Everyday Tales of Business Folk: a business story for business people – Episode 2

This is episode 2 of my tale of Everyday Business Folk, featuring our hero Katherine. If you missed my explanation of what I’m doing, and episode 1 which I sent you yesterday, well…I’m experimenting with doing something different in email marketing by sending out an episode each day of a story made up from fragments of stories from my own and my client’s business stories. You can catch up by finding yesterday’s email, or just pick it up here.

The series is designed to help you with your own business adventures by sharing some of Katherine’s challenges, and the answers she found.

Previously on Everyday Business Folk Katherine has got her P45 from her fancy job in London. We saw her crying on her settee in Brighton, worrying about where she was going to get her rent money from. A fleeting glimpse of rescue comes from a friend who gets Katherine to do some copy-writing for one of her clients. But Katherine over services and undercharges, doing days of work for a measly 100 quid.

Today’s episode on Monday morning. Katherine gets out of bed at a leisurely 7.30am. The cats are enjoying their lie in, now their owner doesn’t have to get up in the dark and disturb them. She’s cancelled her gym membership in her own personal austerity drive, so she goes out for a run along the seafront. She’s back at 8.30 and wonders what to do now.

Last week, she’d done the work for her friend Claire’s client and enjoyed it. This week, there was nothing much on. She tidied the flat. She checked her email. She caught up on some blogs, all about content marketing. She thought about going for another run. She tidied the flat again, decluttering a cupboard. Unfortunately, Katherine was already pretty organised and there wasn’t much to declutter. She checked her bank balance and made a spreadsheet for how long it would take her to run out of money. She added in the £100 she’d invoiced Claire for and realised that it didn’t really make much difference to when Day Zero Bank Balance would come.

Katherine still felt despondent, but mostly she realised that she was bored. Being unemployed is BORING. And it was only 11.15. What on earth was she going to do all day?

When the phone rang, Katherine seized it. “Hi Katherine, that copy you sent through…” It was Claire. Katherine’s stomach churned. Maybe it was no good. Maybe Claire had needed to rewrite it. Maybe it was all rubbish.

Katherine gritted her teeth. “Hi Claire, um, what did you think?” “Yeah, the client loves it. But you wrote that his customers could follow him on Twitter, and now he’s gone and put it on his website, and 4 people have followed him on Twitter this morning. And he’s going on about a twitter campaign and engagement metrics and he wants a sign up box and something called a lead magnet. He’s been reading too many marketing books, and he wants us to do all this stuff.” “Well that sounds like a good idea, although he’d have to map out a strategy first, not just jump in.”

“That’s the problem. I’m up to my ears in this launch event, and I’ve got 5 call backs to journalists to do, and I don’t know what a bloody lead magnet is.” “It’s something you put online to attract people so they engage with you and then you can start marketing to them with their permission, attraction marketing rather than old fashioned push marketing”. “Well, that sounds great, and you can tell me all about it one day, but in the meantime, can you just ring this guy, he’s called Ryan. I’ll text you his number, but I’ve got another call waiting and…just speak to him and do something will you.”

Claire rang off and Katherine smiled as a text chirped with Ryan’s number. At least she had something to do this afternoon.

Any of this sound familiar? Have you been there? Can you see how Katherine might get in trouble? Want to know what a lead magnet is? Click here to read the next episode and see what happens next.

PS – Here’s a blog I wrote about lead magnets and why you might want one