- Finding the Path of Least resistance
- Building with different bricks
- The Plan
- Snail Mail (The Way of the Snail)
- What is wrong with the Sail Way?
Finding the path of least resistance
Following your dreams may seem daunting and surely can be but however not impossible. Dreams are like Lego bricks you just put one piece on top of the other and soon you will have a mountain of bricks 🧱! But what have I built? It’s just a wall of bricks. Me: Correction it’s a wall made of bricks. This wall is part of a foundation and its support structure that you are building. It may look ugly now and appears to be just a wall made of bricks but when the finish product is completed you will be staring at a beautiful brick house. This is actually my story, for years and well over ten I have been staring at a brick wall. Unable to see or complete the finish product. I tried and tried to get around this big wall of negativity still using those same old Lego bricks to build it. Then I just gave up. I was burned out and exhausted.
One day I got a phone call (I do not know why I answered the phone to this very day) and this nice telemarketer that I spoke with asked if I was interested in going back to school. I promptly told her no. She asked would I be interested in going to school some time in the future? (Six months or a year or more away). I said no, because I had been burned by too many colleges and restricted from attending because of balances that I owed to a few of my previous schools. She press forward and suggested a school I have never heard of. I said I’m not interested but I’ll look into the school. Since it peaked my curiosity. The conversation that me and this nice telemarketer had is what really got me back into school. She kept thanking me for being kind and respectful to her, because other people she has called had flat up cursed her out etc.
I can’t remember her name but she said that I was so pleasant to speak with and truly thanked me for being kind. Which open the second door 🚪. I did not have the entrance fee for college but because I was so pleasant and kind again and had a unique name, this lady in the admissions office waived the fee so that I could attend. Which made me ecstatic and over joyed. Then came the struggles again.
Building with different bricks
As I became familiar with this new environment and progressed forward in my classes here at Full Sail University I ran into the same problems I had before. Financial, family issues, deaths, backstabbing former acquaintances. It took a told on me where I started to really want to unalive myself because I was “Building with the same Bricks.” After having my pity poo party as I see it. I started to draw boundary lines. Slowly but surely my mental health did get better and my boundary lines got stronger.
After everything had fallen and the smoke cleared sort a speak, this year was the line drawn in the sand for me. It is the year that I dished out the most no’s instead of yes. I decided to Build with different Bricks. Fast forward to my present day and I am seven months from graduating I have a pretty solid idea of what my business will be and how to pursue it. I learned through hardship how to draw the line in the sand.
Don’t allow people to use you, and benefit off your hard work. Draw the line even when it comes to friends and family, draw the line. Place boundaries with real consequences for crossing. Set up goals for yourself and stick too it. I have heard this more often then not to set goals for yourself. But I have yet to hear anyone talk about the psychological barriers you face when setting these goals. I will use my experience with these barriers.
My psychological barriers was priorities. What I believed was more important. These barriers took over and became priority over what I really wanted to do and thus I never achieved my goals. You have to make hardline decisions when it comes to these issues. It was around this time I started to think more analytically and became more self centered and focus. This helped me achieve and learn more without becoming a narcissist.
The Plan
The cuts are made and the die is cast! I have learned a few skills that will take me where I want to be. The plan is to create a market plan for my business. I will start off with:
Who are my customers?
What does their demographics look like?
Where do they live?
What career or job do they have?
Do they have any habits?
Are they interested in Culture?
How do I gather this information “legally” so that I can find out? There are a few tools that I can use, Google trends to start off is an excellent tool to use to see what is trending. There are also methods to use that will help you find your idea customer. Part of these methods is finding out what questions to asked. Like the six above. These questions will help identify my idea customer. The next method is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This is going to tie in with the fun part, which is content writing like I am doing right now. Another way of finding out what people like is going to sites like Amazon. You would look for star ratings on a certain product and read through a chunk of the comments to see what negatives and positives this product has. If there are more positive purchase history then negatives then you can use this information to help you create a portfolio of your targeted customer. It may not be for this exact product but something similar. When you read the comments of purchasers you are getting inside their heads and seeing what it is that they want or need and how it benefits them.
“Follow Your Dreams that will Lead to Your Streams,” is a saying that I coined a year ago giving meaning to my company brand Queen And Seven Streams. This article is given a boost in the search algorithm for mentioning this statement (long tale keyword) and article title inside of the article itself. However, theres a small caveat to this. When naming your articles, post, or content video or otherwise. It has to be a word or long tale keyword that a large percentage of your audience is looking for or a small percentage depending on how niche specific it is.
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So, unfortunately for me my long tale keyword/ title or brand name is discoverable “yet.” I have to make it discoverable and this can only happened 3 ways and of the three one is liken to snail mail. It’s very slow and arduous but…if done the right way it can turn into a long lasting snowball effect. Way number 1# Ads. #what type of ads are there? There are several different kind of ads. You have (PPC) or Pay Per Click: You pay every time someone clicks on your ad. Cost Per Mille: You pay for every thousand impressions your ad receives. Cost Per Action (some say Acquisition): You pay when someone takes a specific action, like buying a product. This is only naming a few of the popular paid ads. There are a plethora of different kinds of ads around the world. You must figure out which goes well with your marketing plan and business model or strategy. In this article created by Asif Ali from SemRush, discusses the 26 types of digital advertising and their uses.
Using paid Ads to gather more eyeballs to your brand and product is the quickest way to become a recognizable entity if done right. It is also the most expensive way so budget funding for these ads accordingly. Here’s why: You pay a company like Google, Microsoft Bing, or Brave to gain access to billions of users across the globe. These companies own the bulk of user traffic on the most popular search engines in the world and your targeted audience can be found on these platforms (Google and Bing). Unlike the snail way which we will discuss later the people are already here and do not have to beeee….in a word bribed (the free $.99 aka free product give away.) to become apart of your audience, although this method still works, paying for ads to get the product in front of your targeted audience eyes on a platform that has direct access to them is better than dancing away for them.
See the customer doesn’t need to be bribed or entertained here, they know what they want and how to search for it and they know “Who” has what they are looking for. You are basically a vendor here paying for space inside of this Google version of super-center Walmart. I should say Target based on price but the point I’m making is, why chase the customers when they can just come to you? Figure out where they gather and shop at and just pay your vendors fee for the Google version of Walmart to gain exposure to your product. Right? (Laughs half heartedly) There are reasons why not to take this route “alone,” (meaning by itself) that should be slightly obvious (coughs, lots of Money!). We will discuss this more in the snail mail section.
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Way number 2#: creating short videos show casting my brand name and statement on all of my products. This helps build brand identity and recognition however, with the video show casting route you need to be seen on multiple platforms. So, that’s more than just on your personal website. This requires researching where your audience gathers at and they will be on more than just FaceBook (Meta). There’s TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, Vimeo, Discord, Reddit, Twitter (X), and Quora to name just a few of the popular ones. Each social media platform caters to a different demographic of audience. Not to mention there is a learning curve that goes with each platform which is a whole different line of researching.
Age is a big factor here as some of these platforms are aimed more toward the younger generation 12+ (TikTok although this age is reportedly younger) while others are aimed more towards middle age (30+) and up (Instagram and FaceBook). Each social media site has their own reasons why they created their business model in this way. But when we come to the core reason money is the answer. The only question that these companies need to ask is what demographic can give us the most bang for our buck? Of coarse there are more questions that can be asked to niche specific this audience down but we already discussed that earlier.
Number #3 (Snail Mail 🐌), The Way of the Snail
So, paid advertising and short videos show casting my product with my brand name on them is what I gave a brief description on a couple of paragraphs back. Now we address the snail way. The snail way is practically what I am doing now, creating my original content through writing and research✍️. Nobody likes to read anymore, reading is boring. People like being entertained and most forms of entertainment comes visually more so now because of Covid. There is an old saying among Chefs that says people “Eat with their eyes first.” And I concur, coming from the restaurant industry with almost 14 years experience I have seen this first hand.
I work in the catering department for large scale orders and I had a customer promptly give our restaurant back the entire order all because she did not like the condensation that built up inside of the aluminum lid that covered her food, which also dripped into her food. This only happens when food is hot to warm where as the steam has no way to get out because it is being restricted to the environment it is coming from thus becoming condensation and if left sitting for a longer period of time, the condensation will become large droplets of water. This causes a cooling effect and bad presentation! Why am I adding this bad customer experience to this snail mail convo? Well there is actual research behind this chef saying, “You Eat With Your Eyes First,” that I found from an article written 12 years ago. Science Direct. While you have to pay for access to the whole thing a snippet was allowed to be read.
In this small snippet the author discuss how color, shapes, and learned associations of what food is supposed to smell or taste like can alter ones taste or perception of it. Which makes sense to me coming from the food industry. At my current job we once had a dish called creamy pesto pasta. Now, to look at the entree was very off putting because it was a creamy green sauce mixed in with spaghetti like the picture below. My first reaction to the image presented below was the smell of freshly picked leafy Greens. How is that possible when there is Romona cheese in there? Cheese doesn’t smell like freshly picked Greens. But, I do have a learned behavior, anything green and edible I have associated with being healthy and good for you.
I did a quick search to see what creamy pesto was made out of and this is what I got from the Brave search engine.
This explains perfectly as to why I smelled freshly picked Greens instead of a cheesy, basil, zesty smell that accompanies this dish when it is set in front of you. This sauce is made of Basil (a green plant). We still have Creamy Pesto sauce that we use for another one of our dishes…and I can say after being around this smell for so long I am no longer a fan of this sauce. However, I am a fan of fresh veggies, fruits and nuts. Two of these items can be found as ingredients inside of Creamy Pesto. Interesting. You learn something new every day.
Moving on. The Snail Mail way is the absolutely “free.” No dollar symbol point ninety-nine way. This freedom is cumbersome because you have to build out everything yourself the long way and there is no guarantee that you will make any money this way even with your best product offers, solutions, lead magnets or free $.99 offers. So, why would anyone used this route over the quick way? Ownership and being the master inside your own house. No one can take away what you built yourself (in most cases not all. Please don’t do anything illegal 🙄, its crazy that I have to mention this). Inside your own space you can create your own rules of how that space function. Paying Google, Microsoft Bing, and others you are beholden to their rules. Run afoul of them and this will cost you all of your money and the business relationship that you have built up with that company. Something, that may take you months or even years to recover from. This include paid website and none paid websites if not create foundational-ly by you 😳. 👀 So, read those rules. Staying on topic, the point I’m making is that even with a paid website or free one you have say so and control over what content is posted there and won’t have to worry about what you are allowed and not allowed to do or say.
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With the Snail Mail way you can slowly build up your community audience. You will still need the help of modern social media and SEO techniques to help get your website some light. This requires a lot of social conversations and attracting possible viewers. Its like creating multiple sub communities around the original one. Which is…all that it is in reality. But this way is FREE (with restrictions if you use a free website instead of paid. I know, we just can’t get around that pay to play wall.) Now if I were to use just a free website with no plugin assistance, meaning no other applications that would come with a paid plan, my site will be heavily dependent on SEO techniques and other social media platforms. Remember I am not paying so there is no ads. Unless👀 you know how to create your own for the free. Cue the B-Roll! Or Ad roll! You get what im saying! You can create your own ads inside of your videos. Small 10 -30 second clips. Now you can’t go overboard with these ads because people hate ads and will click off your video especially if it is not relevant to what viewers are watching. I would use two ads max and no more.
So, this is the snail way to gaining exposure to you company. Writing several articles and creating digital content to add to your website or a or social media pages like FaceBook or LinkedIn (Yes you can do the snail way on platform like these as well) depending on where your audience gathers the most at.
Now what is all wrong with the snail way and why shouldn’t any writer wholly depend on it?
If you choose to follow the snail path (the FREE path) using your own website for free, than thats a lot! It’s like owning a home. You are responsible for all damages, security, decorations, furniture, food, plates and utensils, grass mowing etc. You wholly take on all responsibilities and whatever goes wrong fall will on you. Further more with a free website you are restricted (depending on the host) to what you can use it for other than content creation and storing. The Google overloads do not like any website that is new and isn’t a dot com domain.
Although there are a few exception to this rule if you are a season shrew of a marketer who like me don’t care to pay for everything if you don’t mind the long work hours and security to get the site up and running then by all means go ahead. It is work well worth doing, at least in my opinion. Now, if this is entirely too new to you and waay out of your league of expertise then please by all means get a paid website with whatever additional applications that you would need to make it successful this includes paid advertisement as long as it is reasonable to you and within your budget that you can maintain.
If the website #FreeWay or #PaidWay is still too cumbersome then may I suggest to you the second #FreeWay already set up and ready to go! Social Media!!! FaceBook, LinkedIn, Medium, Reddit, and Quora, just to name a few sites that are ready to go for content. All you have to do is create an account with one of these pages and voila! No responsibilities! Except of coarse the content you create. Now, as mentioned before with these social sites although free you are still under the rules of those who owns that platform. You are responsible for keeping up and obeying all the guidelines and rules that is set up by the owners. There are subjects you may and may not be permitted to discuss on their site versus your own paid or unpaid website.
Further more there is a learning curve that comes with each social media site. Neither two are the same, but all serve the same purpose. Take Pinterest for example: Pinterest is a niche discoverable site. You can practically find anything on this site that deals with some form of home decor, clothes, carpentry, cooking, and nutrition. This isn’t all. Pinterest understood the assignment of “Eating with Your Eyes First.” A picture tells and sale more than a 1,000 words. The creators of Pinterest understood this and knew this. Which is why Pinterest despite being an older site and having a predominant older community of people, (30+ not discounting those who are younger) Pinterest bolsters some522 million active users monthly! Each user has their own taste in goods or services.
Now, signing up for Pinterest is easy, using Pinterest to make a living requires ingenuity and opening up your creative brain 🧠 . Not to mention understanding how to use the platform. I will have training on how to use Pinterest in the future. So, subscribe to my site if you would be interested in learning how to use Pinterest to build an audience that will pay you dividends (Good money) in the long run—>Queen And Seven Streams. I am a firm believer that anything worth having is worth doing.
Money may be made from trees but it certainly doesn’t grow off of trees. I know because I went outside and looked at the trees. No green U.S. dollar bills growing! You have to study and apply the knowledge that you have learned. We all want a quick $20 (or more) to help us push through the day but the struggle has got to come to an end. You have to decide if “Building” with those same “Bricks” is even worth going through the same hardships over and over again and ask yourself why would continue the same pattern? Change can be inevitable and Change can also be beneficial. “Follow Your Dreams that will Lead to Your Streams.”
“ Change can be inevitable and Change can also be Beneficial”
— Shakida M. Dennis
I actually “Love” Pinterest! OMG this site is so awesome! It is easy for me to showcase my clothes, coffee mugs and so much more. I am branding myself slowly on this platform and I had an account for literal years! Never used it because I did not understand it until now. With this being said stay tune for my next big article on, “Why do influencers tell their followers that making money online is easy?”
Sources Cited:
Science Direct, Jeannine F. Delwiche (Nov. 5, 2012), You Eat With Your Eyes First, Retrieved (Aug. 12, 2024), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938412002703?via%3Dihub
SemRush, Asif Ali, Karla Margeson, Bartłomiej Barcik (Mar. 27, 2024), 26 types of Digital Advertisement: The Ultimate list, Retrieved (Aug. 12, 2024), https://www.semrush.com/blog/types-of-digital-advertising/?kw=&cmp=US_SRCH_DSA_Blog_EN&label=dsa_pagefeed&Network=g&Device=c&utm_content=683861103761&kwid=dsa-2263819780239&cmpid=18348486859&agpid=156312207733&BU=Core&extid=132431696562&adpos=&gad_source=1
Pinterest Business, (n.d), Your Audience is here.And they’re ready to shop., Retrieved (Aug. 12, 2024), https://business.pinterest.com/audience/#:~:text=Your%20audience%20is%20here.,they’re%20ready%20to%20shop.&text=With%20over%20522%20million%20monthly,new%20leads%20into%20loyal%20customers.
INFUSE, (n.d.), Cost Per Acquisition /Cost Per Action (CPA), Retrieved (Aug. 12, 2024), https://infuse.com/blog/glossary/cost-per-acquisition-cost-per-action-cpa/
