The 100 Years Club Installment #115: From Whips to Wows

First, let’s talk about the whip thing.

When I was a junior in high school, I wrote the class-produced musical and served as both student director and prop master.

The show was about the dark side of the circus, and I went to Times Square (an “umbrella store” that I found in the Yellow Pages) with Sharon Feldman (my co-prop master) to find a whip for the lion tamer in the show.

It was my first exposure to the world of BDSM. If my over-protective mother had known, I would have been forbidden to take the subway into the city and definitely NOT permitted to buy a whip from some creepy dude.

But it certainly gave new meaning to the term “master.”

Now about my mother.

When I was cleaning out her home when she died at 95, I found my mom’s modeling audition shots. She never talked about that aspiration when I was growing up. She was always beautiful but had put all her time and energy into raising three kids, supporting her husband’s (my father’s) career, and (on a bad day) complaining about how selfless she was.

If Cynthia were still alive, she’d love my new personal brand.

But, like her, I put my own “persona” on the back burner for years for two reasons:

1. My family, career, and clients came first
2. I am an admitted ambivert — comfortable writing stories and promoting others rather than tooting my own horn. I was painfully shy most of my life and have been more comfortable at a keyboard, prop shopping, or building other people’s and companies’ brands ) than front-and-center on stage.

We’re living in a world where that horn (and perhaps even a loud whistle) seems mandatory, especially now that I have a powerful message to toot out there, and we all have a free tool (social media) to do it. That message is:

Aging is not a curse. It’s a gift and a state-of-mind.

You can do it like a bad-ass!

What I will (and won’t) do now.

I have given much thought to becoming a “public figure” and “quinfluencer” (quality influencer, a term I invented).

However, here are “Nancy’s Rules.” As you build out your own personal or business brand, think about how you want to be perceived online AND in the real world.

1. If I refer to myself in the third person (as I did above) more than once a day, my friends and family have my permission to slap me upside my head (not literally).
2. My brand is a combo of savvy and sexy, but I’m not going to just rely on the latter. I pride myself on fact-checking and one of the F’s in NANCYAF stands for that.
3. I won’t promote products and services unless I’ve sampled them, like them, and believe in the brand’s mission.
4. I am still pretty uncomfortable in front of the camera and often use “props” in my videos to give my hands something to do and to take the focus off my own face and voice.
5. In fact, I’ve learned that building a brand is very much like the stage production world. You need to:
   • Decide on your costume and props (brand)
   • Cast your costars (surround yourself with the right talent)
   • Find your stage (the marketing outlets to get your message out)
   • Get applause (awareness and engagement)
   • Most important, focus on “ticket sales” (KPIs and revenue)

The sad reality is that to effectively build any business today, you need to be a storyteller, a showman (or showperson), a model, and perhaps even a propmaster or mistress.

So, let me and my team help you whip YOUR brand into shape.

It won’t hurt.

Well, maybe just a little. 

After all, prosperity and progress always involve brain burn and financial sacrifice!

Just click here to see some examples of our “WOW” moments.