Business
Be Wary of Anyone Selling You Certainty
About a decade ago I went down the rabbit hole of learning about food. I started with the woo-woo stuff (Kris Carr’s book isn’t bad), did a stint with the conspiracy theorists (Forks Over Knives, Anything about gluten and your brain), and then graduated to the promised land of Michael Pollan. If you haven’t read The Omnivore’s (…)
Why “Just Work Harder” Doesn’t Work
Ok quick history lesson because I thought I knew this stuff but I really didn’t learn it till I was an adult. We’re taught that for centuries women were denied access to capital, property, employment, separate economy, government, and our own freaking children. What we’re not really taught was how this was true as recently as the (…)
Fine, I’ll Get Back On LinkedIn
At the urging of my friend Louis, I have returned to LinkedIn. I’d avoided it for years because I’m not in the market for a “job,” and find the dialogue on there to be vapid, performative, and – I cannot emphasize this point enough – emphatically boring. Forced hot takes, feigned “excitement” over things (…)
Wine and Writing For Normal People
Perception almost always outweighs science when it comes to wine. I’ll fight anyone who says Cabernets taste the same in a solo cup as they do in a glass with a wide base and narrow top. I’ll cite some fact about oxygen (“oxygenation”) that I stole from a sommelier. I’ll die on that hill if (…)
How To Write Cold Emails That Get Opened
The latest bro marketing trend, which you will recognize from your spam folder, is offering business owners a “chance to be featured” in a bogus media outlet for the low low price of $2,500. That pitch isn’t the problem. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to bet there is a market for (…)
Why Is No One Reading My Newsletter?
Back in April, I had the privilege of speaking at Newsletter Fest (“A FREE online conference to ignite your newsletter strategy!”) and you can watch the talk here. The polite version of how this talk came to be is that Curated asked me to come on and talk about email newsletter myths. The real version is (…)
The “I’m Better Than This” Phenomenon
“I SENT ONE EMAIL AND NOTHING HAPPENED.” I was older and more experienced than I care to admit in public when I had the above reaction to what-I-deemed-was a failed launch. I’d drank the online business Koolaid and believed that I should have arrived by now at the point where you “make sales while you (…)
Should You Work With This Client? (The Pink Flags Post)
When you play truth or dare, which one do you pick? TRUTH duh because dares always lead to recklessness and embarrassment. Ok, that is unsubstantiated. Truth can lead to those things too, but, in general, I am anti-dares because they terrify me. So when my friend Sarah “dared” me to get to my CTA in 400 words (…)