Earlier this year when I decided to start See Jane Write Magazine and decided to start charging for some See Jane Write Birmingham events I knew I needed to turn my labor of love into a business. And so See Jane Write LLC was born. While I’m certainly not looking to get wealthy from this venture (I’m only trying to avoid going broke from funding See Jane Write programming out of pocket), I am always eager to get business advice. Earlier this fall I had the opportunity to chat with Sean Mabey, senior vice president and director of small business strategy at Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo prides itself on being more than a bank. Small businesses, Mabey says, can come to Wells Fargo for more than just a checking and saving account, but for business advice as well. “We, across the country, are hiring and training over 1900 bankers right now that specialize in small business and four hundred of those are in the Southeast,” Mabey says. “When they meet with the small business customer they can give them more than the basic checking and savings account. [This training] is going to allow them to do cash flow analysis. It’s going to allow them to understand how to run their business successfully.”

Mabey had these tips to offer for aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs.

You shouldn’t always trust your gut. Mabey says so often he sees new business owners who had an idea and some money and just jumped right in to entrepreneurship. Don’t plan to run your business on your gut. Do your research.

Never stop learning. “You need to look for ways to learn every day,” Mabey says, whether you’re learning from a CPA, a banker, a lawyer, or another small business owner.  “You need to seek wisdom every day and there’s so much free information out there it’s more of a case of finding it than anything else.”

Get help. “Surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing,” Mabey says. “You have to get yourself with a team of people that know what they’re talking about.” This team could include a banker, an attorney or advisors who have been successful in their own business ventures.

Develop the perfect pitch. Whether you’re drafting a formal proposal to potential investors or just working on your elevator pitch, Mabey says you need to be sure you can do two things: “Can you explain how you plan on making money and can you quickly explain what you do so that anybody understands it?”

Listen to Vanilla Ice. You read that right. Mabey, sharing a lesson he learned from Chris Hanks of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, says that Vanilla Ice’s famous track “Ice, Ice Baby” is actually chockfull of good business advice. You remember how the song starts: “Stop. Collaborate and listen…” Entrepreneurs need to get people to stop and pay attention, they need to gather people and work well with others and they need to get folks to listen to them. The entire song can be tied to entrepreneurship, Mabey says, “even all the way down to ‘Word to your mother.’ You need to pay tribute to all the other small businesses that came before you because you have to learn something from them.”

You could say that Daniel Stewart and Alex Wier of Augusta, Ga., ad ageny Wier/Stewart are entrepreneurial soul mates.

“Most people will tell you business partnerships fail, but we had the same idea of what we wanted to do to be happy and the same idea of what wealth was, so we courted each other,” said Daniel Stewart, Studio Director of Wier/Stewart.

“We decided that we didn’t want to wake up in the morning, realizing we were just chasing money. My idea of wealth is being able to go to the grocery store and get whatever food I want without looking at the price,” added Wier/Stewart Creative Director, Alex Wier.

The team at Wier/Stewart lives by the mantra of finding happiness in your work and shared tips on how to find such happiness at the Southern Coterie Summit in Athens, Ga., on Aug. 1.

Stewart and Wier were joined by Wier/Stewart Agency Development Director, Lee Heffernan, who previously worked in New York City marketing women’s television stations to advertisers and designing the Martha Stewart Pets market campaign. The team’s synergy and family-like business relationship was apparent from the moment they took the stage.

Together they drafted 12 steps to help rising entrepreneurs love what they do as sole proprietors and in business partnerships.

Check Your Attitude: Sometimes your attitude is the only thing you have control over. Clients appreciate a good attitude because it makes achieving a mutual goal easier and bad attitudes are apparent from workplace morale. When hiring, be wary of bad attitude red flags because if someone does have a bad attitude, they’re not going to suddenly get a better one.

Set Your Goals: Think five years from now and plan every step to get there. Many small businesses fail because they become complacent. Imagine what your business could do if it got a big break and plan to make it happen.

Assemble Your Crew: Don’t try to do everything yourself. Find people who are good at doing what you need to be done and don’t be afraid to delegate. Get people who are dedicated to the same things you are. If you’re worried about hiring someone, give the potential employee a trial period before hiring. But in gathering your team, you have to be okay with people making mistakes. Just make sure they have a positive attitude and want to get better.

Have a Revenue Model: Hourly rates can put you in a corner because someone may only want to pay you for two hours when it’s really a ten hour job. Consider having clients commit to a minimum number of hours, or set up flat rates for specific tasks. Don’t be afraid to ask to be paid what you’re worth.

Develop Your Process: Do a good amount of work on the front end to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Have several meetings with the client to establish what they want the finished product to look like before you begin work. And if the client wants you to do something that you wouldn’t be proud to showcase, offer alternative solutions so you can both agree on a professional end result.

Know What Works: Don’t be afraid to try new things and push the envelope, but know the basics of what works so you have something to fall back on.

Solve the Problem: The client may not know what the root problem is, but it’s your job to figure it out. Show people things they didn’t know they wanted. Think of creative ways to achieve their goals and help them reach new audiences.

Find the Void: Look for unique ways to capitalize. Think about your competition and evaluate what they’re doing, and, most importantly, what they’re not doing because that could be your ticket to a new opportunity. Be innovative with your business by finding the marketplace void.

Do Something Different: Step away from the traditional and think of ways you can incorporate new technologies into the client’s goals. Build better mousetraps everywhere you can.

Self-Promote: Do fun and creative things to get your business noticed. Try guerrilla advertising or fun office window decorations to attract passers-by.

Fire a Client: That’s right. Fire a client. If a client is unnecessarily difficult to work with and is making you hate your job, which means you’re not doing your best work, fire them. More than likely, if they treat you poorly, they treat others poorly, so potential future clients won’t think badly of you for firing them. In fact, firing a client commands a certain level of respect from people.

Plan for Growth: The No. 1 reason small businesses fail is because they didn’t plan for growth. Plan for the big order and the high profile client. And if a client asks you, “Can you get this done?” the answer is should always be “yes.”

About the Southern Coterie Summit: The Southern Coterie Summit, or Southern C Summit, is a conference series that brings the together “best of Southern brands, bloggers, businesses and an assortment of Southern creatives to collaborate, create and innovate.” The conference is an extension of The Southern Coterie: The Social Network of the South. For more information on the next conference in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 17, check out the Southern Coterie Summit website.

Mandy Shunnarah is a freelance writer and editor, and an aspiring novelist. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading, learning to letterpress, watching Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, and finding stray cats to cuddle with. Follow her on Twitter at @fixedbaroque and @awhitewrites.  

As senior editor of travel and integrated content at Southern Living magazine, Erin Shaw Street seems to have a dream job. After all she does get to visit places like New Orleans and the Florida Keys and call it work.

“It is a dream job,” Street says, “but it’s a lot of hard work.”

At Southern Living’s offices in Birmingham, Ala., Street manages all of the magazine’s regional travel content. Southern Living covers 17 states and six different regions, producing targeted content for each one. Street’s job includes managing freelance writers and staff editors, managing the Daily South (the magazine’s daily blog), and working on strategic initiatives across print and digital.

“I’m always working on multiple issues — editing copy, planning visuals, and figuring out the puzzle pieces of telling the stories of a large region,” Street says.

And, of course, as travel editor Street’s job obviously requires a lot of traveling.

“It’s important that I’m traveling the region to keep up to date on what’s happening,” Street says. “Part of my travel is reporting and the remainder of my travel is for speaking on behalf of the brand.”

You’re probably tired just reading about all the work Street does.

“People tend to only see the fun side, but there are a lot of sacrifices and long hours,” Street says. “This is a rapidly changing, competitive industry. Still, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

 News Woman

Street began her career as a newspaper reporter working in Birmingham, Ala., and Sarasota Fla.

Her years in the newspaper business taught her the fundamentals of reporting, writing, and working under pressure, Street says.

In 2001, she moved back to Birmingham from Florida and took a job at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she managed their quarterly magazine. She spent seven years there, eventually serving as the Director of Community Affairs, and thought she would continue in the non-profit sector. But when an opportunity became available at Southern Living in 2008 she seized it, first working for the Health & Beauty section, before it was discontinued, and then moving to the Travel department.

“As I learned to become a magazine editor, I also saw the need to learn digital skills, so I taught myself.” Street says.

And those digital skills came in handy when she helped the magazine launch its blog, the Daily South, last year.

“We launched the site nearly a year ago because we needed a portal for original, up-to-the minute content that reflects all areas of our brand: food, homes, garden and travel,” Street says. “Our editors are the foremost authorities in these areas, so the Daily South gives them a place to connect with readers 365 days a year. Also, as a brand we recognize the importance of being in the digital and mobile space. The Daily South is part of a larger effort to reach our readers any time, any where.”

The Daily South is just one example of ways Southern Living is striving to remain relevant.  They recently launched Southern Living Hotel Collection, a carefully chosen selection of four- and five-star resorts, hotels and inns, vetted by the Southern Living brand and offering the best in Southern travel and hospitality.

Loyalty and Longevity

Street believes Southern Living continues to survive tumultuous times in the magazine industry in part because of loyal readers.

“Everywhere we travel we hear, ‘My mother loves the magazine, and saves them all.’ This means the world to us,” Street says. “Our leadership has been strategic in continuing to provide loyal readers what they’ve always come to this brand for — service that reflects our pride of place as Southerners. We’ve also reached out to the next generation of readers, creating content that reflects their lifestyle.”

Summing up the Southern Living strategy, Street says, “We have to do things in bold, new ways, while staying true to our foundations.”

The Editor of the Future

For women hoping to develop a career freelancing for magazines, Street says it’s important to cultivate relationships with editors.

“This means taking the time to understand what kind of stories the magazine is looking for,” Street says. “Most of the pitches I receive are from writers who haven’t read the magazine and become familiar with our new formats. So when I get a carefully customized pitch, tailored to our format, it gets my attention.”

Street says it’s also important to consider the visual aspects of stories as well.

For those hoping to land a staff position at a magazine Street says “becoming a 360 editor is vital.”

Street recently attended an intensive magazine publishing course at Yale University where she and others in attendance spent much time talking about the editor of the future.

“She is someone with the ability to curate for a brand in print and online,” Street says. “Digital skills are a must now.”

For both aspiring freelancers and aspiring editors, Street offers this advice:

“To be successful in this industry you must know your reader, your subjects, have a voice, be able to handle a large volume of work, and be able to adapt to change. How we do things today will not be the same in six months or a year. Many people have struggled with the pace of change in this industry, but if you can adapt there’s still opportunity. Finally, the fundamentals — being able to tell a good story, staying on top of trends, and having an impeccable work ethic — never change.”

Birmingham-area readers, you can meet Erin Street and and other editors of Birmingham-based publications at the See Jane Write Meet the Press Media Mixer presented by Hamer Law Group. This is an invitation-only event. Invitations will be extended to See Jane Write members and sponsors. For more information email seejanewritemag@gmail.com.