Ty•pog•ra•phy noun \tī-ˈpä-grə-fē\

1. The art or process of setting and arranging types and printing from them.
2. The style and appearance of printed matter.

The type of type you choose to use is important! Seriously… the fonts you choose are the face for your logos, business cards, marketing materials, Facebook promotions, etc. It’s the wardrobe of your content, if you will. Nothing sticks out more like a bad font. We talk a lot about branding at Suzanne Evans Coaching and let me tell you… font matters when it comes to your brand. It will make or break your message and your branding appearance.

Unless you are marketing for people of the First Century and/or your branding has an Egyptian ambiance… you should not be using Papyrus for any of your printed or web materials. It’s ugly! Just the other day I was checking out a friends music page on Facebook and noticed his Facebook Ads were using that damn font… I had to literally catch my breath. There are far better fonts out there for you to use and market yourself with.

Now you may find some awesome fonts that have a sizzle or POP! to them, this is great! But remember that you should probably use those fonts for just that, a sizzle and POP!; to accentuate, not to write a pamphlet of content with. There are really great fonts out there that you can use more frequently and as the guts of your content, like Helvetica Neue. Helvetica Neue is one of my favorite fonts and neutral on the eyes of the viewer. With a few color changes, I can use it as a POP!, or I can also use it when I need to give a lot of content.

Use these two keys when choosing fonts to use for your materials:
1. Be courteous of your reader! Give them fonts that are easy to read, when it comes to content heavy material.
2. Use fancy, fun fonts as accents and pops, not for full content.

So in case you feel like you may be in the typography danger zone I’m giving you my Top 5 Worst Fonts and my Top 5 Best Fonts that you can use on a regular basis.

Top 5 WORST Fonts (stay away from these):
1. Papyrus
2. Comic Sans
3. Zapfino
4. Brush Script
5. Chalk Duster

Top 5 BEST Fonts (use these regularly):
1. Helvetica Neue
2. Arial
3. Century Gothic
4. Times New Roman
5. Calisto

Happy Typography Exploring!

-Britni Hanley, Co-Creative Director 

What? It’s your birthday today? Thanks for letting me know Facebook. Unfortunately, we don’t know it’s someone’s birthday until we see it on Facebook. I think Birthdays are a cause for celebration and the best parties I’ve ever attended are Birthday Parties. I wanted to throw an epic party for my Birthday, but I had to convince everyone it was epic. How should I do this? Call people? Facebook message? Create an Event? Then it became clear… make a video.

So I went into Hell Yeah Studios One night and recorded this Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQU29b2mfU&feature=youtu.be

So let’s go over the important Information in the Video

- You know it’s my Birthday this Weekend
- You know I’m excited
- You know what I want for my Birthday (So you don’t have to awkwardly ask and it adds social lubricant to the Party. Win/Win)
- You know what to Expect by Coming (We will be drinking from Growlers)

This video belongs in the 3 categories we teach here at Hell Yeah Studios. Positioning. Promotion. Personality.

I positioned myself as an excited-soon-to-be-24-young-man through my energy in the video. You can expect this Daniel at the Party. I promoted by Birthday Party. And I showed my personality by talking about my new fascination: The Growler.

The Party was so much fun. It was everything I could have hoped for and damn near everyone from the Office made it out to the Party. They couldn’t say no because I put so much of myself into the video. It made the decision for them.

And here are the results of the Party:

I am now the proud own of 4 Growlers (2 of them were full at arrival) and I earned $150 in Piggly Wiggly money so I can get Growler refills for the rest of Summer. Some would say the R.O.I. for this video was outstanding. This is a very simple way that video can help promote yourself and upcoming events. But you have to make sure your personality is uninhibited so the viewer’s mind is made up instantly; I’m coming to this Birthday Party. Gonna go get the Growler refilled now. Should I go for the Riverdog Pale Ale or the Allagash Curieux?

-Daniel
Editor / Media Manager
Hell Yeah Studios

I do not believe it when one says it does not matter if he is always late to work and takes working time to do personal things as long as he can deliver results. I believe he would be able to deliver even more results if he used his time efficiently.   Here are 10 tips that will help you to be more efficient at work.
1. At night before sleep, prepare the things you need to take to work the next morning. Go to bed immediately when you are already sleepy so that you are not tired for work. There is nothing you cannot wait until the next early morning that you must compromise to delay bedtime.

2. In the morning have breakfast before working hours.  Having breakfast will help you feel more awake in the morning, which will help you get more work done as well.

3. Start working when working hours start. If you still do personal things when the work hours start, you could lose work momentum for the rest of the day.

4. Remove all the clutter on your work place. A clean and orderly desk prepares your mindset to work. Clear away items that are not useful. For example, if you already have one stapler, then any extra stapler is not useful.

5. Do not do personal things during work hours. You can get sidetracked for a significant amount of time. Personal issues can be done during work if it cannot be done after work. For example calling a doctor who has the same working time as yours.

6. Finish a task once started. If you leave the current task for another one, you will spend even more time next time to reorganize the things when you come back to the original task. Also you will still remember the unfinished task while you are doing the other thing and stress out. It is better to do one task excellently than to do a few tasks with average result. Finish one thing first before starting another.

7. Finish the task given by the superior first. It is usually more urgent. Tell the superior what you are doing when the task is given to you to let him or her decide which one is more urgent.

8. Control your temper at work. Losing self-control does not only affect your own work efficiency, but can also distract your colleagues. And later you will have more difficulties working with the person you have shouted at.

9. There are times when you still feel like working during lunchtime. That is not good. Everyone’s brain needs a rest. When you go back to work with a rested mind you will be more productive.

10. Leave when the work hours end. Staying late may mean that you are inefficient and will give you more constant worry in life because there are no clear boundaries between work and personal life. Once in a while if you really have urgent work that must get done, do not bring the work home but finish it before leaving.

-Brad Adams, Executive Assistant

In this month’s edition of Fast Company magazine, the feature article was on “The 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2013”.   Nate Silver, Principal of FiveThirtyEight came in as #1.  Never heard of Nate Silver before?  He is considered a data guru and has an uncanny ability to take data, add his creativity and hit a bull’s-eye.  Here are some of his highlights:

• In 2011, the Boston Red Soxs seemed destined for postseason glory. But late in the season, Silver saw signs of an ominous losing streak and wondered, statistically, if they were headed toward a collapse of historical proportions. They
  were. The team didn’t even make the playoffs.
• Silver’s presidential predictions made him famous.  He correctly called the winner of 49 of the 50 states in 2008 and 50 of the 50 states in 2012.
• Silver tweaked his models for the Academy Awards for 2011.  He was right in 4 of the 5 major categories including best picture: The King’s Speech.
• When the 2013 NCAA bracket was announced, Silver called Louisville the favorite, giving the cardinals a 22.7% chance of winning. By the final four, he boosted the team’s chances to 55%. Louisville handily beat Michigan in the finals.

The article goes on to say:

It may seem odd to say we have arrived at a moment when data and creativity are bound together but Silver doesn’t have a problem with the idea.  “I think there are two types of creativity,” he says.  The first is what he calls “pure expression” – what musicians, poets, actors and dancers do.  The second is finding different ways to approach and solve a problem.  To me, that is the highest form of creativity for business today – how do you solve a problem through your own unique creativity.

Too many entrepreneurs use the “spaghetti” method: they just keep throwing things at the wall to see if something sticks. Instead, look at the data you have in your business.  What data are you tracking for your business? You should be tracking revenue, clients, conversion rate, open rates, list size and website visits to name a few.   Big businesses use data to boost profits and to sell more products all the time.  Even smaller companies are using data to create apps to do things like tell you when to leave for your meeting because the roads may be clogged.

Once you know your data, then add your own creativity to take your business to the next level.  Is video the right media for you? Is speaking from the stage? Is your message strongest in written form?  What problem do you solve in a way that no one else does?  That will be your key differentiator.

“History shows that people keep making mistakes and the good things is that people who are creative and entrepreneurial and innovative can make a name for themselves and make a lot of money for their company if they do something a little different,” says Nate Silver.  So figure out how you can use the data about your business today, add your creativity and do something different.  It could be the missing key to your success.

(Portions of this blog have come from the article “The 100 Most Creative People in Business, Fast Company Magazine, June 2013)

-Cathi Harley, Director of Coaching

How often during the week do you think to yourself, “I should do x, y, and z”?  Days maybe even weeks pass by and you remember you still have not done x, y and z.  If you believe this doesn’t happen, you are lying to yourself.  Forgetfulness happens to everyone, we are all guilty of this trait.  For example, one day I will think to myself, I need to buy paper towels this weekend before I run out.  Next thing I know, it is Thursday of next week and I go to grab a paper towel to clean a mess and it’s empty.  It is not that I didn’t want to buy the paper towels over the weekend, I had simply forgotten.

The real question now is how often does this happen to you at work with some kind of project or task that you forgot about?  If you’re a typical worker, it most likely happens more often than it should.  Don’t let forgetting of some simple tasks make you look like a bad worker.  There is an easy solution to this problem that will minimize the forgotten tasks.   Something as simple as writing a to-do list will help you stay on track.  I know that may sound like advice you would give to a kid, but adults can and should use it as well.  It is easy to lose a thought during the day.  By keeping a to-do list, every time you look at it, it is a visual reminder of what you need to accomplish.

Once you are given a new task or if you think of something new to do, add it to the list as soon as you can.  Don’t give yourself time to forget it.   As you complete tasks throughout the day, cross them off or put a check mark next to it.  Any items that are left over at the end of the day should be re-written on a new piece of paper in priority order for the next business day.  This will help organize a working pace, as well as, create a strategy to insure that your projects are completed on time and not overlooked.

This little helpful tool I learned from Suzanne Evans not too long after working here.  Actually, I started implementing it while working here.  We all learn what a to-do list is when we are young, but very few actually put it use.  So I challenge you to start using a to-do list for two weeks.  I bet you’ll be surprised at how helpful a simple little to-do list can be.

-Brad Adams, Executive Assistant

I’ve made a lot of really crappy decisions. I have! I admit it. And I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, that hurt people, that hurt me. Many of these have been irreversible and life-changing.

And boy, was there a time when I would let these decisions (and outcomes) stop me. There was a time I would hang out and allow my decisions to paralyze me, keep me from being present and keep me from living the life I so desperately desired.

And then I realized I had a choice.

I could choose to:

Hang out in regret about my decisions and commitments already made
Hang out in self-doubt, indecision and second-guessing myself

Hang out in blame and being a “victim”
Hang out in comparison and judgment and not feeling “good enough”
Forget that I was a powerful Spiritual being having a human experience and there is no end to what I can achieve

Or I could choose to:

Embrace my decisions and leverage them for change and success
Embrace my decisions to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve what I want
Embrace my experience as a Divine spiritual being having a human experience
Embrace that where I am is perfect, exact and empowering
Embrace the creative spirit of “there is enough for all and there is no competition”
Embrace the fact that I will get the results to the degree that I am willing to put forth the energy and take the necessary action.
Embrace the power of who I am and demand from the Universe that the opportunity present itself to me NOW!

When I started coming from a place of embracing the past and the present, letting go of the judgment, resistance and disappointment, I released myself from the events of the past. I released myself from paralysis. Then I began to allow myself to step into and claim what I truly desired, with strength, with conviction and with a knowing.

It all comes down to choice….

You get to decide, you get to choose!

So here’s the challenge. If you are feeling stagnant, overwhelmed or even paralyzed, I invite you to take an inventory of where your thoughts are around the decisions you’ve made and experiences you have had…or are having.

Which place are you choosing to hang out in? A place of judgment, indecision, blame and lack that is keeping you small? Or a place of empowerment, embracing what was and what is and moving fully into a future expressing your true greatness?

It’s all up to you… You get to decide, you get to choose!

-Paige Stapleton, Director of Client Development

Spring is upon us, so that means a couple of things… Baseball and Business. (Well it’s always time for business).

In baseball winning 55 percent of the time is a really good thing.

Most of the home run record holders, also hold strike out records. The same year

Less than .5% of high school baseball players will ever be drafted by a MLB team. And only a little over 3% of those drafted will ever play a game in the majors. Imagine spending over 10 years of your life, just to have a 0.00015% chance of getting to spend just 1 day doing what you love.

I know a lot of business owners who are spending a lot of time (even 10 years) trying to do what they love, but they haven’t had the success they are looking for, because they are waiting for “a win”.

But, the secret is realizing that business is really a game! It’s all about persistence!

It’s all about winning more than losing. But it’s really about knowing you are going to have to lose to win.

So, know that you will lose money. You will loose leads, deals, time, energy, clients, sleep and so much more.

The trick is to play the game of biz to win not “not to lose.”

Every time you have a loss, just go out for a bigger win.

The other day I lost a 12k deal that I really thought I had. I had already spent the money in my mind. (You know what I’m talking about, right).  But instead of letting it get me down, killing my mood, f-ing up my mindset or keeping me from having a good day…

I decided to play the game of biz and I told myself that if I was going to play the game I was going to lose, but I was also going to win bigger. And I had a call that same day that led to a 24k proposal that was better for me and this new client.

Because to win the game of business you need to come FROM service, you need to not let ANYTHING stop you.

You are going to strike out. You are going to get hit by the ball. You are going to play in front of unfriendly audiences. Your going to have loosing streaks.

But if you can remember that success is really only wining more than you lose and if you go out there swinging for the fences – playing to win –  you will make it to the hall of fame.

But if you go out there “playing not to loose”. Being tied up in the idea of being perfect and of not loosing, then you and your business will be as memorable as Slim Harriss who pitched (his worse season) against Babe Ruth (during his best season) and is all but forgotten to history.

Don’t allow your talent, your skills, your gifts to not be used by the people who need you most
If you are allowing your losses to keep you from having wins –  get your head out of your ass and get back out on the field and WIN the game of business.

-Brian Stark, Director of Strategic Development

It surprised me when I got this reaction when I told someone how many sales calls I make every week “How can you do that many calls?” she asked. ”How can I not?” I replied. As Suzanne says, believe “Sales are what you do FOR people not TO people.” I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales. Anyone in your business has the ability to make a sale or to lose a sale.

There are a few indispensible principles and procedures that any good salesperson must embrace. Honesty and integrity are by far the most important assets of an entrepreneur. With these two traits in place, a relationship of trust can be established with your clients. Zig Ziglar’s mother told him, “Son, if a man’s word is no good, eventually he’ll be no good.” If you commit to something, follow through. You can’t make a good deal with a bad person. There is some money out there that is not worth having. One of my coaches calls that “crazy money”.

One of our 10K clients reminded me of something that a lot of entrepreneurs skip over when it comes to sales — prospecting. That word drives fear into the heart of the individual who doesn’t believe that selling something to someone is for their benefit and overall well-being. We all prospect and don’t even know we are doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you have a product to sell, you need someone to sell it, so you have to go out and find the folks who need what you have. If you don’t believe that their lives will be better because of what you have to sell them, they you are either selling the wrong thing or you are selling it to the wrong person. A true prospect needs your product or services, has a potential desire to own that product or service and has financial ability to make that decision.
Prospecting becomes second nature when you can implement this quote: “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough people get what they want.” When you are truly interested in other people, you will learn what they like. If they like you, and most people like folks who take an interest in them, they’ll help you find people who do need what you have to sell, even if they don’t.
Mastering sales techniques, principles and systems should be the first skill set entrepreneurs aspire to acquire. Good business starts from the inside — the belief in what you have to sell is so strong and you have an honest desire to help your clients get their needs met. Here are 7 success strategies to help you master the essentials:
1. Be able to easily explain what you sell and who buys it.
2. Believe in what you sell.
3. Form partnerships with people.
4. Listen.
5. Every conversation you have with client is of monumental importance.
6. Everyone on your team can be taught to actively prospect.
7. You will sell more when people like you. People like you when you show interest in them.

Remember, it is all about the know-like-trust factor. The faster you get there, the faster your prospect becomes a client. Be in the business of making a difference in people’s lives.

-Cathi Harley, Director of Coaching

Hey everybody, It is Suzanne, and welcome to this weeks video Ezine. Hope everybody is doing well and wonderful, and having an amazing week. And I’m going to talk about a subject that is going to annoy the hell out of you. And that is, why you struggle. This is for those who are just starting out or it’s for those who have actually been doing well for a while. I see this in everyone from multiple seven-figure entrepreneurs to people who are just trying to make seven bucks.

The bottom line is, is that you are a little bit more concerned about other peoples success then your own. So this is called mindset if you want to call it that. You can call it just having a really shitty attitude or you could call it, making a decision to focus on yourself. But here is what I see. It doesn’t matter how successful you are. Someone is going to look, to find flaws in your success. Right. They are going to look to find, oh well they had it easy because they were setup to do it this way. Or, they were exaggerating their results. I can’t tell you how many times since Be The Change, people have said, “Oh I heard there was only 700 people in the room. At our event we registered about 1018 people, 948 people checked in. And people are really concerned whether we had 948 or if we had 852. Folks, stop focusing on other people’s success. Here is what I learned. I was able to go from 0 to six figures in a year, from six figures to a million dollars in under three years and to a five million dollar business in under five years. I never given a damn what other people were doing. Thrilled for their success, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really care about their success and I don’t care about their failure.

I love the analogy of horse races. If you look and see horse races, they put blinders on the horse. That is not for anybody except the horse itself. The moment the horse looks left or right to see what the other horses are doing, it immediately slows down its race time. And I can promise you, that you are looking left and you are looking right, and it is costing you money, it’s costing you clients. But I think more important than clients and money.

It’s costing you emotionally energy. You always feel behind, you always feel a little bit bitter, you always feel like everybody else is doing something that you’re not doing. If you put on your blinders and you focus on what you’re doing. I don’t care if you’re putting 10 people in events or 10 thousand. I don’t care if you’re making 100 bucks or you’re making 100 million. Focus on what you’re doing, really eliminate the thought and idea of what everybody else is doing, and allow yourself to set your own goals, set your own pace, and don’t worry about others. Honestly, I know it seems crazy, but I don’t see that there is any competition.

I think the competition is me. I sent goals for myself. I work really hard to reach those goals. When I don’t, I’m bummed with me. When I do, I celebrate me. And everybody else is out there running a really busy race trying to run their business, and I get it, I appreciate it. I actually try to pay attention on occasion just to learn from it, because certainly you want to be educated in your market place. But I’m really not concerned with what other folks are doing. I’m focused on what we are doing here at Suzanne Evans Coaching. I’m focused on how we can grow today. I’m focused on how we can run our own race today. So I know you may not want to admit, whether you are advanced or a beginner, but you are worried about other people. Here’s my advice, worry about you, and you’ll make a lot more money. See you on the other side.

In the past year at Suzanne Evans Coaching, LLC, we’ve really been focusing on the importance of brand and creating your own personal brand.  For those of you who live and breathe the Marketing Goddess herself, you know Suzanne is pink, black, and all Hell Yeah!  But how do entrepreneurs and business owners begin building their brand from the ground up?  This is a frequent question I’m getting as a new 10K Club Coach, and I’ve decided to reach out to all the party people in the world of business and give you some starting points.

First: Who are you? What do you stand for? And what do you have to offer?  You need to get crystal clear on these three questions.  Because, if you don’t know who you are… neither will your clients.

Here’s a great exercise to help you understand who you are and how others perceive you.  Sum yourself up in three words/adjectives, then ask two close family/friends, two business contacts, two clients, and two new acquaintances to do the same.  By doing this you’ll really start to see how you’re perceived and this is great because you can start to build your brand around the true and authentic you.  So if you are trying to build a brand that says “Hey! I’m the Dominatrix of Marketing” and your friends, business contacts, and clients are writing down that you are shy, sweet, and an introvert… it might be time to hone in on those characteristics and use them to your advantage instead of giving a false sense of whom you really are.  Be REAL.  People buy from REAL people.

Don’t be afraid to use a nickname or attribute that you might think is a handicap and work it to your advantage.  They call me Britni Bitch, and contrary to what most people think when they hear that name, it’s not because I’m a bitch.  When I say “Hey I’m Britni Bitch!”  It’s because I’m spunky, always looking fabulous, and I rock socks when it comes to branding and design.  It’s spicy and fun and our clients really get a kick out of it.  It’s MY brand.

Once you’ve brainstormed and taken this consensus of how others portray you, it’s time to start putting it together visually.  You know that saying “Go to the mattresses!” ?  Well as a designer I say, “Go to the Pinterest!”  That is your battle station for anything brand, marketing, and design planning.  Pinterest is where you can create boards of inspiration and bring ideas together; whether it’s for your brand or your products… and simply pin away.  Collect colors, images, and symbols that represent your personal brand.

The last step is to HIRE A DESIGNER!  If you want to look legit, hire legit.  There are plenty of sub-contracting sites out there that allow you to post a job and set a price range (Guru.com, Elance.com, and Odesk.com… just to name a few).  Once you hire someone hand those Pinterest boards over to them and trust in them to visually execute your brand.  And don’t be afraid to hop on the phone with your designer and get really clear about YOUR vision too!

I’ve just given you your launching pad.

Happy Branding!

-Britni Hanley, Co-Creative Director