TAMERA's SPACE

IF YOU OWN A BUSINESS, DEFINE YOUR MARKET

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:41:13 GMT

IF YOU OWN A BUSINESS, DEFINE YOUR MARKET!

I recently closed my business Envision Publishing that I ran for 6 years. It was a dream of mine to own a business and I have to say I loved publishing Among Women Magazine and certainly, unequivocally enjoyed being the Publisher of a high quality women’s magazine.

In some ways I am sad to see it closed...but I will be happy to let go of the stress of selling advertising to support the product. If I could just publish the stories and provide a forum for women’s voices that would truly be a dream job for me.

I have heard so many people from outside this central Minnesota area comment that St. Cloud is a challenging, highly conservative, market area. The consensus is that it takes this area years to get “caught up” on other markets.

Women are the market and it seems that Among Women Magazine was actually before it’s time five years ago in this business arena. I have been working to educate local businesses they need to market to women and now I think many are starting to understand the concept because they are hearing it from other media as well.

I believe in today’s marketplace, businesses also need to be aware of their marketing strategy at all times and make required changes to it as they go along. As I talked with many people in business, most did not know who their customer was in terms of demographic audience nor had they decided who they wanted their customer to be.

It seemed to me that the most basic marketing strategy, defining your market, was not considered. Entrepreneurs are too busy running their business to find time to define the foundation of their life line.

When looking at any media option, ask basic questions and match the media to your defined demographic audience:

1.) Who does the media reach in terms of demographic audience: gender, age, interest, income level and where do they live?

2.) What is the distribution in terms of number printed or impressions it makes?

3.) How much is it going to cost per impression?

Why did I close Among Women when my readers LOVED the product? I closed for two reasons, I was unable to generate enough advertising support to pay for the intensive expenses of magazine production even though women make 85% of all buying decisions and secondly, the competition was brutal and used gorilla marketing tactics to move my clients to their media.

It was a good decision and one that I don’t regret. I only regret not being able to provide women with a quality, positive publication we deserve.

Allow Life to Be What it is Meant to Be

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:34:18 GMT

Quote

Straight Talk

by Tamera Farrand

"Allow Life to Be"

I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. In fact, I’m a lousy speller. I didn’t go to school for journalism nor did I do great in writing classes. In high school I didn’t care much about my grades; I was there to have fun, period.

When I was in community college in my first literature class after high school, the professor used my paper as an example of how NOT to write! More embarrassing, he handed my paper back in front of everyone, so my colleagues knew I was far from a literary genius. (So much for high school preparedness.)

Recently I’ve been in contact with a couple old friends from my high school through classmates.com. I am sure they would never have imagined that my profession has anything to do with writing, much less publishing a magazine! Especially this woman whose high school year book slogan was “Happy go lucky.”

Funny, the people you thought would make it big are barely working. I think high school came so easy to them that when they got out into the real world with people who actually challenged them they realized they were just as mediocre as the rest of us! That’s a tough pill to swallow, eh?

It’s not to say it’s okay to be mediocre, I’m just saying that youth who achieve great heights may not translate easily into adulthood. Look at me…any achievement after high school is measured as success considering where I started. It’s all relative.

My college degree is a BES. No kidding! It’s an actual degree, Bachelor of Elective Studies. I was never one to be mainstream. I always had to create my own path, hence I designed my degree to set me up to own and operate a health club. Of course, I had a couple of minors in there like physical education and training along with a variety of business classes. So business ownership was always on the horizon I guess.

Anyway, what I set out to do is not at all what I do. I’ve changed professions numerous times to arrive here at the helm of Among Women. I still sit in wonder how I came to publish a magazine or even write a column and be a public speaker. (You do know that people fear public speaking more than they fear death. Well, death is natural; public speaking is eternal. When you embarrass yourself it will live on to eternity.)

I anticipate life has more in store for me. Who knows, I may just become a famous singer….ahh, have you heard my voice…I think not. Well, you just never know.

Envision Publishing, LLC

Envision Publishing, LLC

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:00:17 GMT

Dear Readers:

Welcome to Among Women Magazine. If you would like to read Among Women Magazine and get a free subscription please go to Among Women Magazine and click on subscriptions. You can download a subscription card if you live in central Minnesota.

The topic for today is, "Leave the Past in the Past to Reduce Your Stress"

Stress my friends does not come from living in the moment or anticipating the future, it comes in fact from reliving the past. What are you telling yourself about yourself?

Do you say things like:

I'm not smart enough...

I'm not good enough....

I'm not skinny enough....

I'm not rich enough.....?

Whatever it is you say over an over again brings you stress as you are working to achieve you personal ledged or fulfill your higher purpose.

Do this exercise: Sit with your eyes closed and allow those thoughts that you say to yourself over and over to come to you. Now picture a dove flying toward you. Place each of those thoughts on it's wings. They will not be heavy or burdensome to the dove, they are just thoughts.

Allow the dove to take them away, flying toward a beautiful sunset over a clean body of water on a warm day. Do this several times a day and allow the thoughts to be gone from your mind. They are not constructive anyway. Notice how calm you are and how the stress melts away as you come into the moment and realize the potential for your future.

"My Past Teaches. My Present is Beautiful. My Future is Glorious!"

Tamera, Publisher Among Women Magazine: Copyright

Envision Publishing, LLC