Are you of the school that says once you close a sale with a new customer, it’s time to go find another one? Guess what? You’re “Old School,” and you’re leaving easy money on the table. You’re also making your job a lot harder than it needs to be.

Let’s say it really is 5 times easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one. Then you should spend 80% of your selling time staying in touch with current customers and only 20% of your time prospecting for new business. (Oh, look…we created another 80/20 Rule!)

Unfortunately, most of us reverse this ratio, at worst, and go 50/50 “acquisition” and “retention,” at best.

Here Are the Real Sales Follow Up Conversion Stats:

• It takes 12 contacts to convert a prospect to a customer
• 80% of all sales happen after the 4th contact
• 50% of all salespeople quit after only 1 contact
• 50% of all sales leads result in a sale–for somebody!

Scariest of all…your customer is your competitor’s prospect! That means if your ratio is out of whack, everybody will be following up with your customer but you!

Now put on your “80/20 hat.” You’ve got a lot going for you already. If you are doing a good job for them, your present customers are the easiest to approach. They’ll take your call because they know you. They already think you’re the subject-matter expert in your field. Therefore, if they accept what you recommend, they’ll often do so without shopping around.

If you give reasonably good service, are scrupulously honest and sell a product or service that’s in demand in your marketplace, you’ll find current customers will respond favorably when you ask for time to show them more of your products and services.

Does this mean every current customer will buy? Of course not. But many will…and your commission check deposits the same whether you sell to new or existing prospects. And it sure beats making cold calls, spending more money on advertising or investing more time in socializing on social media. Imagine a steady stream of receptive buyers who look forward to hearing from you with your next great idea for them! That’s what you can expect from a good sales follow-up system.

There are many ways to stay in touch with existing customers. My favorite is to call up and invite someone to lunch or coffee. But depending on how many customers you have and where they’re located, that may not be feasible. So here are my next 3 favorite ideas.

3 Ways To Follow up with Customers

1. e-Newsletter, sent quarterly, bi-monthly or monthly to keep customers “in the loop” with what you’re up to
2. Automated Drip Marketing Campaign, triggered off a first sale and scheduled to send a message once a month for a year. Then, even if you get busy, your customer will still feel appreciated.
3. Exclusive Offers. Everyone in business today is looking for shortcuts, new ideas, competitive advantages and proven strategies–anything that guarantees risk reduction. A simple, personalized message with a special downloadable offer of a white paper, special report, case study involving a similar business or a “coupon” towards a next order is often all it takes to make the phone ring or to initiate an email inquiry.

This year, The Database Diva offers 2 new programs to help you gain mastery of your sales follow up to current customers.

1. e-Newsletter Training Course. If you want to learn to “do-it-yourself,” in this class we’ll teach you how to produce a customer e-newsletter that gets opened, read and responded to.  Held monthly for 90 minutes
2. Do-it-for-You e-Newsletter. We will publish a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly e-newsletter for you, completely turnkey.  We handle your copywriting, design, list segmentation, sales call list creation, metrics reporting and flagging of your opt-outs and bounced email addresses.

For more information or a customized e-Newsletter ROI Analysis, contact Stacia Shinaberry.

Creative email marketing content can be mined from hobbies and holidays.

Last year on Cinco de Mayo I published my secret recipe for frozen margaritas. This year I decided to go more historical with a great Swiftpage E-Marketing case study.

Every Cinco de Mayo, history buff, Sage ACT! Software User and Texan Les McGee gets one more holiday to showcase his email marketing creativity. Les sells 100% made-in-the-USA United States and State Flags and flagpoles for Betsy Ross Flag Girls Company Inc.

Les combines his hobby of researching history with his business need for lead generation. Before e-marketing, Les’ prospecting strategy was territory “drive by’s,” looking for flags and flagpoles on commercial properties like apartment buildings, schools and big companies. Whenever he’d find one he didn’t know about, he added the information to his Sage ACT! database.

“I’m very database oriented,” Les says. “It’s the only way I keep up with my market. The property management business is very transient. One of my buildings has had 4 managers in 8 years. Big properties may have 10-12 flagpoles. So if I don’t keep up, I miss sales.”

About a year ago, Les discovered email marketing and enrolled in The Database Diva’s Drip Marketing Camp. “I’m a huge fan of the internet, and I love email marketing. But I hate when I subscribe to things online and they try to sell me new products without giving me the info I thought I was getting. I didn’t want to do my marketing that way.”

That’s how the marriage of history and marketing was inspired. Les doesn’t try to sell flags in his email marketing messages. “My philosophy is ‘I want to share something pithy and short about our US history and remind you that we’re a local resource.’”

Email Marketing Content Inspiration

At first he thought he’d send messages quarterly, but once a month is proving to better timing, even though Les acknowledges it’s often hard to come up with a different concept each month. Some of his historical flag topics have included:

• The story of the first United States flag
• The 48-star flag (the one Les grew up with)
• Flags in the Revolutionary War

“I read books on flags, so I write about any flag having to do with the history of the US,” he says. “We share the border with Mexico and I like to celebrate their hard-working culture and religion on Cinco de Mayo.” Later this month, Les will send a reminder to his list to lower all flags to half-staff for Memorial Day.

Besides his flag books, Les relies on Wikipedia and Google Images. He finds he’s more inspired to do his writing at the end of the month because “it has to get done–I feel the pressure!”

Swiftpage Email Marketing Results

What’s the payoff for all this hard work, we asked Les? Here are some of his tangible results:

1. A pre-school in his territory reads the history lessons to its children.
2. A local radio station reads his messages on the air (he’s working on converting them to customers).
3. A principal at a local school caught a “wrong date in history” and pointed it out to Les to correct (school’s never out for lifelong learners).

That’s just the fun part. The business part is even better. “For the first 4-5 months, I didn’t get much response,” Les says. “Recently, I had 15 people email me back with orders. People are always on their computers, so they’ll receive one of my messages, open it, call me and say, ‘Les, I need some flags.’ On sales calls, many times people think they’ve done business with me–even when they haven’t!”

Les sends about 1,400 messages per month and averages about a 15% open rate. His favorite time to send his emarketing campaign is the first or second day of the month at about 10am because “the apartment complexes don’t open till 9am.”

After 8 years of “drive by” prospecting, Les says he doesn’t get in the field as often as he used to. But he writes twice as many orders as the other reps at his company, even though his territory is not in the most affluent area. “I’ll take quality when I can get it, and quantity when I can’t,” he says.

Les says there are 4 secrets to his email marketing success.

1. Prepare your database so you can do something with it. This takes time. “I had to go back and code everybody on my list with P1 for flagpoles, P2 for Flags and P3 for both, then code all my prospects and customers,” he said. “But I look forward to doing postcard mailings and email blasts, so I had to have an accurate list.”
2. Always be prospecting. “When you start out in sales, you are prospecting more than writing orders. The longer you stay with it, the more writing of orders you’ll do and the less prospecting. But you still have to keep up with everyone. Even now I still find flagpoles off the beaten path, even though I think I know anybody who’s got one. Some customers buy at the corporate level and some buy local, but they all go on my list.”
3. Be persistent in acquiring email addresses. It increases your marketing options. “In the old days, tracking business on 3×5 cards was cutting edge. Not anymore.
4. Be consistent. Schedule messages and get them out on time. “Despite not being in the field as much, people still instantly recognize the Betsy Ross brand.”

And how much did Drip Marketing Camp help Les organize his database and launch his emarketing campaign strategy? “Lori, you’re better than I thought you were, and I thought you were fabulous.”

It’s Part 4 of the 5-Part series on building lead-generation web forms on your website. Let’s get real. Today’s lesson is The Big 3 Delusions of Drip Marketing Campaigns–the next step in following up with sales leads. Here are the top 3 “no-no’s”:

1. Customers/subscribers/prospects/readers are dying to hear from you. No. They’re. Not. You must have something compelling, educating, enlightening, entertaining to say. Every time. Every message.

2. It’s all about you. No; it’s not. If you’re not solving the readers’ most pressing problem, they’re tuning you out or–worse–opting out. Be personal; be relevant.

Here’s my favorite test: Write your content. Count up the times you wrote “you” or “yours.”

Now go back and count up all the times you wrote “I,” “me,” “my,” “mine,” “we,” “our,” or “ours.”

The ratio should be 2:1. Re-edit as necessary. (I made a funny video about the irresistible urge companies have to self-promote with email marketing. Enjoy.)

3. Cram everything in but the kitchen sink so readers don’t know what you want them to focus on. Nope. Only ONE idea per message–no exceptions. If you’ve got more to say, publish a newsletter. Drip marketing is all about nurturing leads, not talking them to death. (And while I’m on “talking”…lose the corporate-speak; it’s a guaranteed delete button.) Offering too many choices is the virtual equivalent of throwing a bunch of stuff on a wall to see what sticks.

Next week is the 5th and last article in this series on building lead-generation web forms. So if you have a burning question for me, ask me now.

In the meantime, here are 2 easy ways I can help you build more compelling web forms and drip marketing campaigns:

• Drip Marketing Letters – These are 9 most-used marketing letter blueprint packages to plug-and-play into your marketing automation software. The blueprints include drip marketing campaign strategy and “done for you” sales letters. (I wrote your content for you, so you don’t have to.)
• DripMarketingCamp – The first drip campaign is the hardest one to launch. So in Camp, I hold your hand over 4 weeks to help you execute one revenue-generating drip marketing campaign of your choice. We cover it all: database segmentation, marketing automation software (doesn’t matter which one you use), content creation, customer surveys, web forms, calls to action, subject lines, metrics and testing. I guide you through the writing of each message using my proprietary drip marketing formula that has generated more than $1 million in new revenue for my clients.

Lastly, if you haven’t yet signed up to receive my free Drip Marketing Letter Blueprint for sending to new customers, download it now by clicking on the blue and white graphic at the top right of this page. (You’ll also get to see how I follow up with my own drip marketing letter campaign.)

This is  Part 3 of my 5-article series on how to build lead-generating web forms. In this article I want to discuss the importance of relevant follow up.

Have you ever submitted a web form and gotten a canned reply that had absolutely nothing to do with what you thought you signed up for?

That’s laziness, IMHO.

(I guess it could also be incompetent technology. But the answer to a follow-up challenge is not automating your incompetency!)

If you’re on board with the whole idea of adding more web forms to your website to generate more inbound marketing leads, and then  integrating marketing automation to manage your sales leads, then you must be on board for personalizing your follow up messages.

Is it hard to do?

Well, it is time consuming. But do you want more new website-driven customers? Then you have no alternative. Because if you don’t send personalized messages based on visitors’ web form answers, you will never convert them to customers. The prospect just won’t see the connection between how they found you and what you say next.

Here’s an example of how I prepared a personalized follow up email marketing campaign to prospects who attended a recent webinar presentation.

At the end of the presentation, I invited attendees to download a special report on my website. One of the questions I asked on the web form was, “Which statement best describes the way you learn new marketing concepts?”

There were 4 answers to choose from. Based on how they answered, they received 1 of 4 email marketing campaigns. Each response received different information, all managed automatically with my database my drip marketing automation technology.

The 4 answers allowed me to easily segment attendees into separate groups. The groups  allowed me to personalize content for them effortlessly.

In my next article, I’ll share tips on how to use drip marketing to follow up on web form responses. To read the first part of this series, go here for Part 1 on how to design a lead-generating website and here for Part 2 on getting the most qualified sales leads from your web forms.

The right email marketing software helps The Missourian Publishing Company meet its monthly email newsletter deadlines.

How long does it take to publish a monthly company email newsletter? 10 hours? A hundred hours?

Well, if it really takes that long, it’s no wonder more companies have good intentions, but don’t actually do them.

With the right email marketing software and a simple newsletter template, an email newsletter should take only an hour or two each month to research, compose, post and send. Here’s how Stephen Trentmann, sales manager of the commercial print division of The Missourian Publishing Company, gained momentum with his email newsletter marketing.

The Missourian Publishing Company is a family-owned and -operated newspaper and publishing company. It has two production facilities in Washington, MO, and satellite offices in Union and St. Clair, MO. The Missourian is also a full-service graphics communication company that provides a wide range of creative printing solutions for our business and publishing clients.

Stephen’s goal was to start leveraging the nearly 3,000 contacts in his ACT! Software, which he had been building for more than two years. “I needed to create marketing campaigns that consistently reached out to our customers and did not take 100 hours per month to do so,” Stephen says.

Stephen followed The Database Diva’s email newsletter template suggestion, which included 3-4 recurring topics, each with the goal of educating, entertaining and compelling his contacts to use The Missourian as its communications resource. “Lori showed me the logical steps to create a professional looking email newsletter and good techniques for gathering story ideas that could be used when it was time to assemble the next scheduled newsletter.”

Stephen distributes his newsletter using the email marketing software Swiftpage, which works with his ACT! Software. The integration allows him to update his email newsletter template and then send it to current contacts right out of his database. “The result has been just what I wanted. Our customers remember we are here when they receive the newsletter, and it sparks ideas to help them with their business. And the time it takes to publish the newsletter has been reduced to under a manageable few hours.

After successfully  meeting his monthly newsletter deadlines for more than a year, Stephen’s goal is to utilize ACT!’s dynamic groups better and send more focused email campaigns to specific markets.

But he believes his real success comes from using his ACT! database everyday to follow up consistently. “I would not be able to be able to keep in contact and document activity without ACT!,” he says. “In the first 3 months of 2010 I documented communication with 729 different people in our database.

“I was surprised at the amount of reporting Swiftpage feeds back after a campaign is sent. There’s a lot of info in the call lists and other email reports.”

Loan Originator Patrick Loo is on his way to mastering list segmentation to drive his email marketing campaigns.

Patrick Loo had an unusual marketing challenge: He wanted to shrink his list. Most marketers struggle with the opposite challenge. They want to build their list. The bigger the better. 

But as a loan originator for 20 years and a former manager of a large mortgage office, Patrick’s database had grown in size to 9,500 contacts. Today he’s one of the top 8 of 50 loan originators at Mortgage Capital, a Beverly Hills, CA, lender, and personal service is his number-one core business value. 

Patrick knew his list was too large for his marketing to be as personal, and, therefore as effective, as he wanted it to be. So he made a commitment to an aggressive, 9-month marketing plan to find his top 2,000 prospects. “Originally I contacted ‘The Database Diva’ to automate my sales and lower my cost for marketing,” he said. But he had a lot of database work to do first. 

“Lori Feldman helped me really organize my contacts. She gave me ACT! training to target specific demographics in my database, such as people with certain loan amounts and those with active emails,” Patrick said. “At least 70% of my training involved learning how to use ACT! software–and I’ve used ACT! for more than 15 years and considered myself proficient. Lori moved me from being proficient to being a pro!” 

As a busy mortgage professional, Patrick didn’t have time to fine-tune his database. He needed to be on the phone talking to home buyers and real estate agents. But he dedicated himself to the process because he wanted to reach out to each contact as if in a one-to-one conversation–in every message. 

Value Each Person on Your Email Marketing List

“I hate receiving email that’s impersonal. What’s the point of sending out a lot of email to my marketing list if it’s not useful, looks like everyone else’s or goes straight to the spam folder?” he said. “I want to be very personal, specific and most important, capable of responding quickly. You can never automate everything, and you must always lead with the personal touch.” 

His comprehensive marketing system included a website redesign, direct mail postcards, with emails and drip marketing using ACT! e-Marketing powered by Swiftpage. 

“Initially I had to increase my mailers from 700 to 2,000 in order to clean up my list. Now I’m trying to reduce the number of mailers to around 1,000,” Patrick said. “I would ultimately like to rely more on email marketing. However, I think I’ll always have a need for sending postcards to my clients.” 

The most critical component of his marketing plan became his database segmentation of active clients and prospects. Once this was done, Patrick could survey his customers to confirm their loan balances and mortgage rates. 

Best Customer Service with Email Marketing

With that information verified, Patrick could send individualized savings options to homeowners each time rates changed. One campaign netted him 9 extra closings in one month. 

Patrick’s future e-marketing goals include developing more follow-up drip marketing campaigns and creating more surveys to capture homeowners’ borrowing intentions that can be automatically populated into ACT! 

He offers these 3 insightful tips to anyone starting out with drip marketing: 

1. Personalize your email marketing
2. Respond quickly to email responders, and
3. Find a balance between keeping in contact and not overloading your list with what recipients may consider spam.

Candy Torahs credits its successful email marketing campaigns for its structured follow-up system

 CandyTorahs.com manufactures personalized, Jewish-themed party favors and place cards for special occasions. Unlike most of its competitors, the company specializes in serving a niche of Bar Mitzvah moms, planners, Synagogues, Jewish agencies, clergy and schools. 

It’s a “one-man” show, says owner Harry Liebman, who develops the products, builds the website, designs the promotional materials, manages the customer database and drip marketing campaigns, takes the orders and customizes the designs. “My family helps me make and ship orders,” he says. 

A few years ago, Harry had a big problem: Tracking and following up on sales leads. The typical lead time for his products is 3 to 24 months. But when a mom would contact Harry a year or more before her family’s event, he would lose sight of her after a few months.  Sometimes, he says, so much time would pass without communication that he’d feel too uncomfortable to contact her again. After all, there’s nothing worse than saying to a once-hot prospect, “Um..you might not remember me, but about a year ago you contacted CandyTorahs.com about party favors,” says Harry. “Ugh!” 

After talking to The Database Diva, Harry realized drip marketing was his answer. “In fact, I knew it the first time I heard the term ‘drip marketing,’” he says. “I could see the value of creating a well-thought-out email marketing campaign, planned in advance and delivered over time, targeting different types of prospects. It seemed to be the best way to stay in touch, offer prospects useful information, and deliver persuasive information as the event approached.” 

But now Harry had a new problem: He couldn’t figure out how to launch his drip marketing campaign. “When I tried to start, I ended up going in lots of different directions, starting over, and getting discouraged. I needed a roadmap, a guide.” 

Enter The Database Diva and her DripMarketingCamp, which gave Harry exactly what he needed: a drip marketing blueprint that helped him plan a complete communication campaign. He also learned how to find his own authentic writing voice. 

“I began to understand how to see my messages from the mom’s point of view. I learned how to be someone she liked–a giver of useful info and resources about planning big special parties–and not someone she scorned–a spewer of product data about CandyTorahs.com sizes, prices, colors, choices, blah, blah, blah. The Database Diva gave me confidence. Most important, committing to the DripMarketingCamp process forced me to allocate the necessary time to finish and launch my campaign.” 

Email Campaign Design

One of the biggest benefits of creating email marketing campaigns is tracking the results. Harry says his results have been “good to excellent,” and he generously shares his top three benefits here. 

1. Staying in touch. “Right now, I have about 50 people in my database who are having events within the next 3 months. Each of them has heard from me on a monthly basis for a while, and more often as the date draws near. My niche is very small. It’s critical that I keep a tight focus on every lead I get. Swiftpage has made that automatic. This is excellent.” 

2. Engaging with prospects. “My open rates are astonishing. One of my mailings TO PROSPECTS went to 80 people. 36 people opened it (a 45% open rate). Each person opens my emails an average of 3.5 times! They click on my links an average of 59 times!” 

3. Retaining customers’ interest. One mailing Harry sends goes out after the customer’s party. It gets an open rate of 72% and a click rate of 7.5%. The message includes just one link inviting them to CandyTorah.com‘s Facebook fan page. “Here’s one of my secrets,” Harry says. “Fully leverage ACT e-Marketing’s mail-merge personalization features.” Below is the letter Harry sends. He thinks at least half of all recipients reply personally to this message. “That’s relationship building!” he says. 

Hi [[First Name]],
How was [[Child Name]]’s Bar Mitzvah weekend? Are you still on cloud nine? How about [[Child Name]]? After you decompress, you might check-out the CandyTorah’s Facebook page. You can post photos (I’d love to see them), review our products (please), share advice with other parents and so on.
Congratulations on this milestone. And be sure to enjoy these upcoming years – they go by so fast. This year my eldest, Elliot, started college!
Harry 

Like many other businesses, Harry believes his business has been off this year, but he understands what he must do next. “I’ve neglected my pipeline (no post card mailings, for example) and that’s a factor. And although I engage my prospects, I must refocus on closing sales. I believe the drip marketing sets up the sale. I need to figure out the best way to close more. 

“My customers love me, but currently I don’t have anything else to sell them. Once the party’s over, it’s over. I’m thinking about products for their kids as they start driving, graduating, etc. These are some of my next steps.” 

Email Campaign Tips

Before he leaves us for Candyland, Harry has these 3 drip marketing tips to share so you can create your own successful email marketing campaigns. 

Tip 1: Don’t delay. Set-up a drip campaign now. The sooner you start, the sooner you can develop it and focus it on your goals. It takes time and you will get better at it. So start now. 

Tip 2: Don’t be stuffy. Talk to your prospects like they’re your friends.  For example, 

BAD: If we can be of assistance as you consider your party favor needs, please give us a call.
BETTER: Your party’s coming up fast. Please let me know if I can help. 

BAD: Thank you for entering our monthly drawing. We will notify you early next month with the results.
BETTER: Thanks for entering our drawing. There are 22 entries so far – hopefully I’ll have good news for you after the 1st. 

Tip 3: Look at your own email inbox. Which regular mailings do you look forward to receiving? Which emails do you always read? “Why? I know why! Because they’re useful, valuable, entertaining, forward-able. Make your own mailings that way, too!”

“My email marketing template’s better than yours,” says the first one. I’m gonna knock it outta the park.”

The second email marketer says, “Are you frackin kidding me? No way is that POS graphic of yours going to produce a respectable open rate. And that subject line..? Fuggedaboutit.”

“Oh yeah?” says the first email marketer. “I happen to know there isn’t a serious ly qualified prospect on our customer database who would read one sentence of your crappy copy. And my mother could design a better HTML email template than that.”

“Fellas, fellas, no fighting in this bar,” cries the bartender. “Let’s split your list in half and send an email blast using both your templates. We’ll take it to the court of public opinion and let the open rates, click-thrus and sales speak for themselves.”

Both marketers look at each other, speechless, for a few seconds.

Then the first email marketer turns to the second email marketer and says, “My mobile messaging ad is better than yours…”

Sometimes a diva needs her own personalized silver soldered tiara.

That was the mission on my recent vacation to beautiful San Diego where I was fortunate enough to land a spot in Portland artist Sally Jean’s workshop, “Totally Tiara.”

I’ve been designing and creating jewelry for the past five or six years as a hobby. In my recurring fantasy, I quit my day job, liberate my 70s Bohemian skirt and peasant top (again in style, I might add) and set up a table selling my handmade wares at the Farmer’s Market.

But then Carolyn, our bookkeeper, reminds me that payroll is Friday, so I get back to work. (My good friend, Sue, says, “Why do you think they call it work? If it was fun, they wouldn’t pay you to do it.”)

There were about 20 of us aspiring artists in this class. Besides me, two others had traveled great distances to study with the Queen of Silver Solder. One woman flew in from Hawaii, another was from upstate Illinois. All the rest were from up and down California.

Besides trekking home with my very own tiara, my other objective was to master a new skill that used an entirely different section of my brain. As The Database Diva, I spend a lot of time thinking about the best way to present complicated relationship-building tactics to my clients who want to leverage their customer databases.

Burning Brain Cells vs. Skin Cells

You burn a lot of brain cells mastering the creative process for email or drip marketing campaigns. You must think of exactly the right words and offer such compelling ideas that your readers are entertained or educated enough to buy what you’re selling or ask to stay on your list. (Or at least not opt out). Very. Tough.

With soldering there’s a specific hand-eye coordination required–while holding a soldering iron that’s 100-plus degrees Fahrenheit.

I sat across from a woman who had taken Sally Jean’s class 13 times. She owned many crowns. I was in awe of her prolificness. Her pace was brisk as she added spikes to the base, and she was very fluid in her work, even though she was conducting 7 or 8 simultaneous conversations around the room. I thought I was a multi-tasker. I was truly amazed.

Within the first few hours of the 3-day class, I had dripped molton solder on my index finger. It was so hot, I didn’t even feel it at first. (Just a flesh wound, as Monty Python used to say.)

Within 5 hours I felt like a dismal failure. Everyone was soldering much faster than I was, and my iron was operating on the scorched earth principle. Instead of beautiful shiny charms, I was cremating my pieces (or inventing the Goth look of the technique…never one of my favorites).

I burned a lot of skin cells in that class. I could not get the hang of Sally Jean’s loving command, “Melt and Flow! Melt and Flow!”  I had soldered precisely zero times before this. Why did I think I could show up and master it in a mere  3 days when almost everyone else had been a Sally repeat offender?

My fellow artists were encouraging. “Keep going, you’ll get better; it takes practice,” they all said. “When you get home, solder something everday,” said another. I doubted this advice as I pushed yet another ashy charm off to the side and picked up my next victim–with a death grip on the pliers.

How much longer would I have to endure this ego bashing (which hurt more than my finger)? And, surely, Sally was not serious about taking a group picture with all of us wearing our crowns. I guess I could hold up my iron as a lightsaber. Darth Diva.

“Done Is Better Than Perfect”

But then a miracle happened. I realized I was trying to be perfect. I was totally out of my comfort zone–where I typically live everyday. I was being tentative because I didn’t want to ruin my expensive stash of class supplies. I didn’t want to wear a Goth tiara or put it on display as evidence of my vacation at the art colony. I was putting a ton of pressure on myself expecting to produce first-class craftsmanship, while the reality was I was a soldering virgin! And I was failing anyway.

(Ironically, Sally had also taught “Soldering for Virgins” a few days before, but I couldn’t attend. Even if I could have, I proabably wouldn’t have signed up. I assumed it was the “beginner’s class.” I wanted a challenge–until now that I had one.)

With the realization that there was no way I was going to produce jury-level art, I relaxed. I breathed. I ate some chocolate (not on the low-carb diet, but, heh). And I created my first beautiful silver-soldered charm. It was magnificent. I didn’t care that I had 45 more charms to go.

So, success. I got my new learning experience. But I did not finish my project in Sally Jean’s class. I did not fly home wearing a tiara. But I did turn on the soldering iron as soon as I got home. The solder amazingly “melted and flowed.” I am now a soldering addict.

You can see my finished masterpiece, entitled “Inspiring Divas” above. It features pictures of the wonderful line of women in my family tree that I am lucky enough to descend from. The spool of thread is from my great-grandmother’s Marshall, TX, dry goods store. It’s close to 100 years old. The brooch in front was my grandmother’s.

The takeaway: Your art could be your career, your writing, your marketing, your tiara. How committed are you? Only you will know where all the little flaws in your crown are. So to some degree, you must suffer for your art if you care about it and you want it to someday be better. The secret is to fear the creative process, and then do it anyway.

• Appreciated by all 615 people on their distribution list
• An effective way to personalize an email marketing campaign message (ie., sales pitch)
• CAN-SPAM compliant

(Outlook email message shrunk to readability oblivion to protect the guilty.)