On clients, friends and students

I wanted to add some information about the services I provide and the way I try to build my client base. I am lucky in that LinkedIn and social media really are getting me a lot of attention without having to pay any money in advertising. I am always pleasantly surprised when people recognize me from my content – people in real-life will recognize me or acknowledge my work, my writing and more.
 
At my recent college and career readiness presentation, I was talking about how important it is to do what you love. It is ironic that I am doing something so focused on writing that I am constantly brainstorming and writing in a conversational tone – I almost close my eyes when typing and picture myself in front of you, my reader, in a classroom. I mean I am not so good that I can type with my eyes closed, but you get the idea. I have always loved to write – I have journals from each year starting in 1986 and I have tried (and failed) to write fiction. I did NANOWRIMO two years ago and wrote the 50,000 words in 30 days and it was a challenge, so fun and ultimately absolutely unreadable! (In my opinion anyway).

Now I began working on my EBooks not even two weeks ago and I have 10k words done on Entrepreneur-ing (http://www.thenextstep1234.com/new-ebook-entrepreneur-ing.html) and almost 6k words done on College and Career Readiness (http://www.thenextstep1234.com/new-ebook-college--career-readiness.html). Plus I am blogging 5 days a week (minus big holidays). And when I ran into a person of interest at the college where I teach, I mentioned I am running my own business and the response was, “I know, I see your work – it is really great!”
 
I offer my students a free resume review and edit; I have always done this for all of my classes since 2003. This year, I asked my students if they googled me before class. (I mean, supposedly we all google everyone our dates, our friends – why not our teachers?) A few had googled me. So when I offered to do their resumes, I got about 6 resumes out of 60. When I asked in class where the other 54 resumes are, the ones who sent said  “they must not have googled you!”
 
I asked my Monday/Wednesday class this week why I did not get as many resumes as I expected and told them I am saving them to my hard drive in the order I receive them so resumes are assigned numbers. I got a few more. My Thursday night class, a student or two said I checked out your stuff, you know your stuff. So I said, “If I offered you $200 right now, would you take it.” They said, “Yes” so I said, “Obviously you would not take it because I still do not have your resume!”

Some of my students are reading my content so hi and send me your resume! Also, some of my students are being proactive and giving me feedback on my site and how I can improve it – it is awesome because so many of them are both digitally native and social media experts and as I keep saying, as I teach and share, I am learning more than anyone else. I am very lucky!
 
For my pricing plan, though, I have a lot of people who are transitioning back into the workforce and whom I know in real life – I am lucky enough to be thought of by them when they need help to get their resumes ready. My pricing plan for people who know me in real life is quite flexible.  I am focused on helping people transition back into a career and take their next step back from their blank spaces on their resumes due to child care or other issues. More about this in the video below.
 
I hope to help you take your next step soon! Happy hunting!