Salon de Maria Blog

When I worked at Nordstrom we were required to write two Thank you Cards a day to our customers.  Back then it seemed like such a hassle - after all, any time away from the floor meant that I was losing sales.  However, it wasn't until I left Nordstrom and began working on my own business did I realize the power of Thank You.

I haven't been consistent in saying Thank You to my customers lately, but today I'm committing to reviving the art of the handwritten thank you note.  Here's an example of what I would write in a thank you card to a jewelry client:

Dear Miss Customer,

I just wanted to drop a note to thank you for your jewelry purchase.  I hope that you are enjoying the necklace!  If you have any feedback, please don't hesitate to call or write to me. 

All the Best,
Maria
"Salon de Maria"

Very short and sweet, but hopefully it puts warm fuzzies in people's hearts.  It's rare to get a thank you note these days - and handwritten to boot!

If you just don't have the time to create your own cards like I do, CardsDirect has Thank you cards that you can purchase online.

However, you don't have to have a business just to send a card - why not send a Thank You to a friend just for being a great friend? 

By the way, have I told you "Thank You!" lately for reading this blog?  I appreciate you! 

Posted by Maria Palma at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As an entrepreneur and artist, I have many jobs and wear many hats.  What you may not know about me is that besides being a jewelry designer and writer, I've also designed all my blogs and do the marketing for every one of them.  This means one of the many hats that I wear is SEO Geek. 

I'm proud to say that I'm a SEO geek.  For those of you who don't know, SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" which basically means that I work on designing and marketing my websites so that the search engines can easily find them.  Any and every person who owns a website or blog should be familiar with some SEO techniques and tactics - especially those who create their own content. 

I've spent countless hours researching all the different ways to rank high in the search engines.  It's great to come across other artists and designers like the ones over at this seo blog who have a passion for what they do.  All the reading and research has been worthwhile as I am now able to help the clients I write articles for become more knowledgeable about search engine optimization. 

If you need help getting your website indexed and ranked in the search engines, feel free to contact me:  maria [at] salondemaria [dot] info

Posted by Maria Palma at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I watched this video that Steve Olson put together where he talks about living your childhood dreams...

My mind went back to when I was 4-years-old and asked my parents for a typewriter.  I wanted to be a secretary "when I grow up".  Even when some of the keys had fallen off from excessive use, I was still tapping away at that typewriter!  Thank God for computers because it was so frustrating to have a typo and have to put white-out on the paper.  Then you had to wait for the white out to dry!  I'm sure some of you can relate ;) 

My aha moment came the other day when I realized that I had taken for granted the fact that I have reached my dream of being a writer!  I somehow never did become a secretary...Well, actually, in some ways I did become one because my first job out of high school was working as a telemarketer for an insurance agent.  I also answered the phones and entered info into the computer. 

Those dreams of being a secretary were replaced with dreams of being my own boss and doing something I love.  It was five years ago that I was working at Nordstrom thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if I could be paid to write all day?"

Continue reading "Living My Childhood Dreams" »

Posted by Maria Palma at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's almost one in the morning and I've barely done anything I wanted to do today.  I should know better than to depend on a To Do list to measure my accomplishments...Yet, I feel overwhelmed - so overwhelmed that I'm frozen - unable to do anything period. 

And for what reason?  It's not like a have a boss breathing down my neck wondering why I decided to watch Nanny McPhee instead of work on building traffic to my blogs.  It was supposed to be a month of following bliss and yet, I feel guilty of doing just that!  Why, or why?

I could hire bloggers to contribute to my blogs and that would certainly take some load off, but that's a task in itself and just another thing to add to the To Do list.  I could also blog less...But would that affect my traffic? 

I keep coming back to this thought:

"It's not what you do...It's how you do it."  Exactly what does that mean and how does it apply to what's going on with my business right now?  What is The Universe trying to tell me? 

Excuse my "babble", but writing out my thoughts has helped me get a little more perspective on my feelings and is steering me in the direction I need to go...

This is all supposed to be fun, remember, Maria?  Nothing you can't handle and a cup of wine can't cure ;)
 

Posted by Maria Palma at 01:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been up until the wee hours of the morning still adding new products to my gift shop over at CafePress.  I figured this would be the perfect way to bring in some extra cash for the Christmas season!

I like sitting down and making handcrafted greeting cards, but right now I seem to be having more fun making graphics with Photoshop.  I like the idea of being able to create something within a matter of minutes.  Instant gratification! 

To the left is a BBQ apron with a picture of yellow daisies on it. I took the picture one day as I was strolling through the neighborhood... The picture on this mug was taken in Balboa Park in San Diego. I love the architecture of the museums and of course, what's a San Diego picture without palm trees!  Click on the pictures to purchase...

If you would like a product custom made for you, drop me a line:  maria [at] salondemaria [dot] info.

Posted by Maria Palma at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're looking for a very inexpensive way to get exposure for your art, take this idea from Barbara Rush. [via the Art News Blog] This is a very good idea to get seen by hundreds of people a day - depending on how much you drive, of course. I've actually done this with my old car. All I did was buy those letter stickers that you can get at any office supply store and put my website address on the back window of my car. Not only is this a very good for marketing vehicle (no pun intended), but now your car has become a tax write off! Ask your accountant how this could work for you...

For some more ideas on how to market your art business, I published an article over at Associated Content which offers a couple ways to get more exposure as an artist.

Also, here are a couple more tips to market your art business:

• Get free business cards from VistaPrint and always, always have them handy.  This is one way to market your art business that is so obvious, but is often overlooked.   You just never know who you're going to meet on a daily basis. 
  
• Print your art and website on a few t-shirts and give them to friends and family to wear around town.  CafePress is currently running a promotion - buy 3 t-shirts and get 1 free!
  

Do you have any marketing ideas to share?

Posted by Maria Palma at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)