The Home Business Diva: When The Hatemail Is Better Than The Fanmail
Do you remember that old saying, “The cobbler’s children wear no shoes”?
The basic idea is that the dude who makes the shoes kicks ass for his customers and lets his own kids walk around in holey flip-flops. Whether it’s his kids or his wife or himself, he looks around and realize that he’s the professional and his dirty-ass toes are hanging out for all the world to see.
Today, I am that cobbler. (Not the peach kind. That would be far cooler.)
Here is a sampling of some of the customer contact I’ve received today:
1. “Hey lady. I’m just writing to say thanks for being awesome. I’ve hit 400 subscribers and I never could have done it without you.” (This person was a total unknown just 7 weeks ago. Seriously, his mama couldn’t find his blog with two hands.)
2. “I don’t know how it happened, but we got 300 subscribers in a week. Thank you.” (A week, y’all. Six days, to be specific.)
3. “I know I haven’t emailed you in a while but I wanted to tell you that I finally sent out that PR and got 15 prospects in 48 hours. Wow. You rock.” (PR = Press Release).
Can I make a really ugly confession?
I’m really pissed. Green with jealousy.
(If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll remember that I hate green.)
I know being jealous of my home business clients is really pathetic. I know it’s terribly unBuddhist. I know that I’m being totally immature and childish and a complete princess. But I’m jealous and I hate it.
When you decide to become a consultant, you open yourself up to surrounding yourself with people who pay you to give them advice. If you’re even mediocre, what you know is probably more than what they know. They’ll actually implement your advice and then they’ll succeed and you’ll be happy for them. Then they tell their friends and their friends will hire you too and you’ll be able to eat organic food you couldn’t afford before and the world will be a good place.
This is the goal of most service-based IttyBizzez. It’s a good goal. It’s a worthwhile goal. It’s great when you finally achieve it. But. And there’s always a but.
Nobody really tells you what happens once you reach the goal. They don’t tell you what happens when you finally get the clients and the clients pay you and you become financially solvent.
Your own small business suffers. Often horribly.
If you’re a web designer, you don’t have time to implement changes to your own site. If you’re a writer, you don’t have time to fix your own copy. If you’re a marketing consultant, you don’t have time to work on your own marketing. Then you’re eating organic peaches but other people have better numbers and you hate them.
Isn’t that nice? They hate you because you’re making money and eating organic peaches and you hate them because they’re growing faster than you are.
Like a giant, human-sized hamster wheel of hate.
I know I will get over this little jealous phase. I know it’s a plateau and I’m just being stupid. I know I should be grateful that people are paying me to do what I love and what I’m good at and I’m allowed to drink wine out of the bottle at work. But I try to present an honest picture to all of you who haven’t started your work-from-home journey yet and sometimes that picture is ugly and unflattering.
(Side note: As I was formatting this post, Ellen was on TV in the background. Out comes this 6-year-old breakdancer. I’m watching him bust his moves and turn to Jamie and say, “Why the fuck can’t I breakdance like that?” It would appear that I am even jealous of kindergartners right now. I am a flawed human being.)
Click here to subscribe to IttyBiz. Then maybe I won’t be such a whiny bitch.
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AMEN! My personal blog (linked here) has suffered greatly over the last week while I moved clients and designed. My blog has errors and flaws and I always put my clients before me. They are grateful, and I too am happy they pay me to do what I love. But jealous of their unflawed sites? Awww yeah. :)
I need to start swearing more. Ah fuck it, I can’t.
I feel better already.
Wow. I hear ya. It’s like reading myself in a mirror, or something (I gotta work on those metaphors.)
Time to raise your fees, so you can afford the time to get these client testimonials up on your site. Or hire it out, at least. :-)
I’ll bet your clients aren’t buying your site - they’re renting an ittybit of you. And “You” shine through on your site. Nothing to worry about there.
Wow. I admire your ability to admit the deepest, darkest secret of most human beings on the face of the earth (okay, yes, that includes me, even though I think I’m a superhero figurine like Buzz Lightyear or something). I try to use the PC-term “envious”, but honestly? Yes. I’m jealous that other people have more time and make more money because I’m good at what I do.
But what bothers me the most is that until you mentioned that my being the best kick-ass web content writer going (Hire Men with Pens! We’ll kick your ass, too!) means that I’ll always be behind everyone else, I hadn’t even thought of it.
I was happily oblivious. So fucking THANK YOU for waking up my dark secret, okay? OKAY?! Crisse.
@ Rhett - You’re right. It does feel better.
Oh, god yes. I’m getting to a really embarrassing state where no one can believe anything I say because I suck so badly at dealing with my own marketing.
Plus I haven’t emailed my list in, um, I don’t want to think about it. At least the new people are on an autoresponder.
@ Everyone — Thank you for letting me know that I am not alone in my deepest darkest moments of bad-personness. I feel markedly better. Will have a bath and drink and the world will be put to rights.
I know exactly what you mean, Naomi. This morning I put together a layout for another website and was like, “I wish I had something this cool!”
I love reading for the whiny bitch thing (even if you do sprinkle in tidbits of advice), so I guess I’ll have to unsubscribe to keep it going on. But then how will I know when there’s more whining to be had? This could well backfire.
But in all seriousness, it’s totally normal, we just don’t like to admit it. At the day job, we always know our best partners because they have terrible websites - they’re too busy making money from their clients to deal with their own. Whether their or our prospects are smart enough to realize this, I have no idea, but that’s not my problem.
I’ll be interested to see how this translates in my yet-to-exist portfolio site once I spend more time on the freelancing since I can’t design anything to save my life as I’m a developer… I guess the site will look like ass no matter what. At least I can be proud of it…?
I certainly don’t think of you as a whiny bitch, N. More of a ‘moderately irritated person of gender’. Yeah, that’s it.
But stripped of the vitriol, its an interesting point that you raise. At what point do you stop giving (selling) to others in order to tend to your own needs? Keeping in mind that those needs are partially esthetic (I do it because I like it) and partially pragmatic (I do it because people, seeing it, will flock to give me money). How do you know that you’re at that border where you need to say no mas, and close the door for a while, and how, if you choose to say no mas, do you do it in a way that doesn’t cause people to simply flock elsewhere? You’re sort of looking for the Apple approach in breeding your customers.
Interesting post.
To me, eating organic peaches, being able to buy $600 purses and being financially solvent is better than watching your business grow fast, even if it’s not as exciting.
Plus, doesn’t a larger biz always grow at a slower pace than a small biz?
Ding, ding, ding!! Phrase of the week - ” a giant, human-sized hamster wheel of hate.” I love it. Should be a song title. Too cool.
But yes, all of this is why my family has cobbled together computers that barely run but my client’s machines work great. By the time I get home from working on other peoples stuff I have no desire to fix my kids gaming machine. Guess I should remedy that. Maybe. Tomorrow.
Don’t feel bad. I still haven’t finished a brochure for my business that I started three years ago.
I DID just design my own letterhead and even had it printed! This is after almost 5 years since I started my business.
It is still sitting in the box though. I haven’t gotten to my business project that I needed it for yet.
I once used a photo of old shoes in my blog design, because I’m always thinking of my poor “kids” shoes. You are *so* not alone :-)
@James:
You are not a superhero! “You … are … a … TOY!”
@Naomi -
You just made your own new tagline!
Ittybiz: “Like a giant, human-sized hamster wheel of hate.”
To infinity… and BEYOND!
Shit, men do it, and we call them somthing besides “whiney bitches.” I think we call them Capitalists!
Hey! Has anyone figure out “naked firemen, yet?” It’s still bugging me.
P.S. And Buddhists are often whiney bitches, (E=either, or)
So don’t worry about that. E
@ Ellen — Naked firemen came from this. In my defense, it was before the page rank update and I didn’t realize I’d rank as I did. :-)
Half Naked Firemen. Dude, It’s For Charity
Don’t I know it. I haven’t posted in a week. ..
What am I doing here? OMG.
Ha! How many firemen have we seen that dress like THAT! Groovy. I don’t think you can fight a fire and not wear clothes. Thanks for clearing that up. Haaaaaaaaaaaaa! E
@ Ellen — Every time I do one of those stupid search term posts I swallow a little pill of regret for posting that. Then I think that if I hadn’t posted the firemen I’d get no Google traffic at all. Perhaps I should say screw it and turn IB into a fireman site.
Nah. People will come to visit, naked or not. But trying the naked thing…is a good thing. Shit! That cracks me up! Maybe I will try some naked man thing on my blog. Have you ever noticed guy bloggers put sexy women on their posts? Well, hell, why can’t we? The problem is, women apparently aren’t drawn to the visuals like men are. Or aren’t we? Maybe we should do a study.
Oh no! Where’d my comment go?
Clay! No way! I checked Akismet and you weren’t stuck in there. Did you disappear into the ether?
Now I see that you hate your commentors too?!? :-)
I know what you mean, this guy’s the web designer for both Problogger and Tim Ferriss (his design is OK, but it’s no where near as cool as Tim’s) and it also seems that hairdressers have the worst hairdos.
Anyway, the analogies stop there because no one has better hair than you. (Your hair seriously is cool, IMHO). Ok, really though, with all due respect to your clients, can they really compete with your badass-ness, or your hair?
@ Clay — Hmm. Good point. Definitely no 4HWW.
And you’re right. No-one, but no-one, can compete with my hair. That I will stand by. ;-)
Nice hair Clay. E
Naomi,
I’m totally with you on this one. Deep and powerful envy have I, for the customers who buy my writing, when I cannot summon the energy to write myself up a home page and an ‘about’ section and a price list, just to get a damned website up there.
Especially because I suspect I think more about what I should say for them than for myself. When I ask myself what I want people to know about me, I think:
I’m awesome and I’m really good at this. You should just HIRE ME, since I’m kind of pissed it took you this long to show up. ASSHOLES.
Now, in your marketing expert opinion, is that a wise message to put out there?
@ Ellen — Clay DOES NOT have nice hair. I have nice hair. I am the haver of the nice hair.
@ Tei — Well, they say the purpose of language is effective communication. I think you’ve effectively communicated there, so yes. I say do it. Maybe make “assholes” bigger, though.
>>Ellen: Pics of sexy women?? You mean like this?
See? Effective communication. I TOLD those assholes I was good at this.
Assholes.
::sigh:: Okay. Post writing now. Want to hear about sausage or the 27-year-old pact? Letting you flip this coin.
I think Tei has given you another tagline. I repeat:
“I’m awesome and I’m really good at this. You should just HIRE ME, since I’m kind of pissed it took you this long to show up. ASSHOLES.”
If there’s anything more IttyBiz than that, I don’t know what it could be. (I can’t use IB, it makes me think of irritable bowel, which is just too much.)
p.s. hanging out with the miscreants in your comments instead of drafting my blog post.
I SUCK.
@ Stephen — I can’t believe you’re linking to porn in my comments. (@ Not Stephen — It’s not porn. Relax.)
@ Tei — Sausage. Always sausage.
@ Sonia — Do you think it’s stealing if she publicly put it on my blog? Or do you think I should just delete the comment and pretend I came up with it myself?
Okay okay okay you nasty people information in and information out. Yeah. That’s good Stephen. But the question is, Do you play pool late at night?
@Sonia - Go play some pool. E
My hair sucks. HA!
@Tei - don’t worry about it, they will come. Ha!
@Naomi, it’s not stealing if you thump her on the head so she forgets she ever posted it.
Wait, it might still be stealing then. Hmmmm.
My hair is a disaster. I used to have really good hair & really good skin. A little fattish around the middle, but those two were good. Still a little fattish around the middle, and the hair & skin have gone to hell. Very sad.
However, I have completed my blog post draft and I think it is genius, because that is the sort of freak I am. Not sure when I will post, but I think I want to soon.
The thing I love about Naomi is she almost never files a restraining order when I get in these moods.
@@Stephen: HELLO mail carrier!
@ SS — What you don’t know is that I tried to file but they told me I was in the wrong jurisdiction. I figured I may as well make friends with you.
I too had good skin. Still have good hair, but the skin is shit. Then again, I don’t think I could find my make-up bag if they had a gun to my head, so I doubt that’s helping.
Let me know when the post in question is up. I’ll go and be constructively critical. :-)
@ Clay — NOW your comment shows up. ;-)
>> “Clay DOES NOT have nice hair. I have nice hair. I am the haver
>> of the nice hair.”
IttyBiz Hair Showdown votes:
Noami=1
Clay=1
Shit, I can’t vote for myself ’cause I already voted for Naomi.
HAHAHAHA!!! You crazy Florida voter, you.
Since I’m not really sure that you could say Naomi has hair, Clay gets my vote by default.
WHERE THE FUCK IS THE LOYALTY?
>> “Clay DOES NOT have nice hair. I have nice hair. I am the haver
>> of the nice hair.”
IttyBiz Hair Showdown votes:
Noami=1
Clay=2
Oh!!!!! Losing on your own turf. You’re going down! [Insert more smack talking here].
Um, here. I think your hair is awesome. Every quarter-inch of it.
See? You curse and they come crawling right the fuck back. I’m telling you, this is a widely untapped resource.
Damn it! Neck and neck again.
IttyBiz Hair Showdown votes:
Noami=2
Clay=2
I gots to weigh in in favor of my man Clay’s hair. I hate to see a tie…
@ jazzcat — That’s ok. You are exempt from the loyalty clause because you’re new. Jamie, on the other hand, the one who said that Clay wins by default, is actually my husband and is exempt from nothing.
Thank you for voting, even if you voted for the dark side.
Hello,
I am here for the hair voting thingy, can someone please tell me where to register at?
Sincerely,
MonkMojo
I really can’t stand the public pressure, scrutiny, and suspense concomitant with this election. Plus this race has taken its toll on my family life. I therefore concede.
Out loud Naomi: I respect your decision and your privacy.
In my head Naomi: That’s what everyone says when they know they’re going to lose.
Naomi thanks for sending the contest pictures of you and Clay, Naomi I vote for you.
(I’m not sure why anybody would vote for the hair on some guy’s ass.)
Thank you, MonkMojo. Because of you, I win. You are my new best friend.
What pictures did you send monk mojo!?!?
Holy hell.
I feel like the guy who shows up to the party too late…sober.
Guilty! Because for someone who designs greeting cards, you’d think I would shower every single family member and friend with a card for every single occasion. It’s my business. It’s great advertising (not like my friends & family don’t already know what I do, but still ..) Um …..no. I rarely send cards. Why? Because I’m too busy making them for other people to buy & send!
I sooo agree on this.
I build websites for my clients, and for my Zoohliah, but my own personal graphic design freelance portfolio is from a public platform. A great public platform, ok, but still.
I gotta do something about it. After I have my hair cut, open a blog, have kids, by a house… oh no wait, I have to find a moment before all of that.
Damn it.
>>Ellen “Do you play pool late at night?” What exactly do you mean? If you mean billiards, well, I used to. A long, long time ago. In a place far from where I am now…
Great post, Naomi. I have the same feeling when I help my colleagues with their work while not doing my own only to have them turn around and get published. One part of you wants to join in the high five and the other wants to punch ‘em in the gut while their hands are in the air. Luckily, the part that wants to punch them in the got is a very small, petty, controllable beast - but it’s still there.
On the hair: Gotta go with Naomi on this one. Sorry Clay, but as you know from my bio, short hair’s the way to go.
Naomi,
So while I was bemoaning my fate (which later turned into today’s post at MCE), you were writing 6,000 client words plus this great post, Jamie was watching a movie and had another post in the works, and the post is you complaining because you are not superb enough? You are super-productivity-woman to me. Make that queen of the super-productivity-family. I ooze jealousy.
I hope, by tomorrow, to catch up on yesterday. That’s about the best I can do.
I may be a day late and a dollar short getting to this party, but I just want to make it clear: there is only room for one ruling hairdo at Naomi’s blog, and that must be Jack’s.
Who’s not gonna vote for the IttyCutie?
Regards,
Kelly
@ Kelly — Well, thank you. I will concede that yes, Jack does have the best hair in this house. (He also has the most hair in this house, which counts for something.)
You, my dear, are funny and honest as hell.
Stay You.
xx.
[...] love the way Naomi of IttyBiz writes and "The Small Business Diva: When The Hatemail Is Better Than The Fanmail" is just an example. She's not afraid to include colorful metaphors to get the point [...]
I’ve actually got a bit of advice for the consultant, ironic, eh? The system I implemented is actually pretty simple, and it addresses the root of the cobbler issue: the value of your time. The main reason the cobbler puts their clients first is simple…they are paying customers. How can your personal time become (nearly) as valuable to you as it is to your customers? It really is quite simple although, at first, it seems rather silly. Pay yourself.
Okay, stop snickering, and allow me to clarify.
Whenever you have a personal project you just never seem to get around to doing because work keeps getting in the way (those pesky paying customers cause this all the time), quote the job as if it were for a customer, and most importantly, be realistic. Your candle is no less valuable when you are burning it than if a client were. After all, you could be working instead of eating, sleeping, and other such frivolous pursuits.
The money you “earn” working on your own projects goes into a separate pile, to be used only for extravagant (or at least wacky) things you would not normally spend on. These spendings are intended solely to induce jealousy in (and thereby mitigate your jealousy of) your clients. These are things like going to the swanky restaurant downtown, getting a manicure, spending the day pampering yourself at a spa, buying that new digicam (or Maserati if your personal project was particularly difficult and “expensive”) that you’ve been drooling over, getting the kids their own Ferraris, you know, extravagant stuff. Of course, these thing are never told to clients since they might actually become jealous (or totally irate). It’s still nice to have something to lord over them though–even if it’s only in the privacy of your own mind.
Don’t know if it’ll help, but it works for me.
~Daniel
P.S. To be honest, I didn’t read all the comments before posting…just sorta scanned them, so I’m rehashing somebody’s post, just disregard this. (And, BTW, you might notice my distinct avoidance of the loathed “;”, although I tend to be an avid semicolon abuser.)
[...] that I am severely biting my tongue here and keeping things clean (I do all my profane stuff on IttyBiz [...]