We celebrate the one-year anniversary of Earrings Off today. One year. To us, it’s a very big deal. When we started talking eight years ago about finding a vehicle to discuss our thoughts on being women, relationships, parenting, work and health and wellness, we had no idea how to proceed beyond just talking and hoping. We would meet periodically to discuss what we wanted to do, but the demands of our lives always trumped our execution. That’s usually the way it is. There was never a right time and we didn’t have a mentor to magically show up to do the work for us or guide us through this new podcasting and blogging terrain.
From the beginning, there were three items we made a pact would be held sacred: A minimum of twice weekly meetings, weekly podcasts and blogs would be uploaded by 4 pm every Sunday and a firm launch date of Sunday, September 19th . We set the date for launch before we even had a name. So many things to learn and settle. We had mini-counseling sessions to talk about the importance of respecting each other’s opinion and the mutual goal of not ruining our friendship while birthing our business.
One of us listened to podcasts all the time, the other had to quickly learn what they were. During this past year, we have taken probably at least twenty classes to learn about recording, editing, blogging, marketing and editing. It’s not an overstatement to say that in each class, we were clearly novices. Undeterred, when one session or class would finish we gamely signed up for the next one. We looked constantly for resources.
We hired a coach for one session to do a run through of our planning and ideas for our brand. We also hired a web developer to assist with creating our website. We continued to try and figure out how to best use social media to market Earrings Off and then, we got much needed help in the form of a marketing and social media strategist who intuitively knows how to best market our brand.
Lots of hard work has gotten us to this point. We know even more hard work is required for us to go further to disseminate our message. However, in this journey, not to be dismissed, is the encouragement we found along the way from folks listening to us and reading the blog and telling us they believed in the path we are taking. From the bottom of our hearts, we say thank you and we commit, wholeheartedly and without reservation to Year 2!
Lou and Teresa
