“Marketing felt like a jungle. I was lost. Temech showed me a clear path. And there were others there to provide support and advice. I had a way to move forward.”
Perry Blumenthal started learning graphology two years after she got married.
“I had a teaching certificate, but didn’t want to teach, so I did whatever small jobs I found,” she relates. “I didn’t yet have children, so I had time on my hand, and graphology interested me.”
The weekly course took three years to complete. By the time she finished, Perry had been blessed with twins and needed a stable income.
She started offering consultations and also gave lectures to teachers and parents, teaching them how to analyze children’s drawings to discover their emotional states.
“I had no idea how to attract clients,” she admits. “People would toss ideas at me, and I’d follow them. ‘You need business cards.’ I made them. ‘Put an ad in the paper.’ I did
These measures brought in a trickle of clients, but nothing substantial.
Perry branched out and started giving talks in community centers, old age home, and to organizations.
“The talks went very well, but they were erratic. Marketing was a riddle – sometimes my groups were very successful and sometimes I could barely get them off the ground.”
“Even when my calendar was full, there was always stress. I constantly needed to promote myself but had no idea if I was going about it correctly or how to create a strong pitch.
“I never realized this was something I could learn. And I felt so alone. I was struggling my way through business alone.
“I saw the ads for Temech’s networking groups, but they didn’t grab me. I felt the last thing I needed was to hear how others are succeeding.”
Perry’s family grew – two singletons and then another set of twins – and the expenses grew, too.
She decided to double down and promote herself intensely. She did cold calling and set up several courses and lectures.
“It was March 2020. I was in a clothing store when I got the first cancellation. ‘Perry, we scheduled for this date, but now they’re saying we can’t get together in a large group, so we need to cancel.’ I didn’t think much of it – people cancel, she must be the nervous type.”
Then, the cancelations flooded in. Her calendar emptied.
And Perry hit a low.
“I felt horrible. It was hard to sleep at night. I wondered why – the whole country was shut down. Why was I feeling so awful that the same happened to me?
“I was able to trace the feelings to their source and realized that there was a lot of guilt. I was responsible to help support my family, and I wasn’t doing a good job of it.
“It wasn’t enough that I had a profession and I was good at what I did. I needed to know how to market, I needed tools and skills.”
Then she saw another ad from Temech – this one for the Communa groups they ran during corona.
“I signed up, but when I walked into the first meeting, there was a pit of fear in my stomach. What would I find here? What would this force me to do?”
Over six meetings the group learned about niching and marketing, how to pivot during corona, how to focus on strengths and compensate for weaknesses.
“It took a few sessions until I had the stark realization: there’s a method to the madness. Marketing is a skill and I can learn it.
“That changed everything.”
“Suddenly, when I’d cold call, I had clear directions – what to say, what she might say, how to respond to whatever objections she may have.
“After the corona restrictions were lifted, I opened a course – and had the biggest registration ever.”
Perry then joined networking groups for two years running.
“The first round helped me make the mental switch to being a business owner. Before, if my sister called, I’d leave what I was working on and schmooze. Now I tell her that I’m working.
“I went from feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing all I should do to being focused and directed.
“And knowing we would share what we did over the past month pushed me to achieve more.”
The second year moves her into a place of expansion.
“I learned to value my time, not to grab every gig. It gave me a sense of freedom; I wasn’t a slave to everything that came my way.
“I have more steady gigs, which provides the foundation, then I fit other things around that. I’ve also learned not to set up lectures, but to offer series – that gives me three months of work, rather than one evening.
“I heard the prices others were quoting and realized I was underpriced. I raised my prices substantially. And people pay them.
“Now I work for places far larger than anything I dreamed of. People started coming to me; I need to do less marketing because word of mouth is doing it for me.
“Even on a quiet morning, I do bookkeeping, create a new lecture – there’s always something to do.
“My income has doubled.
“These skills even helped me in my personal life. I used to hate lists and never made a menu for Yom Tov. Then I’d be up until 4 a.m. cooking.
“Suddenly, I find myself looking at my calendar – itself a new part of my life – and fitting in my cooking and housework in an organized way.
“I was overwhelmed and confused. Temech gave me clarity and transformed my business and my life.”
