Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you’re watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business
and life you love.
And this is Q&A Tuesday.
Today’s question comes from Veronika and she writes,
“Hi Marie.
Goodness, my friend sent me one of your videos the other week and I’ve been hooked.
I’ve spent ages watching them and every minute I learn something not only about how
to handle situations in my business, but also about myself.
Many, many thanks.
Here’s my Q, and honestly, I find it a little bit embarrassing.
I finally found a way to channel my creativity into something I love: making dolls.
I recently launched my website and have written a press release to send out to mags, approached
boutiques to stock my dolls, and am keeping my Facebook and Twitter updated.
My problem set in when I started researching the market.
Sure, there are a lot of people making dolls out there, but I started feeling intimidated
by one particular person’s success.
I think she’s amazing.
She’s worked hard to get where she is and it took her quite a while too.
But I’m a little jealous, she’s everywhere, praised left and right on the internet and
on TV and in the magazines that I would like to get into.
I’m worried that if everyone is so caught up on one person, they won’t recognize anyone
else.
And now I’ve begun to doubt myself and started thinking that my press releases will end up
in the bin and that people will think my work is behind the trend.
Can I ever get noticed if someone else got there first?”
Great question.
The first thing I want you to know is that there is no need for you to be embarrassed.
I believe that every human being on the planet, at some point or another, has felt intimidated
and jealous of someone else at some point in their career.
In fact, below this video I’m gonna put some links to earlier episodes of MarieTV
that we’ve done to teach you some healthy ways to deal with competition and also ways
to stand out from the crowd.
But the big message you need to hear is this, and yes, it’s a tweetable: “There’s
always room at the top.”
-Daniel Webster
That’s right, Daniel Webster said that.
And you know who else said it?
Adam Ant.
This is so bad, I can’t even dance to it.
Think about any industry.
I mean, let’s take acting for example.
There’s a lot of A-list actors, you think about comedians, or even think about the music
industry.
Right?
There’s lots of A-list pop stars and hip hop stars and country music stars.
When it comes to press it’s actually really good news when someone runs a story on your
particular niche, because it means two things.
Number one, that publication will run your kind of story.
Have you ever noticed that magazines run the same themes again and again?
It’s a good thing.
Number two, it proves that there’s interest in your category.
So other magazines are gonna be looking to cover that same kinda story, but from a fresh
angle, and they’re not gonna wanna cover the same person again and again and again.
So here’s the thing Veronika.
I went ahead and took a look at your site and it’s amazing, but there’s a ton more
that you could be doing to up your game that has nothing to do with the competition.
So let’s go over to the computer and take a look right now.
Alright Veronika, here we are on your homepage.
So we’re gonna start right at the top.
While we always love keeping things simple, I think, Miss Veronika, this one is a little
too simple.
And what I mean is there’s not enough copy.
So you say right here, “Veronika Lavey Design,” but that honestly could mean anything.
You’re selling handmade, vintage inspired dolls, so remember, you’ve got to instantly
connect with your audience and communicate that you have exactly what they need.
You also fail to mention that you do one of a kind custom dolls, missy.
This is huge and should be all over your site.
So my suggestion is to come up with a good, direct, and clear headline that mentions something
about vintage inspired, handmade, and bespoke dolls, and it should go somewhere right here
where someone can see it the moment they land on your site.
Also, there’s just one image of a doll right here.
And here’s the thing, you do such gorgeous work so you could easily showcase more of
it by adding some kind of slider where you could just literally slide through the images,
beautiful rotating images, of all of your work.
So now let’s go to your about page.
So we’re shifting over to your about page, and you’ve got this great little picture
here of a little doll riding a dog, which is awesome.
But here’s the thing, there’s no picture of you, and people love seeing the genius
behind creative endeavors.
It could be a shot of you working in your studio or the kind of shot a magazine would
take of you.
Just doing this one small adjustment will help the media see you as you want to be seen.
So that’s another change that I would recommend.
Now if we go up, we’re gonna go to your gallery page.
So, again, adorable idea with this little clothespin and all the little pictures hanging,
but when I click on one of these images, it’s gorgeous.
I can see this beautiful little girl, I can see the puppy, and I can see this gorgeous
doll that you’ve made, but there’s no caption and I can’t click on anything, nor
can I scroll through to the next image.
I have to go back up and X out and then go back down and X out, and it’s kind of laborsome
for your audience.
So I think that you can upgrade there.
You’d wanna be able to scroll through all these images, put captions on, and then, of
course, you should be able to click on those dolls and go right to purchase them.
After all, if we see these beautiful things, we’re in the moment, we’re like, “Oh
my goodness, I wanna buy one of those.”
We should be able to click through and purchase.
And then, finally, I’ll go back to your homepage for this.
This is a big one.
There is no opt-in, my love.
And if you’ve been watching MarieTV for any amount of time, you know you need an opt-in.
Every single business needs a list of prospects and customers.
You should be building a list of people interested in hearing about new dolls and, of course,
sales if you offer them.
So especially in your market, which is collectible, heirloom dolls, your customers are gonna wanna
know right away if you designed a new piece because once those one of a kind dolls are
gone, they are gone forever.
So that should be enough to get you started, but honestly woman, you need to get your butt
in B-School the next time we run it.
But for now, you can go over to JoinBSchool.com and get some free video business training.
That was my A to your Q Veronika, I hope you enjoyed it.
Now I would love to hear from you.
Do you have stories that’ll inspire Veronika about finding more room at the top?
Or do you have other ideas to help her fantastic business get even better?
As always, the best stuff happens after the episode over at MarieForleo.com, so go there
and leave a comment now.
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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams.
The world needs that special gift that only you have.
Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time on MarieTV.