From an early age, Kristen Edens had always wanted to be a writer. Her parents supported her writing when she was younger but that support waned as college rolled around.  “Writing is a fine pastime, but it won’t pay the bills” is the basic message she got from her father.  So Kristin was ‘encouraged’ to find a more suitable career.  She spent most of college in a ‘parent approved’ direction but still manged to fill the rest of her curriculum with writing courses.  Kristen eventually obtained a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology, but it took another 10 years to find a job as an exercise technician in Cardiac Rehab. “I loved my job, but hated corporate politics. The commute, salary, gas prices, and scheduled hours made it more expensive to work than not to work. Lastly, I wasn’t challenged enough. So I quit my job to do what I had always wanted to do – write”.

The Great American Novel

Her original goal was to be a novelist, but when a church friend asked Kristen to write the tagline for his fly-fishing business, she was hooked on another branch of writing – copy-writing-.  Attending Michael Stelzner’s Copywriter’s Summit was also very helpful in getting her started.  “The freedom I value is to create my own schedule, to not wake by an alarm (something I think is healthy) and the ability and availability to care for my mother, my disabled partner, and to help raise my granddaughter. These are all challenges to balance with owning and growing a business, but wouldn’t be possible if I hadn’t escaped the 9 to 5”.
 Kristen’s business, Kris the Scribbler, provides copy-writing services for the health & medical niche (to utilize her medical knowledge) and garden & horticulture (because she loves gardening). Those niches were extremely difficult to break into which could have had something to do with the economy since this was in 2008/2009. “Be prepared for mistakes and failures—they will occur. It’s okay to feel blue when they occur, but regroup and get back on the road”.

Don’t Give Up

 Kristen continued on, exploring and expanding herself, her business, and her services to become what she is now: a content creation service and coach for business owners over 40.  “You will learn something about yourself, your business, your industry, and your clientele every day. Utilize this information to improve these aspects of your life. That doesn’t mean change every day, but it does mean review and apply when applicable”.  Kristen is also the founder of the blog, Grandparents in Business, in which she discusses business, branding, and midlife balance for the Sandwich Generation. Her services include content writing and development, copy writing, and Social Success for Introverts.

The Usual Mistakes

In the beginning Kristen made some of the classic mistakes of trying to do everything herself, not marketing enough, and finding a family member to do your website.  “I had no money to dedicate to it and my cousin was a web developer. Because she was doing this as a favor, however, it took her 16 months to complete it. While this was a drawback, I utilized the delay to implement other means of attracting clients”.  Kristen learned that attending networking events didn’t result in leads pouring in.  “I quickly learned to make marketing an ongoing process—not easy to do as an introvert. On the good side, I am now offering social success coaching for introverts who want to pursue their own dreams and goals, but feel weighed down by their quietness”.  Adding a virtual assistant was a turning point for her business. “Pretty soon I was making enough money to hire a social media manager”.

Kristen continues to grow here business providing content writing solutions for business.  She’s also continuing to build the Grandparents in Business blog & community.  Kristen is also starting to teach sessions on ‘social success for introverts’, coaching, and blogging on the topic. “A goal I’m developing is to speak at conferences and businesses about introversion and how to implement the strengths this way of being provides.  We all need to learn to live to be happy”.

Catch up with Kristen online at:

http://www.kristhescribbler.com

https://www.facebook.com/KristheScribbler/