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Revenue and Reach

#DareToExcel Challenge – 10:

Define one specific experiment for growth and change for this month in revenue or reach.

This experiment can be related to the one small project. But this time I ask you to frame the experiment in these terms, If I did X, then would Y result? 

For instance:
If I wrote and published relevant content every week, would I feel better and reach # more people?

If I reached out to 3 people this month for possible connection or collaboration, would one of them lead to an exciting new venture? 

If my business focused less on _____ and more on ______, would this lead to more customers? 

If I wrote poetry with no imagery for a month, would I discover another way to write poems? (Okay, that last one was not related to reach or revenue, but I include its ilk as an option.)

My answer:

If I worked on one unfinished quilt daily, would I be able to give myself a little more financial breathing room by selling the finished quilts?

Quilting PandemonionAlthough my time this month has run too short to actually implement this experiment, I will begin next month:

  • Stitching daily
  • Posting finished quilts for sale to Facebook and this site
  • Anything that doesn’t sell will be held for sale at one or more of our local holiday craft fairs

Ideally I will make enough to skim a little money to spend on needles and thread.

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LLP Marketplace and Quest2015

November has been a busy month of sewing, selling, working the day job, and setting up an online marketplace for which I am still sewing despite the fact that it launched today. And December doesn’t look any slower. Still, as my friends all keep telling me, “busy is a good thing.” What would make it a better thing: Sharing December’s exciting projects with all of you.

LLP MarketplaceAn offshoot of the Liberated Life Project, the second annual LLP Marketplace gives graduates of founder Maia Duerr’s Fall in Love with Your Work course a chance to put what they learn about creating right livelihood into practice. This year’s Marketplace includes:

  • “Buddha and the Six Supports” — a high-quality giclee print of an original Tibetan thanghka created by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo (of Threads of Awakening)
  • Beautiful note cards featuring original haiku and photography from artist Katya Lesher (of Pausing Turtle)
  • Coaching sessions from Ursula Jorch (of WorkAlchemy.com), drawing on intuitive and practical wisdom, to help you create the business (and life) you want

And maybe even my quilted journal covers if I can get my sewing done. Give it a look. Your purchase supports artists, coaches, musicians, writers, and others trying to make the leap from day jobs to dream lives.

Quest 2015

The newest offering from Jeffrey Davis, founder of Tracking Wonder, Quest 2015 promises to help participants “gain a fresh way to envision your best 12 months far beyond ineffective resolutions, goal-setting, and vision boards.”

Also concerned with right livelihood, Jeffery focuses on transforming artists, writers, coaches, and social-preneurs from dreamers to Business Artists. And although I have a full schedule and miles to go before I sleep, I just couldn’t turn down this opportunity to get help and inspiration in honing my focus for 2015, and hopefully with finally finding a way to spread some of that busy throughout the year instead of saving it all for the least three months.

 

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Fall in Love with Your Work

As many of you know, I have been un- or marginally employed since February 2011. By choice, but still, after almost a year and a half, my savings have dwindled to the point that my need for a regular paycheck is imminent. And while it would be easy enough to go back to doing what I was doing before, the truth is, I left that career for a reason and I need to move forward, not backward.

Enter Fall in Love with Your Work: A 30 Day Adventure, a new online course from the Liberated Life Project designed to help you “take the first steps to creating a sustainable livelihood with meaning and purpose.” This course could not have come at a better time. It offers 30 days of probing questions that invite us to look deeply at our interests, our experiences, our passions, our dreams, and our histories.

We started on July 1, and within the first two days I made at least one big discovery about myself. Then came day three and with it my first road block: the perfect notebook to journal my work in. That one’s too big. That one’s too small. That one’s just right but 5/6 full… It sounds ridiculous, I know, and that’s how I know it’s not about a notebook at all. It’s about resistance.

 

Creating a whole new life can be scary. Believe me, I know. I still have no idea how I managed to quit my job, pack up my life and move from San Francisco to Santa Fe, leaving my family, my friends, my boyfriend, the only gardening zone I’ve ever known, and my deep, deep sense of security. But I did it — quickly, before I had the chance to let the true weight of what I’d done hit me. But that tactic isn’t going to work here. Because this is all about digging deep, and that has to be done slowly. It also means I’m going to have to just suck it up and pick a notebook. And a pen. And sit down and get to work. Maybe after breakfast, though, I’ve had ginger chicken soup percolating in the crock pot all night and the fragrance is making me very, very hungry.