Meryl K. Evans is our Featured Wild Web Woman Positive Role Model!

One of the greatest things about our job as Wild Web Women is meeting passionate entrepreneurs who excel in their chosen careers while maintaining a healthy and balanced life. This month, we had the extraordinary privilege and pleasure of chatting with “Content Maven” Meryl K. Evans to learn about her passions, her career, and how she balances life and work without losing an ounce of motivation or energy.

Meryl recently quoted our very own Web Marketing Therapist, Lorrie Thomas, on the necessary traits of a successful web worker.

Read on for a healthy dose of inspiration about how Meryl found her dream job and created a distinguished and successful brand on the web.

1.    If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Friendly, conscientious, detailed

2.    What online social media platform are you most addicted to? (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin…etc).

Twitter. Love the chats and it adds a lot of value for short bursts of text.

3.    Meryl, your business delivers high-quality content to your clients. What keeps you inspired to create fresh content and what skills are the most helpful in maintaining your sharp writing edge?

I never take clients for granted, so I do what I can to deliver the best results possible. Clients may come back for more business or tell others about you. Like tennis, the best way to get better at anything is to practice the skill over and over. Of course, you make adjustments along the way with the help of a coach, online articles or a good book on the topic.

4.    Please share a professional phobia or obsession….confession session!

I fear making silly mistakes in writing such as messing up a link or my fingers type “hear” when my brain correctly thinks “here.” I abhor that. I know the difference, but sometimes the fingers decide to do their own thing. I also obsess with making the editors happy and their jobs easier.

5.    What is your favorite word or phrase?  Why?

“W00t!” You’d think my love for words would produce a fancier word or phrase. W00t sounds positive and fun. It makes me smile when I say it or hear someone say it. I don’t hear it as often as “awesome” or “cool.”

6.    In one of your blog posts earlier this year, you shared your “Six Steps to Get it Done for Home Office Workers”.  What is the hardest part about working from home while your kids are out of school? What are some “tricks” you have to deal with this?

Most of my friends and colleagues look forward to summer, but not me. I have one child who has unique challenges and can’t do just anything. The first month went well thanks to the school district’s fun summer program. Alas, it’s only four weeks. I’ve been working harder to apply Love and Logic thinking and advice I’ve gotten from experts to ease up the times when the younger two (four years apart — ages 10 and 6.) are at home. The oldest is 15 and in her own world, so I rarely worry about her.

One of the boys needs to read all summer to avoid falling behind. He hates to read. I instituted a new rule, “No electronics until you’ve done 20 minutes of reading.” It was hard at first, but it worked. Love and Logic puts the responsibility on the kids rather than on the parents. When the boys start arguing and come to me, I respond “I love you too much to argue.” If you lecture them, count on tempers to flare more. The fewer words you say, the better. I separate the boys more often — it’s when they’re together the problems happen more than the boredom blues or snack attacks. They also know that when they work hard to behave and get along, they may see a reward like swimming time.

7.    What do you believe successful “wild web woman” traits are?

1. Be selfish! Now that sounds selfish, but it actually helps your family and personal life. I believe that “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” When you’re in a negative mood, it spills over to those around you. Take care of yourself, women! Doing this still puts other people’s needs ahead of your own because if you aren’t happy, you’re spreading a negative virus to others.

2. Speak up. If something is on your mind, don’t internalize it or hope someone reads your mind. But it doesn’t mean you should speak your mind with an attitude. Companies hire you for your expertise. If you disagree with something, explain why rather than doing nothing. When we hear a rational explanation, it can solve a lot of problems.

Here’s one example. The principal of my kids’ school said that the school can no longer print class lists (list of kids by teacher) in the directory. Of course, parents were upset because they rely on these lists for invitations, events and such. They also like to know who is in their children’s classes. But when we asked the principal why, we learned it was out of the school’s hands and went higher up. Parents understood and no longer felt angry at the school.

3. Fire clients. Firing a client doesn’t mean you failed. It means your client’s and your goals and personalities don’t mesh. One client didn’t want web content using standard web content practices. It wanted a business plan type of content for the web site. We mutually agreed to end the relationship. If you find you dread doing the work for a client and keep putting it off — listen to that message. It may be time to move on. Worried about losing income from that client? Think about the energy you’ll have if you replace the client with two great ones where you look forward to doing the work. You add more income.

8.    How do you indulge yourself (every once in a while!) to stay healthy and balanced?

Because of my job as a writer, I have an unfair advantage here. Playing computer games. I review computer games on a regular basis and this more than meets my need to have fun.

9.    What are the top three most vital marketing ingredients that have helped you become the professional you are today?

A dash of blogging, a soupcon of social networking and heaping of serving high quality meals to clients.

10.    Where do you find inspiration to continue growing your business?

My family. I choose to remain a one-person business, although I do work with teams in some cases. My career and success allows me to spend time with them, be there for them and live a fulfilling life.

11.    When you are faced with a setback or an enormous business challenge, what do you do to keep moving forward?

Find a solution, learn from it and work on the next thing so I don’t beat myself up over it.

12.     What has been your biggest achievement recently that you are proud of?

Completing my fourth annual column for Billiards Digest. It was different this time because I worked with a new editor. I appreciated that he stuck with me even though he could’ve gone with someone he knows. He also took the time to tell me that he hardly edited the article except remove one point due to space. I love it when I make the job easy on an editor.

13.    What are your marketing goals for this upcoming year?

Continue with social networking and blogging. This is the best way to keep my name out there. Most of my clients come to me through referrals, so I need to stay in clients’ minds and meet new ones by connecting with them through social networking. I plan to collect new testimonials as I prefer to let the clients do the talking rather than me doing the horn tooting.

14.    What is your ideal work outfit?  (We work in our PJs whenever we can, what about you?)

Gym clothes so I am ready to work out without having to change. Just do it. No excuses!

15.    What do you think is the most challenging part about being a female entrepreneur? How do you overcome this challenge?

Nothing really. I think being deaf encounters more challenges than being female as there are lots of females in the world but not everyone meets a deaf person. All but one client is not from Texas. A colleague in Seattle referred the Dallas client to me. Having clients far away takes away any barrier that comes with face to face meetings and puts me on even ground with everyone. Unfortunately, people judge you based on how you sound when you talk and if you asked them to repeat.

16.    What is the ONE web marketing best practice that you would share with other Web Marketing Therapy readers?

Prescribe a good dose of social networking for your business.

The Wild Web Women at Web Marketing Therapy has thoroughly enjoyed learning from Meryl’s inspirational and educational responses to this interview. We look forward to meeting many more passionate entrepreneurs and building relationships with them so that we can learn and grow from each others’ success stories! Stay tuned for more Wild Web Woman Positive Role Model interviews!

Meryl K. Evans is the author of several books and has written and edited for AbsoluteWrite, ECT News Network, The Dallas Morning News, Digital Web, Gamezebo, Lockergnome, MarketingProfs, PC Today, O’Reilly, Pearson, Sams, Web Worker Daily, Wiley, and WROX.

To learn more about Meryl and her accomplishments, visit Meryl’s website.

Yep, that means I am screaming.

You know why?  Because I am sick and tired of fixing “cheap marketing haircuts”!

You know what I’m taking about.  “Cheap marketing haircuts” is my Lorrie-ism de-jour that represents the people who think they are getting a “deal” by getting a cheap haircut.  These are the same folks who act shocked when their hair is a mess and they have to go to a PROFESSIONAL to remedy the cheap work.
1. The person who got the cheap haircut has to spend MORE time and money to fix the crap work and 2. the ethical smart professional now has to fix (and stomach) the bad work and listen to the sob story of the “poor victim” that GOT THEIR MONEY’S WORTH.

It’s not pretty no matter how you spin it.

What can this teach you about smart marketing?  LOTS.

DON’T BE A MARKETING VICTIM !!!!

I did a post a while back called “Beware of Loser SEM Sales Pitch Emails” and emails like the ones below are such a great example of what we can fall victim to if we believe everything we read and jump into cheap marketing cuts blindly.

BAD $8 WEB MARKETING EMAIL SALES PITCH:

_  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _

“Dear Website Owner,

65% of people searching the Internet will never find your web site unless
you’re ranked on first page of Google, MSN, or Yahoo. If I help you obtain
as much as 4 times more WEB traffic to your online business by promoting you
to the first page of the search engines would you be interested?

Our company is on the first page when you search on Google for our primary
search term “SEO Company.” We would like to do the same for your web site so
you can come up for your main keywords as well? All of our processes use the
most ethical “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not
get your website banned or penalized.

This special SEO program includes:
. No upfront fees
. A month-to-month program
. More traffic guaranteed

Please reply to my email and I would be happy to send you a proposal.

Sincerely,

“SEM Company (no phone number, no email address, no company name)”
_  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _ _  _  _  _  _

The good news is the difference between a bad haircut and a good one is usually two weeks   And, yes, I do make a living helping people “heal” their marketing to make it wealthy and my purpose on this web marketing planet is to empower professionals to be smart marketers but let me be very clear here……

If you call my company then hire someone cheaper that takes advantage of you (and delivers cheap and crappy results) and come back to me to fix your chop job, then you better be prepared to endure some of my tough love so your poor choice never happens again and my time is not wasted again un-doing some loser web marketer’s crap work.

We repeat mistakes in life until we learn from them.  When you choose to ask questions, do your research, think critically and be willing to OWN YOUR SUCCESS, then (and only then) do you win.

You have to be responsible for your success.  You win by self-educating to make smart choices.

Love,

Your Web Marketing Therapist (who needed to post this for her own personal therapy)

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” - Vincent Van Gogh

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore”
-Vincent Van Gogh

Today we find marketing inspiration from a great artist.  Yes, he did cut his own left ear lobe with a razor and, yes, he did suffer from depression but he also has own wikipedia page.  Honestly, he was a great painter and is probably one of the greatest Post-Impressionists.  For example, he did not start his career until ten years before his death.  Throughout his career, he took risks and remained dedicated to making quality artwork and now he lives forever through his beautiful pieces of art.

I hope this inspires you to take a look at your work in a new light.  Are you dedicated? Do you take risks? Are you serving your customers to the best of your ability?  Are you finding new ways to offer value to your customers?

Thank You ThinkExist.com for the quotes!

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” -Vincent Van Gogh

Remember……marketing begins with inspiration!

This blog post was inspired by two inspire-savvy professionals that touched me last weekend:
1. Misty Gibbs of www.myinspirationlounge.com
My Inspiration Lounge is a reflection of everything that Misty loves and and wants to do in life.  She created an inspirational resource to inspire, inform and help us make the impossible — possible.  Her website began with an inspiration…she took the critical step and made her inspiration a reality, now serving thousands of women and securing her a Wild Web Woman stamp of approval as a WMT Positive Web Marketing Role Model.

Inspiration - Life meets Art

2. Lori Lipsman – Inspiring and Inspired Artist.
I stumbled upon her artwork at LA Artcore, Union Center.  The photo to the left was a photograph of a plant married with a stunning paper ribbon running through it.  Inspiration was in action.

I continued to walk the gallery and view Lori Lipsman’s amazing artwork.  We always hear the saying, “life imitates art” but I was picking up was  “life inspires art”

Successful marketers find inspiration to perfect their personal marketing art.

Get Marketing Inspiration!

Lori’s inspiration manifested into amazing paintings, some large, some small, some a melange of paper ribbons married together to produce brilliant works of art that would have never happened without that bit of inspiration!

Beginning is 50% of a creative process (ok, maybe more)  INSPIRATION is what gives us that fire in our bellies to begin.

Listen to your heart before your mind and allow yourself to be creative – perfect your personal marketing art…we all have it, TAP IT!

I am in serious marketing self diagnosis mode.  The process to brand and build Web Marketing Therapy has certainly been a path to achieve a professional goal (teaching professionals how to critically THINK about how to use web marketing to boost business) but it has also been an unexpected self-exploration, actualization, and life purpose process as well.

Zig Ziglar’s quote about “what you become by achieving your goals” helped put my Web Marketing Therapy business building process in serious perspective and landed me on my own marketing therapy couch for self-diagnosis.   

I have been so entrenched in the details (the crucial details) of the website launch and it wasn’t until I went on a LONG OVERDUE walk this afternoon that I had non-geeky, creative space to reflect on the process of launching this website, what I learned about myself, and who I have become in the process.

The Process
A few years ago, I had an “a-ha” moment.  The “a-ha” was although I did web marketing work, my “real” profession was teaching professionals how to communicate better and build/improve relationships.  I don’t know about you, but that sounds like therapy to me!   I taught professionals how to communicate the power of their work, their value, educate their current/prospective customers, how to talk to web partners/vendors/contractors about needs, share expectations, understand, ask clarifying questions and understand one another.  All of this helped build relationships and connections.  The better we communicate, the better web marketing worked.  The root to strong relationships and communication is UNDERSTANDING.  Years ago, I bought the domain www.webmarketingtherapy.com, just to have it.  When I was rebuilding my first company site, www.lorriethomas.com, I was speaking with the man behind my lorriethomas.com site plan, Simon Erich at Site Goals about this “marketing therapy” concept I had.  And HE GOT IT….  Simon may not know this, but it was his belief in my concept that helped solidify my confidence to seriously take on the WMT business, branding and building process that is now our “wild web woman” agency!  Looking back at what was once a mere ”idea” turned real-deal business, I have SUCH an appreciation for the complexity of web projects, the power of having the RIGHT people on your team and the personal stake that goes into building web solutions.

What I Learned about Myself
I learned a ton about my personal and professional nature in this web-business-building process:

1. I am a total perfectionist (I can feel the heads nodding as they read this)
2. I wish I lived in the days of 1960’s advertising where people who had overflow of ideas like mine got big offices and two martini lunches.  (I get “well that’s going to cost you $____) Buzz kill!
3. My primary driver (more than anything) on this process was the desire to give my team a site that was THEIRS – a shared vision, brand, name and professional development platform…no more “me” It’s now Wild Web Women ”we”.  Doing it for me didn’t matter as much as I thought it would, I was more motivated to not let my team down by not delivering on this vision.  Talk is cheap!!!
4. I am VERY DEMANDING.  I know what I want and I am scary good at asking for it.  I may be called a BITCH, but I think that stands for Being In Total Control of Her Marketing thankyouverymuch!
5. I don’t settle.  If I had settled, we wouldn’t have the logo we have, the site, the team, clients, partners or collateral.  I push because I know what the professionals I partner with are capable of, I respect myself and I owe it to the people I serve and the professionals I plan to help for the rest of my professional career to be my own case study with web marketing.
6. I am doing the right thing.  The overwhelming support as we received from friends, colleagues and respected professionals in the web marketing world as built Web Marketing Therapy gave me support in my weak ”is this all worth it?” moments.  Yes, it is worth it. 
7. Sharing value, values and having a voice have been critical to this project.  Sharing my story, WHY I was building WMT, my professional passion & purpose and using my voice (on the blog, in interviews, commenting on other blogs) have gotten us to where we are today.
8. I may be tough, but I am fair.  Respect is recriprocal.

Ziggy Zig is correct that What we get by achieving your goals is not as important as what we 
become by achieving our goals.   I “got” a logo, website, blog, t-shirts, media plugs, speaking gigs and some cool web shoutouts, but who I became in the process is something that money cannot buy.

And I cannot wait to teach you all about my experience to help you with your web marketing it on this wild website!

P.S.  Like my friend Ana Maria says……I am no longer dreaming my dream….The dream is dreaming me!