Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurship’

May 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Big Risks for Big Rewards

So it turns out, when we asked you for moving posts last week, there was more this community had to say on the topic than we could possibly imagine. Which makes sense. At this point in most of our lives, we're in a state of transition, of moving forward. Possibly literally and certainly metaphysically, we're all in a state of moving. Which isn't to say this week is about packing boxes. It's not. It's about going the distance in a whole variety of ways. So today is in two parts. First, we have a Reclaiming Wife post from Lauren McGlynn (with her adorable Texas courthouse wedding photos) about uprooting her life and her business and moving to Scotland to be with her husband. Then, this afternoon we have Lauren's amazing Scottish wedding. So let's dive in. This one has huge lessons for all of us.

The year that Aidan & I got married was one of the craziest years of my life. A timeline of that year goes something like this:

Me: B&B cook and aspiring wedding photographer. Him: Philosophy PhD candidate.

January: Aidan and I are engaged!

February: I photograph my first wedding and I love it.

March: People start booking me to photograph their weddings in the fall. I am thrilled.

April: Aidan and I get married in Texas.

May: Aidan and I get married in Scotland.

June: Aidan stays in Scotland while I move to North Carolina to live on my friend’s blueberry farm in the hopes of picking up some weddings so that we can have some money. I can’t legally work in Scotland and he can’t legally work in the States during the summers.

July: Aidan and I talk on the computer a lot. I photograph more weddings in North Carolina.

August: After two months, neither of us can stand being apart anymore, so Aidan flies to the farm, decides that he can not stand the heat, nor the insects, nor the lack of air conditioning (he is a delicate Scottish flower after all), so we drive back to Texas where it is hotter but there is AC.

September-October: I photograph lots of weddings.

November: I am laid off from my job. My new husband, still living on mere grad student salary, tells me not to look for another job, that I better make this photography thing work. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, I marvel over my good fortune at marrying such a person. I dump more money than I have ever spent on anything into advertising.

December: I start booking weddings like a crazy person.

January: Aidan is offered a Philosophy post doc… in Scotland.

Did you hear that? That record scratch? Is your neck tingling in sympathetic whiplash? Because what’s happening here is that both of our dreams are coming true—ON SEPARATE CONTINENTS.

When I met Aidan he was still a PhD student, and I had recently dropped out of grad school to work at a grocery store. I usually like to dress that up a little to make it sound more respectable by adding that it was a small neighborhood grocery store and that they sold lots of organic cereal and stuff. But whatever: When I met Aidan I was making seven dollars and hour working a mindless job at a lame grocery store. When Aidan finally came through my line, the first thing I did was add "Scottish accent" to the top of my list of sexy man things. After a few months of getting to know each other over brief one-to-three minute checkout line interactions we went out on a date.

A few months later we had a conversation where I asked him how serious he was feeling about our relationship. He made some very serious noises, but then he told me that the future of our relationship depended on me being willing to move wherever he got a job. That might be Canada, that might be the UK, that might be the middle of nowhere Alabama. At the time my career had progressed from grocery store clerk to chopping down trees with a chainsaw then dragging them through a chigger infested desert field as an Americorps volunteer, so I was like: Yeah sure, sounds good to me. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Big Risks for Big Rewards

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife | 64 Comments »

Mar 2012

Women, Money, and Knowing Our Worth

We over here on the APW team have been thinking seriously about the idea I floated in last week's entrepreneurship post—how our "real mission is to get people to improve their lives offline (passionate online community is great, but my real goal is to inspire people to change their offline communities)." We've been thinking: How do we talk about the change we're facilitating in our own lives? How do we prompt people to talk about the changes they've made because of a post they read, or a conversation they had with someone in the comments, or an in-person discussion they had at an event? Today's post is our first crack at it. Call it "Practicing Practical," if you will. This post is from Kathleen, who attended the APW book talk in Atlanta, and she has real constructive advice for how women should deal with money in their day-to-day lives. Because y'all, we're diving into money this week, and it's hard. It's For Richer For Poorer Week, Part I.

I attended the Atlanta book talk, and as Meg’s write up said, this wasn't a night of wedding talk—it was a night of discussing our value as women, creators, contributors and (for lots of us in that room) business owners. Meg and Leah's panel was so great, and the questions were even better, but the room felt... unsatisfied. Not finished. And as Leah said, we all needed to keep this conversation going, as there was so. much. there.

So in the spirit of "we are responsible to this community and to keeping this conversation going," I told Meg as she signed my book that I'd be submitting about this topic, because if that room was any indication, we have a lot to learn from each other, and I want to learn from you all.

I know a little about how to value, position, and negotiate one's worth, but (obviously) not all. My story is that I've had my own pregnancy and postpartum personal training business for the last eight years, and after working my way up the ladder (seriously, starting in 2005 as a contractor working just one hour a week) just negotiated a contract to come on as a partner/owner of a very large specialty fitness company. I've also spent the last two years in grad school, and I will graduate with my MBA in April (insert cheers and !!!!). Between owning a personal training business, working my way to partner, and earning my MBA, I've learned three big lessons/tools about setting and negotiating my monetary worth. The good thing is that these ideas work if you are negotiating a salary, or a rental fee for a wedding or a prenuptial agreement. (This is the point where I ask for more prenup posts because... yeah.)

1. Anchor: This is the hardest part to get right, and it's also the most important. The gist is this: whatever number gets said first is where the conversation happens. If you start the conversation at a hundred dollars, you will NEVER get a hundred and one dollars. (And you are pretty likely to get fifty dollars.) If you think you are likely to get fifty, don't start there—start higher. Anchoring means where the conversation starts is where it's going to live. If a photographer quotes you $2,000, you probably aren't going to end up paying them $2,500...or $400. On the other side, if a photographer quotes you $15,000, you probably aren't going to end up paying them $5,000. Anchoring is the way to set the highest end of a ballpark. The goal is to set it high enough that you still get what you are worth (which, let's be real, is probably more than you are currently asking for or getting) without killing the conversation or negotiation before it starts. The best way to set a good anchor is to look at: Continue reading Women, Money, and Knowing Our Worth

Posted in: Uncategorized | 172 Comments »

Dec 2011

Working For Yourself: Month Eleven (The Big)

Before we get into what happened yesterday (and we will get into what happened yesterday), I need to talk about this last month. I've mentioned before I dove into this first year of self-employment telling myself that my job was exactly the same as it had always been (writing posts, selling ads), but that this year I'd have more time to do it, and I'd also write a book. It turns out, that was sort of a lie.

But there is also this one other *tiny* thing that I've been lying to myself about. I've been lying to myself about the fact that real live people (lots of them) read my blog. And as with all lies we tell ourselves, sometimes they save our sanity for a little bit, but eventually they fall apart. Sometimes they fall apart in ways that feel hard to grapple with (like most of this month) and sometimes they fall apart in blindingly wonderful ways (like yesterday).

At every step of the blog's growth, I've had some serious growing pains. It turns out that I'm a kind of private person (which is perpetually interesting as a blogger), so I've worked to be careful about what parts of myself I put out for public comment. I want to talk, endlessly, about ideas—but I don't want to talk about or justify, say, how I decorate my home, the day to day of my family life, or deeply personal decisions. So I've walked a line with what I share here. Long time readers will remember that (mostly due to my corporate job) I didn't show a picture of my face for the first year and a half (big reveal here, with a gun). We didn't share a ton of wedding photos with the internet, and most of the ones I picked to share didn't even have my face in them (that was not a conscious choice). And over much of my blogging career I've posted few enough pictures of me that I spent a year interacting with a long time reader twice a week without him figuring out who I was.

So this year, as the blog has grown, I've simply pretended that it's just this little project I work on from my kitchen table, la-la-la. And this month, that sort of fell apart on me, in all sorts of ways.

It started a few minutes before Amber took this picture of me at Camp Mighty. When I went to Mighty Summit a year ago, I felt like I was in the perfect position. I'd made enough professional headway to get invited, but no one knew who I was (which meant zero expectations). This year, at Camp Mighty, I pretended that it was going to be exactly the same way. It wasn't. When I walked into the first party, four or five people I didn't know said hi to me. Still operating in my little self-delusion bubble, I thought, "Hum. I wonder how they know who I am?" (Oh, internet, apparently you go... everywhere?) Then two seconds before this picture was taken, some lovely ladies stopped me and said, "You're Meg." And you guys, I'm an idiot. I totally froze. I said, "Yes." And then they said, "You're Meg!" again. And I looked super baffled and said, "I totally am...." and then I ran off to take these pictures. That's grace, kids. (Slams head into the desk.)

And the thing is, I know why I do what I do. It's about the work, and about getting to write, and about sharing ideas with a whole bunch of smart people, and about getting to run a creative business. And I want it to be about the work, not about me. But this month I realized that's not going to be the case, all of the time. So negotiating that has been tricky for me. Finding the real goodness in a bigger platform has been hard at some moments this month, but yesterday that goodness became breathtakingly clear.

Holy crap yesterday. Yesterday, when you guys single handedly pushed up The APW Book to #29 on Amazon US, and #77 on Amazon Canada. Yesterday, which was the most awe inspiring day of my professional life. Yesterday, when I got a feeling for what the APW community actually is, and for what it can be. Yesterday. I am so grateful. And overwhelmed. And kind of hung over. And grateful. And in awe.

Clearly, I have not wrapped words around all of this yet. So I thought I'd wrap words around what I learned, instead. Yesterday taught me a variation of the lesson I've learned over and over again all year, and the whole time I was trying to sell the book: You can't succeed without being willing to fail with full force. You can't figure out how far you can go, until you push yourself so far that you risk completely falling on your face. And seriously? This never stops sucking, don't kid yourself. Continue reading Working For Yourself: Month Eleven (The Big)

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Meg's Thoughts | 105 Comments »

Nov 2011

Working For Yourself: Month Ten (The Work)

{Me in a new vintage dress on work retreat. Not posed! By Emily Takes Photos}

I'm writing this post from a train, on a thirteen hour trip to LA, which pretty much sums up the month. Constant motion. Working while in constant motion. Needing a break from plane travel. Last month I talked about how in this break between writing and launching the APW book, I needed to find balance. And in a rookie self-employed-person mistake, I let my little bit of downtime be sucked into the vortex of travel (some work, some personal, but it hardly seems to matter when you're counting the number of days at home before you need to leave again).

So this month was a muddle. It was getting away from the computer and actually making things with my hands and spending time with my co-workers (more on that mystery project in a bit). It was planning for my book release (which takes way more energy to do right than you'd like to imagine). It was bringing on and training a new staff member. It was finally doing the work to Incorporate. (Practical Media, Inc.! BAM!) It was traveling and traveling and traveling.

But during an often exhausting month, I kept coming back to why I do this, how we keep ourselves grounded, and how we externally and internally perceive success.

The other night, we went to see Hot 8 Brass Band. Which. Was. Awesome. (Obviously). Somewhere in the middle of second-lining my face off (if there is an opportunity to dance, I will do it. David finally just shoved me toward the New Orleans natives in the aisles, and I left him behind to shake my ass.) I looked up, and thought about how much those musicians had to love what they were doing. Actually, I specifically thought about how hard it must be for them to be on the road all the damn time, breaking in audiences that are reserved and don't want to dance, and then playing their hearts out. And I thought about how all that getting on and off the plane, or train, or tour bus boils down to those two hours on stage.

And for a moment, I was really grateful to my art school education (which is a 180 from my 20s spent being profoundly bitter about my art school education). Because between growing up around a community of artists, and going to crazy naked performance art art school, my professional life revolves around the concept of "The Work" (a concept that totally made me stabby in college). The idea is that, The Work is hard, The Work sometimes makes you batshit, The Work is something you have to show up and do every goddamn day even if you don't feel even slightly like it... and in the end The Work is also your joy and your salvation.

And for me, right now The Work is writing. And secondly, it's about composing and publishing weeks of content around a theme, and cultivating community. And if I didn't have The Work to come back to, if it wasn't the center of my professional life, then all this traveling and scrabbling and running a business would quite possibly have driven me out of my head by now. But if I don't write for a few days, or a week, I get this crazy hungry look in my eye and start composing essays in my head, or on napkin scraps. And that's a hunger I can build a professional life around.

But more than that, I've been thinking about perceived success. Continue reading Working For Yourself: Month Ten (The Work)

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Meg's Thoughts, Personal Thoughts | 55 Comments »

Oct 2011

Wedding Graduates Return: Maddie

This morning, we introduced the newest member of the APW staff, Submissions Editor Maddie. Now that you guys are through your whirlwind of excitement (Who am I kidding? You're still excited!), Maddie is here with her first post as a staff member. Long time readers will remember her lazy girl wedding two years ago, and now she's back, writing about what she learned. She's writing about how sometimes we do need to sacrifice dreams for our relationships and how instead of that being anti-feminist, it can end up being the most empowering thing we ever do.

Growing up with my ill-paired parents, I got used to hearing conflicting messages as a kid. My mom and dad (separated well before I was born) disapproved of most of each others' parenting lessons, but there was one they could agree on: Getting married one day would be a perfectly fine option for me, so long as it didn't compromise my bright, shiny future.

It's not that getting married was a bad thing exactly—it's just not something I was ever supposed to aspire to. I had much bigger fish to fry. And if fate would have it that I should get married, I was not to let it hinder my bright, shiny plans for success (to become Jodie Foster if my dad had it his way; Oprah Winfrey if my mom had hers). Furthermore, it was made very clear that if I were to get married, my success would have to be despite that relationship, and most certainly not because of it.

I'd be like that surfer girl who kept surfing even after she got bitten by a shark; marriage could set me back temporarily, but it would never prevent me from realizing my greatness. (Holy swollen ego, Batman.)

So when I married Michael two years ago, that was very much where I stood with regards to marriage. Sure, I was in favor of being with Michael forever—that was an easy promise. But committing to another person and committing to a lifelong partnership are two very different beasts. Still, armed with my parents ideologies, I trudged onward in my dedication to have my cake and eat it too. (Oh and I was going to eat lots of cake. I might even eat all the cake. Watch out world!)

And for the first year of our marriage, I did just that. Michael and I built up a casual existence in Connecticut, eventually adopting a dog, settling into a cute downtown apartment close to the commuter rail, and sometimes doing things together on the weekends. On the flip side, I had a completely independent life in New York City, where I commuted two hours each morning to a Soho office to work 10-hour days at my, ahem, dream job in the entertainment industry for $14 an hour. It was perfect. I wasn't compromising my goals for domesticity. I wasn't sacrificing my dreams for a man. And I most certainly wasn't letting my marriage prevent me from becoming Tina Fey (eat that, parents). Sisters, I was doing it for myself.

But.

I also wasn't sleeping. Or making any money. Or seeing my husband. Ever.

Around our one-year anniversary, I broke. Continue reading Wedding Graduates Return: Maddie

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife, Wedding Graduates Return | 72 Comments »

Oct 2011

Price Is Not The Same As Value

Last month, we announced Up Up Creative's crazy, inspiring name-your-price experiment on paper goods for the month of September. If you didn't watch the video Julie put together about the project, you should go do that now. It's inspiring and thought provoking. In the many comments on that post, you asked her to report back on what happened during the project, and what she learned. The result is today's post. It's more philosophical than factual, and it contains a ton of business lessons and career lessons. It spoke to me about how sometimes flying in the face of what's expected can really piss people off, but how it's usually worth it. Plus, it's accompanied by pictures from Julie's business sketchbook (I know, rad).

There's sort of a business adage (adage? rule of thumb? bit of advice? moral? truism?) that says you should price for the customer you want. If you want a high-end customer, you need a high-end price. If you want a bargain shopper, you need a bargain price.

I actually just gave this advice to two separate individuals in the last 48 hours.

At some point early on in this experiment, it occurred to me that at least in part, my goal for this experiment was to do this the other way around: find the customer I wanted and then let that customer set the price. And who was that customer? She was the kind of person who believes in the power of her voice and her dollar; the sort of person who would think carefully before naming a price. She was thoughtful, maybe a little bit rebellious.

I agonized over my so-called pitch. I worked so hard on the video, on the FAQs. I was selective in which blogs I contacted. I wanted to make this an experiment about ideas more than it was an experiment about how many customers I could bring through the door. I wanted to focus on finding the right name-your-price customers.

After all, it's just me here. Me and an ex-intern (back to school in September) and a very pregnant sister and a husband neck-deep in prosecuting bad guys. And two young kids in just-part-time daycare. So it's not like I wanted an onslaught. But I did want participation. I told Meg that my biggest fear was that no one would participate.

And thankfully, people did. In the end there were 33 orders.

The money stuff you can read about here. It was better than I feared, about as I expected, and as awesome as I'd hoped. In the end it even put some money in the coffers, but at the expense of a lot of my time. Put another way, it covered my raw materials but I was paid only part of my hourly rate for all the work.

And ohdeargod was it emotional. I cried. I did Meg Ryan-inspired full-body high-fives. I soared, I despaired. One night I considered taking the whole thing down after a customer admitted she was feeling tortured by having to name a price for my value. I suddenly felt so mean.

So yeah, it's not sustainable in its current state. It requires too many hours for too few dollars. It made people happy, but it also made them uncomfortable, and not always in that good-you're-growing way. Plus it's fair to say, I think, that it pissed off its fair share of people in the stationery industry (although I have to say that appeals to the Mary Mary (Quite Contrary) in me just a bit).

But I'm glad to have done it, and I'd do it all over again. Continue reading Price Is Not The Same As Value

Posted in: Budget | 52 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurship’

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