Tag Archives: challenges

Game On!

Kicking Off the New Year – Determining Goals, Time-Allotments, and Priorities

Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins

The toughest thing – for an entrepreneur or author – is figuring out priorities.

Sometimes we have a list of things that need to be done – this week, this month, this year. The challenge is in finding the starting point.

Sometimes, we have a related challenge. This happens when we’ve been in information-gathering mode; when we’ve found various online teachers. They all have good things to offer. This related challenge is: each of these new teachers/gurus/coaches is saying that what they’re teaching is the most important thing.

And our gut tells us that each of them is right.

However, something has to be most right for us at a given moment.

It’s figuring this out that is tough.

I wrote about this as one of the earliest Mourning Dove Press blogposts – Three Biggest Challenges for Authors/Entrepreneurs.

One of these “biggest challenges”? It was figuring our direction – when every direction seems to be true north.

The Three Crucial Questions

When we’re in this spot – many directions in which we could (and ultimately should) go – and trying to figure out our next steps, answering just three questions will help us sort out our priorities:

What is our necessary baseline platform,
What depends on what, and
What has the longest lead time for getting useful results?

Tribe-Building: The Necessary Platform

Like some of you, I’m already an author.

Like many – if not most – of you, I’m an entrepreneur. In fact, a serial entrepreneur – this is my third major start-up.

After publishing my book (Unveiling: The Inner Journey) two and a half years ago, I did what I thought was the right marketing.

But truth was – I understood only part of the engine.

The result? I had a lot of go-nowhere activities; little one-off efforts that didn’t dovetail back into the big picture.

Much of what I did was both useful and necessary.

However, because my priorities were off – because I was missing the core element for Tribe-building – I lost more than a year’s worth of effort.

Not a complete loss – because now that my Tribe-building central core is strong, I can go back and reclaim some of those efforts; bring them back to strengthen the solid core.

You can do the same.

But there’s no strengthening the core if the core isn’t there to begin with, right?

Painful Actions to Remedy a Discordant Situation

Last year (2013), I had to take down the different online business elements that did not work, and build a new structure that did.

This involved three steps:

Learning what to do,
Learning how to do what needed doing, and
Doing it.

Enroute, because I have a life-long habit of teaching that which I need to learn, I started the MDP blog series – that which you’re reading right now.

I was also supremely fortunate to find a client who needed me to do for her that which I was doing for myself.

You know the rule for teaching something to someone (even yourself), right?

Learn the subject,
Put into practice what you’ve just learned, and
Teach it to someone else.

Hence, this blog.

Hence, you’re profiting from my – not so much mistakes, but mis-directions, and lost time.

The best possible result?

You’ll still have to work, and I do mean work (real hard). But then – your efforts will all dovetail nicely. And, one effort will lead to success with another, which will lead to more success, … In short, success will build on itself .

Your Essential Tribe-Building Platform Is …

I talk with a lot of people who say something like Oh, I need to build a website, or I need to update my website.

Wrong.

The basic platform is not your website. (That’s so early 2000’s.)

Your basic Tribe-building Platform is a combination of five crucial elements:

Website – yes, you still need one,
Tribe-management system – it lets you keep track of your Tribe and communicate with Tribe members easily,
First benefits – some people call these an “ethical bribe,” or reason why people should give you their email address (join your Tribe) in the first place,
First Tribe-building connections, which are the steps you take with someone immediately after they join your Tribe – teaching them how you can and will help them, and
Loaves and fishes – the regular care and feeding of your Tribe.

Which brings me to Premise #1:

Until your basic Tribe-building Platform is in place, you have no other or stronger priority. This is your Number One Priority.

Getting your Tribe-Building Platform up and running smoothly is a matter of at least a few months. Possibly a whole year.

However, getting your Tribe-building Platform into operation is the first task that answers all three of the crucial questions posited earlier.

Specifically:

Your Tribe-building Platform is your necessary baseline platform,
Everything else that you do will hook into your basic Platform or bring more members to your Tribe, and
Tribe-building is the one activity that has longest lead-time, and must be started early.

With this in mind, you have a framework for making all priority and time-allotment decisions.

For example:

Networking events – if your platform is not clear and solid, and if you have no reason for people to join your Tribe, then meeting people and getting their business cards will give you only secondary, not primary, benefits,
Giving talks – a great idea, once the talks become a means for inviting people to join your Tribe (by showing them how much valuable information you give, of course), and
YouTubes, Facebook, other social media – great adjuncts to your Tribe-building platform, but if they don’t ultimately bring your people to the Platform, and invite them to join your Tribe, you’re doing divergent activities. What you really want is convergent.

You want convergent actions – where everything comes together.

What you really want is convergent activities.

Convergent means actions that get people to join your Tribe, and then to strengthen their bond with you and your Tribe.

Joining your Tribe happens when someone takes the first step: they Opt-In to (join) your Tribe through using an Opt-In form on your website, where they give you their name and email address, or at least their email address. This is where the relationship starts.

Ultimately, your Tribe members will realize the transformational value that being part of your Tribe brings to their lives. They’ll want more of what you offer. That’s when you start transacting – because they’ll want to buy what you offer.

Loaves and fishes: feeding your tribe (your Opt-In group) means regularly giving them content that meets their needs.

But your primary objective needs to be teaching your Tribe and giving them transformational tools and insights. They’ll buy in order to get more powerful and effective versions of what you offer for free. (That’s the Loaves and Fishes strategy.)

Doesn’t matter if they give you their business card. Doesn’t matter if you have them in your private database or in any of your distribution lists.

Doesn’t matter how much you email each other, or talk on the phone.

Doesn’t matter if you’re Facebook Friends-for-Life. Doesn’t matter if they even introduce you to their nearest-and-dearest.

They join your Tribe when they Opt-In to at least one of your lists, using an Opt-In form that you’ve put on your website, and you’ve responded by giving them the First Benefit. (This could be a report, a list of useful tools, a first email back with a promise of monthly emails – whatever it is that you promised them when they joined.)

This starts the relationship.

Going Behind the Green Curtain in Oz – Next Steps for Tribe-Builders

Going behind the Green Curtain in the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz.

We’re going behind the green curtain, and I’ll show you what I’ve learned and deciphered about the magic controls that any Wizard uses to generate big effects.

In the next few months, we’ll deal with the real and practical issues of Tribe-building, from the ground up.

Topics that we’ll address will include:

Resources – I’m going to introduce you to the people whom I listen to and whose webinars/videos I watch (avidly) – my most-trusted group of advisors, my personal best-of-the-best,
Tribe transition strategies – how do you bring the people whom you already know into your Tribe? What works over time? and finally –
Tribe-growing strategies – what works best; what works when. I’ll be sharing the inside secrets of what I’ve learned, what I’ve done, and what works best. And yes; real data, real numbers, real graphs.

Join me!

And hey, if you haven’t already – join my Tribe! Go to the Home Page for Mourning Dove Press, and there – big as can be – a big, ole’ Opt-In Form. Do the right thing. See you on the other side.

Extra Incentive

I’m going to be teaching workshops on the practical, tangible specifics – how to build your Tribe-building Platform.

These will be hands-on, very small group sessions.

You’re going to do the work yourself. But I’ll be there to coach you on every single step.

Plus (because I grew up with a college professor father, and have taught in several universities), you’ll get homework.

That’s right. For-real homework – which you’ll need to complete before you can take the next class.

And you’ll want to take the next class – because it will help you get to the next level of your own Tribe-building.

Now, I know – not all of you can get to McLean, VA for once-a-month Saturday classes. But I’ll be sending out class notes to people who are members of my Tribe.

No fee. But just by becoming a member, you’ll get extra info that I’m not putting into this blog series – just giving my Tribe members a heads-up on where to find it.

What to do first – and second, and third – I’ll take the mystery out, and make it clear, practical, and simple,
Step-by-step – online resources to back up class studies, or to help you out if you can’t be in class, and
Example completed assignments – with comments and corrections – yes, you remember from college days – the answers to the questions are in the back of the book. Well, Tribe members – and Tribe members only – get the crib sheets. The worked-out exercises. You can see what I’ve done, and what I’m doing now, and see how it impacts my growing Tribe.

As best-selling author and life coach Tony Robbins says, when you want to master a new skill or craft:

… find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.

So join me. And join my Tribe! Go to the Home Page for Mourning Dove Press. See you there!

First Major Challenge: The Expert-Author-Entrepreneur Transition

From Expert to Author to Entrepreneur: The Hidden Challenge for Emerging Leaders

Going from an “expert” to an “author” is a big life transition. Then, going from “author” to “entrepreneur” is another big transition. The next transition (not shown in the diagram below) is from “entrepreneur” to “Guru” or “King.” This is not such a big transition; it is more evolutionary. (For our definition of “King,” re-visit our first blog, Kingmaker/.)

The toughest shift of all is from author to entrepreneur. That’s why I not only pulled this one out for special attention, but identified the Three Biggest Challenges for Emerging Authors-Entrepreneurs in a recent post.

The diagram below illustrates these three crucial challenges.

Author to Entrepreneur: The Three Biggest Challenges

Shifting Engagement Strategy: from “Extreme Introversion” to “Extroversion,”
Shifting Focus: from “Tight Inward Focus” to “Ever-Expanding Outward” Locus of Attention, and
Shifting Management Strategy: from “Extreme Simplicity” to “Extreme Complexity.”

Going from Expert to Author to Entrepreneur: The First Major Challenge. Copyright Mourning Dove Press, 2013. Used with permission.

In this post, I’ll discuss just the first of these challenges, because each challenge is worth substantial attention. The more that we know, the more that we can prepare, and the less we’ll be taken unawares. Also, we’ll be more rapidly able to get “on top of” our new game.

The First Major Author-to-Entrepreneur Challenge: Shifting Engagement Strategy from “Extreme Introversion” to “Extroversion”

(Blog post in progress; new material to be posted soon – 5/16/2013)

The Three Biggest Challenges for Emerging Authors/Entrepreneurs

2 Replies

The Three Biggest Challenges: Going from Author to Entrepreneur

In all the books, online tutorials, and other guidance that I’ve studied since releasing my latest book (under the Mourning Dove Press imprimatur) over a year and a half ago, not a single source mentioned any of what I found to be the three biggest challenges confronting an author-turning-entrepreneur. Not one! And certainly, none of them has offered a means for dealing with these challenges.

Perhaps its because there’s a certain psychological nature to this. However, I’ve come across many “success coaches” and “business coaches” who address a wide range of “psychological aspects” in their coaching. Not a one has come close to any of these.

So let me dive in. These are the three biggest hurdles facing anyone in the midst of the author-to-entrepreneur transition. I’ll outline them briefly in this post, and suggest specific strategies for mastering the transition – and dealing with each of these challenges – in the next three postings.

The Three Biggest Challenges

Shifting Engagement Strategy: from “Extreme Introversion” to “Extroversion,”
Shifting Focus: from “Tight Inward Focus” to “Ever-Expanding Outward” Locus of Attention, and
Shifting Management Strategy: from “Extreme Simplicity” to “Extreme Complexity.”

Not a one of these is trivial. In fact, any one of these – if not addressed very successfully – will completely derail an emerging author – or a product developer, in the case of a “skunkworks”-type product development scenario.

Why Being an Author is Like Being in a “Skunkworks”

The analogy of being an author to being part of a “skunkworks” team is pretty useful.

SeachCIO defines a “skunkworks”:

Skunk, courtesy of the Village of the Niles.

A skunkworks (also known as Skunk Works) is a small group of people who work on a project in an unconventional way. The group’s purpose is to develop something quickly with minimal management constraints. Skunkworks are often used to initially roll out a product or service that thereafter will be developed according to usual business processes.

The original “Skunk Works” team was a specialized Lockheed Martin team that developed an advanced fighter jet during WWII. While a number of people still think that the “skunkworks” term refers to the hygiene habits of the developers, it really is supposed to refer a moonshine factory in the then-popular cartoon strip L’il Abner. Be that as it may – two “rules” (of the fourteen governing a skunkworks) practically necessitate holding one’s nose:

Very small team: Rule 3 states that: “The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner.” Extremely small team; extreme isolation. In an author’s case, this could mean a team consisting of “me, myself, and I” – and that will continue until the project is far enough advanced to include a crucial few others, such as editor and copyeditor, etc. Many early-stage authors will not have a publisher or agent.
Extreme isolation: Rule 13 states that: “Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled.” Other rules reinforce the themes of tight focus (cutting out any and all forms of bureaucratic interference), together with rapid-development expediency .

The result?

People who excel in a “skunk works” environment are not those who “play well with others.” They live to create their dream. They are at least somewhat obsessive. Perhaps they are very obsessive.

All of this – while leading to successful goal-achievement – is the antithesis of being sociable.

No company would ever dream of putting an effective “skunkworks” person into a regular engineering job, and far less into marketing. However, this is exactly the challenge that confronts any author who is shifting from project-completion to marketing.

Asking an author or product-developer to start marketing their work really is like asking oneself to go from being a “skunkworks” type of person to a “marketing” person, practically overnight.

Challenge?

You bet.

No wonder very few successfully overcome this.

It’s Not Just the Workload, It’s the Complexity

Complexity – when every direction seems “true north.”

No one – amongst all the advice-givers whom I’ve studied so far – has really addressed the core essence of the second and third biggest challenges:

Going from “tight focus” to “ever-expanding” task-loads, and
Going from “extreme simplicity” to “extreme complexity”.

Here’s the essential nugget underlying these last two challenges:

Every direction appears to be “true north.”

There is so much to be done, and all of these different tasks are divergent.

When we were focused on book or product completion, everything that we did was convergent. A task might have been difficult (in some ways), yet it was essentially simple in that it brought us closer to a well-defined goal.

For an author, every step – every thought – is focused on getting just a little closer to that “magic moment” of pushing the final “upload finished work” button. Everything that the author does is convergent – it is directed towards the same goal.

In contrast – in very great contrast – everything that is done after pushing the “upload” button is divergent. Everything “fans out.”

There is a nearly innumerable list of tasks: Develop the website. Create and perform in book signing events, TV and radio interviews, and talks before various audiences. Write press releases. Get reviews, both on Amazon and in media. Get names of people, get them into the database, set up continued connection with them. Build an ongoing “platform” of blogging.

For the emerging author (or the entrepreneur with a new product), the challenge is that every single one of these tasks is important. There’s not a single one that can be deferred indefinitely.

In a sense, any single one of these can become the “most important thing” – the “organizing theme” for activities. Any one of these – or all of them – can seem to be “true north.”

The result? Confusion. Efforts in one arena, then another.

No one of these is the answer, of course. And yet, they all are.

Also – no single one of them is typically “income-producing.” Certainly not to the extent that an author/entrepreneur would get sufficient feedback to say, “Yes. This is it. This is the path that I should follow.”

Conestoga wagon, in B&W, by Ross Sharrock.

Not surprisingly, many give up during this stage. The author/entrepreneur simply burns out – not from overwork, but from confusion-based exhaustion. The lure of a regular day job, with a well-defined structure (in addition to a well-defined salary and benefits) becomes too much. Then, a well-done book or product is abandoned.

It’s reminiscent of some of the sadder (and perhaps more grisly) stories from the pioneers crossing the plains. Their Conestoga wagon – the vehicle that was supposed to get them to a new life in the “promised land” – was abandoned. And all hope was lost.

This sense of “all directions being true north” is what can make our time in our own “Valley of Death” or “Red Waste” – going from just-published to wildly-successful – prolonged and potentially fatal to our enterprise.

Solutions and Strategies

We now have a sense of the magnitude of the challenges confronting a new author or emerging entrepreneur. It’s not just the conversion from a “skunkworks”-type personality to a “marketer.” It’s not just the shift from “convergent” to “divergent” tasks. And it’s not even the complexity-management.

The most crucial challenge is finding “true north”: Finding a consistent direction that will lead you – the author/entrepreneur/self-employed professional – out of the “Valley of Death” (what Sun Tzu called “Death Ground”), and into your realm of success, stability, and prosperity.

This is possible. There is a strategy.

This strategy will be the subject of upcoming blogs.

Join me – “Opt-In” using the form to the right. I’ll give you a “heads-up” when I publish the next strategic step that will help you decide on your own personal “true north” – and successfully survive your own “Valley of Death.”

Special Note: If you want to succeed with this strategy – the only one that I believe to be effective for the long haul – go back to the first blog in this series, Kingmaker, and do the exercises. Seriously. They count.

For the next posting in this series, go to:

The First Major Challenge in the Author-to-Entrepreneur Transition.