biz chick spotlight: Joanne McCall, The Media Polisher
For today’s biz chick spotlight, I’d like you all to meet Joanne McCall of MediaPolisher.com. I met Joanne when she reached out to me for a possible review of John Bradberry’s 6 Secrets to Startup Success, which you may recall because we did a radio interview with him! (BTW, biz chick chat WILL return at a date TBD).
I was really impressed with Joanne’s credentials and experience, and I’m excited to publish some of her “best lessons learned” being a woman in business, because we can all benefit from someone else’s lightbulb moments, don’t you think?
Let me know which lessons you resonate with most and if there are any you have learned, too!
My Best Lessons Learned While Being a Woman in Business
1. You must believe in yourself.
You must be your own biggest cheerleader. If you have doubts about your ability, do what you can to change this. Learn more, hire a coach, study meditation. Do whatever it takes because you must be 100% sure that you can deliver and what you have is worthwhile.
If the above it true and you believe it, clients will come to you easily. You will be in the flow of the universe.
2. Think of relationships as long term.
Whenever I meet someone, I think that they may not need my services now, but they may in a year or 10 years. I always see relationships as long lasting and long term and it allows me to be generous. I think being generous is a good quality to have. People remember it.
3. Sometimes you just have to eat it.
You’re going to occasionally have misunderstandings with people and if that’s over money, sometimes you have to be the big person and let it go.
4. Pay your taxes on time.
This one doesn’t sound very exciting, but it is really important: Set enough aside for quarterly tax payments. Overestimate if necessary. My first year in business, I had to sell my car to pay my taxes because I underestimated what it would take. I never let that happen again.
5. List a minimum of 5 key things you will look at to determine if you are going to work with someone.
This will help you to say no to potential clients that really don’t fit what you’re doing. It’s not good to take on clients that you can’t serve. Set up a roadmap for yourself ahead of time. When I was only representing authors, my 5 were:
1. Do I love the material?
2. Do I believe media will love the material?
3. Is the person mediagenic, and if not, are they willing to get trained?
4. Do I have chemistry with the person?
5. Is the person willing to pay me and pay me on time at the agreed upon amount?
What are some of your life lessons learned? Do any of these above stand out to you?
About Joanne McCall, The Media Polisher
Joanne McCall is a media insider who operates on a first-name basis with hundreds of top-tier producers, editors, and writers at such outlets as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The View, Oprah, Today, The Huffington Post, AOL, Yahoo, and others.
Her clients include Brian Tracy, Dave Ramsey, Geneen Roth, Melody Beattie, Dr. Richard Bandler, Dr. David Simon of the Chopra Center, and Andy Andrews.
She regularly speaks at publishing associations and Book Expo America in New York. She is adjunct faculty for Marylhurst University where she teaches social media.
McCall’s latest efforts include her new brand, The Media Polisher, which helps entrepreneurs, small business, authors, and speakers polish their online presence through media training and content generation resulting in more sales, more media, and more mojo.
The Media Polisher, Joanne McCall
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/joannemccall
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joannemccall
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mediapolisher
I love these tips! I especially appreciate the long term relationships point. Sometimes I get frustrated when I feel that I am giving up so much value for free, and not getting any return on it. But remembering that this type of generosity is the key to building relationships helps to nix those feelings.
One lesson that I have learned is that patience is a huge virtue when it comes to building your business. It will take time for things to start happening for you, so you just have to keep on working hard and not give up.
If anyone’s interested, I started a discussion over on LinkedIn asking about entrepreneurial lessons – there are some great tips from some fab ladies
http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=56693843&gid=1853207&commentID=44981861&trk=view_disc
These are super tips! The one I like the best is Believe In Yourself! So true. There are so many businesses out there and you will have to work your tail off to be noticed. Glad to hear that the radio show is coming back.
These are so awesome and I think the two that resonate with me the most are thinking of relationships long term, and paying quarterly taxes, lol.
As for thinking of relationships long term, I really haven’t done that very much, then again, I haven’t really been in a business that meets criteria #1 yet, either. And that’s what I’m working on. But now I realize that I need to focus on the larger picture of long term relationships and make sure that I don’t get too caught up in “well they are not the right fit.” I need to see that it’s possible that they could be in the future.
As for paying quarterly taxes, it’s pretty cut and dry but doesn’t hurt to hear it over, and over, and over. You’re right. AND to jot down those travel miles! I didn’t do that last year. I don’t even want to think about how it could have benefited me.
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