Partners Rule. Mentors Drool.
I was on the phone with a client today. He wanted some help with some internet marketing and information product stuff. Pretty typical questions — paid search, landing pages, conversion rates — nothing too exciting. I helped him, all was well. (It was well enough that he decided to send me more money to do more stuff, which is always a good sign.)
Now, right now, since he’s paying me, I’m his consultant. But if he weren’t paying me, a lot of people would say that in this particular facet of life, I’m his mentor. And I guess they’d be right.
Except this particular client attended Stanford Business School.
I have a feeling, just maybe, there’s something he can teach me, too. Now at the moment we’ve only just met and we might end up hating each other, so it’s not exactly the time to start proposing this sort of mutually beneficial relationship. Besides, right now all he needs is to start making some fucking money already. But later? I’d be kind of a dumbass if I didn’t pick his brain, don’t you think?
This leads me to the topic du jour.
I met Havi Brooks through Twitter and fell completely and irretrievably in love. Stick a fork in me because I’m DONE. I bought a product and adored it. I tripped over myself to buy her next product and, predictably, adored that too. I did some of the stuff she suggested and made a bunch of money and it was awesome.
Then, because I don’t have a whole lot of boundaries, I emailed her all, “Teach me, oh mentor-like one.” And she did, because she’s cool like that.
We got to talking. I taught her about marketing and she taught me about keeping all my stupid personal bullshit from getting in the way of, you know, running a business. We got to the point where we were talking pretty much all the time. (She also can make a headache go away just by talking on the phone which is REALLY creepy and probably illegal in most of the states in the Union.)
In one of our little mutual love fests, we took the time to tell each other how awesome we thought we each were. This is kind of how it went:
Havi: Gee, Naomi. You know, every time I’ve put one of your marketing ideas into practice, I’ve made money. That’s so awesome.
Me: You fucking rule. Every time I’ve put one of your stop-freaking-out ideas into practice I’ve made money. That IS awesome.
Then, because we’re very smart women, it occurred to us that if WE made money with each other’s ideas, maybe other people would too. And then all those people who are like, “OMFG I have ISSUES and I can’t SELL anything and holy fuck I’m going to be POOR for the rest of my LIFE”, could, you know, make a living. Doing what they dig. Without becoming a total fucking sell out.
Therefore, we got off our asses and did something about it. We made a course.
WARNING: Touchy Feely Stuff Ahead!!!
Working with Havi on this has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. (They say having babies is rewarding, and I call bullshit. You know what happens when you have a baby? You get a toddler.) Since we’ve started working on this, I can honestly say my life is about a thousand percent better. I know that sounds really lame and you don’t believe me but I don’t give a shit because it’s true. It’s like we were able to get together and say, “OK, who needs help? And how can we help them?” And then through the magical symbiosis of the internet, we were able to help, but also help each other at the same time. It has been totally awesome.
Anyway, go check out our new thing. It’s not for everyone. It’s not for even remotely close to everyone. (It’s not cheap and it is time consuming.) But if you read it and it resonates, maybe it’s for you.
Oh, and even if you have absolutely zero intention of every buying anything from either of us and you only read this blog on the off chance I might flash people one day, check out the page anyway. It is so beautiful I want to have sex with it. And, yes, one can totally do that. (Hello? Robocop?)
Update: Thanks to Havi’s beautiful and wonderful assistant, there’s now a coupon code you can use if you’re an IttyBiz reader and you want to save some money on this bad boy. When you get to the order page, enter “naomi” (no quotes) and hit apply BEFORE entering all your credit card info. Then you’ll save $30 because you’re cool. How do I know you’re cool? You’re reading my blog. In my mind, that is a necessary condition of coolness.