Most Memorable Mother

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It’s Mother’s Day in the United States.  This is a holiday reserved for the women who gave us our lives and, if you are as fortunate as me, the person who believed in us so much that we knew we could never fail.  Today, I will tell you some of the most memorable stories that I have about a remarkable woman who was my mother, my mentor, and my friend.

My mother was born in 1926, which means she grew up during the depression.  She was the oldest in a family of 12 children and, because times were difficult, her father expected her to quit school so she could help earn money to feed the family.  Mom didn’t honor that request for she knew it would inhibit her future possibilities.  At the age of 15, the same year that World War II began, she left her family and moved into a girl’s home so she could finish high school and make something more of her life.  Her courage and focus were quite admirable.

Perhaps one of the bravest things that my mother decided to do was to have a career other than being a homemaker.  I know this doesn’t sound amazing at all these days but, during the 50’s, this was not popular.  Many of  the suburban housewives whispered among themselves about how she was neglecting her duties as a mother and a wife.  Some of those women even prohibited their children from being friends with my sister and me but, in my eyes, nothing could have been further from the truth!  Mom and Dad explained that she was going to work so we could have greater oppotunities.  Her working created income opportunities for me around the house, which taught me to be enterprising, industrious and responsible.

Mom took a job as a secretary, which was about the only position that women were allowed to have at that time.  Within a couple of years, she was promoted to the position of Wholesale Buyer which caused a bit of conflict within the secretarial pool. My mother loved what she did, and she was quite good at it too.   Twice a year, she would travel to New York City and negotiate large purchases for her company.  I got to tag along with her a couple of times.  Having the chance to see her at work was nothing short of inspirational.  She was well-respected and a tenacious negotiator.

One of the fondest memories that I have of her is a reaction she had to an editorial in the local paper.  Some man had written that women should not work outside the home and, if they did, that they should stick to “jobs for women” and stay out of the more challenging business roles because men were better suited for those sorts of positions.

Mom had a fit!  She went straight to her typewriter and prepared a response that was published by the paper.  This created quite a stir in the family, since she had used her married name on the letter.  I will never forget listening in on a debate between my mother and grandfather, who was unhappy that she had used “his” name on such a controversial subject.  She stunned him to silence when she retorted, “It’s my name too!”   In that moment, she taught me that it was OK to stand up for what you believed in and be who you are, regardless of the circumstances.  Remarkable!

I’m chuckling as I write this … and experiencing a little emotion too.  I miss my mother very much. 

Although Mom didn’t always agree with my ideas as a youth, she never told me I was wrong.  In the truest sense of the word, she mentored me by discussing the pros and cons, just as she would with any adult.  Those conversations always ended with her telling me that she trusted my judgment, which was empowering.  I got to test my strategies and, if something didn’t work out the way I expected, she never said, “I told you so.”  She would offer her advise and recommend solutions but it was always up to me to decide what path to choose.  That was her greatest gift to me.  Over the years, her strength became my will.

Her independent style and tireless encouragements are factors that still motivate me today.  Her belief in me allowed me to rely on my good instincts, which has been the basis for every decision that I’ve made in my career.  She taught me to disregard the nay-sayers and follow my own path.  This is  something you will feel in many of my articles and it is one of the primary reasons that  GetIncomeBlog.com was launched in 2008.

Whether I am writing about following your passions or shutting out the noise around you so you can try something new, my message is always the same; Believe in Yourself first.  It isn’t always comfortable to follow the road less traveled but, if you believe in yourself and your abilities, the pot holes on your path are never so deep that the axle will break on your carriage. 

Mom’s resilience never ceased to amaze me.  Up until the day she went into a coma, a week before her death, my mother’s mind remained sharp, she never doubted my ability to succeed, and she was a good friend to me.  I was blessed to have her in my life.

So, this one is for you, Mom!

Laughter and My Story Marketing?

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Listening to the Prairie Home Companion program today, I experienced a bit of home sickness. The program aired from the Minnesota State Fair. As Garrison Keillor spoke of fall, apples, harvest moons, and the fair, all the sights, sounds, and smells from my home state and that event rushed to my senses. These are all pleasant memories. You can take the girl out of Minnesota but you can’t take Minnesota out of the girl, I guess.

Garrison Keillor is a delightful story teller. He may even be remembered with the likes of Mark Twain, eventually. His stories have a way of creating empathy for his predicaments and the laughter that bubbles up when imagining his scenarios is totally spontaneous and impossible to suppress.

How does this relate to Online Marketing? We’ve all heard of “My Story Marketing” by now. This is a method used to evoke empathy, build excitement and gain sales as a result. I’ve sure read some long-winded sales letters in my day. None of them were happy stories, like Garrison Keillor’s witty tales, and most were so tedious and predictable that I didn’t even finish reading them, let alone feel compelled to press the buy button.

In fact, the recipe for “My Story Marketing” is to begin with a problem that you have faced in order to grab people’s attention. After doing this, you can explain what you’ve done to effect a change and how your life is now. Supposedly, this will inspire your visitors to buy your product or join your business. Having never tried it myself, there is no way to know how effective it really is but there are enough proponents of the tactic that it is worth evaluating.

In my former career as a Realtor®, I learned that there were two ways to write compelling advertisements. One was to use a headline that evoked fear.  The other type of headline permitted people to imagine or dream.

Statistically, most of my guests came to an open house because they saw the sign while they were in the neighborhood or were neighbors who were merely curious to see the inside of the house but, in my experiments with print advertising, I found that using the positive headline drew more people in, if they came as a result of seeing the ad. If “My Story Marketing” is effective, it would be interesting to see the split test results, assuming they tried a page with a positive and happy story too.

So let’s apply my real estate marketing experiment to Internet Marketing. When we have internet real estate, we use many different methods to bring our websites to the attention of surfers. In a way, some of our website traffic is similar to people driving by an open house sign and deciding to stop in along their way. How are they affected by their visit?

Generally, you have less than a minute to entice someone to stay at your site and have a look around so the look and feel of your site is your curb appeal. This includes color, font, image, and layout choices. If your page is too slow to load, uses garish colors, or has too many blinking ads, visitors will abandon it quickly. But that is aesthetics and one person’s “ugly” is another person’s “beautiful” so you’ll need to experiment with things to see what works best in your niche.  More importantly, look and feel is not what helps you to get income from your website.

For several reasons, the most important part of your page is your content. The area above the fold (i.e., seen without the need to scroll down) is critical real estate so you need to use it wisely. Do you want to frighten your visitors into reading on and possibly taking action or would you rather build a relationship with them established through interest, truth, value, and trust? From my viewpoint, the latter goes miles further than the former.

I’m advocating that Internet Marketers start creating “My Story Marketing” stories that are entertaining. We all need more joy in our lives, don’t we? Enlightenment or laughter must be equally compelling and writing about things like that certainly is much more fun for the author too. Current studies indicate that leveraging humor can lead to a potentially big payoff. Social scientists have long documented that people who are perceived as being witty, clever and funny are destined for popularity and greater success in their work and relationships.

If you actually have had a difficult problem and your business or product has resolved it, by all means write the traditional “My Story Marketing” story. I caution you to be honest in the results you claim, however. Credibility is very easy to lose and nearly impossible to recover.