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It's never too late to start your own creative business

19/3/2013

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Posted on 19 March 2013 01:14

At a one-off charity gala concert of ‘42 Street’ on Sunday night at the London Palladium,  there were several charming surprises,  not least that many of the original cast (from the 1980’s spectacular at Theatre Royal Drury Lane) were brought in to dance  the ‘Young and Healthy’ number.   

As they were all sprightly chorines no less than 30 years ago the audience watched with bated breath to see how they would do in the taxing, energetic tap number, but not one of them put a foot wrong.  They were as polished and professional as ever, and gave the up-and-coming youngsters a run (or a tap!)  for their money.

(I was Production Assistant on the original production at Drury Lane, and watched the show then numerous times, including the night when the lead fell ill and her understudy, Catherine Zeta Jones, played the part of Peggy Sawyer.  The U.S. producer of the show, David Merrick, was in the audience that night. Catherine took over the lead, and the rest – as they say – is history).  

But back to the present day, and the charity performance last night…. 

Similarly inspiring was a parade of ‘ladies of a certain age’, (each escorted by a black-tied gentleman) who graced the stage for the ‘Dames’ sequence,  including Angela Rippon,  Rula Lenska, Arlene Phillips, Vanessa Feltz, and the organizer of the event Gloria Hunniford.

Veterens of the dance world Lionel Blair and Wayne Sleep also danced a short sequence spectacularly. 

The gala was in aid of the Caron Keating Foundation which supports cancer charities in memory of Gloria’s daughter and TV presenter Caron who died from breast cancer in her 30’s. 

Not only was the show uplifting and mesmerizing, it seamlessly blended young with old, energy with experience, and gave weight to the fact that age is no barrier to giving a truly professional performance.     I doubt that any of the 'mature' dancers would want to take it up again as a full time career, but the point was they put on a fabulous performance and the organisers thought to include them, to their credit.

I think that we can learn a lot from this from a business perspective.  

So many people over the age of 50 are struggling to find work, being made redundant from a job they had held for perhaps many decades, and finding themselves having to start over. It's no coincidence that the highest rate of business start-ups is amongst the 50-plus age group, and it is a wonderful thing that we can put our decades of experience and skills to good use creating a living not only for ourselves but maybe for a handful of employees as well.  

Creative businesses such as handcrafted items, art, gifts, design, photography, interior design, catering, writing, and so on lend themselves to this particularly well. 

To quote George Eliot   “It’s never too late to be what you might have been”.  

She was able to find career success later in life, and there is no reason why we can’t do so too.

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50 Shades Of Pinterest

15/3/2013

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Ann, Creative Business Coach: Posted on 15 March 2013 


No, I haven’t read the book, but the title made me think of the many colourful ways that creative businesses can use the new darling of the social media world – Pinterest – for marketing their business.

I can hear you saying – “I’m busy running a business here, making my products, doing my admin, and sourcing supplies, there aren’t enough hours in the day as it is, I haven’t got time for yet another social media platform!”….. but the secret of marketing is good targeting of your products and services to the correct prospects who are actually looking to buy them.

Did you know that creative businesses – artists, craft makers, architects, interior designers, wedding planners, travel companies, cake makers, fashion houses, beauty products and so on – are having some amazing successes with Pinterest. The platform is driving more traffic to websites than Linkedin, YouTube and Google+ combined!   (source:  Shareaholic)

Not only that but 70% of users are more likely to buy if referred from Pinterest than from other social media sites (including Facebook!).   An astonishing 1 in 5 Pinterest users pins an item which they later go on to buy – that is an amazingly high conversion rate for social media! (source ‘Harvard Business Review 2012’). In other words, customers are using Pinterest to search for and collect items they actually want to buy.  

This means that users are 'telling' businesses every day what products and services they are interested in.  You couldn’t buy that quality of market research for love nor money (well, maybe for money – a lot of it!), but with Pinterest you are getting the information for fr*ee – if you know how to find it and make use of it. 

One example:  Beauty brand ‘Sephora’ started using boards named ‘It Lists’, where staff posted their favourite Sephora products and invited users to share and comment.   They combined this with email marketing – emailing their customer list with links to these pin boards – and saw a 60% growth in website traffic within a month.  That traffic is also highly targeted, spending 15 times more money on Sephora than their average Facebook fan.  (source:  Pinterest) 

The power of Pinterest is astonishing, so why not harness some of that power for your creative business and see how it helps drive traffic to your products and services? 

Find out, step-by-step, the insider secrets to getting targeted leads, customers and sales with Pinterest.

Click here   www.pinprofitpro.com  ….and see how many shades of your business you can uncover.   

I guarantee it will be fun! 

Go to this website for free information  www.pinprofitpro.com

"One in 5 Pinterest users pins an item they later go on to buy"


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    Hello, I'm Ann Leslie,  Creative Business Consultant.

    I help creative businesses to gain more leads, customers and sales - and have fun doing so! 

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