Work Archives

This Coach Needed a Fresh New Message That Stood Out: Here’s How I Took Her from “Same” to “Fame” in 15 Minutes

HEY, KITTY CAT—and welcome to Middle Finger Fridays! I’m featuring a new creator every Friday who’s out there SMOKIN’ it—and highlighting what I think they’re doing really, really right—as well as one or two things they can do even better to make that money. 💵 Today, we’re hollering at a coach for creatives who is a delicious red-hot smoke show on Instagram—but (!) I know we can do even more to help her convert clients. The name of this game?

Apr 29, 2022

This Cake Designer Could Be Making Millions: Here’s How She Can 10X Her Income (And Make Us All Hungry)

HEY, KITTY CAT—and welcome to Middle Finger Fridays! I’m featuring a new creator every Friday who’s out there smokin’ it—and highlighting what I think they’re doing really, really right. (You know, so you can replicate that magic without banging your head against the wall.) And also what I’d love to see them do in the future. Today, we’re hollering at someone who’s got the potential to be making millions of dollar bills because of her INCREDIBLE flower bloom cakes—but who,

Apr 22, 2022

How to Stop Writing With a Stick Up Your Rump: A Foolproof Way to Add More Personality Without Being Unprofessional

One of the things I get asked about forty hundred times a day (besides whether or not I know there’s a hair sprouting from my chin) is this: “I’m not as boring as I seem on paper, but from all those years in corporate America / Catholic school / working as a mad scientist, my writing is feeling a little…constipated.” You might even commit the crime of talking in the third person (“Jane Doe has extensive experience in creating high-level

Apr 20, 2022

Does Your Writing Suffer from Overthinking? 3 Signs You Need to Trust Your Voice More—And Outside Opinions Less

You know when you sit down to write and your brain sort of feels kind of…constipated? (I’m all about that classy imagery.) You finally manage to put a sentence on the screen, but then you backspace over the word “fucking”—because if you say “fucking,” no one will take you seriously—but then you retype the same word, wondering if you were to use such a word, whether it would come across as self-assured and bold, or lowball and crass? You decide to leave

Apr 18, 2022

I Made $5M Self-Publishing Books Online—Here Are 7 Things I’d Do Differently if I Were Starting From Scratch in 2022

Here’s a cliché pile of vomit to start your day 😉: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” Despite the fact that my eyeballs just got whiplash, I gotta tell you: I used to think this was why most people had a hard time with FoLLoWinG ThEir DrEaMs (you know that’s the sarcastic way to write it, right?). I used to think most people were afraid of failure, but you know what I’ve learned in 13

Mar 30, 2022

Digital Creators Shouldn’t Build a Team Unless They Like Babysitting……A Lot.

Got my 2021 financial package back from Bench*! (Okay, fine—they sent it to me a while ago but I’m really just reviewing in depth now.) I LOVE when they send me my end-of-year reports—balance sheet, income statement, general ledger, monthly balance sheets—which I then literally turn over to my accountant at tax time and it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. No scrambling, no trying to figure out what I can write off, no entire weekends spent trying to categorize

Mar 23, 2022

Want to Earn a Damn Good Living as a Creator? Keep. It. Simple.

So, I woke up this morning and started working on…………two new books. WHO AM I?!?! The first is a non-fiction book that examines how different people around the world find joy—and how we can all get a little bit more of it in our daily lives. Which is to say: move the f**k over, Bill Bryson! I’m coming for you! (But, no, really. Wouldn’t it be great if Bill Bryson and Caitlin Moran had a literary baby? That’s what I’m

Mar 21, 2022

Burned Out? Doing This Daily Changed My Life

You know what the biggest cause of burn out is? BEING SMART. There, I said it! If you are smart, and you are driven, and you have actual ambitions beyond “beat Princess Beefcurtains in the next level of Fortnite” then you are likely going to suffer from a whole RAGING RIVER of problems that normal people do not have. One of those problems is overthinking something you said to the neighbor three years ago. 🤷‍♀️ And another is feeling like

Mar 16, 2022

3 Mistakes EVERYONE Makes With Their Homepage Headline (That Can Seriously Flatline Your Messaging)

Things that are hard: opening literally any package of scissors, planks, death, restraining yourself around a person who’s sniffling (my biggest pet peeve), realizing you are too fat to go indoor skydiving (legit just happened to me), and scrubbing the water rings off of your glass cooktop stove. Things that are harder: Writing your homepage headline when you have zero clarity about your brand promise, your brand positioning, and your value proposition. 😬 Ugh, did you just groan?? Was that

Mar 11, 2022

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