Friday Five: Visibility, Creativity, & Competition

You made it to Friday! Here’s some inspiration to carry you into your weekend–everything from best practices to showing up to tapping into your creativity. Assembling this week’s list stretched my brain and opened my heart. Enjoy.

1. Are You Making These 7 Mistakes With Your About Page? 

I spend a lot of time thinking about About pages. A lot. Sonia Simone (@SoniaSimone) clearly does, too, because she nails it with this post. Read her wise words and put them to practice on your own site, paying particular attention to #4 & #7. (Feel a little lost? I’ve got you covered.)

{Mistake 7. I bet you think your About Page is about you

This is perfectly natural, even if you aren’t so vain.

What most site owners miss is that your About Page is actually about the person who clicks the link to see it.}

 

2. 7 Best Practices for Sending Invoices

Thank goodness for Lexi Rodrigo (@lexirodrigo). When I got my first paying clients and had to start sending invoices, the first thing I did was dance around my office to celebrate. The second thing I did was find this article about invoice best practices. Some of her tips aren’t surprising, but it’s nice to have a checklist to make sure you’re presenting your business at its best while your collecting your moolah. And who doesn’t love collecting moolah. 

{Keep marketing. Your invoice is a marketing tool. Include your logo, tagline, and contact information. The look and language of your invoices should be consistent with the rest of your marketing materials. In addition, you can use the invoice to ask for feedback on your services. You can even include a short testimonial on each invoice.}

 

3. Finding the Courage to Be a Lot More Visible

Mark Silver (@MarkHeartofBiz) has one of the most open hearts of any business owner I’ve had the pleasure of encountering. If you haven’t already joined his mailing list and connected with him on Twitter, please, please treat yourself to your generous wisdom. I love this recent post about finding the courage to show up as yourself and be seen as a representative of your business.   I found it so compelling, I’m going to making some changes around here as a result. Stay tuned.

{Being in business requires a different kind of visibility [than being a paramedic], one that is much more vulnerable. For one, you don’t have a radio to call for backup. And two, you aren’t a role or an anonymous face of an entity. You are you. You represent yourself.

And yet you still have to be visible. Ooo… that can be scary. Let’s fix that.}

 

4. Killing Competition and Finding Your Peeps

Earlier this week, I had the distinct pleasure of a phone call with the hilarious and wise Jamie Dougherty (@JamieLiving). We talked about organic food, nurturing yourself so you can nurture your business, and, of course, competition. Which happens to fit neatly with Mark Silver’s piece, because, yes, competition–and getting over it–is really all about showing up as you are. Since I can’t excerpt the whole piece here, you have to promise to go read it, but I here’s a taste to get you started. 

{So here’s what you are going to do.  Rather than stay small and stoic, simultaneously believing you know everything and nothing and don’t need support because you are a smart woman and can figure it all out by yourself thank you very much, you are going to seek out a lady friend and share your current feelings.  This might be nails-on-a-chalk board uncomfortable at first.  Keep going.  A touch of emotional pain is the sign we are gettin’ to the good stuff.}

 

5. Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

And, because we could all use a shot of creative inspiration once in a while, I wanted to share this classic Elizabeth Gilbert TED Talk. It does it for me every time. (Especially the Olé part!)

 

If you found these articles useful, please share them with other small business owners and entrepreneurs. I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments, and, as always, let me know if you’ve written a piece you think would be a good Friday Five feature. I just might spread the word about your brilliance.