Ciara

Putting Crowdfunding in Perspective: Respect Your Audience to Maximize Your Results

Funding ain’t easy. Technology makes it seem easy, especially with platforms like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe holding the promise of access to new fans with open wallets. Of course, it takes a tipping point of personal contacts funding a project to a certain dollar amount in order to access your yet-unknown audience. Which means outreach […]

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October 2018: Digital Life

Strategy / Ciara

The amount of time you spend on screens is directly related to your level of anxiety. Extensive social media use leads to depression and isolation. At least, that’s what I think someone said they heard from a study that may or may not have been published in a reputable journal and/or website. In a new

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Ditch Your Business Plan and Focus on Your Game Plan

Business / Ciara

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar: you’re working to get your idea out there, so you sit down to write a marketing plan… because that is what responsible business owners are supposed to do. But what starts out as a valiant effort to lay out your marketing calendar for the next twelve months devolves

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September 2018: Streamlining Your Business

Strategy / Ciara

If you’re running a business, you are probably doing a lot of extra work you don’t actually need to do. Every business is full of waste. Even one-person businesses and side hustles suffer under the weight of an overabundance of ideas, messages, strategies, and tactics. If you’re lean and mean and moving fast, you can’t afford to be

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Encore: Welcome to the Elite Society of Former Performers

Career / Ciara

An excerpt from Exit Stage Right: The Career Change Handbook for Performers Once you’re solidly in your new chapter, you join the ranks of the Former Performers: the passionate souls who pursued one of the most difficult – and rewarding – career paths that exist. You followed your first dream, and that is something you

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What to Do During a Slow Period: Strengthening Your Business Strategy

Business / Ciara

During slow summer months or winter hibernation, it’s easy to find an excuse to drift in late, check out early, and let a lack of momentum slow your whole roll. Even if you’re not on vacation, your inbox is full of out-of-office autoresponders, which can mean meeting-free mornings and afternoons spent shopping online instead of

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August 2018: Navigating Transitions

Life / Ciara

You know those people who lose or quit their job and use the time off to find themselves and travel and play the guitar and have a summer fling and work out and read novels? Yeah. I am SO not one of those people. I hate being in the proverbial hallway. Give me a map,

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