12 Professional Accessories for Successful Writers
1. Your Market: Once you have a firm overview of your company, you need to begin to define your customer or, as an author, your audience. Too often, the temptation is to write on subjects that WE want to write on. That is all well and good but if there is no audience for our material, then we are writing and speaking for an audience of one. Instead, our goal as authors and is to create a marriage between the needs of our audience and our expertise. We always want to tailor our message to meet the needs of our audience. In order to do this, we must have a thorough an understanding of our audience as we possibly can.
2. Your Mission: You might wonder why a mission statement is important. Well, your mission statement helps keep you focused. If you study an author’s list of non-fiction books, you would find that many authors are all over the place. They do not stick to a topic. You might think this is better than having a narrow focus. You must remember that, as an author, it is important to position yourself as an expert. Experts are not knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics but in a very narrow list of topics. Each new book should build on the others to help strengthen your message.
3. Your Philosophy: Your philosophy takes into consideration what motivates your customer. For you to improve the quality of their lives you need to have a firm idea why they would want to buy your books. You want to approach your writing and business from their perspective. Once you have an idea what they want, you need to show them how your books meet their needs. Remember, features tell, benefits sell.
4. Your Expertise: Why write? That’s what many women say to me. On a basic level, they know it is important to be published but…..well, the list of excuses is infinite. Excuses, that is exactly what they are. They are not legitimate reasons. They are excuses. This is not being harsh, just realistic and if it appears harsh, sometimes you have to be harsh to make people see things as they are. Writing is not easy for everyone. For many, it is a struggle. But it is a struggle that is worth the effort. It is a struggle that make you stronger in your field. It is a struggle that makes your business more diverse and more successful.
5. Your Ambitions: You went into business for a reason. Your reason is personal and it should be powerful. Your mission gives you a professional statement that tells the public the purpose of your business. It might motivate you but it is not as personal as your ambition. You want to have a firm idea what your ambition is. What do you want to accomplish? How far do you want to go? Do you want to move up in the company? Do you want to improve your family finances, buy a new car, buy a house? Your ambition is your personal mission that helps you maintain your positive attitude.
6. Your Goals: While your ambition motivates you, it can be somewhat vague or worse still, far away. Your goals are the tangible steps you take to achieve your ambition. You might have just one ambition but multiple goals to take you to your ambition. You can have goals and then mini-goals, those smaller steps you take every day to move you forward.
7. Your Business: A professional attitude is a must-have accessory for your success. Some authors are only interested in a part time job, treating their business like a hobby. There is nothing wrong with that. Some women only want a bit of extra money. You are different. You are a Diva and you want to accomplish more than that. It is necessary for you to run your business like… well, a business. What you do is no less a business than your friend who opened a small store.
8. Your Attitude: In business, it isn’t always a walk in the park. Things slow down. You struggle with your writing. Nothing seems to bring you results. Doesn’t matter. You must maintain a positive attitude, an attitude of success. You must always convince yourself that there are opportunities that you have not found. Get busy and find them. Keep moving forward, even a little bit, day by day.
9. Your Network: It is not who you know but who they know and then who those people know. If you limit your network, you limit the number of people you are able to reach. If you limit your network, you limit the outreach of your message. Your network is a living entity because it is made up of living people. You must nurture it and encourage it to grow. It must be in constant motion or it becomes stagnant and will soon lose its effectiveness. Everything you do when you walk out the door is marketing; everyone you meet is networking. Don’t like networking? Remember your one woman. You cannot reach her, you cannot accomplish your mission without a strong (and growing) network.
10. Your Support Materials: You have made a decision to become an author/speaker because you have a message you want to share and feel there are women who need to hear it. Marketing is how you let them know who you are, what you do and why you are different from others who do the same thing.
11. Your Appearance: All of us have days when we just need to run to the store and don’t want to take time to change clothes, put on make-up and fix our hair. All of us need to fight this urge with every fiber of our being. Every time you walk out the door, you have the opportunity to make a connection with a woman who needs to improve the quality of her life. She needs to look at you and know you are someone she wants to know. Better still, she wants to be like you. If she is able to relate to you, she will want to know you better. So, how do you control the urge? Get in the habit of getting ready for work first thing in the morning. When you worked outside the home, you managed to get ready every morning so why should things be different now?
12. Synergy: Synergy is the theory that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We have all heard this statement made but few use this theory to effectively run their businesses. As an author and speaker, synergy is vital to the effective organization and implementation of your business. It is too easy to have a business made of various separate parts, each trying vainly to operate independently of the other parts. Having a business made up of individual parts working independently of each other is exhausting. Synergy helps you bring all aspects of your business together so they support one another and build one another.
2. Your Mission: You might wonder why a mission statement is important. Well, your mission statement helps keep you focused. If you study an author’s list of non-fiction books, you would find that many authors are all over the place. They do not stick to a topic. You might think this is better than having a narrow focus. You must remember that, as an author, it is important to position yourself as an expert. Experts are not knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics but in a very narrow list of topics. Each new book should build on the others to help strengthen your message.
3. Your Philosophy: Your philosophy takes into consideration what motivates your customer. For you to improve the quality of their lives you need to have a firm idea why they would want to buy your books. You want to approach your writing and business from their perspective. Once you have an idea what they want, you need to show them how your books meet their needs. Remember, features tell, benefits sell.
4. Your Expertise: Why write? That’s what many women say to me. On a basic level, they know it is important to be published but…..well, the list of excuses is infinite. Excuses, that is exactly what they are. They are not legitimate reasons. They are excuses. This is not being harsh, just realistic and if it appears harsh, sometimes you have to be harsh to make people see things as they are. Writing is not easy for everyone. For many, it is a struggle. But it is a struggle that is worth the effort. It is a struggle that make you stronger in your field. It is a struggle that makes your business more diverse and more successful.
5. Your Ambitions: You went into business for a reason. Your reason is personal and it should be powerful. Your mission gives you a professional statement that tells the public the purpose of your business. It might motivate you but it is not as personal as your ambition. You want to have a firm idea what your ambition is. What do you want to accomplish? How far do you want to go? Do you want to move up in the company? Do you want to improve your family finances, buy a new car, buy a house? Your ambition is your personal mission that helps you maintain your positive attitude.
6. Your Goals: While your ambition motivates you, it can be somewhat vague or worse still, far away. Your goals are the tangible steps you take to achieve your ambition. You might have just one ambition but multiple goals to take you to your ambition. You can have goals and then mini-goals, those smaller steps you take every day to move you forward.
7. Your Business: A professional attitude is a must-have accessory for your success. Some authors are only interested in a part time job, treating their business like a hobby. There is nothing wrong with that. Some women only want a bit of extra money. You are different. You are a Diva and you want to accomplish more than that. It is necessary for you to run your business like… well, a business. What you do is no less a business than your friend who opened a small store.
8. Your Attitude: In business, it isn’t always a walk in the park. Things slow down. You struggle with your writing. Nothing seems to bring you results. Doesn’t matter. You must maintain a positive attitude, an attitude of success. You must always convince yourself that there are opportunities that you have not found. Get busy and find them. Keep moving forward, even a little bit, day by day.
9. Your Network: It is not who you know but who they know and then who those people know. If you limit your network, you limit the number of people you are able to reach. If you limit your network, you limit the outreach of your message. Your network is a living entity because it is made up of living people. You must nurture it and encourage it to grow. It must be in constant motion or it becomes stagnant and will soon lose its effectiveness. Everything you do when you walk out the door is marketing; everyone you meet is networking. Don’t like networking? Remember your one woman. You cannot reach her, you cannot accomplish your mission without a strong (and growing) network.
10. Your Support Materials: You have made a decision to become an author/speaker because you have a message you want to share and feel there are women who need to hear it. Marketing is how you let them know who you are, what you do and why you are different from others who do the same thing.
11. Your Appearance: All of us have days when we just need to run to the store and don’t want to take time to change clothes, put on make-up and fix our hair. All of us need to fight this urge with every fiber of our being. Every time you walk out the door, you have the opportunity to make a connection with a woman who needs to improve the quality of her life. She needs to look at you and know you are someone she wants to know. Better still, she wants to be like you. If she is able to relate to you, she will want to know you better. So, how do you control the urge? Get in the habit of getting ready for work first thing in the morning. When you worked outside the home, you managed to get ready every morning so why should things be different now?
12. Synergy: Synergy is the theory that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We have all heard this statement made but few use this theory to effectively run their businesses. As an author and speaker, synergy is vital to the effective organization and implementation of your business. It is too easy to have a business made of various separate parts, each trying vainly to operate independently of the other parts. Having a business made up of individual parts working independently of each other is exhausting. Synergy helps you bring all aspects of your business together so they support one another and build one another.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Discount Diva on -
Excellent advice!
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Permalink Reply by Sally Ferguson on
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Good food for thought, Jean Ann. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the synergy to get organized!
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Permalink Reply by Jean Ann Duckworth on -
Thanks for the comments, Sally. As for synergy, too often in business, we have parts of our business that stand alone. When this happens, we have to work harder to get any recognition for this aspect of our business. You want all parts of your business to build on one another and you was each part to refer to the others, thereby building traffic and interest is each part. So, when Martha Stewart does a craft project on her television show, she lets viewers know the instructions are available on her website. On the website, visitors find out a kit for the project is available in her online store. When she cooks something, she tells viewers the recipe is available in her magazine and in her magazine, there is a listing for upcoming television programs. She uses each piece of her company as a marketing tool for every other aspect.
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Permalink Reply by Discount Diva on
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We can all learn a lot from Martha Stewart's marketing and branding!
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Permalink Reply by Rachel Eggum cinader on -
Great Stuff! Thank you.
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