Staying Paid

My Niche Break, and Why It’s Come To This

Posted on August 6th, 2008 in Breaking Fear, Business, Empowerment, General, Marketing, Rant, life Back 2 Roots, CEO Rants & Raves, Declarations, Getting Vocal, Niche Break, Personal, Regrouping, Replugging, The Boss Speaks, The Niche Life, The Theory of Staying Paid, The Ups and Downs of Company Development

We’re all busy. I don’t think I’ve had a single conversation that didn’t have a “Can you hang on one moment?” attached to it. I’m a multitasker with a passion for action and well, “Staying Paid” of course. I noticed that I’ve been running behind so badly with everything that I think instead of de-plugging or un-plugging, it’s time to re-plug.

Quite frankly, I am here a lot. While I love every fan, every email, every text message and every phone call, it gets frustrating to have so many projects and such that I want to pursue, and not have my time respected. I’m a full time marketer, not a full time charity organization, and while I love helping, “warm and fuzzy feelings” are not  currencies my landlady accepts :)

So I started by becoming scarce. I decided to take a “Mystery Project” that will require copious amounts of my time for the next few weeks, if not months. As time passes, my “time crunch” will be less, but for the next 5 weeks, my time is going to be harder than a Viagara test subject … did I say that out loud? Eeep, what niche have I been researching?!

All jokes aside, it’s just time for me to not disappear, but to just step back:

Twitter - WAY too much involvement. I hate putting this out in the open, because Twitter is literally what made this company overnight into what it is now. However, I find myself fielding more questions than writing copy, which hurts me not only emotionally (copy relieves my stress) but also semi-financially (less billable hours = unhappy nichebankaccount) as well.

I also decided to scale back a little - I unfollowed over 75+ people, primarily because I was tired of holding my tongue. I felt that if I’m going to devote time to micro-blogging, I need to be in an environment where I feel comfortable speaking and not worry about having to defend myself every second. I am quite a vocal person and when it comes to my opinions regarding business, marketing, finance, or entrepreneurship, I stand my ground. This has caused some public - as well as private - animosity and hard feelings, nothing new in the world of text-based communication. However, it was affecting my ability to communicate and enjoy it, so I purged like there was no tomorrow. Hell, I bet after reading this I’ll lose a few people, but that’s OK - I am determined to help anyone who wants me to make payday come everyday, and if there are those that are opposed to that idea, it might be better if they left anyhow.

Part of “Breaking Fear” is standing up for what YOU believe in, not the rest of the world.

Email - Again, lots of involvement, with very little return - why am I spending hours returning emails only to get no response. I began doing an 80/20 analysis and found that I spend WAY more time doing email than I do TWITTER. Whoa!

Ustream - As much as I love doing Get Niched, my niche marketing show, I think I need a break from it too. I’m new to broadcasting, and that was used against me - all in good fun, but it made me step back and kinda go “Whoa, I really need to take being more assertive on how my time is used.” I’m not saying this to call anyone out or start trouble, but it’s on my mind, and this is my world here.

Clients - Naturally, I will still be committed to providing the same service level and quality to my clients as always. Staying Paid began its life as a client-oriented company, and even though we’re moving a lot of projects to an in-house mentality, we’re always going to remember who paid our bills before we got to the in-house stage and who will surely be there long after the conversion. However, I am done arguing, bickering, going back and forth, being chewed out and cursed out. D-0-n-e. I decided to build our Rates & Services bundle, so that all I need to do is point to it and move on - no fuss, no muss. There  are some things that will still be somewhat custom, like my one-on-one coaching, travel packages, and the like.

I’ve raised a lot of our rates, with the blessing and encouragement of the other two people of Staying Paid (the company), Jennifer King and Shawn K. Quinn. Shawn is a relatively recent addition to our team - you may know him as Mr. Conscience Friend on our blog here, and as @skquinn on Twitter. They’ll be getting their own subdomains and spaces here, so chances are you’ll be hearing from them soon. I am honored to have both of them, and I’m truly looking forward to rockin’ it out total entrepreneur style with them both.

The Road Ahead: Onward & Upward

Creating is what we do, and my “Niche Break” will give us time to focus on what got us here in the first place - coming from a perspective of service in order to create high-quality products with a “homemade” charm. As the face of this company, I don’t feel that I can do that if I’m frazzled to a cord every time I turn around, or if I’m fighting wannabes off with a shovel.

What’s next? Everything. I’m launching a truly informative training video series for up and coming virtual assistants & work at home mothers (happily and proudly called WAHMs). I’m actively seeking an assistant, and I’ll be using our own in-house custom training block to teach our VA not only more about marketing, but more about how to better take care of our company’s unique needs and particular outlook. I’ve noticed a lot of VAs I’ve spoken with privately do not feel confident in supporting a full time infoproduct company doing its business 100% online (well, can’t say that anymore, but can’t spill those beans yet!)

I’m building out a coaching program - I’m doing one-on-one coaching this month, tentative on both my service level and my client’s. It’s going to be a lot of fun and mark my growth as an entrepreneur by being able to truly reach out in a face-to-face way and teach the next wave.

We’re excited - we plan on adding assistants, interns, and more joint venture partners. Our projects are almost ready to come out of development, now that I’m taking more action to make that a reality. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m absolutely estatic when I look at where we’re heading as a company.

Turning this blog from just being another dry, marketing shtick to an interactive place where we’re talking about the personal instead of just the professional was the best thing we’ve done, short of re-branding. Instead of Well Rounded Content, we are pushing full steam ahead with being known simply as Staying Paid.  We feel that it’s still the best way to describe what we hope to accomplish not just for ourselves, but for the community that gave us the guts to go full steam ahead in the first place - you!

Not everything is professional - I’m moving to Houston, Texas, as soon as I tie up some projects that depend on my local presence (timeframe: October 15th - November 15th.) I will be living closer to my primary business partner Shawn and beginning my life over again - I could use a fresh start, as living here in Missouri has exhausted a lot of emotional reserves in a number of ways. It’ll be good to get away from here and move on with my personal life.

Am I being personal with you? Yes. Am I being professional with you? I’d like to think so, yes. Our company is personal and business, and they do blend together. This is what our lives revolve around, and if it takes going on a 5 week re-plugging session in order to come back swinging hard and fiercely teaching what we love, so be it. I’d rather put on my Nero suit and let all of this burn to the ground than live one day knowing outright I’m not bringing you my real best and I’m just fakin’ the funk.

Naturally, I will be reachable, primarily by email, and short messages on Twitter. If you have an opportunity you’d like help with or a joint venture, I’m best contactable by email - 140 characters is just not enough to hash out a business deal.

As always, I am so proud of each and every one of you, whether you’re already successful entrepreneurs or even if you’re still struggling to connect the dots. It is a real honor to be here, and I assure you: any move I make, personal or professional, is to serve you better. Please keep this in mind during this time period. For those that are used to my “immediate” feedback and response, this may be a difficult time, as I my feedback and/or responses will be anything but “immediate”.

I’ll be tracking my “Niche Break” themed updates with #nichebreak, but don’t worry - you can still get my micro-insights into niche marketing and product creation with #nichebiz *and* #StayingPaid - use search.twitter.com to look up these hashtags :)  I’ll also post on my Get Niched room on FriendFeed to help where I can.

So in short, I’ll be doing more creating, more marketing behind the scenes, refining tests and case studies, and producing quality content, both free and *gasp* premium. One thing that this has taught me is that I’ve given out a lot of great value but I can’t be afraid to ask for good money for good ideas and hard work.

How could I end one of the most personal blog posts of Staying Paid? The usual, the way we always close: work hard, play hard, love easily!

Sincerely,

Isabella “Niche Lady” Murphy, The Staying Paid Diva

“Helping people make payday come everyday through strategy, not chance!”