Thursday, April 1, 2010

How to start Blossoming

Working for yourself with yourself all day everyday creates some challenges when it is time to talk to other people about what you do. As artists and business professionals, one of the best ways to grow your business is to learn to speak about what, why, and how you do what you love to do in an intelligent and coherent way.
Now don't take me as an expert since I am still learning, but practice makes perfect and I live by the motto 'fake it 'til you make it'. This week I had an opportunity to be radio interviewed. Radio is so much scarier than print...now I will hear every 'um', 'and so', and 'like' that I hate knowing I say. Preparation is key!
A week or two before the interview, I asked Jaynine what she would like to know about my business. She very promptly sent me a list of 8 or so questions that I reviewed and stewed over. This was vital to the success of the interview for me since I was able to respond in writing to the questions and then edit them (more than once) before writing a script for myself...now ask me if I stuck to it:)
I am ok with the knowledge that I didn't stick exactly to the script and that I rambled a bit here and there because for the most part I accomplished what I wanted: Talk about my art, my business, let people get to know me a bit, and get my name out there more in a mostly intelligent manner. And as I said before, practice makes perfect so the more I talk the easier it will be for the words to roll off my tongue when the next question comes at me. I am still learning so the experience was great and I feel that I am slowly blossoming every day with every new opportunity.
If you don't have the immediate opportunity to be interviewed, Interview Yourself! Write out the questions you have been asked or that you would like to know about someone else and refer them back to yourself. Answer them with some thought and then practice answering them in a composed manner. You will be amazed how much easier it gets as you practice. You will be even more amazed when someone asks you a question and the answer just jumps out of your mouth without any thought and a conversation is started. You will sound like the complete professional we all know you are when you are at home all alone working hard:)
If you have 30 minutes to have a listen, my interview was done with Coach Jaynine the DreamCatcher via talk shoe.

3 comments:

katherinesands said...

This is great Robin! What a wonderful experience for you.

Stacey Mitchell said...

I have enjoyed catching up on your blog this month. You really take the idea and run with it. I love that you create with your mom and the "redwork" was fabulous!!

Lynn Majidimehr said...

What a great experience for you! Thank you for sharing.