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Today is my birthday and it’s also the one-year birthday of Abby Kerr Ink. I love it when time aligns to deliver us into an auspicious moment. Before I dig into my birthday pie {I prefer it over cake}, I’ve got an announcement.

Yesterday I explored the phenomenon of brand evolution and told you I’ve been in the process of one for the past little while. Deepening. Unfolding. Real-izing.

I’m ready to open up to you for the deeper conversation that’s been distilling in me these many months.

Announcing myself as a brand editor & calling entrepreneurs to rule their realm.

I’m calling you to rule your realm. Yeah, you.

Having worked this past year as a copywriter and a consultant/coach focusing on brand development, business concept and voice, niche-y marketing strategies, and stuff like that, I’ve been very observant of who else is working in the same space. {You can see when people are moving in their genius and when they’re just offering one of many things they’re “better than most” at. There’s a big difference.}  While I knew that I had some great stuff to offer in all of these domains, I also knew that these offerings weren’t an expression of the fullness of my point of view. They were tools contributing to what I had to teach, but none of them were the essential piece.

I’ve spent the past few months pushing firmly toward that essential piece, elucidating it first to myself, then to my inner circle, polishing it up until it gleamed and resonated.

Today I can tell you that I’ve identified my strangely powerful talent, the teaching I bring to the table like no one else, the work I feel my way into. In other words, I couldn’t teach someone to do exactly what I do, because it happens on a cellular, intuitive level. It’s a distillation of the way I perceive and move through the world.

There are two revelations I’m imparting today.

No. 1 I’m a brand editor. I help you up your addictability factor, so you can rule your realm.

Whew. That feels like a giant coming out.

As a brand editor, I’m the person you call on for an accurate, crazy well-articulated impression of your project or your presence. My take is a thousand times deeper than “that looks great” or “yep, that sounds fine — right on!” I sense the ether your brand is swirling in. I imbibe the vibe you’re putting out there and give it back to you in words and recommendations.

You can do something with words and recommendations. You can’t do anything with I don’t knows, maybe this’ll works, and am I moving in the right directions.

I edit “going places” into gorgeous.

I show you what to develop and what to ditch when it comes to building and sustaining the Realm of You in the online space and beyond.

For more about what I do and how, check out the new This Is Me page.

I’ve sharpened up my read on my ideal client, too, and I know exactly where she needs to be in her journey to get the most from me. Is it you? Take a look here.

My limited availability signature brand editing service is in development. If you’d like to hear about it before anyone else, subscribe to Covered In Ink, my advanced notification list. Note: Covered In Ink is different from Inklings, which is my weekly e-newsletter. Covered In Ink is solely devoted to dishing out the inside scoop before I lay it down anywhere else.

Now for the next revelation I’ve been distilling.

No. 2 It’s time for all of us to move from talking about niches to talking about realms.

Better yet, it’s time for you to start thinking about the Realm of You.

The niche conversation? Totally still relevant. I stand behind every nichification teaching I’ve shared {and there have been a lot of them}. But it’s clear to me that the idea deserves a more expansive and less loaded word than ‘niche’ and that word is realm. Next time, we’ll explore the shift in phraseologie, and how it adds up to a much more lucrative point of view for you and your business.

I’m really looking forward to this particular year. I hope you are, too.

Now I’m going to get a piece of my birthday pie. {Please let it be lemon.}

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A year ago this week, I was up to big stuff. And here I am again, up to big stuff.

This very week last March, I started Abby Kerr Ink. My retail boutique wasn’t even closed three weeks before I was in my accountant’s office, filing papers for a new business entity. This is the way my entrepreneurial spirit moves me: one done and on to the next. In June of 2010, I took Abby Kerr Ink online and found a much bigger market of creative businesses for my copywriting, consulting, and coaching services.

It’s been quite a year, from last March to this one. Personally, it’s been a year of considerable unrest — leaving a four-year relationship, sojourning through troubled times with family members, and more personal turning-over-the-soil than I’ve experienced since . . . undergrad? At times this past year, I felt as if I was a thirteen year old trapped in a thirty-something’s body. Maybe you can relate.

All of the discomfort was trying to tell me something.

The folded corners of my life weren’t quite meeting up neatly. Everything wanted to unfold. Things needed a new shape.

Unfolding into business evolution

Photo courtesy of LindsayMcMichael.com. Used with permission.

I wrote here about business renovation and why it’s not only an expected part of being a creative person but an essential part. Brand evolution is necessary to keep your ideas relevant and your point of view piqued.

Today begins a new phase of the brand evolution of Abby Kerr Ink.

My e-newsletter subscribers have had an inkling that a change was coming within my business for some time now. Today’s the day I start unfolding that new phase for the world — and for you — because I know you’ve been waiting for it.

I want to unfold, /
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, /
Because where I am folded, /
There I am a lie . . .

— Rainer Maria Rilke

You haven’t just been waiting for my gift to unfold. We’re all holding our breath in anticipation of each other’s unfolding. Until the moment we step into our rightful realms, we’re secret-keepers toiling in busy-ness {even beautiful, impressive busy-ness}, counting breaths until it’s time to utter the teaching we’re ordained for.

Brand evolution happens at the collision of our innate gifts and talents with our right people’s accidental realization of them.

“Oh my God, you’re good at that.”

“You know you’re a genius in this area.”

“You’re the only person I’d trust to give input on this project.”

We all see each other so much more clearly than we see ourselves. We have extra sensory perception when it comes to other’s brand evolution.

My evolution is coming from an intensely deep place — but it was obvious to my inner circle before it was obvious to me.

Over the past year of writing copy for websites, preaching nichification, consulting on niche-y marketing, and coaching creatives deeper into their entreprenerurial vision, my clients and close friends told me a hundred times what my strangely powerful talent was.

Of course that’s what you do!” one exclaimed.

“You’re the only person I’d hire to do that,” another told me.

“I trust you implicity when it comes to that stuff. You’re my tastemaker,” said a third.

It was when I started listening to and leading with that strangely powerful talent that I realized, “Holy crap. I don’t want to do anything but this.”

You, too, have a strangely powerful talent. It’s the thing that’s so ingrained in your thought patterns, you don’t even notice it. It’s the thing that friends light up at when you do it in front of them. It’s the thing people really hire you for, regardless of what your Services page says you do. It’s that skill you bring to the table more powerfully than anyone else, regardless of training, certification, or years of experiences. It’s that knack of yours that you feel your way into.

Tomorrow’s my birthday, and it’s also the exact one-year anniversary of Abby Kerr Ink. Feels like an auspicious day to declare my new realm and lead this new conversation that I see you’re ready to have.

Hope you’ll meet me here tomorrow as I download the newest and truest from my foundation into yours.

Would love to hear your take on brand evolution in the comments. Do you suspect you’re overlooking a strangely powerful talent of your own?

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Karen Paritee from Effindiets.com

Karen Paritee from Effindiets.com

In this fifteenth episode of the Creative Solopreneur Podcast, I’m talking with Karen Paritee from Effindiets. Karen is a Certified Life Strategies Coach and Diet Crusher.

Here are links to the people and ideas we talked about:

Listen in as Karen shares how she became a Diet Crusher, how to begin sharing your mission with your audience, how to know when you’ve found your right creative service providers {from designers to coaches}, what Harriet Tubman has to do with Diet Crushing, and making friends with “Rita” and “Juanita.”

Right click here and select Save Link As to download the podcast to your hard drive, or left click to play in-browser.

P.S. Karen will be hanging out in the comments to answer your questions and to chat. Come by and say hello! :)

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Victoria Brouhard from VictoriaBrouhard.com

Victoria Brouhard from VictoriaBrouhard.com

In this fourteenth episode of the Creative Solopreneur Podcast, I’m talking with Victoria Brouhard from VictoriaBrouhard.com. Victoria is a former scuba instructor {wow, right?} turned database programmer turned project and business coach. Today she uses her analytical superpowers to help people find, create, and support their Thing — with a capital ‘T.’

Here are links to the people and ideas we talked about:

Listen in as Victoria explains why you pay twice when you do something that’s not a good fit for you and why self-care needs to be a priority for creative solopreneurs. She also shares why entrepreneurship is about “becoming the person you need to be to have the life you want.” Love that.

By the way, we did have a listener question from Illana Burk from Makeness around the 40 minute mark {the one about how Victoria stays so calm and centered all the time}.

Right click here and select Save Link As to download the podcast to your hard drive, or left click to play in-browser.

P.S. Victoria will be available in the comments in case you have questions, or if you just want to say hi. :)

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Update: As of 12 AM on Sunday, February 20th, 2011, this limited time offer is now over. You can still use the links below to get started with Vision Coaching at the regular price. Vision Coaching will be available through March 2011.

If a little birdie told you and you’ve been waiting for this cart to open to the public, you can access it from the link directly below and learn more about the Vision Coaching Triple Pack.

Click here for the limited time offer on my popular Vision Coaching sessions.

If you’ve been reading my recent series on the most popular questions brought to me by my Vision Coaching clients, you’ve heard me say this:

Savvy is a muscle.

Photo by tibchris courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Photo by tibchris courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

The most successful entrepreneurs have a strong, vivid vision for their work in the world and the savvy to make the best decisions on behalf of that vision. They work that muscle, whether they have strong natural savvy or whether savvy is something they’ve had to cultivate.

But before savvy even comes into play, it’s all about the vision.

Do you know where you’re going with your entrepreneurial work in the world?

Is your vision for 2011 and the years beyond lip smackingly vivid?

Are the decisions you’re making lining up with your vision foundation?

If you can’t answer a resounding yes to the three questions above, then the Vision Coaching Triple Pack is perfectly timed to help orient you.

Click here to learn more about what Vision Coaching can do for you, and to see how much you’re saving when you get in on this limited time offer.

Looking forward to seeing you propel forward into your entrepreneurial dream!

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