Category: Selling Yourself

It all started over a couple of nuts. (As good stories do.) Picture it: The Ivy Chelsea, London. My photographer and I roll up to the bar with our blow outs (BECAUSE HOW ELSE ARE WE GOING TO PRETEND TO BE FANCY?), sit next to a man who actually looked like Javier Bardem, and then proceed to order the most delicious summer cocktail that has ever entered my oral cavity. (Oh my god, I think I’ve just stolen the award

I was talking to a client yesterday, who, bless her heart, is LITERALLY working for free. She feels bad charging. And my goodness, she’s one of the smartest, most qualified women in her industry! She’s out there helping people every single day, in person, face-to-face! She’s spearheading an entire movement in Canada! And now the goal is to get her going online, translating her offerings into virtual ones so she can have an even bigger impact. And yet, the moment

Thou shall not wait for an imaginary endorsement from The Committee of True and Actual Greatness to affirm that you’re good enough to put your work out there. The traditional meritocracy meant that you could work your way up the ladder—but you’d have to wait for some creep to give you permission to climb each rung. From promotions at work, to having your art featured, to getting your own magazine column, to speaking on the topic of Teletubbies (or, hey,

I’m working with a client, right now, who wants to sell emotional intelligence. That’s the result you get when you work with her. EQ, instead of IQ. And emotional intelligence is actually really, really important. It’s one of the biggest predictors of success, believe it or not. She’s read the literature. I’ve read the literature. The pope’s read the sweet, sweet literature. So the question then becomes: How do we make other people care? The problem, of course, is that

I have a theory about money, and it goes like this: If you were selling hot dogs at a hot dog stand, and some guy walked up and asked you how much a hot dog cost, would you hem and haw and say to the guy: “Uh, well, let me see…usssssuually I charge between one dollar and three dollars-ish—yeah, that’s right—but since this is your first time buying a hot dog from me, I’m happy to work with you on

My first sales call was the most disgusting thing I’d ever done. I mean, I don’t even like talking on the phone with people I know, let alone people I don’t. My love for the phone ended after the 7th grade, when boys stopped calling and AIM instant messenger sank its teeth into our corsage-donning little hearts. Back then, I was an instant messenger queen. I proved myself through my cat-like ability to manage multiple chat windows at a time

You know how when you want to sound professional on the phone, you do that thing where you clear your throat, steady your voice, and then inevitably start talking THREE OCTAVES HIGHER in that sickening sweet, Southern-Belle-esque manner, almost as if you were speaking to a priest, or maybe the sheriff, all while using words like “extrapolated” and “decisive” and pacing around your living room hoping they have no idea you actually just had wine and DOES HAVING WINE IN

Look, old stuff grosses me out. I don’t care how cute that sooty old vintage peacoat is—the idea of placing moth-ball flavored material against my body that’s previously had armpit fluid secreted onto it by other humans doesn’t do it for me. It just doesn’t. Somebody spear an arrow through my heart for heresy. I KNOW. So this is why I was horrified to find myself uncontrollably walking right into this god damn little vintage shop in Frederick, Maryland last

This bastard was getting paid $10,000 dollars a month. He was on contract with my company at the time, brought on as a consultant to work directly with a young (and far less wrinkley-lipped) yours truly. This was some ten plus years ago, mind you, at a time when things like blogs were for morons who liked outer space backgrounds and hot pink flashing text. (Thanks a lot, 1998.) He wore what he wanted, gave zero shits about formalities, came

It’s two days before the new year, and I’m doing exactly what you are: Dicking around on the internet and calling it “downtime.” It’s absolutely PHENOMENAL. But, as we all prepare to become supermodel [extra title=”Isn’t that your plan?” info=”tooltip” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover”]trazillionaire cigar-smoking business moguls in 2015, [/extra] there is one thing I want to encourage you to do, right here, right now, before you slug the last of the egg nog and run around with streamers on your head.