time I got a booth for my business at a trade event I was scared. When I released my second ebook I was no less nervous than I was with my first one. It’s hard to put yourself out there, but you just have to go for it if you want to grow your business and if you want to grow as a person.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer and to me, having someone value my work enough to publish me is the ultimate marker of my success. I’ve gone way outside of my comfort zone and have started pitching magazines on article ideas. Guess what? An editor has responded to me. They loved my query and it looks like I will be published in a magazine this fall.

Sometimes you’re not getting what you want most because you simply aren’t stepping outside your comfort zone and asking for it.

What would you do if you stopped listening to that voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough, or that everyone will laugh at you?

What if the only thing stopping you from being a brilliant success is you?

Where I grew up, there weren’t trees. There was an ocean…the beach was my backyard playground…but no trees. I always thought the notion of collecting acorns off the ground and raking leaves in the fall was so poetic. Now my four year old asks every day if it’s fall because of the leaves changing and her and her little sister were thrilled when they saw little green acorns on the grass in our neighbor’s yard.

A couple of evenings ago, we were at our neighbor’s house chatting about the acorns and how the girls would sit out there all day and pick them up. The neighbors loved that idea because the more nuts my girls picked up, the less there would be for the squirrels. She said if she had any idea how many squirrels would show up to enjoy those acorns that she never would have planted oaks all those years ago.

Squirrels are destructive and they actually ate the neighbor’s outbuilding a couple of times. So I understand the frustration.But I can’t help but think, the pleasure she and her neighbors have gotten from that tree over the years must make up for the squirrels.

Trees do a lot for us. Besides the sciency things like cleansing the air, those oaks have provided shade on hot days and a a break from the wind on cold ones. Oaks are gorgeous to look at and I’m sure they must have been climbed by children at one point or another and I know my children will enjoy making crafts out of the fallen acorns over the next few weeks. Squirrels can be a big pain, but they only last while the nuts are on the ground…for a couple of months. Is the joy you get from an oak tree for the rest of the year, for decades, worth more than that?

Do you love your business as much as the day you planted the idea seed? Have you watched it flourish and grow over the years only to discover the squirrels? Of course it’s probably not going to be actual squirrels for you…I’m trying to use a metaphor here…but it might be the headache of bookkeeping or the pain of dealing with crabby customers.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking that if you knew how much hassle it would be, you’d never have started your business in the first place?

I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something awfully sad about that.

As I look out my window and watch a pair of blue jays enjoying the view atop a branch of one of those oak trees, I for one am very glad that my neighbor planted those trees.I actually suggested she get a cat to naturally take care of the squirrel problem.

What I would suggest to you for your squirrel is more complicated than a cat. Maybe you need to rebrand yourself or renovate your marketing message to start attracting different kinds of customers.

And maybe you’re just tired like most solo-preneurs and you just need a break. Maybe your clients and customers whose lives you impact in a positive way feel just as passionately about the product or service you sell as I do about the neighbor’s oaks. And here you are wondering if it was ever worth starting the business in the first place.

No matter how many bad days I have as a business owner, no matter how much I hate my squirrels (taxes and filing and stuff) I would never wish it away. And I’m pretty confident that if I went to my clients and said I wish I never became a writer, at least a couple of them would tell me I’m crazy.

After all, for every pain in the butt squirrel, there’s a beautiful, sweet sparrow.

I checked the part in the middle of the cord…that pack thing that plugs into that other thing…and it was connected. I wiggled the adapter where it goes into my computer to see if it was loose there. I checked to see if the cord was firmly plugged into the wall and it was.

At this point I started to panic. But I know I have a backup adapter in the house somewhere and I always keep it in the same place. At least I did in our former house. I haven’t used the adapter since our move at the end of May and while I recall putting it in a box upon packing up my old office, I have no recollection of unpacking it.

This is when I started to dismantle the house, searching for that cord. I dug through all my brief cases and laptop bags. I went through every door and cupboard in my office – each nook and cranny. No adapter.

So I call my husband. I ask him if he’s seen it anywhere on his travels and he tells me to slow down for a minute. He asks if I checked some different things (all of which I had) and then he asked me to plug the computer into a different outlet. I rolled my eyes and said that I’d been using that outlet for weeks, but I said I’d humor him and I plugged in to a different outlet.

BEEP. My computer turned on.

I never in a million years would have thought of doing that. If I didn’t talk to my husband, I would have gotten on his computer and searched online for a new adapter because I was in a panic and need my laptop working. The thought that an outlet could just quit working would never cross my mind. I neglected to consider the obvious and go right to the source of power.

I started to wonder how many other situations arise in my life that could be handled better if I took the time to check for the obvious solution.

Is this happening in your business? Do you get lots of traffic to your website but very few leads? If you think that just because you have a beautiful website customers should be impressed enough to line up to work with you, look a little deeper. How’s your website content written? Is it speaking to your target market in a language they understand? Is it compelling enough to sell? Beautiful design is important – extremely important. But what’s even more important is the words you use to sell your visitor once they land on your page.

Do you seem to attract the wrong type of customers? Is your personality constantly clashing with the people you do business with? Do you only get leads who don’t want to pay your rate? Look at your website content. Is it written with your personality infused into it so that you attract people you’d like to do business with?

As a copywriter, it’s obvious to me to check the words you’re using to market your business when times are slack, but it might not be so obvious to someone else.

This morning when I simply plugged my computer into a different outlet, my problem was solved. That’s where the power was.

If you hand your marketing materials over to a professional copywriter, including your website, your thoughts and ideas will be transformed into powerful compelling marketing pieces that will attract your ideal customer and make them want what you’re selling. The words you use to sell your product or service is where the power is in your marketing. Are you plugged in?

Do you ever wish you could pause everything happening around you so that you could get everything done in a day that you wanted to?

I wish I had a pause button, I’ll tell you that much.

On Wednesday night (one loooong week ago) an unwanted stomach virus made it’s way into our home through our eldest daughter. This normally would be a bad thing, of course it would, but this was bad timing at it’s very best…or worst. I’ve just started working hard with a personal trainer at 6:30 every morning, am still dealing with a toddler that won’t sleep through the night, have a home freshly listed on the real estate market which needed a deep spring cleaning for its first showing, had two Easter dinners (we had to skip out on) and…what am I forgetting?….oh yes. That thriving business I’m running!

The flu quickly spread to my husband and then our youngest daughter and it did not leave until yesterday. What a wild week! I have to say, I have no idea how parents who work outside of the home deal with these situations when they arise. I feel very lucky to be a freelancer at a time like this because my schedule is so flexible. However, I was totally thrown for a loop when all this started happening.

I’d planned to take a long weekend away from my work but having lost a significant amount of time thanks to the flu a couple days before my break, I lost a lot of ground.

I’ve read tons of articles and blog posts, books and whatnot about contingency planning and having a back up in place for when disaster strikes and I do have a plan. Sort of.

I know what to do if I lose my power, get sick or have a *eek* hard drive crash. But nowhere in my list of procedures do I have a plan for what to do when the arse goes right out from under my life for a week.

Luckily I have amazing clients and even though I had to miss a couple of deadlines they were understanding and nothing caught fire or anything because I was late.

There’s one thing that saved me, having to be away from my work for so many days at a time without planning to, and that’s the buffer I build into the time estimates I give for projects.

I used to be a “I’ll have it done for you on Friday” kind of person and I said that to everyone. But the problem was, I would literally have a dozen things to have done each Friday and by the time Thursday would come around I’d be going nuts trying to get caught up.

The thing is, it’s not smooth sailing in my life 24/7. When you’re a working parent, whether you work from home or outside in the “corporate world”, things are never going to go according to plan ALL the time.

I am so happy that I saw the light a few months back and started giving more reasonable time lines for project completion because…well…you just never know.

If you’re a service provider constantly overextending yourself, I hope you’ll be able to take something away from this.

Give yourself some breathing room – build in a buffer because sometimes life just gets in the way.

Every time I called this person, I heard about how busy they were and at the same time, it felt like there was always confusion about our file and it kept being pushed aside. It almost felt like we were an annoyance more than a client and I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. But when you’re always telling your clients about how busy you are, and then can’t remember details about them, well you should consider how that looks.

As another example of this, I was just chatting on Skype with my awesome friend and client, Sally Kuhlman. Sally’s excited about a new endeavor, but she mentioned she was having trouble with a vendor she hired. She said she had to track this business owner down because of a lack of communication, and when she finally reached her, was told she was really busy and it would be another couple weeks before she could get the job done.

Sally said she felt like this person was doing her a favor instead of providing a service she was paid for.

I’m busy – most of us are. But I sure don’t make a habit of telling my clients every time I talk to them (if ever) how busy I am…unless they ask if I’m busy. I don’t lie about it, but I don’t feel it’s appropriate to always be telling my valued clients that I’m swamped.

Now, my husband and I have decided to sell our home and this morning our real estate agent came by to measure our house. He’s probably one of the busiest agents on PEI, but I’d never know it if I didn’t know the local market and industry so well. Even though I know this guy’s beyond busy, he always has time to chat with me on the phone. When he’s meeting with us, he ignores his telephone or profusely apologizes if he needs to take a call. He basically just makes us feel like we’re important. If I make mention of how busy he must be, he tells me stories about just how busy he is and that’s fine. He’s doing his job and it really feels like he is providing a service and taking pride in that.

You know what happens now, don’t you? My husband and I will be telling everyone we know about how great an agent Ian Walker is which will hopefully lead to lots of referral business for him.

The other service providers I mentioned that we Manns and Sally worked with…well…they probably won’t get many referrals from us.

You really have to treat your clients and customers like they’re the only person that matters while you’re interacting with them. That’s how you become successful.

I’m sure you have a story or two about a time you were made to feel like you were being a pain to someone you were paying money to. I’d love to hear about it!

As I was getting in position to do my first set of dumbbell rows, my trainer mentioned how the exercise would work my back and my abs which I thought was funny since I’m pretty sure I don’t have abs anymore.

She assured me that I still do, and that they’re just hiding there behind some fat just like everyone elses. She said, “It’s up to us to determine how much fat stays in front of our abs.” (That’s exactly what I was doing at the gym this morning doing a boot camp style workout – I’ve determined that I want to see more of those muscles.)

While I was driving home, I kept thinking back to what my trainer said. It’s true that for the most part, our skeletons are all basically the same – bones covered with the tissues and muscles and stuff. It’s how an individual maintains their body that determines how much junk gets stored in the trunk.

Then (because I think in blog posts) I realized that most of our businesses probably have some “fat in front of their abs” if you will. Something that’s built up gradually and is slowing down how efficiently we work.

My business just lost an entire belly roll after I moved from hourly pricing to charging a flat rate per project. I love this model because:

a) my clients know exactly what they’ll pay – no surprises if I go ‘over’ because I won’t. It’s a flat rate.

b) I don’t feel like I should be billing for time I spend playing with my kids.

c) I don’t have heart palpitations if I can only bill for a couple hours on a hectic day.

As I continue to define my ideal client, my business’ metabolism improves because I’m doing work I love for people I love working with. When I’m working on projects I don’t enjoy, I can almost feel my business running more sluggishly.

These are just a couple of examples but the truth is, I think sometimes we get lazy with our businesses, just like we do with our healthy eating and fitness goals.

When something’s not working in your business and you continue to let it go without doing anything about it, it’s kind of like stuffing your face with potato chips every night and wondering why you keep getting flabbier.

My copywriting business is so new, it hasn’t had time to develop a gut yet, but we’re not at abs of steel status just yet. That will come with a consistent effort, just like if I keep meeting with that evil trainer woman every morning I will see results and God willing, I’ll live longer and better for the effort.

How about you? How’s your business’ gut?

Anyway…

I drove to the local convenience store today to get some milk. The smell when I walked in…well…if you live in a rural area and are used to the smell of horses and other farm fresh aromas…well you know what I was smelling. It happened to be a very busy day at Clow’s Red & White (Bobby Clow’s to pretty much everyone on PEI) and I had the pleasure of waiting behind some hungry farm workers lined up for hot soup.

When I was next in line, one of the men said to the woman behind the counter, “You’re gonna have to mop the floor after we leave!” (It really was pretty dirty.)

The clerk rang in the gentleman’s lunch, smiled and said, “Bobby used to say he loves having a dirty floor because that means there are people in the store!”

I smiled at a memory of Bobby and could see him saying such a thing. It reminded me of when my mother says she never minds doing dishes because that means we ate another meal.

The kind of attitude shared by Bobby and my mother is the kind of attitude I think we should all have – in business and in life. Instead of looking at something as an inconvenience or a nuisance, try to find the blessing.

I’m going to try not to complain about my millions of emails because that means people are getting in touch with me.

I’ll try (really hard) not to gripe about the time I have to spend invoicing because that means I have paying clients.

I’m going to try not to swear under my breath when I step in a sticky puddle of apple juice or smoosh a graham cracker under my barefoot because that means I have beautiful children here with me and can afford to buy snacks for them.

I could go on all day with this, but I want to hear from you. What’s your dirty floor? Do you have a “pain” that you can turn around into a blessing?

When I was in college and wanted a brownie but was a) too broke to splurge on real butter and cocoa and b) hadn’t yet become a great chef (hee hee), I would prepare those brownie mixes that come with a tin foil packet of icing. They were kind of gross, but were definitely brownie-esque and would do in a pinch.

At my bridal shower, I was given a 9″x13″ pan by a neighbor of my mother’s along with a bunch of her own family recipes that could be made in that pan. One of them was a recipe for “Fantastic Brownies”. The gift-giver advised that they were best made with quality ingredients, love and care.

Now that I’m a married and have a husband and children who love anything chocolate above most everything else, I prefer to bake brownies from that recipe because of the quality of the finished product and the fact that I know exactly what is going into them.

When I want a good brownie (like the ones pictured above that I baked yesterday), I use real butter, real vanilla and even though from start to finish they take an hour to make they’re superb and there really is no substitute.

Professional service providers are like brownies. There are the cheap ones who work fast and will do in a pinch, sort of like the brownies you find hanging next to the peanuts at the counter of a convenience store. Then there are the service providers who are more costly, but deliver a delicious, made-with-real-vanilla-fudgy-brownie kind of result.

Once you’ve eaten a homemade brownie it’s really hard to go back to any other kind.

When you start investing in homemade brownie type service providers, you’ll see the difference and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

What type of brownie do you tend to reach for and why? What type of brownie are you?