How to Write a Book to Attract Clients and Benefit Your Business
How many times have you said to yourself that you have to write a book to help you promote your business and speaking, but you keep putting it off? It seems overwhelming. Where do I start? Do I even know if this book will help my business? Today we are going to discuss specifically how to plan and write a book that will help your business with my guest, Sophfronia Scott.
Featured Guest
Sophfronia Scott helps entrepreneurs and speakers to write and publish books to market their businesses. She is the author of the bestselling award-winning book, Doing Business By the Book: How to Craft a Crowd-Pleasing Book and Attract More Clients and Speaking Engagements Than You Ever Thought Possible. Her latest book is How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times. Sophronia’s website: http://www.doneforyouwriting.com
Listen to the January 23rd, 2012 show.
Holiday Networking: Offer the Gift of Connection
‘Tis the season to be jolly! It’s also the season for socializing. We are invited to many holiday events; some for business and some just to have fun and share some holiday cheer. The point is that we are meeting and greeting more people this time of year than any other. It’s a great networking opportunity.
Often these occasions are not about serious networking yet they do provide us with the chance to meet new people and enter into casual conversations about what we do. It’s the perfect time to network without the pressure to “sell” ourselves.
How do you enter into casual conversations with someone new?
Simply introduce yourself and ask the other person to tell you about them. People love to talk about themselves and this opens up the conversation in a casual way. Listen to what they have to say and learn about their business or position.
Offer the gift of connection.
Here is where the holiday giving spirit comes in. What can you do to help this person? Ask them! There may be opportunities for you to introduce them to other possible clients, partners, or referral sources.
When you are open and giving, it opens the door for others to reciprocate.
Take their business card and write on the back where you met them and who you want to introduce them to and make sure to follow up immediately.
Pay it forward and enjoy all your holiday events! You will be surprised how much you will receive in return.
For more tips on how to network, listen to my GPS Your Career Radio podcast with Diane Darling, President of Effective Networking, Inc.
Confidence Equals Competence
I have a power point slide in many of my keynote presentations that states Confidence = Competence. When this slide appears, it’s always an “ah-hah” moment for many people in the audience. Isn’t it true though? When you present yourself with confidence, people assume you are competent.
Think about your own purchasing decisions. Would you be willing to purchase a product or service from someone who lacks confidence; who stumbles through their sales presentation and seems unprepared and anxious? You would no doubt hesitate unless you felt sorry for them. (Not a good reason to buy, by the way.) You hesitate in this case because you believe that when a person lacks confidence in their presentation, they may lack competence. As an entrepreneur, it’s important to understand this when selling your own products and services.
Now, I’m not saying it’s necessarily true. It’s just our perception. But the perception is important because that is what people base their decisions on.
Maybe you’re not an entrepreneur, but a woman with ambition to get ahead in her organization. You are talented and gifted and produce great results, but when it comes to presenting those results, speaking up in meetings, you fumble and stammer. Do you come across as a potential leader? Probably not!
I’m not a proponent of faking confidence. I’ve read some articles that say “fake it until you make it.” I’m against this tactic because authenticity is so important in our presentation. It is, in fact, this connection with our authentic selves and the value that we offer that is the foundation of the confidence we need in order to present ourselves as competent. This authenticity inspires trust and it’s vital for our success in business.
I do a lot of speaking now about the topic of understanding your value because I believe until we understand and connect with our unique gifts and value proposition, we will continue to lack the confidence to present ourselves as competent.
Do you understand your unique value or the value that your products and services offer?
Starting January 10th, I am be offering a four week group coaching program that will take you on a journey of self-discovery to understand your value and better position yourself to grow your business or advance your career. This four week program will be done via phone and participants will receive four hours of coaching, valuable worksheets and exercises as well as feedback from a group of like-minded professionals. Each participant will also receive mp3 recordings of every class.
Check out my website, for more information! And be one of 10 lucky women to take this journey. The group will be limited to 10 so please register now.
Women Do Ask, But They Still Don’t Get Ahead
Women DO ask for promotions and raises but they still lag behind men in compensation and position. The latest Catalyst study, The Myth of the Ideal Worker: Does Doing All the Right Things Really Get Women Ahead?, dispels the myth that women are not proactive in advancing their careers. After following 3,000 high potential MBA graduates, Catalyst found that doing all the “right things” such as being proactive, requesting high profile assignments, and asking for promotions and raises, did not significantly help women advance their careers.
Examining different career strategies, Catalyst found that the common proactive strategies that high-potential women often adopt to advance their careers did not work in their favor. Quite simply, men outpace women in both advancement and compensation. The gender gap in pay and position still exists despite women’s efforts to negotiate for better pay and placement.
Here are some of the key findings:
Women seem to be paid for proven performance—women who changed jobs two or more times post-MBA earned $53,472 less than women who rose through the ranks at their first job.
In contrast, men seem to be paid for potential—men who had moved on from their first post-MBA job earned $13,743 more than those who stayed with their first employer.
Across all career profiles, men were more likely to reach senior executive/CEO positions than women; in the most proactive category, 21% of men advanced to leadership compared with 11% of women.
What I find especially important in the study is Catalyst’s recommendation for career advancement.
The same strategies don’t work equally well for men and women. Women must adopt strategies different from their male colleagues’ to advance their careers. When women were proactive in making their achievements known, they advanced further, increased their compensation growth, and were more satisfied with their careers. They also advanced further when they proactively networked with influential others. (my underline)
So let me ask you, how well do you think you communicate your achievements?
Have you identified your web of influence (your power network) and do you consistently communicate with this network to keep them apprised of your accomplishments?
Learning how to effectively articulate your achievements is not about bragging. It’s about YOU connecting with the VALUE you bring to your organization. It’s about how your value benefits the organization; how YOU impact the bottom line.
Once you are able to do this well to your internal and external network, people will better understand what you have to offer. As the Catalyst study suggests, this is paramount to advancing your career in today’s workplace environment.
If you would like improve your ability to do this well, I will be offering a full day workshop, GPS Your Career Day, in Boston in the beginning of December (exact date and location TBD), AND a four week coaching group, GPS Your Career Group, starting in January.
Email me if you would like more information.
Hurricane Irene and Feeling Out of Control
I was in Los Angeles last week for business and scheduled to take a flight home on Thursday. Thunderstorms in New York delayed the flight over an hour; circumstances beyond my control. It’s the weather after all, right? Get into JFK around 1:00 am and walk down to baggage claim. There I waited over one hour for my bag to appear. The conveyor belt was jammed; another case of circumstances beyond my control. Can’t do anything but wait and pace, wait and pace.
Finally home early Friday morning and there is a weather alert. Hurricane Irene is on the way and preparations are necessary; water, batteries, grocery store, filling the car up with gas. All these tasks give you the sense that you are in control, but you can never control the weather. The hurricane hits. The power goes out and I am now writing this blog on battery power.
Maybe we feel a little better knowing that everyone is in the same boat? Very few people have power here. We are all forced to sit in the dark on a Sunday that is usually jam packed with a combination of outdoor activities, catching up on emails, phone calls, and perhaps some work.
The fact of the matter is that we never feel good being out of control whether it’s due to the weather, mechanical problems or other reasons.
I don’t know about you but feeling like a victim has never been something I’ve been comfortable with, especially when it comes to my career and life. Sure there are lay-offs and mergers that cause lay-offs. When you are in business, there is constant change (most of it beyond your control). That being said, there is still a lot that we can control.
Think about your career strategically and make a plan. What is your goal and what is the best path to reach that goal? Evaluate every opportunity that comes along. How does this opportunity align with your goal? You make the choices.
Communicate your goal to others. Ask for sponsors and mentors. Network and build strategic relationships. Be intentional and focused.
Unlike the weather, we are never really out of control although it may seem that way at times. We always have choices. We have the power to move our careers forward in whatever direction we choose.
Don’t let a “hurricane mentality” affect your career. Take the necessary steps to plan and prepare and take control.
S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G Your Comfort Zone
I truly enjoy working out. My favorite activity is running outside. I also work out regularly in the gym. What has always been a challenge for me is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g.
If you are a yogi and can naturally put your foot behind your head or sit in a pigeon for hours without groaning, I don’t think you’ll be able to relate to this post. However, if you’re like me and you enjoy being active every day and are constantly challenged by the amount of time you can devote to your physical activity and will do almost anything to avoid stretching, you are my soul mate.
Sitting in meetings all day, commuting into the city, regular airline travel (ugh!) add to my overall stiffness. Certainly being positioned in front of a computer all day doesn’t help either! This is when I need to stretch the most, but it’s also when it hurts the most.
I was able to make a yoga class this weekend and listened carefully when the instructor said to pay attention to your body. If you are in a pose and something hurts, that’s most likely where you need the stretch the most and where your body puts up the most resistance. And he’s so right!
So I started to think about stretching in general; not just our bodies but stretching our comfort zones in our professional lives. Does the same theory apply? Is it valid that the more we need to stretch to learn new skills and take on more responsibilities, the more it hurts (i.e. the more we resist)?
There is no doubt that we are all more content in our comfort zone. We feel accomplished and productive. We are terrific at what we do. So it is natural that when we are faced with challenges that push us out of this comfort zone, we resist on some level. Perhaps we fear failure and that would certainly hurt. Perhaps we resist learning something new because our ego is so attached to doing it our way.
Whatever the reasons may be, it’s important to note that pushing yourself out of your comfort zone at work is just as important as stretching your body to maintain your health and fitness. Certainly, volunteering for high profile projects and taking on more responsibility at work all contribute to learning some new skills to add to your resume and will help you to advance your career.
Next time you go to stretch your calf muscles or hamstrings, remind yourself that you also need to stretch yourself at work if you want to advance your career. It may hurt a little at first, but just like the physical stretch it will benefit you in the long run.
A Lesson in Self-Esteem: Does Everyone Deserve a Trophy?
I think parenting is the most difficult role we have as adults. Sure, we might have tough decisions to make about our careers, our relationships, our lifestyle. But nothing compares to the anxiety we have about raising our children. We want the best for our children. We want our children to be happy and successful and there is no clear road map on how to accomplish this.
I read an interesting article by Lisa Gottlieb in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, How to Land Your Kid in Therapy. What was of particular interest to me in her article was how we, as parents, try to provide the perfectly happy childhood for our children and actually make it harder for them to grow up. In fact, Gottlieb says that in our efforts to boost our children’s self-esteem, we are actually causing more anxiety and depression and lower self-esteem.
How does this happen? According to the author and her quoted experts, we give our children an inflated view of their specialness. We are constantly telling them how special and talented they are because we live in a culture where everyone wins and gets a trophy. Our goal is to have happy and self-confident children, and yet, we are protecting them from accurate feedback.
I was particularly interested in what the article says about how we affect our children’s self-image because I now coach many adults who want to advance their careers and promote themselves but seem to have lost their connection to their value and talent.
Could it be, in fact, that we were told as children how talented we were when we knew in our gut that this was not always accurate? Could it be that we received constant praise that we felt was not deserved? Perhaps we got the trophy for “Most Improved” soccer player because everyone had to get a trophy. Maybe at the time we were even a little embarrassed to get the trophy. We knew that we stunk at soccer so what was all the fuss about? In other words, we felt that the praise was unjustified and we didn’t really have the talent at all.
If everything becomes special, than nothing is special in the end.
The author says, “the irony is that measures of self-esteem are poor predictors of how content a person will be, especially if the self-esteem comes from constant accommodation and praise rather than earned accomplishment. “
The message here is that what we need to focus on for ourselves (and our children as well) is what truly makes us wonderful and unique. What have been our earned accomplishments (because we all have some!)? If we make false claims, our efforts at promoting ourselves will not be authentic and will backfire. We will lose our belief in ourselves and will, therefore, have difficulty communicating our value to others.
Think hypothetically about receiving a trophy you knew you didn’t deserve and how you would feel. Now shift gears and think about winning a trophy for your earned accomplishments and successes.
Every day every one of us deserves a trophy for something that we actually accomplished.
What was your trophy for today?
What Do You Do?
Someone told me once that the first question Americans ask each other when they meet is, “what do you do? And I’ve noticed that this is true for the most part. Whether our first encounter with someone is at a cocktail party, a networking event, or the gym, people seem to want to know what we do more than anything else. Perhaps we ask this question because we think it’s the best way to find out more about someone with whom we want to connect. But is it also based on the assumption that once we know what someone does for a living, we know a lot about them?
This is an interesting blog post for me because my coaching work helps people answer this question and the advice I give about positioning yourself and communicating your value to others is the focus of many of my workshops. This post, however, is not about how you answer the question relative to your career. This post is about the importance of identifying and connecting with who we are as individuals because, quite simply, our profession has become our identity to a large extent.
Case in point: say you have decided to leave the work force to become a stay-at-home mom. You don’t have a “job” to speak of. When asked this question, your response may be more about what you used to do rather than what you are currently doing. In this situation, we can be defensive and even apologetic because we don’t place value on ourselves outside of a job.
Now I will ask a question that I often ask my clients relative to positioning themselves in the workplace, but with a new twist. Put your resume aside for a minute. What are you all about? What are your values? What are your strengths? Who are you today? What is unique about you? What have been your accomplishments as a person not an employee?
The answers to these questions help you define yourself as an individual. These are the unique core qualities that stay with you no matter where you work or what you do.
As much as I coach my clients to stay connected to their value proposition and understand what they bring to the table, I think it is also extremely important for us to realize that this is just a part of who we are. Our jobs do not define us. Our unique value proposition is who we are as individuals and that includes what we do, but what we do does not define our identity.
Can Our Strengths Also Be Our Weaknesses?
One of the exercises in my GPS Your Career workshop is to identify characteristics that differentiate you and contribute to your success. Last week when I delivered this workshop at MIT, someone asked the question, “What if your strengths are perceived by some people as a weakness?”
Here was the example given: I am a results driven aggressive business woman and this has contributed to my successful career, yet some of my colleagues view my aggressiveness as overbearing and pushy.
First of all, let me say that other people’s perception should not take away from the fact that you are successful because of these characteristics. The real question is do they recognize that these qualities contribute to your business success? Do they respect your track record of achievement? They may not “like” you because of their own feelings about successful women in business, aggressive women, perhaps their own insecurities. You should not discount your value proposition because of their feelings.
Secondly, when you are communicating your value proposition, it’s important to tailor your message to the recipient. Find out what motivates them, drives them, pushes their buttons. If you discover that someone may be uncomfortable with the way you are describing yourself, modify it but keep the core of the message the same. Think of other ways to describe yourself. Maybe you don’t use the adjectives “aggressive” and “results driven”. Instead stress your competence, your track record of meeting and exceeding expectations.
Always put a positive spin on what you bring to the table and keep in mind what you want the other person to think about you. Then think about what will resonate with them for the maximum impact based on what you know about them.
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. ~ Tony Robbins
The Big Juicy Payoff
Our decision to buy a new car is often more about the status and sex appeal than transportation and functionality.
We can purchase a great looking pair of jeans any where, but we are more likely to choose a popular brand that has some status and recognition. The advertisements tell us we will be more attractive and appealing in these jeans and we believe it. We pay more money even if we can’t afford it, for the opportunity to wear these status symbols.
So what’s this all about?
It’s all about the emotional connection. The advertisers create an emotional benefit for you when you purchase and use their products; a big juicy payoff. You will be more attractive, sexy, respected, admired, etc. That’s the big payoff; not the specific features of the products themselves.
As entrepreneurs, we often make the mistake of focusing on the features and details of our products and services instead of the big emotional payoff. We don’t make the emotional connection between what we offer and what our customers need.
Think about your target audience. What is their need or their pain, and how does your product or service fulfill their need?
Making this emotional connection is the most powerful way to promote your business. Identify the big juicy payoff or emotional benefit and clearly communicate that to your prospects. You will grab their attention and win their business.
There can be a big payoff for you in more clients, more referrals and more money!
I’ve designed a 90-Day Intensive Program for Entrepreneurs that starts January 20th for entrepreneurs who are challenged promoting themselves and their business.
Is this you? Do you have a pitch that falls flat and doesn’t get you new clients? Do you freeze when asked to promote yourself at a networking event?
Start 2011 off with a big bang and learn how to overcome your barriers to self promotion, create a powerful message to attract more clients and business than you thought possible AND if you register before January 1st, you receive a special $700 discount.
Also, a very special bonus gift for the first 3 women to sign up: a FREE 60-minute consultation with PR expert, Lisa Elia, who will help you plan how to increase your visibility in 2011. This consultation is worth $500!!!
Check out the program now and invest in yourself and your business. Imagine feeling confident and comfortable selling your services! Register now and take advantage of the special discount and gifts.
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