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Posts from the 'Entrepreneur Diaries' Category
April 14th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
When you take a trip someplace, people often ask you, “Business or pleasure?”
When you love the work that pays for the life you live, business IS a pleasure. You don’t have to choose between the two, and you get to say, “All of the above,” regardless of the purpose of your trip.
That’s one way of answering the question. I’m in that glorious space of being excited about the clients we have, the projects in the pipeline, and even about what we have on tap for our own business. So it’s a blessing to be able to enjoy the things for which we get paid. Business hasn’t always been like that for us.
 The other way to answer it? That’s what our family has going on right now. I’m writing this from the townhouse we’re renting for the next three weeks (that’s the view from the balcony). The Pacific Coast Highway is just on the other side of the houses you see in the center of the pic, and the beach is just across the highway.
Lani, Joey, and Declan are out on the beach at this moment, and I’m writing this as the kick-off to document our first attempt at taking our family and business anywhere on Earth, to play and experience the wider world while still being able to take care of business and our kids’ educations.
To give you a sampling, while we’re here I’m going to be:
- Working with Lani on the plan for hiring a new virtual assistant
- Putting together the elements of a targeted marketing campaign for Iperia
- Blogging for Career-Resumes.com
- Pursuing an article marketing strategy for ResumeMachine.com
- Pulling together a reference binder for veterinarians on behalf of Pet Angel
- Creating email campaigns for BarbieCollector.com
And on top of that, I’ll also be going with the family to:
- Sea World
- San Diego Zoo
- Legoland
- The Getty Museum and Villa
- Venice Beach
- Santa Monica Pier
- Dodger Stadium
And last but not least, seeing our friends and family here as well.
The goal? To get to a life where we can mix business with pleasure in as many unique and thrilling ways as possible.
That’s what being a lifestyle entrepreneur is all about. And if we can help you get closer to that goal for yourself - and lead by example to show you that it truly IS possible - then this trip will have paid for itself.
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April 10th, 2008 by Lani Voivod
This is a victorious year for me in many, many ways.
- I’m staying home with my beautiful little baby boy (now six-months old!) while my incredible husband handles virtually all of our client work, invoicing, bill-paying, blogging, outreach, and so on
- We’re just 52 hours away from getting on a plane for a three-week revival experiment at an ocean-view townhome in Malibu, CA - where we’ll visit with Grandma Rose (Allen’s mom), handle VIP client work remotely, hang out with dear friends, meet with our pals at Mattel, and PLAY, PLAY, PLAY…filling our creative and Vitamin-D-deprived wells at Sea World, Venice Beach, Lego Land, the San Diego Zoo, and at lots of playgrounds in and around Santa Monica, Encino, and West LA (for our energetic kindergartner)
- I’m actually keeping up with my Page-A-Day calendar!
I think this is a first for me, actually. Year after year, I’ve seen the date freeze sometime during the first week of February. Whether it’s been comics by Gary Larson, Scott Adams, or Darby Conley, excerpts by and from ”Women Who Do Too Much,” “Wild Women,” “Witty Women” or even quips and quotes from my beloved Erma Bombeck and SARK, I’ve never been able to stay with it. I don’t know. I get bored or forgetful or something.
This year, though, I’ve been devouring the little medidations from The Secret, as regularly as I’ve ever managed to do anything. Little bite-sized chunks of inspiration - some of it corny or floofy according to my Inner Critic, but I’m doing my best to get over that part of myself - that come just at the right time, and say what I need to hear.
Every now and then I give myself permission to throw one down here on the blog, just in case it’s destined to connect with YOU, the person who’s decided to read today’s post. So, here’s the one I tore off from April 4th:
When you are in the flow with the Universal intelligence, you have unlimited access to all wisdom and all power to bring your dream into reality. When you are in tune with the infinite, you can feel the power of the energy rush through you, urging you on. Your heart is on fire with passion, you feel alive, and you know you are going to achieve what you conceived. You can taste it, feel it, and see it as though it is in your hands now. When you are in tune with this power, inspired action flows. It is like being on a river and being carried by the force of the current. Everything is effortless and you can feel the power of the Universe propelling you toward your desire.
Allen and I are co-owners of a company named “Epiphanies, Inc.” At the heart of our business is a belief that BOLD INSIGHT PLUS JOY-FILLED ACTION (aka “The A-Ha!“) is the key to happiness, success, and prosperity.
For today’s businesses - whether they’re solo-owned or multi-million-dollar joints - the high-payoff actions involve finding the right channels or platforms to blast out their messages, missions, or visions in powerful ways that connect with their Ideal Audience.
Right now, the channel and platform I have on hand is our blog. I’ve got a napping baby and very little time, but I’m getting THIS post (an imperfect mix of context, inspiration, ideas, message reinforcement, and reminders) to you.
Did it work? Was it worth it?
If you’re reading this post, PLEASE, drop a line in the comment field and let me know you were here. Let me know you took time out of your busy day to scan these words, and if you happened upon anything useful, entertaining, interesting, inspirational, or remotely impactful, please let me know what it was.
If anything, I just want you to see that, if you’re reading this - however you got here, and for whatever reason - even imperfect, quick blasts into whatever channel, platform, or “Content Catapult” you have at the ready is good enough.
Because, while I wish I had time to create all the YouTube videos, online tutorials, e-books, service packages, and information empires that are swirling around in my head, the only thing I have the time and tools to do today is to write this meandering post…
Which was inspired by my desire to share the April 4th “Secret” with you. 
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Mood Boosters | 1 Comment »
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March 29th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
 Thursday and Friday, the 27th and 28th, were the days of the Stonyfield Farm Entrepreneurial Institute at Southern New Hampshire University. We both went last year and loved it, and this year, with the new baby and all, it just wasn’t going to work that way.
 So this was going to be another part of Lani’s big “coming out” month - after needing to stay within a few yards of the baby for feeding purposes, this month she led Content Creation workshops at the all-day, 2008 MicroCredit-NH Entrepreneurial Exchange, and we planned for her to go to this as well, and stay overnight at her parents house. Without the kids. And get a full, unbroken night’s sleep.
Until….
Well, you’ll have to listen to the Entrepreneur Diaries entry below to find out how one little device (or lack thereof) changed the course of a couple of days.
(Not to mention yet another six inches of snow!)
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries | No Comments »
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on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries.
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March 19th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
Got 1 minute and 53 seconds? Then click the play button below, and you’ll get to hear:
- Baby laughter
- Lani making funny noises
- And, as this post’s title claims, a reminder of why we’re in business together - and why it’s pretty darn cool for spousal-preneurs with kids to be taking charge of their lives and incomes
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries | 1 Comment »
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on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries.
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January 28th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
I got a ping in my email the other day, telling me we’d gotten a new message on our Audio Acrobat line. And when I listened to it, I understood why I’ve been feeling a little crazy recently…but not nearly as much as my dear wife and business partner, since she’s on the receiving end of this so much more than I am.
The receiving end of what, you ask? Take your next 2 minutes and 33 seconds to find out.
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries | No Comments »
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on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 10:29 am and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries.
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January 6th, 2008 by Lani Voivod
Well, Boys ‘n Girls, here it is. January 6th, 2008.
One year ago today, I wrote a gigantic blog post about this day, the word “Epiphany,” and how “Epiphanies, Inc.” came to be the name of our business. (In fact, this is a dynamite example of yet another reason why I love blogging so much: It serves as an easily searchable database of your own personal and biz history, rants, musings, etc., so when you wake up at 4:44 am and decide to take advantage of the quiet and blog about the meaning and history of the word “Epiphany,” you can discover you already did the exact same thing one year ago today, link to that post, marvel at the fact that 365 days have passed in a blink of an eye, and move on to some other yet-to-be-determined riff on the day.)
In addition to it being the Day of Epiphany, and “Little Christmas” in Ireland, and Armenian Christmas, and the Rastafari movement’s celebration of the birthday of beloved Ethiopian Emperor (1930 - 1974) and religious symbol for God incarnate Haile Selassie, January 6th also marks the day:
 Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans (1690)- Samuel Morse first successfully tests the electrical telegraph (1838)
- Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin a her work amongst India’s poorest and diseased people (1929)
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address (1941), which inspired the the famous “Four Freedoms” paintings by Norman Rockwell (one of my very favorite artists and “A-Ha Yourself!” masters!) AND a monument of the same name
- Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding (1994)
- Joan of Arc (1412), Khalil Gibran (1883), Earl Scruggs (1924), and Rowan Atkinson (1955) were born
- Louis Braille (1852), Dizzy Gillespie (1993), and Lou Rawls (2006) died
(I nabbed all the above from the lazy person’s go-to information source, Wikipedia.org. If you’re dying for the complete list of things of note that happened on January 6th, check it out here.)
In other words, it’s a day loaded with meaning for us, and thus a perfect day to reflect, project, process, and rejoice at the exquisite and beautious chaos of it all.
Allen and I incorporated Epiphanies, Inc. with the state of New Hampshire four years ago, almost to the day (January 2nd, 2004, to be precise. Or so Allen tells me. I like to reinvent history and say it was January 6th, just for synchronicity of it.) So far, it’s been quite a ride.
We’ve had victories and defeats. We’ve struggled and soared. We’ve had big, ugly fights we thought would certainly jeapordize our marriage — but now, looking back, we know they made us stronger and forced us to learn how to communicate better.
We’ve balanced parenting and moving from the West Coast to the East Coast and first-time home ownership with learning everything we can about marketing and online communication tools and successful business strategies.
Last year, we:
>>> Released our first four info products out into the world
>>> Attended the Global Marketing Summit in Myrtle Beach, SC
>>> Made a bold ‘n very smart move and got an office outside of the home
>>> Landed a quote in a feature article on Forbes.com
>>> “Shared the stage with Adam Urbanski” at his reknowned “Attract Clients Like Crazy” Boot Camp
>>> Were among the the featured presenters at MicroCredit-NH’s Entrepreneurial Exchange Day
>>> Were invited to be a guest on Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman’s (aka “The Blog Squad”) Blogging and Beyond radio show
>>> Got a blogging article published in an awesome book loaded with expert advice on writing and how to market your writing talents
>>> Were invited to lead a workshop at the 24th Annual Governor’s Conference on Volunteerism
>>> Celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary (!!!!! Wahooo!!!!)
>>> Were asked to moderate a call for Melanie “The Entrepreneur’s Success Coach” Strick’s Ultimate Wealth and Success Circle monthly resource teleseminar
>>> Led three killer workshops for MicroCredit-NH, including: Brainstorm + Brand = BOOM!, Creating Added Value, and Plugging in Your Marketing Power Tools
>>> Were interviewed by Ali “The Ezine Queen” Brown as a success story on one of her teleclasses boasting attendance of 2000 other coaches, consultants, and small biz owners
>>> Became parents for the second time (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), and learned how to blog while breastfeeding
>>> Attended PodCamp Boston 2, and met David Meerman Scott , author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR
>>> Attended Fall Von 2007, the premier IP Communications trade show, to help VIP client Iperia manage their exhibition
>>> Finally got life insurance AND upgraded our health insurance to a premium plan that makes us feel like we value our family’s safety and well-being
>>> Submitted 15 original articles on www.AhaArticles.com (our affiliate link to article distribution service SubmitYourArticle.com), and were bestowed the honor of “Expert Author” status on EzineArticles.com
>>> Laughed a heck of a lot more than we did in 2006 (!!!!!)
>>> Posted 10 ADD Info Summits on everything from article marketing to social media
>>> Saw my little brother get engaged, buy HIS first house, and get married (!!!!!)
>>> Made nearly 3X as much money as we did in 2006, doing nearly everything with radical imperfection
Wow. I had no idea how much we’d done. No wonder we’re pooped.
To think, before I had the striking idea to actually scan through our blog archives to see what the heck we’ve been doing these past 12 months, I could only remember the giving birth and getting life insurance thing. Crazy and crazier.
All this month we’re carving out a solid success plan for Epiphanies, Inc. for 2008, so we can get over this feeling that we’re thriving — as a business AND as a married couple — by accident.
It’s a little scary and intimidating and more than a little overwhelming, this “planning” thing. It’s also fun and fascinating, and we’re excited to make 2008 the year we finally:
- Create a plan TOGETHER
- FOLLOW our plan
- Reap the rewards of our focused labor, including (but not limited to): More fun, more free time, more income, more overall prosperty, fewer headaches, less confusion, more confidence, and MORE SUCCESS TO EVERYONE AROUND US
So, on this Day of Epiphany, here’s mine:
Progress is more easily recognized and revered over time (say, over a 12-month period), than it is when you’re trying to find it at the end of a long day, when you’re collapsing into bed with your husband/biz partner and wondering where the time went, why it seldom feels like anything’s getting done, and how the heck you’re going to tackle the never-ending to-do list of life and business the next day, and the next, and the next…
And for a bonus EPIPHANY, I’ll say this:
I love, love, LOVE my gorgeous, talented, brilliant, kind, benevolent, wonderful, sweet, caring, loving, patient, extraordinary, creative, thoughtful, funny, fair-minded, courageous, and utterly fearless husband/biz partner!
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | No Comments »
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on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business.
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November 15th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Allen and I have had our hands full during the last six weeks or so.
Business has been flowing in like the tides during a full moon (thanks to Acorn Creative!). We just had a beautiful baby boy on October 5th who likes to socialize with us at all hours of the night. My brother got married three weeks ago, which was a glorious event all its own. Allen was in Boston for six days for clients and trade shows and podcast camps.
Plus, we’ve had to learn how to get mega points in the awesome adventure that is Lego Star Wars, because our 5-year-old son is ADDICTED, and had to buy Boba Fett at the Cantina in order to continue with his important mission of saving the galaxy from the evil Emperor.
So, it’s with less guilt than usual that I admit we’ve slipped a bit on our own marketing efforts. Our ezine has fallen off the schedule. Articles and press releases keep getting postponed. Website updates don’t quite hit the top priority list. It’s tough, because being consistent and strategic with marketing is what we preach to clients, workshop attendees, readers of our blog, and the world in general.
But something happens this time of year, every year, that makes us loosen our expectations. No, sadly, it’s not the loving preparation required to ramp up for the holiday season.
It’s FANTASY FOOTBALL.
This is Allen’s third year in a league that’s gifted us with the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat more times than I care to mention. (Why are running backs so inconsistent?! Who knew field goal kickers could make or break a season?!)
But Allen’s interest in this supremely odd social and cultural addiction of the male species is not only understandable but encouraged. According to a new book, Why Fantasy Football Matters (And Our Lives Do Not), “U.S. businesses lose $200 million in productivity each football season because employees are managing their fantasy squads instead of working.”
Unbelievable, ain’t it?
Obviously, you can’t fight this phenom, so you might as well join it. I just hope Allen makes it into the playoffs this year (and become the underdog who takes home the imaginary trophy!!!). The smile on his face is well worth the tens of thousands of dollars lost to productivity and abandoned marketing efforts, and I say this without a scoonch of sarcasm.
C’mon Allen - WIN THIS THING!
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 1 Comment »
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October 23rd, 2007 by Lani Voivod
You know, you may be more successful than me. You may be better looking than I am. Heck, you may even know how to use your universal remote control without whimpering or collapsing in a helpless heap of technology-induced angst.
But have you ever tried to click-clack a quick blog post whilst a small human being is suckling at your bosom?
Ha! I thought not.
This blog post, for me, sums up the core challenge of Lifestyle Entrepreneurs, or married business owners, or, in our case, both. Because while it’s certainly attractive to focus on the perks of owning your own business - an (allegedly) flexible schedule, optional showering, making your own rules as you go along…and changing them as fast as you make them, to name a few - the truth is, most of the time, the logistics are ridiculous.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
 Allen mentioned a couple of posts ago that we just had our second child. He’s a beautiful angel named Declan Frederick Voivod, born October 5th. Hs already traveled to the top of a mountain via a chair lift, danced with his momma at his uncle’s wedding, gone apple picking, and soaked in a sunset over Lake Winnipesaukee.
He’s also taken me right out of the working game.
Emails keep coming in. Opportunities arise. Time ticks on by, and I definitely have some work to do. But none of it’s life and death, and I’m in a New Baby coma, which is severely limiting (nay, eliminating altogether) my productivity.
Allen, God bless him, is keeping all the day-to-day fires in check. Bills still need to be paid, invoices need to be cut, work has to get done. My poor husband is taking care of it all. He’s positively sleep-deprived and has done more loads of laundry in the past three days than I’ve done all year, yet he’s keeping everything afloat, while I sit in various places around our house and let this hungry little fellow of ours drink in the sweet nectar of life.
 In the meantime, one of our cars has decided to make starting an optional feature, while the other one has requested we get it a new transmission. Our laptop is on our kitchen table, next to our 5-year-old’s kindergarten worksheets and, of course, our lovely breast pump. Dirty diapers adorn each and every trash recepticle around our home. Our dog is bitter about getting a demotion in the family’s priority tree, and is demonstrating his displeasure by tearing to shreads all of his “indestructible” chew toys.
It’s insane, I tell ya. Juggling life and parenthood and business and the pursuit of happiness. It’s maniacally, uncategorically INSANE.
And I know this because I’m reaching over my new baby’s body while he eats, poops, and sleeps (seemingly all at the same time), just so I can capture the insanity in a blog post.
Why?
Because the preservation and exaltation of this insanity is what makes this whole married-with-biz thing worth the price of admission.
(By the way, the photos above were taken by my extraordinarily talented friend, Michelle Goodearl. Check out more of her incredible work at www.MichelleGoodearl.com!)
Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 1 Comment »
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on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business.
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October 4th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
First, the blurb about it - then our own details:
Thousands of entrepreneurs come together to blast through the obstacles and clutter that hold them back. Success Connections’ National Clean Sweep Challenge is a FREE event geared to help entrepreneurs work less and make more. Register to receive a FREE value-filled toolkit, at CleanSweepChallenge.com.
Now, last year we joined in the challenge, and the following week was the biggest financial week we’d ever had to that point - over $6,000 in income, and it was a Labor-Day-shortened week!
 This time around, the Clean Sweep Challenge Day is happening October 5th, but we’re still dealing with labor - namely Lani, who started having contractions Wednesday around 2:30 in the morning.
Even now, as I sit across the office from her, she’s wincing and taking deep breaths every 8-10 minutes. (We were told to go to the hospital yesterday, only to be sent home seven hours later - don’t get me started about that.)
So it looks like the only clean sweep about to happen around here is the inside of Lani’s uterus, but we can’t recommend the Clean Sweep Challenge highly enough. It’s the brainchild of Melanie Benson Strick, “The Entrepreneur’s Success Coach,” whom we’ve mentioned a time or two on this here blog. She was even quoted in a recent Woman’s Day article about organization and the “clean sweep.”
And in the year that’s passed since we did the Clean Sweep Challenge, our home office - which was the target of the sweep - has undergone an extreme makeover. Bunk beds? Gone. Two cloests? Down to one. Two desks? Also down to one. A new paint job, new carpet (thanks to a bit of a water leakage issue), and a whole bunch of crap out of there…voila! Uncluttered and completely efficient.
What’s more, the effect carried throughout the rest of the house, and into our new outside-the-home office. Quite frankly, the only place that needs help now is the attic, since I’ve been throwing stuff around up there in the hunt for baby clothes, furniture, supplies, et cetera. It’s a good thing Lani can’t get up there to see, pregnant belly and all. 
I’m counting on being at the hospital during the Challenge this year - so maybe I’ll bring my laptop and Clean Sweep my computer. (How many old files and folders do you have that you don’t need anymore?)
Whether you do a virtual or physical version, though, please go for it! Download your Clean Sweep tools from Melanie’s site today. It truly was a life-changing, business-enhancing event for us. We hope it will be for you, too!
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