First thing I’m going to do…

Compile by Carol Michel

If you made the good decision to go to the annual conference this year in Chicago, how do you get your money’s worth out of it?  By following up! I asked members to send me information on the first thing they plan to do with information they learned at this year’s conference.

In no particular order…

Eva Monheim plans to redo her website and come up with three words to describe what she does. She was inspired to do so after listening to the keynote program  with Daymond John that we attended with IGC (Independent Garden Center) trade show attendees.  In addition, she and Louise Clarke are going to have their own one day brainstorming session to see how they can leverage what they learned and come up with a full strategy to implement a new speaking business.  She is also going to continue to work with Teresa Woodard on holding each other accountable for their lists of what they want to accomplish over the next year.

Mary Schier plans to set up a Google-Plus page because she learned in the session From Byline to Brand with Megy Karydes that doing so will make the Google gods happy and help with search engine optimization.

Kathy Purdy is going to get out her camera, its manual, and the handout from Mark Turner’s talk on Take Control of Your Camera and figure out how to set it on aperture priority, shutter priority and exposure compensation.

Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp attended Melinda Myer’s session “Build a Profitable Speaking Business” which she said reinforced what she is doing with her own website redesign.  Jo Ellen will be making sure her updated site emphasizes prime income producing areas and highlights how to contact her right up front.

Joan Calder plans to download the Grow It mobile app and use it to share her ideas and photos.

Amy Mullen plans to share what she learned from Roy Diblik in his session on “Creating and Caring for Perennial Plant Communities” with the staff at Spotts Garden Service where she works. She is also going to change her garden coaching approach afte attending Sue Goetz’s session on garden coaching.

Karen Kennedy is also thinking about how to approach the garden coaching aspect of her business after attending Sue Goetz’s session. And after hearing Megy Karydes talk “From Byline to Brand”, she is going to work on an update to her website.

Perla Curbelo also attended Sue Goetz’s session and decided her first thing is to edit her description of her coaching services to be more targeted and also review her fees.

Kimberly Toscano Holmes and Steve Moore both plan to download the PDFs of all the sessions, even those they didn’t attend.

Finally, Gail Hudson plans to reach out to folks she met last week and take to heart some of the advice from the session “From Byline to Brand”.

Me? I’ve already done my first thing which was to take a nice long nap.  And of course block my calendar for September 4– 7, 2019 for the next annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Now I can start in on my real first thing which is to improve my brand by adding a consistent headshot on all the various social media channels where I can be found.

What’s your first thing? How about a comment to tell us what it is and what session or discussion inspired it? Who knows, it might become someone else’s next first thing!

Meet the Author

Carol Michel is the author of Potted & Pruned: Living a Gardening Life, which received a gold award from GWA: The Association of Garden  Communicators, and Homegrown and Handpicked: A Year in a Gardening Life. She is also a lifelong gardener with a bachelor’s degree in horticulture production from Purdue University, an avid collector of old gardening books and claims to have the largest hoe collection in the world. She posts regularly on her award-winning garden blog, http://www.maydreamsgardens.com.