Or as Jezebel called it, “The Annotated Guide to Making Faith Hill Hot.

They’ve also done a very nice PHP/flash site (takes longer to load, those of you not on DSL) that really shows the before and after pictures of this lovely Faith Hill photo shoot.

What’s shocking is that Redbook felt like they needed to airbrush one of the most beautiful mothers in America. For goodness sake, she’s had three children, has a busy career and appears to have a stable loving marriage. That’s like the holy trifecta of happiness in some circles. I would (sadly) expect massive airbrushing from Vogue or some other very high end fashion magazine. Redbook (whose masthead proudly proclaims, “Love Your Life”) purports itself to be for middle America, for mothers and the middle-aged women in America fighting a losing battle against gravity, stretch marks and time. One does wonder how we can “Love our Lives” when we’re constantly bombarded with reminders that we are too line-ridden, that we’re not skinny enough to be (insert your own word here) loved/rich/contented/
healthy/happy.

The gossip rag Jezebel’s outing of the unretouched photo caused a bit of a media firestorm this week with everybody from ABC News to VH1 weighing in on the photoshopping of an already- beautiful role model. The ultimate message is that women are doing everything they can to live up to the unrealistic images portrayed in the media and … we’re failing, thus disapointing ourselves, our spouses and our kids. After all, if Faith Hill can look that good with a career, three kids, and a busy life, what’s wrong with us that we can’t

There is a business angle to this controversy however. Redbook is doing it for the money. Somewhere, some study has shown that women (yes, those same saggy, overworked, stretch-marked Mothers) are more likely to buy magazines with the beautiful, line-less, nymphs on the cover rather than a woman that looks vaguely like themselves on a good day. The recent closing of pro-real-women magazine, Jane, showcases this point. That’s the true business shame in all of this. The companies that keep pushing super skinny, super airbrushed on us wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t money to be made.

Next time you see a candid photo of a celebrity, before you start picking on her, “Ewww, look! She hascellulite!” be happy that you actually saw something real – not something that was manipulated into a more-pretty facsimile of reality.

At the rate we’re going, you won’t be able to see “real” for much longer.

In my job, making sales calls is one of the more difficult things that any small business needs to face. Irritatingly, most business problems can pretty much be solved with more sales (more sales = more cash = lots of cash hiding lots of poor business practices).

I see this a lot with the small business customers I have the privilege of chatting with and mentoring through my work at Bramble Berry and Otion. They have a great product line, wonderful formulations, nice marketing collateral and the support of enthusiastic family and friends. Yet … they have no customers.

Why don’t they have customers? Because they don’t ask for customers. These same cottage businesses who have diligently planned their line, spent weeks obsessing over whether to use pricey olive oil versus rice bran oil (for future reference, they soap incredibly similar with RBO being about 60% of the price of OO as of late) and many headache-inducing hours doing their Publisher brochures, are afraid to call their local stores to land accounts.

I get it. I understand why. Sales calls involve rejection and outright fear. After all, soap is a very close and personal creation. It’s an outright extension of personality. That simple bar of soap holds all that a soapmaker believes and hold dear about skin care and business – organic versus non organic, fragrance oils versus essential oils, font choices, packaging choices fragrance choices, additive choices – it’s a lot of personal choice in there and many chances for feelings of rejection. You reject my soap? You reject *me*. I get that.

But, as a small business owner, I can’t ignore the need for actual customers to buy my product. I need to make sales calls in order to stay in business. So, for sales calls, I practice the FTF philosophy my friend Bob Thordarson embraces. FTF stands for Feared Things First. That means, when you get up in the morning, you call your top sales prospect. And you keep calling until you convince them to let you in front of them.

I’m right in the middle of a glorious cycle of rejection for one of my new business ventures. I’ve been turned down by a huge, massive national retailer by virtue of simple ignoring me three times in the last two months. And my own local co-op here in Bellingham? They won’t even take my calls or emails. And I’ve been chipping away at them for two months. I don’t like rejection. I feel insecure when my own local co-op business won’t even call me back. After all, I tell myself, aren’t I a valued business person in this community? After all, I’ve been nominated for best Small Business for 2006 in Whatcom County, won Business Person of the Year for Washington State and was one of the top 40 Bosses in America. And they won’t call me back? Hurt and insecure feelings abound.

But, I’ll call them again this week. You know why? Because I like their market demographics and the tantalizingprospect of that sales success is enough to keep me pounding through walls, despite my absolute terror of rejection. Because remember, sales = cash. And cash? Well, cash is a good thing for all small businesses.