Weekly-ish notes on navigating big change

brunch

You’re invited to brunch

My book, Market Yourself,  is now available for pre-order and I'm celebrating by inviting you over for brunch*!

We made it to Plant. Every single thing is #vegan. Wish you were here @evalazza
If I could, I'd take you out to Plant, order up my favorite pancakes and chat with you about your life, your business and your marketing. We'd sip soy lattes and giggle over the huge cinnamon rolls.
But we deserve it! Because sharing your thing, putting it out into the world, is hard.
Quinoa banana pancakes with cappuccino butter. #vegan #glutenfree #avl

Since you can't come over for brunch**, we'll have to settle for this – an online celebration of both my book and your business.

Because I was thinking of you as I wrote this book. I thought about the process you go through as you learn to think about your product, and as you learn to think like your people. I arranged and rearranged the book to make it a system that will walk you through every aspect of getting comfortable with your marketing, and growing into bigger and bigger things.

For example, I know it can be tricky to get that craft show patter just right (I've been in a LOT of awkward craft show booths!), so the Offline Marketing chapter starts with just chatting with your friends about your project. Then you branch out into your community. Finally, you're talking to total strangers about it – but instead of being scary, it's easy because you already know what to say, how to say it, and what the soon-to-be-fans might ask.

If you've got a creative business, go here to grab the book while it's still in pre-orders and you'll get a plate of Pre-order Specialness:

  1. Everyone who buys the book before May 9th will get an invitation to a live, on-the-phone Q+A session with the me!
    You’ll have a chance to send in your questions before the call, listen in as I answer your questions, AND receive a recording (mp3) after the call. Invitations will be sent out the week of May 14th.
  2. 1/2 off a Right Person Exploration. Your discount will be sent the week of May 14th.
  3. You’ll be entered to win a FREE, 30 minute, one-on-one session with me. On May 10th, we’ll choose 2 winners. Each winner will get an email with a probing questionnaire (so I know all about you before the session), and when you return it, you’ll schedule a time that works for you. The session will be held over a text chat and you’ll get a transcript when it’s all over.

This brunch is for everyone!

For more brunching goodness, sign up here to find out where I'll be having real, in-person brunches, workshops and conversations around the country!

Thanks for joining me for this brunch!

*Why Brunch? Read this story of brunching vs. launching

**If you are close by, let me know and I really will take you out to brunch!

Brunch? Don’t you mean Launch?

You may have noticed that I called the birth day of this site a brunch.

Not a launch.
In fact, I never “launch” anything (except my life, last year), it's always a brunch.

Why?

I'm a list-maker.
A little-detail-seer.
An let's-figure-this-out big sister.

I'm a look before you leap person.
Well, no, that's not-quite-right because I never do leap.

Not even into the pool.
I walk slowly to the edge, sit down, dangle my feet in and sloooowly lower my legs in.
Or better yet, find the steps and walk in.

Yes, much better than leaping.

And the word “launch”, it reminds me of standing on a high dive (or ack! any size dive!), getting ready to launch myself into the water.

Um, no thanks.

It also makes me think of rocket launches.

Which are beautiful and amazing.
But are also loud and rumbly.

It's in the cockpit, smoke billowing, your seat rumbling, your teeth chattering, your very bones and marrow and soul rattling while they build a huge fire under you.

Incredibly powerful, but also incredibly risky.

A launch can be glorious and amazing.
Or it can end in a mess of fire and tears and pain.
Either way, there are a lot of expectations and stress and will I live or die thinking.

Uh, no thanks.

When I was working on my very first not-just-yarn product, the Learn to Knit kit, I read a lot about launching a product (by far the best resource is this book, but it is sort of overwhelming).

And I thought a lot about launching.

LaunchLaunchLaunch.

One day, writing about it to some business-y friends, I mistyped it as Brunch. Maybe I was hungry or maybe I was tapping into some Freudian-slip smartness.

Either way, I loved it.

A brunch!

I would brunch the Learn to Knit kit!

No fire, no expectation, no bone-rattling moment of ohmygoodness.

A nice, leisurely brunch with coffee and pancakes and omelets and orange juice.

Mmm, brunch.

Where launching makes me think of disasters and high dives, brunch reminds me of being a kid, on the back of my dad's Harley.

He'd wake me up super-early on a Sunday. I'd suit up in a too-big-for-me leather jacket and a just-right helmet (safety first!) and we'd ride.

High up into the mountains, past lemon and avocado groves. Oh, I hate avocados, but I am smitten with the groves: dark, shiny leaves on perfectly round trees in lines curving around the mountain.

We'd get to the top of one mountain and there, out of nowhere, was a diner.

We had pancakes, coffee, eggs, orange juice. Brunch. With dad, both of us dressed in our leather jackets and jeans and boots.

Or he'd make brunch, at home. Sausage, eggs, salsa, sourdough toast, orange juice and the most amazing potatoes I've ever tasted. I have never found (nor made!) potatoes like Dad's brunch potatoes.

So when it comes to introducing something new  to the world, do I want to thrust it into the world with expectations and fire and smoke and bone-rattling excitement?

Or do I want to take it for a ride, get comfortable with a cup of coffee and some potatoes and enjoy brunch with it?

Yeah, I want to brunch with it.

How about you? Do you brunch? Or launch?

PS. I've been calling it a brunch for over a year, but I finally got around to explaining it thanks to this great post by Marissa on launching, on Productive Flourishing. It reminded me that there are lots of ways of launching and brunching.