Going from Level 2 to Level 3: The Most Difficult Transition a Thought-Leader Will Face

First, a little word.

What’s Level 2? And what’s Level 3?

And why have Levels at all?

For three simple reasons:

1. Understanding levels gives you a handle on where you are – and where you are
   going – each level is a different stage of author/entrepreneur maturity. Each one requires certain actions and accomplishments. Missing any crucial task means that getting to the next level is much more difficult – and perhaps not possible at all.
2. Reduce stress – each level has its own success signs – distinct to that level. If you know what makes for success for where you are right now, then you can focus on the results that make sense – and focusing with clear targets reduces stress.
3. Clear understanding of next-step priorities and tasks – has different priorities and different tasks. (Coming soon: a priorities-and-tasks checklist that will let you move confidently to the next level.)

To find your level, you’ll use a simple mathematical formula (which I’ll be revealing to my Opt-In group in early 2014. If you haven’t Opted-In, please do so now – the form is in the sidebar to your immediate right.)

A Quick Levels Shortcut

Level 2 is when you’ve sold about 100 – 200 books, and have 100 – 200 people who have Opted-In with you. (Note: This is not the number of people in your database. And it’s not the number of your Facebook Friends. To be counted towards your Level, people have to Opt-In with you – a gesture of trust, a willingness to hear from you on a regular basis.)

Level 3 is when you’ve sold about 1,000 – 2,000 books, and have about 1,000 – 2,000 people who have Opted-In with you.

For emerging authors/entrepreneurs, getting from Level 2 to Level 3 is the most difficult challenge that there is.

The reason?

At Level 2, you’re still working within your personal Circle of Influence (CoI). Most people – those who are reasonably social and well-connected – can comfortably reach out to a few hundred people. These include family, friends, and professional, church, social, and civic affiliations. This group includes your Facebook Friends, and anyone on your Christmas list. (Since I’m writing this blog just a week before Christmas, many of you are dialed in right now to your Christmas list.)

Going from Level 2 to Level 3 means extending your Circle of Influence by an order of magnitude.

Most people who do this are – essentially – outreach-professionals. They are pastors, politicians, entertainers, and others for whom a larger CoI is essential.

Unless these people have mastered the skills that you’re going to learn and master, these “professional outreachers” will also struggle getting their word out.

In short, the strategies that a local pastor or politician uses to reach a few thousand people will not be the long-term strategies that get you to where you want. Similarly, the strategies that an author uses to reach a few thousand people will again not be the strategies that you want.

You may need to incorporate some elements of what these people do into your own overarching strategy – but you’ll have a clear difference.

Instead of working with just those people whom you can regularly connect, your goal – in becoming a Level 3 author/entrepreneur – is to extend your outreach to people whom you don’t know; people whom you may never meet in person. Or, if you do meet them in person, it may be a one-time event.

More than extending your outreach – your goal has to be to transform these people into loyal, devoted, enthusiastic, and sometimes even evangelistic members of your own Tribe.

Getting from Here to There: Requirements for Success

For you to succeed, it is essential that you cultivate an extraordinary range of skills – ranging from technical to psychological, from writing to strategy. This skill-set is both overarching and minutia-intensive.

But the skill-set alone will not be enough. You need strategy. Further, this strategy needs to dovetail with where you are now, and where you are going to be in your next stage.

For many authors and knowledge-based entrepreneurs, the challenge lies in going beyond our CoI.

Starting in 2014, these blogposts – and most importantly, the material that I’ll share via emails and special, dedicated web pages with my own Tribe – will focus on three key transitional strategies:

1. The Art of War – Sun Tzu’s classic, applied to building your empire in the world of knowledge and ideas,
2. Specific Tribe-Building Strategies – because your success correlates directly with how you grown, nurture, and feed your Tribe, and
3. Transforming Yourself – so that you are ready, in every way, to take on the responsibility of caring for what will be your growing, flourishing, and increasingly more prosperous Tribe. (Think of this as Leadership Bootcamp.)

Remember, your success is their success. And likewise.

To your own health, happiness, and prosperity – and we’ll connect again in 2014.

Alianna

Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.
Founder, Mourning Dove Press

P.S. One of the earliest topics for 2014: Micro-Tribes – how to identify and work with specific small tribes that you’re bringing into your fold. Specific steps, strategies, case studies – even data! The juiciest details will be revealed only to my own Tribe members, so please sign up now (Opt-In form in the sidebar on the right) – you’ll get a follow-up email from me shortly to welcome you in, and you’ll get the detailed coaching (for my Tribe members only) starting in 2014!

Doubling Your Readership Base: A Power Tip That Gets You Long-Term Results

Over the last month (shockingly, it has been that long), I’ve been putting into practice the advice that I gave in last month’s blog, Creating the Elephant for Others to Eat (One Bite at a Time), subtitled: Creating Your Next Big Project (And Staying Sane, and Having a Life, While Doing So).

The result? I’ve been doubling my blog readership – in each of my three primary blogs – at a rate of about one doubling per every two months.

Not only that, I’ve been doubling my Opt-Ins at about the same rate.

Loaves and Fishes: Feeding Your Tribe

If you are an emerging thought-leader, then you’re starting to build a tribe.

Your tribe consists of those people who are following you, with some degree of closeness.

Every single person in your tribe wants to be fed.

The three types of people in your tribe are:

• Loyal disciples: These are people who are your advocates; they’re your evangelists. They’ll read or watch everything that you put out. They’ll forward your emails to their friends. They buy your books, take your workshops, listen to your TED(TM) talks on the way to work. Outside of your own advisers, these are the closest of your inner support circle.
• Official Tribe Members: These people have taken the big step of giving you their name and email address on one of your Opt-In forms, which you host on your website. (I’ll put in an Opt-In form in the right-hand sidebar shortly, and will update this blog to reflect that. Until then, see the Opt-In form in the very first post I wrote for this blog: Surviving the Valley of Death. Giving you a name and email address is a huge gesture of trust and intimacy. It means that these people want to hear from you.
• Lurkers: Only a fraction of those who come to your website will Opt-In. The majority will scan and move on. A good number, though, will take an intermediary step. They’ll put you on their automatic feed (RSS), or keep checking your blog. They won’t come forward and identify themselves with you, but they’re there. These people also want to be fed.

This brings me to the “loaves and fishes” strategy. You feed your tribe by writing blogs – or producing content (YouTube vids, Podcasts, etc.) – that is helpful to your people; material that meets their needs.

Just like Jesus did with his disciples, you give your loaves and fishes away for free.

It’s like providing free food samples at an upscale grocery store. If you taste the cheese and like it, you’ll buy some.

Similarly, you feed your tribe. Regular content keeps them fed.

If You’re Leading a Tribe, then You’re a Hierophant

The best marketers are actually thought-leaders; really, they are Hierophants. I introduced the Hierophant notion in last month’s blog, Creating the Elephant for Others to Eat (One Bite at a Time). (That blog has lots of links to relevant posts that will help build out the Hierophant concept.)

Essentially, a Hierophant is a transformational teacher; a guru or guide of the highest order.

A Hierophant is compelled to teach. Marketing – creating a revenue stream – these are all good results of the teaching process. However, the Hierophant starts with the intention of teaching and transforming lives; the money and social influence are by-products.

Example Hierophants include Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars) and Mr. Miyagi (from the Karate Kid).

One of the most effective ways that a Hierophant can teach is by producing web-based content; blogs, YouTube vids, and other easily-accessed material.

Revenue Relates to Opt-Ins, Opt-Ins Relate to Readership, the Goal is Doubling

If you’re aware of current wisdom in the internet-based marketing arena, you know that business revenue correlates directly with Opt-Ins. The actual amount will depend exactly on what you have to offer as revenue-producing services and products, but the notion makes sense:

The more people in your tribe (your Opt-In groups), the more people who will likely pay attention to your offers.

In the last blog, I introduced intralinking as a power tip for building your readership. In this post, I’ll give an intralinking example. In subsequent posts, I’ll let you know how well its worked at increasing readership (and consequently, Opt-Ins).

Intralinking: One Way to Influence Your Doubling Rate

Intralinking means that you use links inside your blog post to link to other posts, from within the same blog. I’ve done that several times in this post.

For a really great example, see the post that I wrote yesterday for The Unveiling Journey. In Six-Year Anniversary for The Unveiling Journey Blog Series: Six Top Blog Posts Over Past Six Years, I linked to the most popular blogs on that site, from a six-year history of blog posting.

Three ways in which this helps grow readership:

1. Evergreen blogs become stronger: The selected blog posts (those to which I intralinked in this recent Unveiling blog post) have been getting ongoing readership, months and even years after initial posting. That means that they have the most valuable content for readers. Giving readers the “top value” (and even my recommendation as to where they should start) is giving them extra-special loaves and fishes; it puts the highest-value content in one post, and saves them time. This increases trust, which increases following.
2. Increase likelihood of back links from other sources: Certain readers will want to put backlinks in their own websites and blogs to the best content for their own tribes. Obviously, no one can point to all of your blogs. But the occasional high-value blog post (one with lots of really good intralinks) will get more attention from those who put out summary blogs with backlinks. (An example? I’m linking to it here! Once again, the link is: Six-Year Anniversary for The Unveiling Journey Blog Series: Six Top Blog Posts Over Past Six Years.)
3. Intralinking invites readers to keep on reading: If a reader comes in and feels that they’re on a roll with your posts, they’ll continue for a while. Intralinking lets them follow your thoughts throughout your blog and creates a stronger internal “mesh” within your blog series. That way, no one post is stand-alone; each becomes part of a cohesive and attractive whole.

Seven Essential Online Tools – To Get Started; To Build Momentum

1. Good Website Hosting Company,
2. Website Development Infrastructure,
3. Email Campaigns – opt-in forms, follow-ups, subscription list management,
4. Good Basic Training – the mechanics of developing an online marketing campaign),
5. Copy-writing Training,
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tool, and a
7. Video-Creation Capability

Tool #1: A Good Website Hosting Company

Bluehost.com

Tool #2: Website Development Infrastructure

WordPress – the single most logical, intuitive, and obvious combined web-and-blog-building tool in the world. No charge.

Tool #3: Opt-In Capability and Subscription Lists

AWeber is recognized world-wide as the lead company for three essential capabilities:

1. Opt-In List Management,
2. Opt-In Forms and Other Tools, and
3. Email Campaigns.

In addition, AWeber has some of the best online training tools around. Highly recommended!

Tool #4: Real Important Basic Training & Coaching (for Online Marketing Only)

Ann Sieg, Founder of Daily Marketing Coach and her Renegade Marketing Team offer the best online coaching for building an online marketing campaign.

One no-cost option? Check out the Renegade Blog.

Tool #5: Essential Copywriting – Blogging and Online Marketing

Copyblogger – a great source of online training – how to think, how to write.

Tool #6: Search Engine Optimization: Keyword Research Tool

Google Keyword Tool – assess the usefulness of the keywords/phrases that seem important to you, and suggest even better terms.

Tool #7: Cloud-Based Video Editing Software

Adobe Premiere Elements.

Yes, you can use Windows Live Movie Maker (should come with your laptop/PC) until you’re ready to upgrade. When you are, the Adobe system can be “rented” for $50/month; you don’t need to pay the humongous “buy it now” fee.

The Difference Between Service, Product, and Knowledge-Based Businesses

Nearly three years ago, just a few months before the economic tumult of 2008, I left the company that I had co-founded to strike out alone. It took several months to get a sense of direction. During that time, I got a good start on some new inventions – was getting fabulous traction on solving some tough problems and re-situating the fundamentals for my breakthroughs. (I had to make a clean break between the patented work that was now owned by the investors of my former company, and what I would do next.) And then, the bottom fell out just a little further.

Long story short, I had to regroup and focus on what I could do alone, without input, teamwork, or partnership from anyone. My core strength, aside from innovations and inventions, was in writing.

I had a choice of two books; one that had been “under development” for over fourteen years, and a new possibility; a textbook on cloud computing.

I did some demographic analysis, assessed the market and competing products, and prayed for wisdom. Ultimately, I went with the one that had been “under development.”