alexis in the city

how to get bloggers to work with you

i’ve been working on a long, lengthy post on the insights i’m gaining while reading “jesus for president.” however, my faithful, amazing computer that had been with me on my journey for nearly two years (can you tell i was attached!) died over the weekend, taking with it the post i’d been writing. since then, i have NOT been motivated to start all over. in the absence of a post for over a week (gasp!) i’m linking to my internet friend’s blog, breaking even.

i’ve worked with her on behalf of clients in the past, and she’s reviewing the book by the woman i work for now. her post is on how marketing people (like me) can get bloggers and writers (like her) to work with them. she uses me as an example of what to do to encourage the afore-mentioned partnership, and i must say i’m quite flattered :-).

since i don’t talk that much about what i do professionally on this blog - although i mean to! - i thought this would be a good chance for anyone interested to get an idea of what i spend my hours (and hours) doing - and why i can legitimately spend most of my day on facebook. read her post here!

cross-promotion: eco-friendly pet clothes

i’ve mentioned before that this isn’t the only blog-child i’ve been raising. my other baby goes along with a company i have on the side: an eco-friendly pet clothing company called earth’s best friend. my partner (BFF, former college roommate and business genius michelle) and i have been putting our creative brains together in order to cultivate - and then trying to impart to our seamstress - our next line of products.

we’ve come up with a bunch of sketches and our seamstress has amazing turned them into a couple new proto-types that i would LOVE for you to check out and leave feadback on. before we go into mass production, we’re trying to get as much insight, suggestions, criticism and ideas as possible. so tell us what you think, and we’ll keep you posted on our progress!

update on the dog biz

here’s the latest site to sell our eco-friendly pet jackets. i did consulting work for this site back in the day, and who knew that they would one day be selling my products! of course you can always buy directly from our site, earthsbestfriend.com, and ironically, although we released these jackets last fall, they’d actually be PERFECT for spring, too. check our site for more info on the jacket, as well as other styles that we offer!

i [heart] risk

ok, that statement isn’t ENTIRELY true. there are certain types of risk that make me super-un-easy. and i’m not saying i jump in with both feel without doing the research. but i’ve come to realize i’m far more OK with risk than most people. a lot of this has to do with ryan, who also loves risk - he tends to feel that if you’re not risking something, you’re playing it too safe. and of course, there’s the old cliche, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

a lot of it has to do with my friends - many of whom are entrepreneurs - their examples, support, and encouragement. then there’s the factor of where we live. San Francisco and Silicon Valley are areas built on risk. you can’t sit in a coffee shop without hearing several conversations about start-ups, funding, elevator pitches, etc. We live in the “entrepreneurship bubble” and i have to remember that this area is HIGHLY concentrated with unlikely stories of people who have risked it all to hit superstardom, or at least risked a lot to succeed. of course some have lost it all - but if nothing else they risked it for something they believed in.

and … a lot of my risk-loving - especially the components that existed prior to ryan and San Francisco - comes from my military upbringing. it contributes to my feeling that “if you’re not moving on, you’re not challenging yourself.” growing up, “moving on” usually meant literally MOVING, but as i’ve grown up it’s coming to mean other things.

Another reason I’m a fan of risk is that big dreams usually come with some degree of risk. and i was brought up to believe that i can - and SHOULD! - actually achieve my dreams. it’s taken me a while to mold these dreams but as i have, this seeming cliche has become more important to me.

we bought our first investment property at 21 (and the two to follow) with the dream that these will help us on our road to financial independence. i.e. not HAVING to work if we don’t want to.

we moved to the city - to fulfill our dream of living somewhere awesome  - with no jobs, no apartment and no furniture.

when i didn’t want to be a slave to an employer any more, i quit my job to work for myself.

i founded an eco-friendly pet product company to get a start on my dream of working with animals and doing everything i can to make their life - and our planet’s life - better.

there are many more in this list, but these show varying degrees of risk. and when i look at some of them “on paper” they look downright stupid. and i’ll admit we haven’t always made the best-advised decisions, but i think as we’ve matured we’ve gotten better at taking calculated risks as opposed to blind risks.

for me, i think it comes down to, “what’s it going to take to make my dreams a reality?” or, “what do i need to do to change the world in a way only i can.” I’m not talking about risking it all for delusions of grandeur, but we each have a passion, purpose and dream that is uniquely ours. and finding the road to fulfilling that purpose will, likely, not be risk-free.

a cheesy look back