Storytelling – Creative Life Midwife

Do You Have a Secret Goal?

October 27, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

I do. Well, the goal itself is secret – the fact I have a secret goal is obviously not so secret now.

Loud and clear now: “My name is Julie and yes, I have a secret goal.”

I’m not going to share what it is quite yet, I am sticking with it personally on my own in quiet until I get comfortable sharing about it and when I do, I am going to show it rather than tell it.

This post is my way of showing its beginnings that today moved from thought into action and goodness, that action feels remarkable.

My birthday is three months from Monday and my goal is to aim toward this goal daily until then and on that day, my birthday, I will elect how to focus for the quarter after that and throughout the year, I will continue to move and assess every quarter.

Why a secret (yet not entirely since I am sharing about it here) goal rather than just blurting it all out in its whispered audacious self-consciousness?

Secret because the little girl in me is scared of disappointing my adult self, she knows my adult self has had too many moments of sadness this year and to make a wild pronouncement… and then if something disrupted it… she is well aware I have come close to my personal limits of being ok with the muck of life this year and she is protecting me – herself – by standing here, holding my hand, in self-protection and love.

When we work on this secret-not-so-secret goal, we smile and laugh and jump up and down… yes. This final quarter my friends… it will be such a blast to share with you.

The people who named me “Creative Life Midwife” found words and paint and laughter and flexed their courage muscles on the way to a deeper satisfaction in their daily lives via new blogs, books, webinars and friendships – just to name a few. Contact me now for your complimentary Transformational coaching conversation. Click here to complete the request form now.

Julie Jordan Scott (the one who wrote this blog post) says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

5 Questions to Determine “Your People” (Some People Call this “Your Target Market”)

October 26, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“Surround yourself with similarly-visioned people and others that seem to afford opportunities. It takes discipline to network regularly and routinely to develop these relationships while being sincere about how the relationship will be mutually beneficial. But, don’t be scared to explain how you can be valuable and a resource to the person. I always ask how I can be a resource to the person. Inevitably, I come across friendships, investment opportunities, and offered positions.”

–Steve Iskander, chief growth officer at DriverReach, a digital, mobile-first applicant tracking system that helps recruiters manage the CDL driver application process, where he grew revenue at the company by 40 percent each month in 2018

In our one page marketing plan, one of our first tasks is to determine or choose or create a profile to define and imagine our ideal client, customer or reader. As creatives, we will purposefully use processes that are engaging to our imagination and a combination of linear, language, images and playful experimentation.

To do so, we may begin with 5 simple questions and create, craft and move from there.

Who are my people?

Let’s consider this: where do my people “hang out” both in their local communities and online. Ask both what keeps them awake at night and what delights them in a way that stirs their hearts into action? What do my people actively request and seek “more of that please” their lives?

Maybe you’re like me and the whole notion of creating an ideal-client avatar feels heavy, start with the best version of yourself.

Where do I love to hang out?

What keeps me awake at night?

What delights me in a way that stirs my heart into action?

What do I actively seek and say “more of that, please” in my life?

We’ll start with 5 minutes of free flow brain dump writing in response to these questions.

Simply pick one and write from it.

Another way to jump-start your writing is to re-read the quote this blog post started with and then begin to write – for just five minutes.

Once you’ve completed that, we will go on to the “what’s next.”

Your next question to open yourself to considering is how does your product or service meet the needs of your people?

How does your vision for your business intersect with what your ideal client, customer or reader come together or intersect in a mutually beneficial way? This may take several creative sessions.

The point is to open your heart and your mind and allow your creative thoughts to flow.

Stand by to see how this is morphed into a marketing message and marketing story, to be used and told repeatedly.

You Are Your Own Magic Wand

October 23, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

One of my never used but often thought of ideas for either an article or essay or video or book is “You are your magic wand.” The idea has been floating through my mind for close to twenty years now. Waiting.

I have even used a magic wand in my videos. One of my favorite selfies is me with my magic wand (actually a magic wand pen) in my mouth with a frustrated expression of my face, even though I am wearing a tiara and have beautifully curled hair.

“I am my own magic wand.”

How can I feel frustrated when I am wearing a tiara and I have a magic wand pen ready to scribe for me?

Must be I gave more power to the frown than my blond curls or my sparkly tiara.

John Muir whispers in my ear, reminding me, (when you choose to not create, your gifts and talents are ) “Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”

I remember Emily Dickinson writing about the “slant of light” some call repressive and yet when I see images like this one and remember sitting with the sun as she says her daily hello and goodbye, I feel this ordinary, everyday magic holding me close and I know no matter how much I try to insist I am frustrated….when I stop and look and feel and allow the love in….

The slant of light combined with my words makes the distance between me and the glorious wildness each and every day.

My writing is bigger and grander and more silent and hugely gloriously sacred songs ringing from deep inside me in thunderous claps that somehow others aren’t able to see in the same way I see them.

To some people, this sort of writing won’t make any sense or may even sound like nonsense.

In the past, I might have worried I was doing something wrong because people didn’t understand me or some people even voiced their opinions that I was weird (in a bad way) and I didn’t belong in the more prestigious circles or groups or even neighborhoods or clubs.

Then I realized something significant.

The people who think that way are not my people.\

I let them go back into their cubby holes and their scowling angry temples lined with gold and carefully coiffed front lawns masking the land mines of thought filled with oppressive ugliness they choose to label reality.

I settle back into the nurturing space of awareness and open to the page where John Muir spoke so eloquently to me when he said:

Writing Prompt for today: What gifts and talents am I hiding?

When I express my gifts and talents I feel….

What keeps me from expressing my gifts and talents may be….

Set your timer for five minutes at at time and write at least once to each of these prompts. They will help you gain momentum with your magic wand.

Remember, You are Your Own Magic Wand.

How to Use “The Monster” Storytelling Archetype to Market Your Product or Service

October 20, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“The Monster” archetype is summarized as those times when “bad” or uncontrollable energy or happenstance appears which you (or in marketing, your client or customer or character in your ad campaign) eventually rise above, victoriously.

This is an archetype easily used by healing artists, storytellers – anyone who provides a product or service that makes someone feel better about some experience or circumstance.

In these cases I consider my cancer journey, my client’s experience of grief, perhaps the movie “Jaws” or I think about Julie Andrews losing her ability to sing.

I wrote for two consecutive 5 minute brain dumps today writing to the prompt of “monsters” which became “These are the topics I have never wanted to talk about.”

What you see next is simply stream of consciousness. No editing or foresight. In using this approach, I was able to tune into my own process AND glean insights my clients/customers/students may relate to as well.

Follow along with me now as I wrote to this prompt:

It hurts too much to open the door, which is why we keep the door shut and refuse to open it.

It is why the word “cancer” is whispered and we turn our heads from the mirror when we see our scars or an obstruction that blocks us from seeing what we would rather see. Even with that, we can’t stop watching the tragedy – the airplanes flying into the twin towers – is on replay in our mind’s eye, the most horrific images from wartime (I am seeing a few in my mind as I write) the heart stopping stories I look forward to watching each week on Law and Order, SVU.

Yesterday I spoke on the phone to a personification of “The Monsters” in my life. A person whose presence in my life initiated an episode of abandonment in my life I rarely address.

It was interesting because for the first time since that episode, I wasn’t overly troubled by the conversation. I still haven’t come to a conclusion about where I will take the conversation or what I will do with it, but it seems that particular chapter has lost some of its power as distance and time often does.

(It actually stirs me to think of lines of poetry in my head, oddly or not.)
The monster archetype and rising above it is a story of healing, a story of proclaiming victory – a definitive overcoming of the monster, not the surprise “this isn’t really over” almost to the ending scenario but the true ending.

I might have proclaimed victory from melanoma, but the scar on my face troubled me a lot in the year afterwards so much so, I had a second surgery to make it not so pronounced.

My face still hurts in very cool temperatures and I notice that as I age, it takes on different nuances.

I suppose overcoming that monster is more like making peace with its presence on my face. I actually think my scar is cool much of the time.
People look at it in a sort of awe when they notice it is shaped like a heart. Other times they make up stories that I was attacked by a knife wielding… lover of love to leave a heart shape? I don’t know what they think when they think that but when I say it came thanks to melanoma people look relieved that I wasn’t attacked by a fellow human, instead I was attacked by a disease.

I stop typing momentarily. I think about the real monsters in my life, the ones that stay in the closet and remain untalkaboutable: the fear of being abandoned and alone. (My stress cough showed up as I typed that.)
The fear of my children having unsurmountable problems.
The fear of being disliked by people I treasure the most.

Some of these fears have already been realized and I have survived.

I am literally laughing and coughing, coughing and laughing because as I continue writing and continue to “speak my truth” through writing it on the page in spite of the coughing that attempts to choke me into silence, I am beating the monster one slug at a time.

#End Writing –

And to layer this over my Core Message: Express Yourself Freely, On Purpose to Leave the World Better than How You Found It….

The fact I wrote and laughed as I coughed and my stress cough has been a huge barrier for expression… I believe I am onto a victory of one of my biggest battles.

THAT FEELS PRICELESS!

Stand by to see how this is morphed into a marketing message and marketing story, to be used and told repeatedly.

Story Archetypes + One Page Marketing Plan = Fun & Successful Creative Business

October 16, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Now comes a really fun part – combining storytelling archetypes with our marketing plan. The very first step is to determine how to approach Story Telling Archetypes from a marketing perspective:

Think about the problem your business solves for your people (tribe, community, neighborhood, end user, students, ideal clients, perfect reader, etc.)
Consider which of these stories sounds closest to your people who are attracted to use your product or service and show up without you expending any effort beyond doing what you do naturally because you love it.

We will use story archetypes in combination with our One Page Marketing Plan for Creative Businesses to Bring Your Business Success to life.

The 9 Story Archetypes we will focus upon are:

Overcoming the Monster – “Bad” uncontrollable energy or happenstance which you rise above. This is an archetype easily used by healing artists, “Jaws”. I think about my cancer journey.
Rags to Riches –” Woo hoo I made it big and made a lot of money!” Prosperity Coaches, Job Coaches, Artists who had a big show and got lots of bookings…
The Quest – Long, arduous twisty turning road to success. I can related to this one in my personal life. Lifetime movies with multiple “issues” to overcome.
Voyage and Return – Alice in Wonderland is a classical fiction journey. For you and your ideal client it may be a metaphorical or daily journey.
Comedy – Look to Shakespeare (tough to do it well, though not impossible) Come to think of it, my ridiculous Korn Music Video story could be a comedy on a “Just do it” theme.
Tragedy – Easily emotional tug and be careful not to overdue (Ask yourself, Does this fit a quest instead?)
Rebirth – Coming back from a space of death, coma, etc. Rising above challenge or not great experience
Mystery – the Unknown/discovering. Many spiritual stories fit in this category.
Rebellion Against “The One” ß big business, the boss, the government, authority: great for entrepreneurs who leave corporate America.

Julie Jordan Scott says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

Let’s Start: One Page Marketing Plan for Creatives

October 10, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

Yes: we will be creating a one page marketing plan made up of 9 blocks. Each block will contain information about a specific aspect of marketing.

The image that resonates for me is “Quilt Squares” because I love storytelling quilts and yes, both quilting and storytelling are feminine art forms. Marketing for Creatives seems like a perfect fit with this as the framework.

This distinctive one page marketing plan will be called something like “Marketing Story Quilt “ because that feels so much better than “One Page Marketing Plan” which may be the eventual subtitle.

This is how the creative process works for me and perhaps for you, too.

We creatives don’t often go down a straight linear path with our business building and marketing. This is why it is so much easier for us to sit down with a piece of watercolor paper folded into nine rectangles then it is to copy a print out with 9 blocks of straight lines all in a row.

We would rather paint or write on water color paper or doodle on and perhaps eventually collage on and who knows what else we do before we come to some semblance of “oh, yeah – these ideas and this combination feels right”.

We don’t just make a list and call it done, we feel better when we make our marketing plan as unique as we are, like a big party or ritual or celebration.

Now that we recognize a marketing plan/storytelling quilt is a dynamic work-in-progress, stay with me as I tell you the 9 themes are will be sharing during the next two weeks, intermittently with the other content of this 31 Days of Marketing Success for Creatives:

Who are your people? (Target Market, Ideal Client, Reader, Tribe, Community

2. Core Marketing Message & Ongoing Marketing Conversations

3. What Methods Will I Use to Convey My Messages & Have Conversations?

4. How will I document my messages, conversations and key connections?

5. What will I do to further our relationship?

6. Methods for the exchange be made from “friendly” to “trusted customer/client”

7. What are my people’s most desired experience & how shall I deliver this?

8. Collaborative Partnership and Ongoing Relationship Development

9. Perfecting the “Who Do You Know Who?” Throughout the Process

If you missed our other blog posts, here is a listing for you. Before you leave, please take a moment to follow me on social media (links are above) and take advantage of the free resources I’m offering as we go along on this particular adventure.

Day 1: Have Fun While Marketing?

Day 2: The Seeds of Your Marketing Success

Day 3: One Step at a Time

Day 4: The Most Important Question

Day 5: Beginner’s Mind

Day 8: Storytelling and Marketing

Have a Blast with Marketing Using Business Storytelling

October 9, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Day 8 – For the next phase – throughout this week – we are going to focus on two parallel pieces of Marketing Your Creative Business (and having a great time doing it.)

How does a single sheet, one page marketing plan AND a simple format for telling your business/product story sound to you?

I get excited at the thoght!

Some of may feel uncomfortable when you hear me say “writing and visual storytelling” and others of you will feel a sense of anticipation because it sounds so cool!

Here is what I am going to do for you – for all of us. We are going to start with a big picture and then every day, deconstruct it and rebuild it alongside you.

Please trust me with this – because I believe so strongly in making this fun!

This is a simple, succinct, easy to master form of business storytelling.

I even created a simple worksheet for you to use as you create your simplest story. When you finish reading and watching the video, there is a link to download the free worksheet.

At first it may not look like a marketing strategy and if you bear with me for these next few moments and simultaneously open your mind I guarantee you will get it.

In its original form (though it was in Latin when Julius Caesar made it famous: I came. I saw. I conquered.

“Veni. Vidi. Vici.”

For a realtor, her simple story might be: “I list. I show. I sell.”

For a crochet artist: “I choose the funkiest yarn. I crochet with great love. After purchasing (and becoming a collector) will now have a smile every time you enter your (bedroom, den, office).”

For a writer: “I plan. I write. I complete with great joy!” (and for the end user or reader: “I open the book, I complete with great joy, my life is changed positively forever!”

For a hairstylist: “I mix and weave vibrant color combinations. You experience relaxing self-care. You leave my salon gorgeous and ready to celebrate yourself.”

See how simple this is?

Instantly you have a marketing story you may tell over and over and over with a variety of different sequences.

The template is the same.

In the beginning. There was then intentional action. Incredible results (emotional, feeling, measurable, experiential) follow naturally and with ease.

“Veni. Vidi. Vici.”

Keep your eye open for this in advertising, in movies, in sitcoms and videos, and in greeting cards.

Before. During Action/Process. Results!

Now: Sign up to receive your easy worksheet. You too will be telling your story and marketing your creative business with glee when you do!

Tomorrow we will introduce the One Page Marketing Plan – and will continue with storytelling practice on alternating days.

Julie JordanScott is a CreativeLife Coach and multi-creative known for her high energy, inspirational and simple to apply methods for writers and artists to bring more success into their small businesses and creative projects. To request your free transformational creative life coaching session, please make your request here now.

Start Fresh: Your Mind – Wide Open – at the Marketing Table

October 8, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

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Many times we arrive at a conversation with a strong notion of the direction we believe the conversation ought to take.

This blocks out the chance for magical marketing ideas and future practices to burst forth.

Open your mind, allow space for surprises – and abundance – to take form.
Instead of listening for a break in the conversation so that you may say what you have said many times before, give yourself room to contribute differently.
Acquaint yourself with the power of using Beginner’s Mind: in doing so, you will learn to trust your intuition, become more creative and leave space for the genius who is waiting for the know-it-all within you to step aside.

How to practice this:

When you read something new, like this blog post, read a section and then take five minutes of quiet to allow the message to settle in without allowing your intellect to chase it around, to “understand what it means.”

When you are in a conversation with someone and they say something – especially if it triggers a specific thought in you – simply respond with, “Tell me more about that…”

Playfully experiment with this notion and then come back and let me know how it went. Then think how it may apply to your marketing.

What haven’t you thought of using in your marketing before that you will now?

Get ready because we are about to start done a really fun, fruitful path: storytelling for marketing with your one page marketing plan.

I’m so excited!

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach and multi-creative known for her high energy, inspirational and simple to apply methods for writers and artists to bring more success into their small businesses and creative projects. To request your free transformational creative life coaching session, please make your request here now.

What single significant question will help you achieve marketing results?

October 5, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

What is the single most important question an entrepreneur starting with a fresh marketing plan ought to practice asking?

What is the single most important question to ask potential clients when you start marketing your creative business? It is so simple - and signicant.

It is such a simple question. Itmay be used in a variety of circumstances and is not intimidating at all – especially when practiced regularly and in general conversation.

Are you ready?

The question is…

"Who do you know who...?" creates associations, opens infinite possibilities, paves the way for collaboration and invitation.

“Who do you know who…..”
or marketing my work I might say, “Who do you know who loves books,” “who enjoys making art with books” “who enjoys journaling” “who might be interested in doing a journaling challenge next month” “who might enjoy meeting more creatives in town for networking and fun”?

“Who do you know who…..” consider the sorts of “who”s you are looking for in your business and then, start asking.

Who doesn't want to feel valued? Who doesn't want to be seen as an expert? Affirm others by acknowledging their depth of experience.

Does your heart start fluttering when you think about asking people… for any sort of anything, even something as innocuous as “Who do you know who enjoys going to Amestoy’s?”

Our question invites people to collaborate: it encourages people to reach into themselves and back out to you AND it encourages a continued mutually beneficial relationship.

When we ask people for their opinions we are actually giving them a huge jolt of positivity. We are instantly making them an expert. We are saying, “Your opinion is valuable to me!” and “I noticed your expertise and I would enjoy talking to you more about (whatever it is we are both interested in.)

“Who do you know who…” opens you to more abundance through a very basic relationship marketing technique.

Your question brings so much more than it looks like at the outset. Mindful use of "Who do you know who..." opens abundance in immeasurable ways.

Who will you try it with first?

Marketing Your Creative Business: One Step at a Time

October 4, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Before we continue with our next conversation about effectively marketing your creative small business while having a great time, let’s pause to look at a possible process a creative entrepreneur may go through on the way to solopreneur success:

– Marianne makes a product

– She is so happy, rejoicing “This is so great, this is so fun!”

– Realization: Marianne (and you as well) asks, “Now, how do you create a long line of people who want to get what I’ve got and be financially sustainable for the long haul?”

– Next realization, “Oh, and I also have the honor and privilege of being both maker and marketer and PR person and the many other tasks that are a part of running a small, creative home based business… (through the ups and downs and in-betweens.)

We’re taking what is often called an “inside-out” approach here.

Yesterday, we talked about purpose and passion – which are internal “being” aspects of creating our marketing and business success.

The other side of the BEING is the action we take as a result of our being.

Barbara Walters reminds us, “One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.”

Today, our task is to be sure we stay in alignment with our purpose and passion while we simultaneously begin to take steps into our marketing success.

This isn’t a microwave making popcorn, this is like our raspberry teabag, slowly steeping and changing clear water into a glorious shade of crimson while we watch it happen and taste for the exact flavor that makes our hearts respond.

One way of taking this on is to read the prompts through jotting notes and getting the feel for where you are going and then re-visiting them after a few days and doing a more thorough job with the prompts, deepening them – yes, like the tea.

1. Look over your notes from yesterday’s exercise. If this is your first time here, yesterday’s exercise may be found at this link.

2. Consider the places and spaces you enjoy hanging out and spending your time. Are the people you listed from yesterday there, too?

3. Practice saying this phrase, perhaps slightly different but with the same meaning, “Do you know anyone who would be interested in….” (don’t mention your business at this point. It is one step at a time, one phrase at a time, one little step at a time.

4. If you are feeling at all icky from only saying “Do you know anyone who would be interested in…” it is time to investigate your relationship with what it means market a product. You could, after all, be saying. “Do you know anyone who would be interested in staying in an empty villa at the beach next weekend?”

5. My bet is what you’re up to is as interesting and in the long run, has more of a positive spin than the weekend at the beach. Sometimes when I get my blood pressure taken, I actually picture the beach. Perhaps for you, when you think about marketing or sales, do the same thing.

6. Follow up and take action on yesterday’s prompts – remember?

• Who did you want to reach with your message when you first started your business? Action Step: Circle three specific names or classifications of people you will reach out to next about your offerings.

• What was it that excited you specifically about your message and the people you would reach? Action Step: Take five minutes to close your eyes and remember what excited you. Remember an incident that reinforces this positive association.

• What story(ies) do you have about your business that move your emotions when you tell them? Action Step: This is the “what happened next” phased after the positive association – now, what happened next, as a result of the positive aspects of your business.

7. Applaud yourself for taking aligned action and getting additionally clear on where your plan is taking you AND ACTING in that direction If you have questions or would like to schedule a transformational coaching session so we might discuss any or all of these steps, please click here to go to the request page on the website.

With Passionate Gratitude,

Julie JordanScott
PS – Leave me a comment if you have ideas or thoughts or anything at all… and follow me on my social media accounts listed above, too, so we may connect in any of the places you are most likely to hang out! Let’s make your creative small business a rousing success in the weeks and months ahead. You deserve it!