Registration for the beta community is now closed, but phase two is expected to open Jan. 31st. You can wait ’til then, right? I knew you could!

Tada!

Quirkiprenuers are people who approach their businessy projects a little differently than the rest of the businessy world, and if you need more background, you might want to read this:  Are you a Quirkipreneur?

And as you’ve probably guessed by this post’s title, I’ve been thinking lately that we quirky business folks can be divided into two main types:

The Quirky by Nature.

There’s something about the quirky by nature that forces us out of the ordinary mold, forces us to find our own shape.

Maybe it’s a rebellious streak that just won’t conform.

Maybe we’re forced off the usual path by limitations of illness (mental or physical), finances, or education.

Perhaps it’s that our personality or creative process just isn’t suited to the button-down, spread-sheeted world. Sales meetings, PowerPoint bullets and conforming navy blue suits don’t encourage the risks involved in creativity, and the tools of the business world? Well, our lives don’t fit into the 8am-9pm schedule of a Daytimer… not when our best work hours may fall in the wee hours of the morning.

Or maybe we’re just inherently a little bit different than the other business people we know.

… or memorize it’s message.

I want you to breathe it into your soul.
http://youtu.be/_Y1j75i6xQ0

Text link: Have A Little Faith

Thank you for this, Jonathan Fields.

Somewhere in last week’s series on Gossip Drama Soup, I promised to explain how the whole internet marketing scandal relates to Circus Serene & the merry band loosely identified as Quirkipreneurs. Since both concepts are still evolving, I’ll start with how I currently define them:

>>> The Circus Serene (this site, yay!) is largely about process – the process of creating a fun, creative, successful business that reflects our identity and ideals.  So a lot of the content here follows thought processes, creative processes, productivity processes, or anything else that develops and evolves. (I just figured this out yesterday, so there’ll need to be a bit of tweaking done)

>>> Quirkipreneurs (still more an idea than a thing) is about business identity & community; an identity & community that supports people like me in our unique, sometimes difficult to define goals. A community that helps us find services geared to our needs, a community that inspires, instructs, troubleshoots, networks, and helps promote.

But this Gossip Drama Soup, everyone-is-a-scammer scandal thing? It’s made me second guess the whole idea of what I’m doing, and brought them up a whole lot of issues worth examining.  I’m going to tackle them one by one, over the next few days.  This first one I already ranted about, but it’s worth revisiting:

Issue #1:
Realistic Business Models & Expectations

Fox Mulder Lives!

Coming soon to a Zazzle Shop near you.

(I decided the illustrations I’ve been working on are simply too cool to bury in a blog post. )

Having spent the last few days in a summer-cold-coming-on haze, I’ve had plenty of time to think. It’s not been a very productive think, but it’s been a very long one, so there have to be a few gems in there, right? This is my Dayquil enhanced attempt to capture a few of those gems, in their rough and unpolished state.

Being a successful Quirkipreneur is more than just throwing your henna’d hands in the air and celebrating your weirdness while perching it jauntily atop your head like a set of off-balance antlers. (although I have to admit, that IS fun)

Being a Quirkipreneur means approaching your unique oddities and creative strange-ness with intent. It means honing your presentation and message until your weirdness evolves into a highly marketable & palatable brand.

Knowing just how to hone that presentation? It means understanding and accepting not just your own quirks, but the quirks of your Right People (and probably those of your Wrong People, too.)

Because as a Quirkipreneur? It’s not all about *you*.

So, This Empty Pole?

It looks lonely, doesn’t it?

That’s because it’s waiting on YOU, waiting to have your Quirkipreneurial community totem placed on it.

Which is seriously cool.

And pretty darn quirky.

Want the full fancy pants details?

Meanwhile…

Me, That’s Who.

Apparently, anyway.

I’m talking, of course, about the infamous “woo-woo”, a phrase used to mean spooky, spiritualist, crystal-laden irrational beliefs not based in science or reality. It’s generally used in a dismissive or self-conscious way, and I associate it with the spiritualist fraud séances of yester-year – you know, sheet covered ghosts that say woooo, WOOOOO!

“Woo” came up recently on Twitter, where the lovely Bridget Pilloud and Abby Kerr were discussing why we view it in a derogatory way, and if it can be rebranded, so to speak. They got me thinking (as both of them often do) and I realized I’ve been shying away from spiritual topics here on The Circus.

Turns out, I’m mind-numbingly, progress-stuckingly petrified of being perceived as “woo-woo”.

Note! If you somehow missed my Show & Tell spotlight on the Right-Brainers in Business Summit* you can still check out Emmit’s flashing circus lights for free until 9pm eastern, tomorrow night!

So, by now you’ve heard…

About Jennifer Lee’s The Right-Brain Business Plan, right?   I’ve certainly rambled on about it enough lately,  so if you *don’t* know, you probably stumbled in here from a search engine, looking for discount tickets to Cirque du Soleil or something. (You wont find those here, just for the record, but you’re welcome to stick around for the popcorn and sage-advice for quirkipreneurs)

Anyway, Jenn (that’s her lovely face up there) offered me the chance to interview her for the Circus.  I jumped at it, and this is the result.  Tada!

Tori: I’ve been talking with my audience, and while they’re really clear on the “Right-Brain” part, some of them still aren’t sure about what a business plan actually *is* — can you give a quickie explanation?

So, by now you know…

…that Emmit is my Celebrity Business Plan, right? And that some of his pages appears in the The Right-Brain Business Plan book by Jennifer Lee, right?

But did ya know that Emmit and I will be part of the incredibly awesome line up on the Right Brainers In Business Video Summit? And that you can sign up to watch it for free?

No? Well, dammit.

Someone must have neglected to tell you.

Someone like, say, me.