Getting to another level
When I started Her Business magazine I was naiive. I didn’t know the first thing about publishing, printing, or running a business. Ignorance is bliss (up to a point) because it meant I was open :::and hungry::: for learning better ways to do things.
And I found people weren’t backward about coming forward. Complete strangers would generously offer valuable advice. I was always amazed and humbled that someone would take the time and energy and courage to contact me to help Her Business get better and better.
There was the NLP expert who noticed we used ‘negative’ language in our renewal letters (you don’t want to miss out on the next issue of) when we humans react better to positive language.
There were the people who picked up things that annoyed them with the design of Her Business; the way we wrapped words (eg end-ing, includ-ing), the American spelling, the picture behind the text.
In my editorial once I mentioned how my sister was joining the business and her job was to sort out the subscriber’s database, one I’d invented on Excel. A guy contacted us and invited us over to show us the FilePro programme that he used for mailouts. We used Filepro from then on.
After a speech a woman came up to me with a note from her elderly friend who thought I’d appreciate feedback as a professional woman. I’d been pronouncing the word something "somethink".
A marketing guru took us under his wing and pointed out we had actually created a ‘brand’ with Her Business that we could now use on seminars, products etc. I knew this at some level but he bought clarity and reinforcement to my thinking .
Listening – and being open - to advice meant Her Business kept on improving rather than being held back by my limited knowledge and experience.
Leave a Reply
I’m passionate about social media – I founded the online community entrepreneurette in 2006 and flokka, the blog network in 2008, after a decade and a half in magazine publishing. A typical ‘maven’ I love to share what I’m learning, researching and implementing - as well as what’s working for my clients, my students and my network members, in the worlds of social media and business in general. I’m Fiona Powell and this is my blog. 
