I’m kind of nervous this week because I have two presentations at the California Society of Association Executives. I’m doing one this afternoon on improving email communication, and on Wednesday I’m speaking about the top free and low-cost tech tools an organization can’t live without.

Today I’m going to wear the dress in this picture. This, of course, is no surprise because this is the ONLY dress I have for presentations. I wore it to teach in February, and I wore it to a presentation I did on Saturday. I’m wearing it today, and I’m biting my fingernails because I can’t wear it again on Wednesday.

If you’ve ever ready any of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries by Sue Grafton (”A is for Alibi,” “B is for Burglar,” etc), you’ll have heard of Kinsey’s little black dress. It’s perfect for funerals, weddings and cocktail parties on the fly. She keeps it balled up in the bottom of a duffel bag in her car or something, and it always looks perfect.

My red-and-black dress is my perfect everything dress. I get compliments from strangers; it’s always the right size, no matter my weight; it never looks wrinkled or tired; and I can throw it in the washer. Thus, I wear it every time I have an important meeting or a presentation.

As a freelance copywriter, I don’t get out much. Most of my conversations with people are via phone, and I spend a lot of time in jeans and tank tops, barefoot and makeup free. Right now I’m wearing a sleeveless sweater and jeans, the exact same outfit I wore yesterday. When I’m sitting here at my desk, I just don’t get very dirty, except I suppose I sit here so long that I might need dusting.

When I worked for my former company as a sales person, I had nice suits and lots of skirts and slacks. I’ve pretty much gotten rid of everything because I don’t need them for work and because I’ve lost some weight. I’ve also picked up a couple of nice cocktail dresses for my occasional nights on the town, but they won’t work for my 8:30 a.m. presentation. Actually the only clothes I buy these days are for working out.

So, where can I find another perfect presentation dress by Wednesday?

Now that I’ve been a freelance copywriter for a while, I have plenty of regular clients. They send over emails for me to review before they go out. They ask me to write teaser copy for their website when there’s a sudden news break.

I love being able to do this for my clients, but it does pose a little problem in billing. I get an email that says, “Hey, Beth — could you please write a subject line for this email? It’s going out this afternoon.”

First, that means that they need it right away, so I usually have to stop what I’m doing to dash it out. Yesterday, I ended up revising postcard copy for a client — while I was in the bathtub with my BlackBerry.

Second, writing a subject line — even a handful of subject lines to choose from — takes no time at all. So what do I bill?

I bill my time in 15-minute increments, so I bill a minimum of 15 minutes for each one of these little requests. But then, once I shoot off a reply, I need to track my time, and when I invoice, I write a separate line for that 15-minute job. I wonder if it actually takes me more than 15 minutes total for each 15-minute job?

Yahoo! Yesterday I sent the email below to about 35 of my good friends in hopes that my blog statistics would not show a loss for March.

Curiously enough, after I sent this note out, I attended a meeting for my biggest client, who this month is paying for half of my time each day (80 hours a month) for a massive project.

The reason for the meeting was to meet the team who would be handling the company’s search engine optimization and “buzz building.” Their job is to drive traffic to my client’s site. By traffic, they’re talking 40, 50, 100 thousand hits in one day after a viral marketing campaign.

Fifty thousand hits? In one day? I was trying to imagine my little blog getting 50k hits, or even 5k, or even 500 in one day (which I had a couple of times). That would throw my world upside down.

But this strategy is really all about numbers right now and not necessarily about finding the types of web surfers who are going to buy my client’s services. If you get 50k hits in one day or huge numbers over the course of a few days, your search engine rankings can increase significantly, making you easier to find for your real audience.

I’ve been successful several times at creating very small buzzes that provide a spike in my stats (like yesterday). But do they keep coming back? Do they sign up for the daily updates? Do they become loyal readers? The term that web folks use for the act of people buying into a site is conversion.

I’ve noticed via statistics that most of them just pop in, read the one post, and pop out. This means that either my content overall was not of interest to them or that my post didn’t impress or that they’re just chronic poppers who don’t really visit one place over and over. I tend to fall into the latter category, discovering a cool site and visiting once or twice then getting out of the habit. The site is still cool, but it just doesn’t occur to me to go back. So I’m not necessarily offended when someone spends a few minutes on my blog then moves on.

So my client’s goal is to count on the volume to 1.) increase search engine ranking, and 2.) find a certain percentage who really want and like the product.

For reference, the Top 8 Reasons Why I’ll Never Make a Living as a Blogger:

 Dear friends and family,

I’m severely addicted to the statistics from my blog, and I’ve been very happy to see the numbers of visitors increase every month. But — OH NO — this month I may actually decrease! This freaks me out, so I’m asking for help.

Thus, Happy “Forward to a Friend” Day! In the interest of spreading the joy about my cupcake cravings, bad hair and newfound testicular fortitude, I offer you this cut-and-paste opportunity to share Life on Avenue Z with people you care about. Or people you really want to annoy. Or something.

And if you haven’t been by in a while, I invite you back.

Thanks (and I hope you find humor in this silly little time-waster).

Beth

****
Dear [daughter in her 8th year of college],

I know you wanted to become a writer. That’s a really stupid idea. Here’s proof:
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2008/03/21/crazy_writer_lady/

****
Dear [college friend after his divorce],

I know you’ve always wanted to follow your dream and become a writer. Maybe now’s the time…
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2007/10/30/on-doing-what-you-love-for-a-living/

****
Dear [friend from grade school],

Remember that bad haircut you got when you were 12? This one has got to be worse…
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2007/11/20/another-lesson-learned-disguised-as-a-post-about-my-hair/

****
Dear [computer geek friend],

Here’s a list of gadgets that might make your life complete…
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2008/02/14/ten-tech-tools-love/

****
Dear [woman looking to quit her job],

See? All women have a tough time taking a stand…
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2007/11/09/funny-how-a-synonym-to-getting-tough-is-growing-badouble-ls/

****
Dear [chronic worrywart],

Wow, I think this chick has you beat in the Chronic Obsessing Department….
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2008/01/09/my-parents-basement/

****
Dear [friend who was recently laid off],

Was this how yours went? Bummer, dude…
http://www.lifeonavenuez.com/index.php/2008/03/19/anatomy-layoff/

Although I’m very happy owning my own freelance copywriting business, I keep seeing notices for really cool jobs. I’m a member of the American Society of Association Executives, otherwise known as the association of associations, and a while ago I saw a job I’d LOVE to have — marketing, educational programming… all the fun stuff.  And other cool positions come across my desk every day.

Last night in the bathtub, it occurred to me that I am in a really good position. As the sole proprietor of Avenue Z Writing Solutions, I will never be fired or downsized (although I sometimes fuss at myself for spending too much time calling the boyfriend). As long as I keep looking for work, it’ll be there. If I want to stop doing this and start working for someone else, I can apply for jobs and still keep working, still keep making a living. And because I’m a writer, all I need is a computer, the internet, some cupcakes and a phone.

In the fall when my new business and old life were really rocky, I wrote a post about being able to continue on because I have the ability to quit at any time.  The same is true today. But last night I realized that even if I do decide to quit, I have the ability to make a living on my own at any time. And that’s just plain cool.

As a freelance writer, I’ve been conducting a number of surveys lately for articles, presentations and marketing analyses. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned in the past two weeks.

1. Really take time to think surveys out
   When I first started writing these surveys, I included a lot of open-ended questions. When the survey was over, I had to figure out a way to quantify the responses to these questions so they’d be useful in the statistics. For example, I would give a text box for the answer to “What’s your favorite movie candy?” People would write in “Goobers” and “Gobers” and “Goebers.” Then I’d have to go back and determine what they meant and do the tabulations by hand. If I had simply created a list of typical movie candy for them to choose, most of the stats would be taken care of automatically. Then I could have created an “other” category to cover really unusual responses.
2. Watch early results and make modifications immediately
   A couple of times I did not provide enough choices for the participants. For example, I had five ranges of percentages, and the top range said “above 25 percent.” Everyone clicked that choice, which told me that the question was useless as it was. If I had modified the survey as soon as I saw 2-3 respondents’ answers, I would have had the chance to make the question mean something.
3. Use logic to make the survey relevant
   The survey service I use allows you to personalize surveys a bit. For example, if people respond that they don’t have a home office, I can let them skip the rest of the questions related to the home office instead of making them click “N/A” for each question.
4. Group questions by topic
   I took a customer service survey the other day, and the questions kept jumping back and forth from the site graphics to product satisfaction. I try to ask a series of questions on one topic before moving on to the next.
5. Tell respondents how long it will take to complete
   These days I don’t even start a survey if I don’t know how long it will take me. I really like those that show you percentage completed or number of questions. And don’t lie or guess about how long it will take. Send it out to someone and ask him or her to let you know how long it took to get through. You’d hate to get into the position of advertising a 45-minute sales presentation that actually takes three hours (time-share, anyone?).