My favorite email from this week

Should I be on LinkedIn for home and office organizing?

Also, what do you think about dating in AA? (After having a year sober I’m considering one person.)

/13 Comments
13 replies
  1. Penelope Trunk
    Penelope Trunk says:

    People search for organizers on a local level because it’s something you have to do in person. Organizing is a popular job to do, so if someone searches on Google they will ton of results and it’ll be hard for you to get at the top of the results.

    You’d have to hire an SEO person and it’ll cost about $5000 and a few months. LinkedIn will be good route for you because organizing is your job and LinkedIn is organized locally, so you will rank high for your location almost immediately. And if someone is searching on LinkedIn they are willing to hire off LinkedIn.

    So, actually, as I write this, the advice is good for anyone who is doing a freelance service as their job. Even if it’s not inside an office, it works on LinkedIn because it’s your career. So use LinedIn to advertise your local service and rank high without paying a lot of money to an SEO expert.

    Onto the second questions: It’s interesting to me that some people form their questions so carefully. And work so hard to keep it interesting to me so that I’ll pay attention. And other people send one line. Quick. Random. I answer all questions — even the insane ones, because those are so good for publishing here, on Mailbag.

    I also like questions that are not necessarily in my expertise if I actually feel competent to answer them — and believe me, it’s a wide range of stuff that falls into that arena!

    I have a lot of experience with AA. I used to go to meetings with friends in LA who were addicts because in LA everyone was in LA. It was cool. I really liked the meetings – everyone there is trying so hard to be honest with themselves and other people. And maybe it’s just for that time, in that meeting, but I liked the respect people had in those meetings for the difficulty of addiction and honesty and human connection.

    So, dating in AA. I’m sure AA has an official position on this, because they have an official position on everything. But my opinion is that if you are only one year sober, that’s still so difficult, and dating someone in AA is only okay if the person is sober for a long time – like ten years.

    As a bulimic I can tell you that struggling with addiction is insane – it’s so so difficult and all-consuming. So struggling at the same time as a romantic partner seems like too much for a real connection to sustain.

    Also, maybe it’s good to focus on making good friends. Friends are so important for addicts because people in AA are not used to having friends while being sober and it’s important to learn how to do that. It’s much harder to trust someone to be your friend if you are not being an addict with them. It’s hard to learn how else to connect.

    But okay, I know everyone is not an addict, or willing to sit through AA meetings, but you don’t have to. You just need to surround yourself, sometimes, with people who are struggling to live honestly and with integrity. Sometimes I think that only means resilience, like who has so much resilience that they inspire you? Anyway, I like Ron Villano. He is present, and honest, and he does not hide how hard he has to work at that. His book is The Zing.

    Penelope

    • Jim Grey
      Jim Grey says:

      Brilliant, spot-on advice about dating during recovery. Every addict is on their own path, but my experience (and I have some here) is that a year in, most people are still doing a lot of internal personal work, and adding a relationship into that mix adds too much strain.

  5. Penelope Trunk
    Penelope Trunk says:

    OMG. I am so surprised by how many comments there are from people who hate AA. I was going to edit them. To make them not repetitive. But instead, I’m just summarizing that some people hate AA and think it’s a cult. Okay. So there are a lot of ways to live an honest life. I did not realize how controversial AA is. I mean, if I thought if you don’t like it don’t do it. So okay. If you want to write about how much you hate AA you have to post after midnight t0night. I feel almost as though there is a robot or something that’s responding. That’s how many comments came in.

    Penelope

  6. David
    David says:

    Not commenting on AA. I don’t know anything about it. But what do you think about people making their own book page instead of using Amazon’s author promotion materials? I’m preparing to do my own book publication materials and I want to know your opinion..

    • Penelope Trunk
      Penelope Trunk says:

      I”m not completely sure what you’re asking. But Ron Villano is selling the book from his own site instead of Amazon. This seems like a great idea because Amazon is not going to help him sell his book – he has to do all the promotion efforts himself. And on top of that, Amazon keeps all the data about book buyers for itself.

      So by selling the book on his own site, Ron gets to find out everything about his buyers. Also he doesn’t have to share that info with Amazon, which prevents Amazon from trying to sell Ron’s potential customers another book instead,

      This is a post about the book industry and why it’s smart to be responsible for your own book.

      http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/07/09/how-i-got-a-big-advance-from-a-big-publisher-and-self-published-anyway/

      Penelope

  7. Matty
    Matty says:

    I read his child passed. Because of that being worst thing a person could live through my thoughts are he has knowledge about which we can learn. People that go through that really know things. Ron I appreciate you

  8. Kaitlyn Kraemer
    Kaitlyn Kraemer says:

    the organizer should also post fun stuff on local craigslist. like they could do a snapchat-style blog because ads in craigslist disappear after a month. so like they post a tip about home organizing with enough of the right keywords and people will email them.

    i don’t actually think people search on google for home organizers. i think it’s a what my favorite advetsijng professor used to call “windshield moment” buy — where there’s been a physical ad posted on her neighborhood corner for months that says $200 to replace cracked windshield. but until their windshield cracked, they didn’t see it. and when they did, they were like, ah ha

    they could also troll the parking lots of places like container store or target and put business cards on people’s car windows. i hate when people do this but i bet it’s effective.

    also i feel like all groups that anybody is a part of has cult ish features. like me and your readers are totally in your cult. so it seems passe to me. adult life is hard and it’s so hard to make friends after college. i think all the time that what i actually got out of going to college was my two best friends. that it’s worth going to college because you’re buying life long friends. so everybody needs a cult after college. because college is just another type of cult.

    • Julie
      Julie says:

      Your Container Store tip is a good one, and I, too, hate stuff on my windshield. However, does the Container Store do in-store events wherein a vendor (the LW) could show an audience how to use key products? Kinda like REI does with its in-store workshops. I think THAT would be a fabulous opportunity and super fun, too.

    • YesMyKidsAreSocialized
      YesMyKidsAreSocialized says:

      “like me and your readers are totally in your cult.”

      No…just no. Penelope isn’t controlling us. Cults are bad. There’s a huge difference. Penelope gives advice based on her years of experience. There’s no leveling up, servitude, or mind control.

      I don’t know about AA- but I would listen to people who are calling it out.

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