Natiiv

Open Tabs 4

Tagged coaching , music , opentabs , socialmedia

Firefox keeps crashing, so it is time for another edition of Open Tabs.

Once again, I'm here to share what is on my to-read list aka my open tabs. You can follow along on Delicious for daily additions or you can patiently wait for me to find time to curate a list. Like today!

Ike Pigott talks about difference between practitioners, teachers and coaches in Building a Dynasty. Specifically he was talking about those of us who work in the social media space. As someone who has chosen the title of Social Media Coach, I felt that his comments were on the money.

Go get a coach, who has a proven ability to elevate your game. Build bench strength. Build for the future, by injecting the change comfortably into the culture. Granted, there are very few of these coaches around. Within Social Media, there are many people who are great at what they do, but it might have little to do with coaching ability and everything to do with their own knowledge of the industry they are augmenting.

Other than OpenTab, my most common tag in Delicious is 'awesome' and that clues you in that I might like The Awesomeness Manifesto by Umair Haque. More than that he talks about the four pillars of awesomeness: ethical production, insanely great stuff, love and thick value.

Let's summarize. What is awesomeness? Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. That's a better kind of innovation, built for 21st century economics.

I'm sharing this in case there are other women business owners reading. It is in my open tabs because I keep meaning to join the National Association of Women Business Owners. I've heard nothing but good things about the group.

NAWBO is the premier organization in the United States representing the interests of all women business owners. NAWBO Chicago, among the largest of the organization’s more than 80 chapters, offers a wealth of opportunities ranging from contacts and networking to learning, advocacy and growth.

One of my first clients, I Fight Dragons, are off on national tour. But a couple months before they left, Brian Mazzaferri wrote a guest post on We Are Listening to outline how the band gets 200 new fans a week. (I'll also brag for a moment. At TweetCamp this weekend, a Vocolo producer told me that I Fight Dragons have an amazing social media strategy. See Ike's post about having a good coach.)

1. Give your music away, but don’t throw it away

We’ve given away a free digital copy of our debut EP to everyone who signs up for our email list. For people who don’t know us, it’s a free and easy way to learn about our music for free. And then we’ve got their ear. Note, this is VERY different to just posting it online for free download. The price may seem the same, but the result is 100% different, because we now have a foot in the proverbial door.

Corey Blake, a fellow alumni of Millikin University, wrote an excellent post for all business owners on his blog Writers of the Round Table. He discusses only chasing the clients you have to have instead of chasing any client.

Chasing every lead you find on Internet job boards, killing yourself to out-quote a competitor, caving to a prospective client’s limited budget—all of these things can absolutely do more harm than good. It means you’ll get burnt out, produce a crappier product, and actually have less profit to show from the whole ordeal. The bottom line: Learn to say no to people who aren’t willing to pay for the quality service or product you provide.

Finally Lee Jarvis of US Music Jobs, Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR and Keidra Chaney of The Learned Fan Girl each have great reports from the New Music Seminar. I helped with some of the promotions and got to know the founders over the course of the event. Next they take the seminar to LA. If you are there, make a point to register and attend.