For a variety of reasons, most being specifics I don't really want to talk about, I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin!
It's mostly good I think, mostly.
In god's honest truth y'all, these Boystown Tours are sparsely populated. I'm not looking for advice necessarily, I know what to do and I'm doing it (really fun concierge tour being planned) but ARGH, it's pissing me off. And what's pissing me off about it is my own lack of creativity. The tour is great, I love it...but I keep going back to these MSM ways of advertising it. Time Out here, Chicagoist...these are a huge help, but COME ON! Why is no one coming omg! And I want to do something amazing and creative to market it, but I'm so freaking rigid and repressed and white girl from the midwest, I just sit around sending out press releases.
This frustration with my own creativity is definitely carrying over to other parts of my life. What it is, I think, is that I feel better than I'm doing. I'm totes awesome, I have the time to do right and a husband who is supporting me while I do so, SO WHERE IS THE AWESOME OUTPUT?
Awesome is great internalized, but why am I having a problem getting it out to the world? Why can't I think beyond a blog post and a press release?
OMG I"M TURNING 40! Soon.
The P90X is killing me too, still seeing results, but why am I not BUFF? Where is the extra percentage of awesome that is not manifesting itself?
WHY AM I NOT FAMOUS AND RICH?
I should be.
4 comments:
Okay, deep breaths. Here's the thing... everything awesome takes time to build. I remember when we first went independant with the Belmont Burlesque Revue, and the first few shows weren't exactly sell-outs. We made enough money to pay the bills, but barely. And Megan and I had to put money into the venture to get it up and running that we didn't see come back to us for a couple of years.
But we kept doing shows and the word of mouth spread and now we sell out pretty much every show. And the success of the BBR led us to join forces with another group and make a HUGE leap and produce Chicago's first international burlesque festival. No mean feat. But we did and it was a HUGE success.
So small successes like just getting off the ground combined with sheer pluck and fortitude build bigger successes, which breed bigger successes.
One other piece of advice I learned in sales training a LONG time ago... most people quit the business endeavors they're in JUST before they turn the corner. Push on! Success will follow!
I know you're not looking for ideas, so here's a few:
1. Pick up the book, Guerilla Marketing, even if it's an old copy from 1990. Lots of interesting no frills cheap-o ideas.
2. It's perfectly okay to pay for referrals. Find waiters who work brunches in Boystown and give them $5 for every table they send your way (give them a coded referral card they hand out). Ditto on the concierges.
3. I threw this one out there before, but do some freebie tours. Grab a bunch of people to make it look real and let anyone who wants to follow, do it. I'm not explaining that as good as I did before, but you get it.
Finally, figure out concrete targets that will let you feel like you've accomplished something. If you say "I'm going to call 10 concierges today" and you do it, you won't feel nearly as bad when nothing happens. If you say "I'm going to market today" and nothing happens - you'll feel ineffective and like you didn't get anything done (even if you did in fact call 10 concierges).
Keep the faith sister!
By the way, when is that 40th birthday party? That should be blasttastic!
Thanks guys, Hendo, you're totally right. It takes time to build something, ain't gonna happen right out of the box. I have to learn how to market this like I have to learn how to do anything. We're not supposed to know what to do right away right? Right.
Izz, as always, thank you. Your ideas are good ones and I'll start working on A. getting that book and B. Just getting anyone to get their butts on this tour!
And the 40th party is going to be pretty quiet me thinks. The weekend is already taken up by family obligations and Harp and I head to Burningman later that month. So...alas.
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