Callie Simms

One of my favorite reads in LifeHack.org, the blog is fantastic, just about every entry discusses something that is related to professional and personal success. It it goes a step further to discuss the opposites of success; it addresses failure and fear, but then tells you how these things contribute to long-term success and how they shape who you become. Who you are directly effects the way your business runs and who you are effects weather or not your business is successful. If you aren’t positive, willing to take risks and adapt to the ever changing internet environment, how can your business flourish and grow? Well actually, it can’t and it will die.

So here is my favorit article this month “10 Skills You Need To Success At Almost Anything, a great little ditty about professional success.  It’s for the webmasters and business owners proactive and ready to take action in getting themselves noticed.

- Callie Simms

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What does it take to succeed? A positive attitude? Well, sure, but that’s hardly enough. The Law of Attraction? The Secret? These ideas might act as spurs to action, but without the action itself, they don’t do much.

Success, however it’s defined, takes action, and taking good and appropriate action takes skills. Some of these skills (not enough, though) are taught in school (not well enough, either), others are taught on the job, and still others we learn from general life experience.

Below is a list of general skills that will help anyone get ahead in practically any field, from running a company to running a gardening club. Of course, there are skills specific to each field as well – but my concern here is with the skills that translate across disciplines, the ones that can be learned by anyone in any position.

1. Public Speaking

The ability to speak clearly, persuasively, and forcefully in front of an audience – whether an audience of 1 or of thousands – is one of the most important skills anyone can develop. People who are effective speakers come across as more comfortable with themselves, more confident, and more attractive to be around. Being able to speak effectively means you can sell anything – products, of course, but also ideas, ideologies, worldviews. And yourself – which means more opportunities for career advancement, bigger clients, or business funding.

2. Writing

Writing well offers many of the same advantages that speaking well offers: good writers are better at selling products, ideas, and themselves than poor writers. Learning to write well involves not just mastery of grammar but the development of the ability to organize one’s thoughts into a coherent form and target it to an audience in the most effective way possible. Given the huge amount of text generated by almost every transaction – from court briefs and legislation running into the thousands of pages to those foot-long receipts you get when you buy gum these days – a person who is a master of the written word can expect doors to open in just about every field.

3. Self-Management

If success depends of effective action, effective action depends on the ability to focus your attention where it is needed most, when it is needed most. Strong organizational skills, effective productivity habits, and a strong sense of discipline are needed to keep yourself on track.

4. Networking

Networking is not only for finding jobs or clients. In an economy dominated by ideas and innovation, networking creates the channel through which ideas flow and in which new ideas are created. A large network, carefully cultivated, ties one into not just a body of people but a body of relationships, and those relationships are more than just the sum of their parts. The interactions those relationships make possible give rise to innovation and creativity – and provide the support to nurture new ideas until they can be realized.

5. Critical Thinking

We are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of times more information on a daily basis than our great-grandparents were. Being able to evaluate that information, sort the potentially valuable from the trivial, analyze its relevance and meaning, and relate it to other information is crucial – and woefully under-taught. Good critical thinking skills immediately distinguish you from the mass of people these days.

6. Decision-Making

The bridge that leads from analysis to action is effective decision-making – knowing what to do based on the information available. While not being critical can be dangerous, so too can over-analyzing, or waiting for more information before making a decision. Being able to take in the scene and respond quickly and effectively is what separates the doers from the wannabes.

7. Math

You don’t have to be able to integrate polynomials to be successful. However, the ability to quickly work with figures in your head, to make rough but fairly accurate estimates, and to understand things like compound interest and basic statistics gives you a big lead on most people. All of these skills will help you to analyze data more effectively – and more quickly – and to make better decisions based on it.

8. Research

Nobody can be expected to know everything, or even a tiny fraction of everything. Even within your field, chances are there’s far more that you don’t know than you do know. You don’t have to know everything – but you should be able to quickly and painlessly find out what you need to know. That means learning to use the Internet effectively, learning to use a library, learning to read productively, and learning how to leverage your network of contacts – and what kinds of research are going to work best in any given situation.

9. Relaxation

Stress will not only kill you, it leads to poor decision-making, poor thinking, and poor socialization. So be failing to relax, you knock out at least three of the skills in this list – and really more. Plus, working yourself to death in order to keep up, and not having any time to enjoy the fruits of your work, isn’t really “success”. It’s obsession. Being able to face even the most pressing crises with your wits about you and in the most productive way is possibly the most important thing on this list.

10. Basic Accounting

It is a simple fact in our society that money is necessary. Even the simple pleasures in life, like hugging your child, ultimately need money – or you’re not going to survive to hug for very long. Knowing how to track and record your expenses and income is important just to survive, let alone to thrive. But more than that, the principles of accounting apply more widely to things like tracking the time you spend on a project or determining whether the value of an action outweighs the costs in money, time, and effort. It’s a shame that basic accounting isn’t a required part of the core K-12 curriculum.

What Else?

Surely there are more important skills I’m not thinking of (which is probably why I’m not telling Bill Gates what to do!) – what are they? What have I missed? What lessons have you learned that were key to your successes – and what have you ignored to your peril?

On October 15th, more than 2,000 blogs around the world will write about poverty and will participate in Blog Action Day. I encourage everyone to join in. I know I will. - Callie

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Kudos to Colleen & BuzzNetworker for posting this! Blog Action Day has several resources to assist bloggers through the event as well.

What does a pornstar, sex worker, escort or fetish model do after they retire?

When do they know it’s time to retire? Is there a specific way to retire? Or should they just take a long, open ended hiatus?

Is there a plan for retirement and leaving the adult entertainment industry?

Can you successfully leave this industry and never come back?

These are all the questions an adult entertainer asks his or her self every year. Should it be this year or should they be in one more?

Retirement is a complicated decision; there are no simple answers.

To me, retirement has always been a personal decision that’s based on a person’s mental state of mind and what point they are at on their life path. When the time came for me to make this decision, I spent a great deal of time researching retirement. I talked to women I know who have successfully retired, I talked to women who have retired and come back.

And what I’ve surmised is that, once you are part of the adult industry, it is very difficult to leave it. Finding “mainstream work” is often difficult because of the stigma that attached to the profession, adding “Pornstar” to your resume when interviewing for a job isn’t actually helpful in most cases. Many entertainers choose to omit it, but then it creates gaps in their resumes that they then have to lie to fill in.

In my research, I found this absolutely amazing post on Kink.com’s Blog that hit the nail on the head (they are the leader in Fetish Kink porn and now I believe they deserve some kudos for showing another side to their talent’s lives). As you can see, the women are women are very different in their daily lives and dress than they are on camera, just like any mainstream actor you see on the big screen.

Here are my opinions and beliefs on retirement:

In the adult industry, you have a shelf life. For a porn stars, it’s usually 2-3 years (there are always exceptions, if they become a major brand with a huge following, there is a lot more to leverage) on film. Then they usually become sex workers afterwards or start directing and producing themselves.

For a person who’s never been on the camera end of the adult business and entered the business as a stripper, prostitute or dominatrix, it’s a bit longer. My belief is that one has a “shelf life” of about five years (there are some amazing exceptions to the rule). That is based on a few factors, including: time in the industry, growing/refining/changing the services offered (and experimentation with the brand that is one’s professional persona) and the area in which an entertainer works. It’s a harsh reality, but in general, the clients that get used to men and women in a certain area and eventually will get tired of them. The area dries up and the entertainer has to relocate and/or reinvent their persona (but that’s another blog I will write at another time).

I started in the adult industry in 2004 and worked in different aspects of it and I still work. But in 2007, I started planning my exit strategy. I took my background that I had tabled for a few years and combined it with my (sometimes hard learned) adult entertainment knowledge and started my own adult marketing and web development firm. I continued my “professional” working as I simultaneously worked to develop and establish a company with a unique business approach and voice.

Two weeks ago, I decided (as I thought through all the questions above) it was time to retire myself and focus on what I want most, which is to continue growing the company. So my own retirement is based on personal goals and desire and wanting the next step.

It’s scary really, I feel what I am doing is still in its infancy, I am further along thank I think. Mainly because of my transparent business style and sheer neurotic drive to create the next enriching part of my life. I am lucky to be able to combine my adult experiences with the education I received in college (marketing/English degree) and create a company built upon my passions.

So here I come world, an retired escort/dominatrix/3-porn movie star - turned amazing adult marketer & adult SEO guru.

And here’s to all those who’ve retired and dared to to take the next step.

And if that retirement brought you back, awesome. Kudos for taking the time to discover what was best for you for a short period of time. Worked should be based on passion, no matter what work it is.

NOTE: I promise a more in depth exploration of adult industry retirement. There is too much to be crammed into on one post.

We understand that not every is ready for a fully customized, heavily marketed website when they first enter the adult entertainment business. We have created a sister agency, Exotic Blog Design, that offers semi-custom web design and marketing services for adult business entrepreneurs who are just starting out. The goal of Exotic Blog design is to offer a do-it-yourself marketing solution for new businesses that promote business growth.

Our Goal For Our Clients is Business Success

We want all of our clients to be successful, so when their businesses have grown by astronomical proportions, we want them to come back to us to when they are ready take their prosperous business even further. We want to be the company they choose when they are ready for a custom design & marketing solution. The design company they will know and trust in moving forward with. The best adult marketing solution for their business for years to come.

Website/Blog Design packages are priced at $450 - 800 and include semi-custom design, hosting, copy editing, keyword word optimization, SEO marketing set-up. To learn more, please visit ExoticBlogDesign.com.

So I recently starting reading Stephanie Chandler, an remarkably business savvy woman and self publisher. Stephanie has found remarkable ways to make money via blogging, eBooks and online products. Her most notable eBook, FROM ENTREPRENEUR TO INFOPRENEUR: MAKE MONEY WITH BOOKS, E-BOOKS AND INFORMATION PRODUCTS, is more than read worthy.

What most adult business owners and webmasters don’t understand is that there isn’t some secret way to make your content more mainstream. Adult-oriented content is already mainstream. The question is, “How are you going to make your content/product appeal to a wider audience?” Well, its not through black hat marketing techniques and thousands of link backs. By taking mainstream approach (meaning that you have a well thought out, target strategy) you can increase the appeal of your content - writing, merchandise, erotic films, photography - beyond your wildest beliefs. Having a marketing professional who understands that success isn’t just reliant on the newest web 2.0 strategies is crucial.

You or your marketing person must understand that marketing is just one aspect of your business that makes it successful. Merchandise distribution, publicity, advertising and live events are all work together to help you meet your end goals and generate revenue. And by becoming an expert about your product/services/content/industry is a great place to start. - Callie Simms

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No matter what kind of business you’re in, you are an expert in something. One powerful way to grow your business is to become known for what you do best. Because experts are the go-to people for services and products, establishing yourself as an expert gives you an edge over the competition, generates interest from prospects and builds loyalty with clients. Following are strategies that you can use to elevate your expert status.

ESTABLISH THE FOUNDATION

Own it: First, believe you are an expert. Second, claim it. Get over any fears that you don’t have all the answers because nobody does. Give yourself the title of “XYZ Expert” or “XYZ Specialist.” When you believe it, others will too.

Leverage Credentials: If you have any special education or certifications, you are already an expert. Make your credentials known.

Develop Your Skills: Make it your quest to continue learning. Stay on top of industry news and trends, read books, attend trade events and continue to hone your skills.

Subscribe: Read all relevant news, trade journals and related information for your industry so you’re always in the know.

Promote: Write a bio that describes your expertise and publish it on your website, business cards, and anywhere where you have the opportunity to showcase your experience.

CREATE LOCAL VISIBILITY

Networking: Get to know other people in your community and build relationships. Consider joining chambers of commerce, Business Networking International (BNI) or other networking-focused organizations.

Trade Associations: Take a leadership role in a related trade association and watch your visibility grow.

Volunteer: Donate your time and expertise to a worthy cause. Not only will you derive satisfaction from a good deed, but you can gain valuable exposure and contacts.

Lead Meetings: Form a local group or association and conduct regular meetings. Promote your group through Craigslist.org, Meetup.com and community calendars.

Lead Change: If your industry requires some activism, get involved in making positive changes.

LEVERAGE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Consulting/Coaching: Consultants are naturally viewed as experts. Provide one-on-one or group coaching services.

Write a Book: Becoming an author solidifies your status as an expert and gives you credibility with the media. A book is one of the best business cards you can have.

Develop Information Products: Ebooks, special reports, workbooks, booklets, teleseminars and videos can provide opportunities to showcase your expertise. Give them away for marketing purposes or turn them into valuable revenue streams.

Teach: Teach classes about your subject at local colleges, adult learning centers or online. You can also host workshops at your place of business or a rented meeting room.

Speak: Whether you speak for free or for a fee, speakers are considered experts. Start locally and then look for national opportunities.

SPAN THE GLOBE

Pump up Your Website: Make sure your website reflects your expert platform. Commit to developing the proper content along with an online marketing strategy (search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, etc.).

Publish Articles: Write for trade newsletters, newspapers and magazines for instant expert status. Take it a step further and syndicate your own column.

Get Quoted: The media relies on experts to add credibility to their stories. Work on building a publicity strategy in order to get quoted in local and national news.

Publish a Newsletter: Covering news for your industry builds credibility and an audience. An electronic newsletter can be an affordable and effective tool for experts.

Form Strategic Alliances: Develop partnerships with others who compliment what you do and who can help you expand your reach.

Survey: Conduct relevant surveys for your industry and publish the results.

White Papers: Write and publish technical papers covering topics related to your industry.

Form a Group: Host an online group through Yahoo, Google, CollectiveX or another group site and develop a visible leadership role.

Host a Show: Local radio and television stations could be the launching ground for your new show. The Internet also provides an excellent venue for hosting show. Search Google for “Internet radio” to find dozens of hosting options (typically for a fee).

Social Networking: Create profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn.com, FastPitchNetworking.com, Facebook.com and any other social networking sites that appeal to your target audience. Take advantage of opportunities to connect with others, participate in groups, and spread the word about what you do.

Blog: Build an audience and get your voice heard by hosting an interesting or controversial blog.

Many of use Twitter. And all who use it, become ADDICTED. And everyday - at least three times - we get the dreaded “Twitter is Over Capacity.” The Whale, fails. We proceed to beat our heads, scream and shout obscenities.

Like an addict & withdrawals, we are unpacifiable until the whale stops its fail and our Twitter returns.

Well, what happens when Hitler’s twitter fails (it’s supposed to be funny, not upsetting).

Click: HERE

The Spread Magazine blog always has the best posts.

To me, the term “high class” can’t and shouldn’t be defined by rates on a woman’s website. High-class is defined by personality, the perception of  one’s self and a women’s view of her SELF WORTH.

- Callie

Here is the blog post:

I’m officially over “high class escort” hysteria.

I get it, we all get it: these women charge a lot per hour, therefore they must be the best looking, and the best lay, and their sexy, glamorous lifestyle makes them seem more on par with celebrities than it does other sex workers. Except for the fact that those assumptions often aren’t even true. And, sadly, “high class” callgirls are the only sex workers allowed a voice in the media, the only group to whom they will regularly give a platform. Not only is this particular brand of sex worker visibility criminally exclusive, but it’s perpetuating a series of ugly stereotypes, even when the callgirls in question are being contracted to allegedly dispel myths about their work, as is the case with this Salon “Ask A Callgirl” feature. Asking questions like “what about Belle can you relate to” doesn’t actually address any of the problems inherent in the media’s understanding of a “high class escort.”

First, let’s stop with the “upscale” and “high class” nonsense. Using those terms as a descriptor for sex workers is classist and inaccurate. Just come out and say “expensive.” Would anyone actually call “Kirsten” from the Spitzer scandal “high class”? I have nothing but love for the girl, and I wish we lived in a world where she could have been spared the entirely unethical “outing” by the media, but she’s preparing to do a reality show on E!. She stole or at the very least used someone else’s driver’s license to appear on Girls Gone Wild. She’s entirely entitled to do what she wants, but she’s not a poster child for elegant behavior. Class and expense should not be confused. (Do we have to read some Edith Wharton novels together and discuss the garish excesses of the nouveau riche to prove this point?) And why is anyone using a euphemistic term for a sex worker’s price in the first place? There are plenty of other aspects of escorting you’ll want to save the euphemisms for.

Next, for all the laypeople reading this, I want to assure you that many expensive escorts do not look like supermodels. They have shapely bodies, well-groomed hair, freshly done nails, nice clothes, and, like most fashion models, they’re probably white. But they might not be girls you’d even look at twice on the street. I’m not saying they’re not beautiful. I’m saying that what our society recognizes as being quantifiable, financially reward-able beauty doesn’t really apply here. It’s the wrong rubric for judging price when it comes to all sex workers, not just the expensive ones. Please, trust someone who knows. I could ask the pricey escorts I know to line up among women who charge half as much, and you wouldn’t be able to parse who’s who. With that said, let’s also not forget that many of the women making hundreds of dollars an hour are working with agents who take a considerable cut. The escort is still making bank, especially when you factor in tips and gifts, but if she’s working for an agency, only half of that fee is going towards maintaining her glamorous lifestyle. The other half is for the glamorous madam.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The obvious media assumption is that girls who charge the most per hour make the most money, although I’ve had several “high class escort” friends comment that their route is not the way to make the most money, and if they wanted to make more they would charge less. Charge less? Yes! Let me school those of you who don’t know on why that is.

Women who charge hundreds of dollars per hour—at least, the independent ones—often don’t do this as a full-time job. They might be seeing clients only once every two weeks, or even once a month. It’s like a gym owner charging $400 an hour for a her private training sessions. She’s not charging that because there are people lined up around the block clamoring to cough up $1200 a week to do some bicep curls. She’s doing that because she doesn’t want to spend most of her week training people, and when she does, she wants it to be damn well worth her time.

Here’s a fact: the less an escort charges, the more people she can see. If she lowers her rate by just $50, suddenly dozens of men who thought they couldn’t afford her before will be ready to book an appointment. Some women don’t want that—they want their prices to be a means of screening. And they don’t want to see multiple men in a week, or a day. But other women just want to keep up the volume, because they know that there’s money in volume. If Escort A charges $500 an hour and sees only one person a day for two hours, while Escort B charges $250 an hour and sees four people, it’s true that they’ve made the same amount of money at the end of the day. But guess who’s more likely to have four more people ready to see her tomorrow, and who may be waiting three days for her next date? How many people have a regular $500 of discretionary income? How many people have $250?

Understand that I’m not impugning anyone’s appearance or financial success. I know there are escorts who were models, look like models, are prettier than models. And I know there are women who charge a lot and are in high demand. But I want to do away with “high class escort” in it’s current incarnation, to do away with the package of assumptions of which it’s composed. In the end, it’s just another way to minimize sex worker voices and to erase the complexity from a tangled profession. It’s just another way to misrepresent us and the work we do.

I have been a bit quiet for the past week, wow - life is a whirlwind storm and we get caught up in it. I logged in to spend the next six hours on this site (Go Callie, Go Callie) and I found some interesting comments and links. I have been TAGGED by Peridot Ash. Peridot, (whom I am going to fantasize about tonight because I am in love with her writing) is a beautiful woman that has successfully added herself & her new webspace to the many strong voices female sex workers online. Her post on today on “Gratitude” struck me and I am writing my five things (below), and what’s more, I am going to follow her example and I will write a “gratitude related” post on the 5th of every month also

Here’s my list:
1. Self-realization & actualization
2. My fabulous living space
3. My cat
4. My best friend
5. Everyone who has ever taught me anything, both good and bad

Tagged: Carl La Fong, Dark Gracie, Debauchette, Spread Blog on “High Class Whores”, Kimberlee Cline and Peridot Ash.

If you’ve been tagged, write a post on your blog with a list of five things you’re grateful for. Then tag some other bloggers.

In writing my last post on Google and page rank importance, I started looking for information on the Importance of page ranks and Google. And who I found was the Google Guru God, Chris Beasley. Chris is the authority on most things Google. His article - 10 Google Myths Revealed - cover the most common misconceptions in regards topage rank and what should be and shouldn’t be used for. It’s a must read, especially if you think Google uses meta tags to rank your site,  the higher your Google PageRank (PR), the higher you’ll be in the search results listing or the the Google Toolbar will list your actual page rank.

Recently, a few of my clients have asked me, “Just How Important Is Google and Page Rank? ”

Google itself is very important. It’s the world’s most popular search engine and it powers Yahoo! and AOL. Being listed is crucial for successful online marketing. But Page Rank doesn’t hold the weight one my think it does.

What Marketers & Business Owners Use Page Ranks For

Google Page Rank is said to be “for entertainment value only,” but marketers and site owners use it for a variety of things:

1. To determine the value of a site
2. To determine the trustworthiness of a site
3. To determine the safety of a website & how credible a site is compared to that of it’s competitors’ site
4. To determine how long a business has been around

Well, I don’t think it’s reliable for any of those reasons:

1. What do you define and quantify a site’s value? There is not real formula to determine this.
2. How can you determine trustworthiness from page ranks? I don’t believe a site with a with a PR6 is better get information off than a site with a PR3. If the information on the site with the lower PageRank is better, then that is were I am getting my information from.
3. Safety relates to trust. If I am looking to purchase goods and I find two sites that have that product, and Site #1 has a PR6 and Site #2 has a PR3, but Site #2 has the most security options for online transactions, I am going with Site #2 as it clearly cuts my risk of online identity theft.
4. This is irrelevant, you can’t use a website’s pagerank to determine professional reliability. I often design sites for companies that have been in business 5, 10 or even 20 years, but they haven’t had a web presence until now. So while their site may be a year old, but they themselves has a long solid history outside their web presence. Also, may old sites that have not been optimized properly or that don’t have many links to have have low page ranks.

So if you site isn’t ranking, don’t fret. Generally a new site will have a PR 0 for a few months (on average - SIX) until Google does a PR update. And remember, page rank doesn’t single-handedly determine where your site shows up in the searches it’s in. If Google “thinks” your site is about the search given, and others aren’t, you’ll move up. (Where “thinks” means, “can determine from links to your page, linguistic and text analysis, query analysis, etc”) For example, if it’s a multi-word search, and your page is the only one to have all the words, you’ll most likely show up first.

The only real benefit of a high PR is better organic search rankings, which can be achieved by a well thought out marketing strategy.

One of the most debated topics among sex workers is “Can you be a sex worker and have multiple identities? Is it ethical and right?”

My answer isn’t yes or no; I believe that having multiple identities is a sex worker’s personal choice. What’s right for one woman, is wrong for another. The better question to ask is “Why would a sex worker have/want multiple identities?” And furthermore, I think it’s important to ask, “How does a sex worker prevent them from conflicting with one another?”

As any well designed escort website, having multiple identities has to be a thought out and there has to be a reason to having more than one persona.

What are the Reasons Why Women Have Multiple Personas?

Usually, a woman who offers more than one service find that her services offered don’t mix well together went put on one website. If a she is a sensual massage provider, and she wants to offer escort services, she may have decided to create a new person with an entirely different website was the best way to differentiate massage and companion services. Why would this even be necessary? Most likely, she doesn’t want her massage clientèle to think that they could see her for companionship at her sensual services rates.

Another reason could be that she has personal issues with escorting and feels that in order to make the work worthwhile, she wants to command a much higher rate with multiple hour minimums. Thus, her regular incall sensual services aren’t compatible with her companion services, and multiple identities helps maintain the distinction between her businesses.

So then, if a provider has two different personas and websites, does she ever cross the personas?

The majority of women don’t mix their services. There are a few that choose to reveal their other identity with established, long-term clients. But once a woman begins to blur the lines between her personas with her clients, she will encounter boundary issues.

Scenarios When Multiple Personas Are Okay

• Multiple Hour Escort & Dominatrix
• Multiple Hour Escort & Sensual Services Provider
• Adult Entertainer (Pornstar/Actress) & Escort Persona

Scenarios Where Multiple Personas Aren’t Okay

• Several Escort personalities with various price ranges ($250, $400, $1000)
• Several Sensual personas
• Several Domme persona
• Any combination of personas that cause drama and fight with one another on forums
• When a woman is well-known her area and is easily identifiable.

How Does A Sex Worker Keep Personas Separate?

Well, that it’s in the marketing. If a woman offers sensual services in her home area, then she may want to focus her escort persona on seeing out of town and non-hobbyist men. The escort person will not and should not post/ advertise on message boards. She has to pay for premium advertising on a websites such as EROS or Cityvibe. Every website she has should have a completely different design, photos and marketing strategy. Another option is that her escort persona travels and she isn’t available as an escort in her local area.

If a woman offers BDSM/Fetish services and also has an escort persona, those two are also easy to distinguish because the advertising and marketing outlets are completely different.

How Does A Sex Worker Maintain Anonymity?

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the website of any persona should follow the model of any well-marketed, professionally designed escort website. It should have clean design, easy navigation, simple copy and have the proper search engine optimization. Why? Because it’s the first step in maintaining anonymity between personas!

• The design of website and tone of the writing should not match a woman’s main persona, it’s the first thing people look for when identifying/outing someone.
• A woman will also need different photos, even having them taken with different photographers is not out of the norm. Locations and lighting go a long way. Different photographs are another way to distinguish two personalities; each persona has their own lingerie and outfits. If a woman can pull off fake hair and wigs, that works amazingly well. If proper compartmentalization, discovery is minimal. It’s all in the marketing and presentation.
• A woman should have separate email addresses and contact information for each persona. It’s a pain in the butt cheese, but if a woman is going to go to all the work to have multiple sites, it’s one more step she has to incorporate into her business. It would be an insult to be outed by someone who was just able to Google a phone number.

How Are Women with Multiple Identities Outed?

The chances of this happening is very low if a woman keeps the identities compartmentalized well. But it’s not impossible. When a woman is outed, she usually is responsible for it. A woman fighting with her other persona in order to generate business on a board will find this strategy will only blow up in her face. Board owners & members pay attention to drama and guess what, they also log IP address and access points. The second most common way for a woman to be outed is by a hardcore hobbyists, these are not regular men who seek the services of sex workers, they live in the “hobby world” and have more reviews than most women on the board. In their free time, they crawl boards and look for Eros ad numbers/names. They then post the information.

What Does A Sex Worker Do When Multiple Identities Are Discovered?

When this happens and if it’s true, I believe a woman should OWN IT. She can say, “Yes, it is me, but you know what you see WHY I have two separate identities, there is no service overlap”. And therefore, no breach of “ethics”. If the proof isn’t conclusive, then a woman may choose to deny it. It only becomes a big deal if the provider makes it a big deal.

Is there anything else to consider in having multiple identities?

Yes, please keep in mind, that the more personas a woman has, the more time, effort and money she will have to invest in each. So plan accordingly. If it takes 16 hours ever three months to update ads, refresh website copy and add new photos, that time will double with each personality. At this point, some women have their webmasters help them maintain their sites by managing banner exchanges, reciprocal links, photo changes and even ghost writing blog entries. In an industry where time is money, it’s not a bad idea.

It’s been an amazing year for me. I never thought I would accomplish so much so quickly.

This Adult Marketing, D.I.Y. SEO blogging girl is quite proud of herself. I have finishing up my next series of eBooks on “Adult Marketing, Do It Yourself SEO and Alternative Escort Marketing Strategies” in the next month. I am also writing a short series of shorter publications on “Effective Adult Copywriting Methods & Techniques” and “Escort Branding”.

Site Additions - Book & Blog Reviews

I am adding blog & book reviews of industry and non-industry related publications websites. At the SummerMash LA, I had the pleasure of meeting Rohit Blharagava, the author of “Personality Not Included - Why Companies Los Their Authenticity & How Great Brands Get It Back.” I will be reviewing the book, but from the adult industry perspective. Should anyone want me to review a book, blog, or eBook they write or have authored, please send it to me at callie@calliesimms.net.

With the eBook launches, I am going to giving away my first book absolutely free. Just right click and save the PDF.

In our staff meeting on Friday, we were talking about services to improve or expand. I was like - ummm, pimp your Mac gear. No, not literally, I meant promotional pieces like screen savers, desktop backgrounds, custom wallpapers for your iPhone and BlackBerry devices.

Promotional items are great way to keep clients returning to your site and promote your brand. Ever wonder way certain shops have amazing packaging (Tiffany’s)? Because the customer is a walking billboard, promoting their brand as they shop. It’s that can be more fiscally sound strategy that works hand-in-hand with advertising/publicity campaigns.

If you have a online store or member’s area, you can sell the custom digital calendars applications to your clients and site members

Best of all they, aren’t just for Adult website owners, Bloggers, you can have them too! Can you think of a better way to leverage your loyal subscriber base than to let them promote your blog, podcast or video channel with their PDAs! T-Shirts and coffee mugs are so Web 1.0

By designing promotional material that your customers want, you will will build customer loyalty, drive repeat traffic and increases revenue

Visit our Design Site for more information.

Blue Collar SEO is one of my favorite reads. Recently, they wrote an excellent article about hiring SEO professionals. The article is well thought out and discusses basic search engine optimization techniques that any firm should be able to discuss with a perspective client. Best of all, it highlights ethical practices by search engine marketing specialists.

It is important to “avoid a Search Engine Optimization firm that engages in unethical and illegal practices (black hat techniques) just to increase the number of visitors to your sites” and “avoid a Search Engine Optimization firm that is vague about how it is going to optimize your website.”

The same goes for any Adult Copywriting or Adult Search Engine Optimization firm, they should have nothing to hide; their processes should be transparent and marketing strategy clearly laid out. They should also provide you with a monthly updates and data analysis as part of any on going plan.

Any marketer knows that online marketing, social media and search engine optimization are constantly changing, ever evolving, tools. That is why online media specialists exist. It’s our job to stay abreast on the latest methods in online marketing and make them part of our client’s programs, while also continuing to maintain the fundamentals marketing strategies that work.

That why I’m writing my little Wordpress series, it’s not about the constantly changing factors or the continual quest of debunking the Google search engine algorithm, its about the fundamentals. The fundamentals always work, as long as they are done correctly. Wordpress and web development is no huge secret. Wordpress has the one of the best user bases ever and the fundamentals are  FREE (Click and Read People).

Six Fundamental Things You Should Know

1. XML Sitemaps - Site maps tell search engines what information on your site is crawlable content. The latest version of Wordpress does it for you automatically on your .wordpress.com blog.

2. Excerpts - What is that funky field under the post box? Well, that’s were you can put a summary of your article. Think of it like a title, a keyword rich, yet targeted sentence about what your post is all about. It displays when someone links to the post. If you don’t include it, it will be the first 55 characters of your post.

3. Validations - .Wordpress.com blogs are already SEO ready. But let’s say you have used Fantastico to install Wordpress and you have integrated 3rd party plug ins to add some nifty features like HeadSpace, Event Calendar, CurrencyX and a language translator. Well, you need to make sure the code validates or it could prevent search engines from moving through your content.

4. Alt Tags - If your site doesn’t have much content or is image based, keyword rich alt tags and image tags are essential.  They make your site more accessible and provide search engines with more searchable content. You can tell if you have them my putting your mouse over an image and seeing if a description pops up.

5. Linkage Love - Blogrolls, pings and track backs are integrated into Wordpress. Basically, if you link to it, it should like to you. And what you link to should have good page ranks and Alexa rankings too. Some sites are newer than others - like this blog itself - so do your homework and look at the content. You can see who links to you by typing in your nifty Google bar link:www.YourSite.com.

6. Site Submission - Contrary to popular belief, monthly submission services are a bit of a scam. $49-99 per month for submission? Ummm, you can do it yourself. And there are also good free services. If your blog is structured correctly, there is not need for paid, monthly services, it does it automatically with all the tools above. These services don’t help you place higher in search rankings.

Nearly half of the world’s chocolate comes from the Cote D’Ivoire in Africa. An estimated 12,000 children have been enslaved on cocoa farms in Core D’Ivoire. I will no longer buy chocolate that is not from a reliable and ethical source. Many companies make an effort to avoid slave chocolate, however the five largest manufacturers of milk-chocolate-candy (Nestle, Hersheys, Mars, Cadbury and Phillip Morris) DO NOT. They claim that they have no control over the problem. This is not true. (source - http://www.xocoatl.org/harvest.htm)

STOP Trafficking Chocolate Campaign

This morning, a press release from AVN came in, I scanned it as I sipped my sugary poison.

Paul Fisbein wrote “As DVDs have begun their decline. Adult VOD, mobile and Internet usage is increasing dramatically, and the same thing is now happening in the mainstream. Keep your eye on adult to see how the convergence of television, mobile devices and the personal computer plays out – the industry will be the weathervane.” - Press Release Here

Actually, the convergence of new media and delivery of mobile content has long begun. Look at the bloggers, the adult segment on Facebook and MySpace, Tumblr and Pownce, Twitter and Brightkite. We are already here and connecting, we are taking our concepts mainstream.  The fact is distribution and marketing have already merged with content, and the results of that development are already being monitized in the adult entertainment business.

When I decided to start Studio Erotica, I decided the most important partner I would need would be an auteur.  I hired Dan Dubelman because he is a storyteller, filmmaker, and musician who understands the culture of the internet and the convergence of marketing, content and distribution.  In an early meeting we had Dan said, “ TV and Film are follow an extremely tight structure. If the inciting incident doesn’t occur on the correct page, the script won’t work.  The characters themselves are forced to serve the structure, which means the characters cannot have real depth. Online storytelling offers a chance for the characters to drive the structure and the distribution in a sense.  Flexibility with regard to segment length is only the beginning.  You can do a series in 2-20 minutes instead of 20-60 minutes, you can release new episodes several times a day or only on the full moon.  Length and frequency are flexible and the audience accepts it.”

Studio Erotica is experimental, but our timing seems perfect. While we are collecting data that indicates amazing viral growth, we are also experimenting with transmedia where the characters push the marketing and distribution itself.

Business Wire: Press Release Here

We all know there is an ugly side to this industry, it’s not something I spend a lot of time blogging about, but I spend a lot of time following it. A few days ago, a wonderful girl (non-adult industry) who is desperately trying to be a model in Los Angeles tells me she has landed an amazing twelve day job shooting in a fantastic location and she needed me to cat sit for her. I said yes and congrats. She is only 21 and I (feeling maternal), asked her to give me a full itinerary, a copy of her ID and her passport and the numbers of emergency contacts, just in case there was an issue.

But she didn’t have it. I said to her, “No professional agency is not giving you an itinerary.” I asked her to explain the trip in greater details. And I got this:

• Oh, I only have five days to prepare, it’s last minute.
• I found it on XXXXXXX.com.
• We fly to New York on a private plane.
• We then transfer to another private plan and we are flown to <XXXXXXXX>.
• We are shooting for 12 days.
• There is no pay, just work for her portfolio.
• We are staying a private house (all the girls together).
• We then have to pay our own airfare back to the US.

I was quiet, none of this added up. I start to think, this is Los Angeles, any decent agency flies models on commercial airlines and put them up in their own rooms in hotels. Modeling is actually stressful and girls here get private rooms to decompress after shoots. She knew this! And no return airfare home?

I emailed the scenario and the post to a friend who works with trafficked victims in California because I was suspicious. She said “absolutely not.” Too many red flags. After two days, I finally convinced her not to go, I told her my extensive history of adult (and that I didn’t just design websites for people), that caught her attention. Was this gig a bad thing, maybe not. But everything I knew about screening clients and safety was screaming “NO! Don’t go, you will not be heard from again!” I don’t think I would have forgiven myself if something had happened to her. I had just imagined, she gets off the plan in New York, passport taken and that’s it.
In researching Human Trafficking as it relates to the U.S. and other areas, I was amazed to find the following information:

• It is estimated to be a $5 to $9 billion-a-year industry in the U.S.
  
• 27 million are trafficked everyday, that’s one person every 1.5 minutes.
• Globally, its $42.5 billion per year.
  

To learn more and to help prevent, please visit: StopTheTraffick.org

SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization”. It is the process of analyzing your potential design and problems for search engines indexing and positioning. In other words, making your web site and its content attractive, relevant and visible to search engines and web searchers.

There is nothing worse than having a beautiful web site with excellent content that can’t be found!

Before you begin optimizing your website, remember the following are SEO spam techniques:

• Automatically generated doorway pages
• Cloaking and false redirects
• Keyword stuffing
• Hidden text or hidden links
• Pages with irrelevant words
• Duplicated content on multiple pages
• Misspelling of well-known web sites
• Unrelated and centralized link farms
• Black hat SEO techniques

If you use one of the above techniques, you might get short term results, but it’s most likely that your site will be banned from search engines, and therefore you will put your business at severe risk.

Target Your Efforts
Target a search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be in the page title and in your description.

Get other sites to “link” back to you. This is one of the most important factors Google considers when ranking sites

If you blog, blog often. This can help you get links.

Don’t be afraid to use tools! Use Google Webmaster Tools and create a text-based sitemaps.

Don’t over do it and don’t stuff your pages full of keywords. You will not be successful.

There are a lot of questions regarding blogging in the adult entertainment field, many people wonder if blogging is worth the effort or time? Well, it depends on the purpose, the goal and if it used properly. This series will talk about blogs.

If you are just delving into the world of blogs, or just want a better understand of blogs and their evolution since they began in 1997, please click here.

There are a lot of applications out there that allow you to bring your presence into the Blogosphere, which one is best to use? Well, that up to you, use whatever you like, but there are pros and cons to each one.

#1: Blogger

Blogger is simple blogging engine owned by Google. It was one of the earliest and it is free to create an account. It offers users simple themes (designs) and it’s part of Google, major benefits for being search engine friendly. But, it’s a closed-sourced (no adding plug-ins and nifty fun stuff) and it has Google adverts all over it. Adult Entertainment Friendly: NO. I don’t want ads on my blog unless I choose, it’s like having a free website, not professional. And on top of that, the Google system has flaws in “relevant” ad content.

#2: Yahoo 360

Yahoo 360 has tons of features to make it one of the more nifty, spiffy engines. As it’s a social tool, you can integrate your news, Flickr and all your Yahooite things. But if your main point is blogging, then pass, there are better solutions. Adult Entertainment Friendly: NO. I have my issues with Yahoo. They are tough on adult content, if someone is reported for using their yahoo email for adult purposes, Yahoo will ban it without notice and you lose the content. If you have a group that is reported by numerous people, they will ban that too. Flickr, something that is hella nifty (even more so than Picasaweb), is Yahoo’s coo, but we plenty of alternatives too.

#3: Six Apart (including TypePad, MoveableType, Vox & Live Journal)

Six Apart has developed several blogging engines, for professionals and daily writer. They have extremely popular and have set many of the standards for blogging. While some of the free services are limited, you can pay some $$$ to expand the capabilities. LiveJournal has about 20 million active accounts and 18,000 posts per hour. Adult Entertainment Friendly: Yes, but there are options I like more.

#4: Expression Engine

Expression Engine is a nice web publishing engine. It’s has a beautiful, well-documented CMS - Content Management System. It also lots of features and modules. Adult Entertainment Friendly: Yes, but lacks themes, plugins and users. You really have to know what you are doing.

#5: Drupal

Drupal is not really meant for someone’s who main goal is blogging. Drupal is actually a content management system with an amazing strong architecture and a huge user community. Drupal modules allow e-commerce, photo gallery, CVS integration and a mailing list manager that actually break down into user groups and target emails (hello!). The Administration panel is not for beginners. Adult Entertainment Friendly: Yes, especially if you run pay sites with blogs, want to break down your subscribers based on viewing patterns and customize marketing promotions. There is a mores simple version in case you have to have it - CivicSpace.

#6: Wordpress

Wordpress is and should be the industry standard for adult entertainment blogging and site development. Aside from Drupal, it gets me hot and bothered. It is easy and can take even the most novice of web users and make time web-savvy blogpenuers. Wordpress is feature rich, well structured and has the largest user base of any blog system out there. It is an open source community so if feature can’t be found, you can find a plug-in for it. My favorite: making two plug-ins work together. Oh, it’s better than your vibrator. Wordpress also supports unlimited catagories and subcategories, it has automatic syndication, can handle massive email posting, has thousands of themes, you can integrate most other blogs into it (Blogger anybody?), is easy to administer, is multi-lingual (I can convert a site from English to French) and makes publishing seamless. “Look ma! I have a blog!” Adult Entertainment Friendly: It’s not just friendly, its the standard. And to boot, SEO is much easier with all the fantastic plug-in options.

#7: EscortBlogs.net

For those that just don’t want to go there, and wan to be a part of a community - especially if you are an escort or sex worker, well - we have our own little place to go. EscortBlogs.net allows a simple, nicely design blog communities for sex workers and adult entertainers. It gives you a national presence a great way to get your ideas out. the Only draw back, no HTML, just text writing and links.