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The Cinderella Guide to Radically Transforming Your Business

by Pamela Wilson on January 17, 2011

image of glass slipper

I grew up hearing the story of Cinderella, whose cruel stepmother forced her to work as a servant in her own home.

She spent her days tending the fire, washing and cooking for her evil stepsisters. She dreamed of a better life.

By the end of the story, Cinderella is queen. Her name is synonymous with radical transformation — going from the cinders to the palace.

Think transformation only happens in children’s stories? Cinderella’s metamorphosis follows a series of steps that can help you transform your business if you’re willing to give them a try.

They don’t require a fairy godmother, magic, or a bewitched pumpkin, either. Just a change in attitude, and the audacity to believe you can go beyond your present circumstances.

First you’ve got to want it

Cinderella’s life started out just fine, but her mother died, her father remarried, and her new step family decided to relegate her to the kitchen.

She could have thrown in the towel and resigned herself to her fate, but she didn’t.

When the prince decided to throw a party and invite all the women of the kingdom so he could choose a wife, Cinderella was determined to attend.

It was a long shot. She didn’t have time off, she didn’t own a suitable dress, and her manicure was probably a nightmare. How dare she attend the ball?

But she was determined. And wanting it badly enough is half the battle, both in business and in life.

Because transformation is hard. If you’re going to make the change, you’ve got to want it enough to put up with some growing pains.

If you’re not getting engraved invitations to the ball yet, do something about it. Don’t just sit there and mope. Come up with a plan.

Then you have to look the part

Her stepmother and sisters laughed at her when she suggested she’d like to go with them to the ball. She was dressed in rags, and dirty from head to toe.

As soon as they left — and with the help of a little magic (this is a fairy tale, after all) — Cinderella found herself wearing a spectacular gown.

Here’s the interesting part: as soon as she had the gown on, no one recognized her. Dressing the part transformed her so completely she seemed like a different person.

Perception can create reality. If the way you present your business looks a little shabby, what can you do to dress it up? What can you do to look like the business you want to become?

Dressing the part means polishing up your website so it’s easy to use and looks professional. It means writing in a voice that’s targeted to the market you’re trying to reach. It means claiming your authority and behaving with dignity, instead of the usual attention-seeking idiots that clog up our twitter feeds.

And it means being bold enough to do something like wearing glass slippers so you’ll stand out from your competitors.

Stand up for yourself

Cinderella made an extraordinary impression at the ball. The rest of the attendees wanted to know who she was and where she’d come from.

But in fairy tales all magic comes with a price, and this story is no exception. At midnight Cinderella’s transformation expired, and she returned to her dirty clothes and former life. As she ran from the castle, she left behind a glass slipper.

The prince set out to look for the owner of the slipper. When he got to Cinderella’s home, her evil stepmother and sisters didn’t even want to let her out of the house.

Cinderella approached the prince anyway and asked to try the slipper on. It fit perfectly, of course.

If she hadn’t stood up for herself, she never would have arrived at her destiny. She spoke up and claimed what was hers. She was her own best advocate, and she became queen.

Sometimes in order to get where you want to be, you have to be willing to defy the people around you who don’t think you can do it. And you have to be willing to ask for what you want.

It starts with believing in yourself and your own dreams. And you may need to reconfirm that belief over and over to get where you want to go.

What’s your Cinderella story going to be?

You might be ready to grow your business larger than it has ever been. It doesn’t take magic to get there.

In order to make the transformation, you have to want it badly enough to put up with temporary sacrifices.

You may need to defy those around you who aren’t supportive. You’ll want to dress the part before you’re quite “there” so others can clearly envision you in your wished-for role.

If you do these things, I can’t promise you you’ll marry a prince. (That’s not really what you wanted, was it? Most of them aren’t much of a bargain these days.) But your business will have a Cinderella story, and that’s worth working toward, don’t you think?

About the Author: Pamela Wilson helps small businesses grow with great design and marketing tips. Learn the basics with her free Design 101 e-course at Big Brand System.

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Five Smart Things You Can Still Do in 2009

by Sonia Simone on December 24, 2009

image of highway sign

Copyblogger is about to go on our annual holiday hiatus. We’ll be taking a break from posting while we catch up, get rested, and get excited about what we’ve got in store for you in 2010.

You may be taking a little time off yourself. Or you may still be going into the office, but the last week of the year is often a time when routine tasks slow down or stop altogether.

So what’s the smartest, most productive use you could make of the next seven days?

Here are five ideas that will let you take what some people think of as “dead time” and use it to jump start your year in 2010. Doing any or all of these will get you energized and excited for the year to come.

1. Create a quick product

The biggest obstacle most bloggers face when they want to make money is they don’t have anything to sell.

And the biggest obstacle to creating something to sell is that it seems overwhelming. We feel like we’ve got to distill everything we know into a 400-page ebook or 30-hour marathon audio course.

That’s why I was so impressed by a recent post from Dave Navarro about creating a product over a weekend, and his follow up post on
how to know if it’s the right time to create a product.

If you’ve got even one or two slow days coming over the next week, take Dave’s advice and create a small, low-cost product. It doesn’t matter if you have four blog subscribers, three of whom are related to you.

A few people may buy it, and that’s great. They’ll tell others about it, and that will start attracting the targeted audience you need in the future (generating more sales).

More importantly, it will elevate you in people’s eyes as a solution producer and not just a blogger. Big difference.

2. Write a series

If the idea of creating a product is still too scary, put it on your calendar for January. And instead, every day for the next seven days, write a post for a series for your blog or email newsletter.

What should your series be about? It should be about the most compelling, thorny problem your audience regularly faces that you’re passionate about fixing.

Solve some problems worth solving. Don’t wimp or waffle around, and don’t sell yourself short. Give your audience real answers they can start using right away.

3. Reconnect with your favorite bloggers

Sometimes the “social” in social media threatens to eat every minute we’ve got to give.

If you find yourself with a little down time next week, spend a few minutes and reach out to some of your favorite bloggers in your topic. You know, the ones you haven’t had any time to read in the last six months.

Read through their last 4 or 5 posts. Look through their archives or popular posts. Make some intelligent comments. If something useful presents itself, link to them in your series.

4. Create some audacious goals

I know, I know, nothing is more boring than telling you to set goals around this time of year.

But here’s the thing. Wildly exciting goals lead to wildly exciting results. (Not always, or even often, the precise results you visualized. Don’t let that worry you.)

Some time before December 31st, take an hour and write down the most perfect imaginable day for yourself. Where you wake up (and with whom), what you see, what you have for breakfast, what you do and where you go and how you do it. How you feel about everything you’re doing and seeing. How you look. What you smell and hear.

Use every ounce of writing skill you’ve got to make this description vivid. Sell yourself on it.

And try not to be too “realistic.” Let your dreams soar a little.

Then set a reminder in your calendar to take a look at this “perfect day” once every three months in 2010. Each time you revisit it, re-copy what you’ve written, making any tweaks you want to.

I promise you, in December next year, you’ll be a little spooked by some of the “unrealistic” things you wrote down this year, and how much more realistic they’ve become.

5. Sign up for some high-quality (free) education

If you haven’t joined us yet for Copyblogger’s free Internet Marketing for Smart People e-newsletter, you should sign up for it now. It starts with a 20-part course on some of the most important building blocks to marketing your product or service online.

The newsletter will give you the marketing tips and techniques that work in the real world, including the smartest strategies for marketing with social media. And we do it without the annoying sleaze and hype you see from too many other “gurus.”

If you’re planning on putting one (or all) of these into action by December 31, let us know in the comments! (And then come back on January 1 and let us know how you did.)

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

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