TRUMAN CAPOTE

Image consultants can help writers improve their look. Truman Capote acted as his own image consultant, but he made numerous mistakes. A professional image consultant could have helped him achieve even greater success.

CAPOTE AS A YOUNG MAN

Truman Capote was born in 1924 in New Orleans. The salient facts of his early life are as follows: His mother was only 17 when he was born; her husband divorced her when the boy was four; his mother locked him in a room; he felt lonely and screamed to be let free; his mother remarried and the boy’s new father was convicted of embezzlement.

The case can be made that Capote experienced a traumatic childhood. As such, he was predisposed to be artistic, according to the work of Frank Sulloway.

THE WARDROBE OF CAPOTE THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE

In his youth he was rather unconcerned about his appearance. He wore baggy pants and wrinkled polo shirts. These were in patterns that were hard to look at: big stripes and odd colors.

When he began publishing, at 23, he wore sweaters and shirts with the collar out, to look good for publicity photos (for example for the book Other Voices, Other Rooms). At the age of 35 he can be seen ice skating in Rockefeller Center in a snappy outfit, with a nice pair of trousers and a scarf. He is wearing a beret and a wool sweater.

About the time he published In Cold Blood, he began wearing suits and bow ties. Then he began wearing a hat with a brim. At fifty-three he would wear a big straw hat and ask people if they liked it. He was proud of it.

Capote was clearly his own image consultant. He chose to wear more fashionable clothes when he achieved some success. During the developmental and mastery phases of his career (which we have written about elsewhere) he began wearing better trousers and shirts. But he made numerous mistakes. People don’t trust men in bow ties. A writer needs to be trusted. Also his hats, which are his signature look, did little to flatter his face.

AN IMAGE CONSULTANT COULD HAVE HELPED HIM

The immediate effect of working with an image consultant is to improve your look. Truman Capote tried to improve his look himself, and he succeeded to some extent. But people made fun of him for the hat. And subconsciously the bow ties did not help his case.

An image consultant could have helped him select clothes that would have flattered his figure (which was very thin) and his face (which was very round). The hats he selected were not the best for this purpose. We help people look good and project a more powerful image. We are especially useful for artists in the developmental and mastery phases of their career. This means we could have helped Capote when he was beginning to publish and after he had achieved fame with In Cold Blood.

If you are a writer and wish to improve your look, take a lesson from the life of Truman Capote. While there are some things that you can accomplish yourself, it always helps to have professional advice. Had Mr. Capote used an image consultant his work might be even more widely read today.

Copyright (c) 2010 William Cane

If you have a website for your business, and you want to expand it to bring in new clients, a search engine consulting firm might be able to help you do this. Here is a short list of just a few of the marketing techniques they might use:

Local search marketing – A search engine consulting company will help your business website gain higher rankings in the local search engine results. People searching for what you have to offer very often type the area in which they live in to the search engines to find the local results. Your search engine consultant will optimize your website for this kind of search phrase.

Increase your engine ranking with in bound link building – It has been proven that those businesses with quality link backs to their sites are given a higher ranking in the engine searches. If your business has its own blog or website, your search engine consultant can assist in helping to increase your client base by making sure you get some quality link backs that are subject-related to your service.

Some of your new connections will include those sites and blogs that are very well known, have something to do with the market that you operate in, and have a high traffic flow because what they provide to their readers is considered reputable and highly informative.

Advertise your services using the big social bookmarking websites – You may be at a point in your career where you want to expand your business to include a client base in other surrounding areas. Your consultant can assist you by mass advertising your services on several of the larger social bookmarking sites, that contain a membership base that numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

And once your advertisements have been “mass sent” to all those members on all those social bookmarking sites, the odds are in your favor that there will be at least a handful of them who live in your city, or in neighboring towns, who will eventually see them, and realize your business exists near them. And from that handful, one or two may call you and become your client.

And, even if only a couple of them become new clients of yours, there is still ample potential for you to gain even more business – as those new clients will most likely have some friends who would love to know the name of a good business, as well. And, it only takes one or two “nods” from a few satisfied customers to lead others in your direction – so don’t ever underestimate the power of “word of mouth”, in helping a business to explode.

Content writing to promote your website – Right up there with word of mouth, but on a much larger scale, is the power of the written word in regards to drawing people to you. It has been shown that many people who became new clients of a business, did so after they read a good review of it, or a positive informational piece about what that business was known to provide their customers. And, your search engine consultant can be instrumental in hiring content writers to do the same for you and your business, and may be able to help increase your business in this manner.

So, now you know some of the ways hiring a search engine consulting firm can help you in expanding your websites reach. If this piques your interest, then perform your own engine search on a few of them, and then contact the one that looks like it may be able to do the best job for you.

Recently, I have ‘been on’ a few back-to-back consultations with potential clients. Each conversation had to be fine-tuned on the spot depending upon the clients’ expertise with working with a VA and in regard to his/her use of the internet. Since consults are not ‘one size fits all’ this post can help VAs to customize the conversation to achieve maximum results.

*note RFP used herein is a Request for Proposal. This is the form that potential clients complete with information regarding their virtual assistant needs.
*Letter of Intent is the reply letter a VA writes in response to the RFP.

1) Research, Research And More Research - If there is any tidbit of information you will take away from this post this will be it: Research the client’s website and business as much as possible before dialing the phone. I suggest going one step further and research as much as possible before hitting the send button to reply to the initial RFP itself. Although each Letter of Intent should be customized to the client’s requirements, take more time than usual to know the client because you may not have much time to do the research between the time you hit send and the time the client replies back to your customized letter of intent. I have been in close-timing situations and have had mere minutes to vamp-up my research before I called the client back. Being prepared ahead of time will thwart being caught off-guard because you may need to book an immediate consult. It happens.

2) Be Careful How You Phrase Your Opinions – Before making the consult call (and creating the Letter of Intent), make a list of what you think can be improved on the website or blog but do not come forward right away with a critique while on the phone with the potential client. Wait until the client asks for your opinion and phrase your critique as such, “If your website heading is decreased in size you can offer more information about your business above the page fold” or “If you add your social marketing badges to your home page, you can increase your membership”. Making suggestions as opposed to saying, “The header is too big” or “The web page is messy” may make for bad vibes during the consult. Diplomacy is key.

3) If the client indicates that they do not know how to do something while you explain what services you can provide, offer to show them how to do it. You may think that offering to train a client, for example how to post a blog will take away work from you; I actually believe that this leads to more work, which is what we all really want as virtual assistants. I believe in offering to share my knowledge with a client for three reasons: First, you will get paid for training; Second, once you spend more time teaching the client a task, this helps to build a relationship and solidifies you as the expert and, Three, these tasks lead to more work because then you can make suggestions as to how the task can be fine-tuned. The latter is much easier to do when you have built a rapport with the client.

4) During the consultation call, be keen and listen to the client as they speak. Clues to how much expertise they have will be apparent just by listening. It can be embarrassing for the VA to review services the client is already familiar with. In fact it is a waste of time. Some clients know what ftp might be, while others have no idea. Do not assume a client knows the entire internet ‘lingo’ so it pays to be clear during conversation without being too ‘techie’. It is easier to consult with client who has already worked with a VA so be sure you know this information in advance.

5) If the client is seeking to replace their VA, it pays to know why but never be intrusive by asking outright. Most clients will say if they are replacing their VA upfront. Use that information to your advantage. For example, if the client states, “My VA does not know how to post a blog”, that would be your cue to indicate this is a service you offer (if you do, of course). But do not ask why the VA is being replaced. Only use the information if offered to indicate what you can offer to fill that hole.

Finally, evaluate each consultation call immediately after hanging up. What could you have done better? What did you do well that you can use for the next call? Consultations calls can improve over time.

A numerical reasoning test gauges not only how well you can deal with numbers. More sigificantly, it measures your ability to analyze, interpret data and think logically. This ability is a pre-requisite for positions, such as management consultants, who need to deal with financial reports, salary structure, market figures and other quantitative documents. They need to go over the information meticulously to be able to generate effective and practical solutions for their client.

This is the reason why many firms administer the numerical reasoning test to applicants. For recruiters, it is an effective tool that distinguishes the best from the good ones. If you are scheduled for this test, make the most of it. Management consulting is a very popular career; so many applicants would go an extra mile just to get a position in this industry. There are specific ways to prepare for this challenge, and they are elaborated in the following paragraphs.

The first thing to do is to reinforce your basic mathematical concepts. If you’ve already mastered the MDAS (multiplication, division, addition and subtraction) rule, then proceed with answering ratio, fraction, percentage and word problems. Since you’ve already passed this subject in high school, this won’t be an overwhelming preparatory step. All you must do is to open a math textbook, familiarize the rules and answer some exercises.

Gain knowledge of reading tables and graphs, too. You must know when to use them and how to interpret the included data. Do not disregard the description or legend integrated in the problem; otherwise, you’ll come up with wrong assumptions and answers. It is preferable that you become skilled at this. Since this is what professional management consultants do, many interpretation questions will definitely come out in this test.

There’s also a need to improve your computation speed. What makes the numerical reasoning test tough is its time limit. As you practice answering mathematical questions for mastery, try to monitor your pace. This will help you in dealing with the pressure during the actual examination. Utilizing math tricks is another way of speeding up your computation. Look for some shortcut methods on the Internet and see if they’re applicable to the problems you encounter. Using mental math is another tactic to boost your efficiency. Through the power of your mind, you can reduce the need for hand calculations, thereby saving yourself some time for the more difficult items.

You can also enhance your numerical skills through games. During your free time, grab a Sudoku puzzle or a Rubrics cube and do the challenge. Games for mental exercise are also available online. Performing these exciting activities during your free time keeps your memory and sharpness at a high level. Because they stir your mind, they prepare you for any difficult, intellectual challenge.

Being mindul of the things happening around you is the most practical way of enhancing your numerical reasoning ability. When you dine out at a restaurant you frequent, try to compute its monthly income based on the menu and the number of customers. When you go shopping, estimate how much you need to pay for the items in your basket even before you reach the counter. When a new shop opens in your city, guess if it will survive in the next ten years based on figures. Using these common situations in preparing for your numerical reasoning test can be beneficial on your part.

For the last tip, practice as much as you can. There are tons of free resources on the Internet, and you can also buy some reviewers at bookstores. This gives you self-assurance on the examination day. Further, it also makes the test easier since it increases the chance of encountering similar or familiar items. Practice is the best way to learn, and that’s perhaps the reason why it’s always placed beside perfection.

When you enter the testing center a few minutes befor the schedule, be calm. As you answer the items, stay focused. Just bear in mind that you can do it. At times, all it takes is the right mindset to ace the test.

The Internet is a powerful medium for marketing any business to an estimated billion users who go online everyday.

It presents lucrative opportunities for Internet consultants who specialize in some or all of the aspects of Internet marketing. Consulting is a broad business that covers various aspects of the Internet.

Consulting services

A skill in any of these areas can be developed into a service which you may provide to small businesses and other clients:

building websites
advertisements
catalogs
online order forms or systems
web and social media
marketing
customer service
building intranets or internal networks for businesses
hosting
websites
outsourcing
search engine optimization
list building

Business plan

Most startup consultants fail within 2 or 3 years because they lack a business plan or any clear direction on where they want to take their business.

Many make the mistake of thinking that Internet consulting does not require planning simply because it often starts as a home-based business. A business plan describes what a business does, how it will be done, who has to do it, where it will be done, why it’s being done, and when it has to be completed.

You don’t need to prepare an MBA-style business plan to get started. All you need is a 1-page plan with basic details and action points such as the following:

Mission statement (which is what your consulting company does)
Business goals
Products and services
Sales and marketing details

Your business plan is an evolving document that must be revised as circumstances change.

Tools of the trade

Arming yourself with the right tools and resources can put you ahead of the competition. Aside from having a pc or laptop, telephone, printer and Internet connection, you will also need your own domain name, website, business email address, marketing system, contacts and strategic partnerships.

While you may get your business off the ground with just the bare necessities, investing in the best tools and systems is crucial for growth.

Consulting lessons

Internet marketing consulting has come a long way since the early days when knowledge of codes such as HTML and Java was a pre-requisite. Getting an Internet marketing education can also be easy for there are Internet marketing experts who continuously develop and teach effective techniques to shorten and keep you on top of the learning curve.

Invest in yourself by learning the ins and outs of Internet Marketing Consulting, right from the get-go.

Today we are going to talk about how to run a consulting business. One of the most important things you can do is to defend your Big Picture. You are probably thinking that your consulting expertise is the most important element of your business. You trust in the fact that you know a lot about your specific topic, have a deep understanding of it and can use your knowledge to connect with the client. I am not saying that those things are not important, what I am saying is that as you run your consulting business there are some other things that become even more important. Let me explain those things.

You must have a Big Picture. You need to have an assessment of where you are, a statement of where you need to be, as well as major milestones along the path. Whether you realize it or not, your business is on a path… somewhere and you have to be clear on what that direction is. Identify where you are now, where you want to be, and what the major milestones are in-between. Give your business direction so that every day your company exists, it gets better and better at its core activity.

You must nurture this Big Picture. There are a variety of ways you can nurture the Big Picture. You can hire quality employees, work with quality partners, and secure great clients. Hiring well and working with great vendors keeps your Big Picture fulfilled. Having healthy internal systems keeps your daily effort consistent so that you can deliver at a high level over and over. Having great mentors, both formal and informal, helps nurture the Big Picture. The key word here is “nurture”. You want your Big Picture to grow and expand. You want it to be as strong as it can. This kind of strength doesn’t happen on accident, it happens on purpose. These are some of the things you need to be doing in order for your Big Picture to be easily understand and positioned for growth.

You must protect the Big Picture. You have to understand that your Big Picture is under attack. If it’s not growing, it’s dying. Therefore, you have to commit to protect your Big Picture each day. For example, developing your employees is very important. You have to give your employees more opportunity to learn, grow, develop and give even greater value to your business and to your Big Picture. Next, check your company’s “buzz”. You have to know what other people are saying about your business. Where do you fall in your niche? Have you gotten to top-tier status or are you still on your way to top-tier status? No matter where you stand you have to know what people are saying about your business and how it’s being perceived. Also, you can’t be afraid to take vacations. It is possible to stare at your business for too long and lose perspective and insight. Sometimes you have to leave, step away, go on vacation, recharge and come back to your Big Picture. If not, you can simply tear away at your Big Picture as you keep moving things around in your consulting business without the right kind of perspective.

Have the courage to make adjustments. Just because you wrote the plan down on paper, the world is not going to react the way that you think it should. You need the courage to change things along the way.

Most change too early. Most of my clients change their plan too early. Changing too quickly may result in the pursuit of a different Big Picture. Stay the course, understand where you are really trying to go with your business, and have the courage to stand when you should.

Remember just because a person (or the marketplace) gives you a singular opinion, doesn’t mean you have to change your entire business. Keep the clarity and the fortitude to stand when it’s time to stand.

Push past first rejections. People are going to tell you “no”. People are going to hear what you have to say and be unexcited. Again, you have to believe in your picture and move beyond that rejection. In fact, you should expect rejection to come a second, third, and fourth time. It’s the nature of growing a business.

Having a clear Big Picture is a great step in the right direction of growing your business. However, you must also have the fortitude and clarity to stay your course in the face of adversity. You should be prepared to make adjustments, but be careful of emotional responses to short-term situations. Your best work is done when you make decisions in perfect alignment with your Big Picture.

‘How do I choose the right small business consultant?’ can be a very difficult question for any business owner. But the first question we need to answer is why would they need one in the first place?

Running any business is difficult these days, from retail to manufacturing and anywhere in-between, the number of rules and regulations to comply with seems to be growing by the week. From health and safety to employment law, if you’re not on top of everything, you stand to take a very big fall when things go wrong. In addition, you might well know how to carry out the main aspects of your business, but are you getting the maximum benefit from your marketing? Are you managing your business data and records well and benefiting from the information they contain? Are you concentrating your efforts on the customers who actually generate profit instead of just increasing your turnover? A good small business consultant should be able to take away the difficulties of running a business, allow you to concentrate on the things you do well and ultimately increase the turnover, profit and efficiency of your business.

So how do I choose a good small business consultant?

Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula to choosing a small business consultant, but the first thing you need to decide is ‘What do I want to achieve?’ Some consultants specialise in one particular area – marketing, health and safety, human resources, management systems, web design, etc – while others offer a complete package of consultancy so that you only need to deal with one company. Narrowing down your requirements should allow you to focus on a handful of companies, either locally or nationally, who look to be able to handle the work you require.

Once you have a specific target in mind, make contact with the companies that you’ve shortlisted and ask them about what they can do to fulfil your requirements and what the likely cost will be. Also, and very importantly, ask them for the contact details of companies for whom they have done similar work for in the past – any small business consultancy that isn’t willing to do this, should be taken off your shortlist. Speak to the past clients to get an idea of how well things went, were objectives met, etc to build up a picture of the consultants you’re looking to deal with. Check out the credentials the small business consultant has – are they a member of any professional bodies who can verify their abilities, do they have the correct insurance in place for the work you want them to do – basically, iron out any doubts you have over the professionalism of their company and the work they do.

Hopefully, you’ve now narrowed the choice down to one or two possibilities. This is the stage to write a clear description of what you want to achieve (not how you want them to achieve it) and ask the new shortlisted small business consultants to propose how they will achieve your goals, exactly how much it will cost and what comeback there will be if they can’t achieve what you want. Armed with all of the facts and figures, the final choice is really just down to personal feeling; assuming the answers and costs are fairly similar – choose the right small business consultant to work with and it should be the best thing that has ever happened to your business.