Tag Archives: opt-in lists

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!

Forming Your Tribe: First Steps

1 Reply

Once You Have Some Blog Readership: How to Start Building Your Tribe

Spreading the word – once you get people reading your blog, what’s your next step?

Once you have your blog going, and have even a little readership established, what’s your next big step?

It’s to start building your tribe.

A Bit of Backstory

Mourning Dove Press came into being because I had a book to publish.

I knew I was going to self-publish. This was because I wanted to keep creative control. Also, I figured that I would use profits on my self-published book to do more and better marketing; there would be overall more marketing dollars from direct profits than I would have from royalties with a traditional publishing house.

This made sense at the time, and still does.

It particularly made sense when I factored in the growing readership of digital/downloaded books versus the more traditional trade paper books. (About 70% of the books in the personal growth/self-help genre are now digital downloads.)

What I didn’t know was how hard it would be to build a platform; to connect with people, to build that long-term relationship.

In fact, when I was just starting, I didn’t even know that building that long-term relationship was the whole objective.

Personal Backstory

I’d grown up as an academic; intellectually gifted but a little – shall we say – socially awkward. And very much an introvert.

Even when I shifted to full-time entrepreneurship, my role was always to be the “genius in the back room.” I’d come up with the creative concepts, but someone else (usually the company president) would do all the marketing – and would hold all the relationships.

I had a naïve (and wholly unrealistic and completely unfounded) notion that I could publish a book, put a little effort into juicing the marketing engine, and then the book would trundle itself into being a best-seller; providing me with a secure (and even growing) income while I put attention into my next genius-creative project.

Oh, I was so wrong.

So very, very wrong.

And I spent about a year figuring out how wrong I was.

Three Necessary Stages

After getting it that I really didn’t get it, and then learning how to get it, I needed a year just to rebuild my entire business approach. This was a three-stage process after spending about two to three months at Stage Zero, or the research-and-decision-making stage.

The three business-building stages were:

Stage One: Basic (Re-)Build – Taking down the old website, building a new one that incorporated the blog, porting the old blog posts, and starting the arduous (and not terribly fun) process of blog clean-up,; all this took about four months (for three different but related websites, and then also for this one as well).
Stage Two: Basic Blog Build-Up – Reaching my (somewhat confused and fragmented) existing tribe with a new blogging approach – and getting back to blogging consistently; I gave this two months of just very steady, diligent blogging – and not even trying to get people to come to the blog until I had a bit of track record re-established. Regular (and intensive) blogging on each of three different blogs each week. About a day’s worth of solid work for almost each and every blogpost, so three days each week went just into blogging. Total time: about two months just focused on blogging, along with updating older blogs and continuing the website rebuild/transition.
Stage Three: Reaching Out and Tribe-(Re-)Building – Once I’d demonstrated steadiness and consistency – and made it clear (through multiple related blog posts) what the theme / blog topics were about, it was time to invite people in. I eased off on blogging, and focused on reaching out to people; asking them to join one or more of my Opt-In lists. I’m in this stage now, have been in it for the past two months, and will be in it for some time to come.

So it’s not so much about blogging anymore. It’s about growing my tribes, and – of course – the care and feeding of my tribes.

Knowing When to Switch Focus

I switched my focus from blogging to building my Opt-In lists when I had sufficient readership showing up on my website/blogsite to show that there was, indeed, some interest.

I’d already switched focus on two of my major blogsites.

The two blogsites where I write the most (and which serve as Case Studies for this blog) are:

The Unveiling Journey – archetypes, archetype integration, and life-journeys – further developing ideas first proposed in my book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey, and
The Alay’nya Studio – body awareness, dance, movement, raw foods (and occasionally, comfort foods), and emotional processing/release work. Also, the Fountain of Youth – how to cultivate, circulate, and use intrinsic (ch’i) energy. This is like the “laboratory notebook” corollary to the Unveiling blog, which is more like lecture notes that expand on a text. Lecture and lab, where life itself gives you the feedback.

These blogs have already kicked in with substantial readership growth over the past few months.

My next step? Doing for you (the readers of this blog) what I’ve done for my other tribes.

The reason that I know the time is right?

See the figure below.

Webstats for the Mourning Dove Press blog – August through mid-November, 2013.

Making Sense of the Data

The figure above shows my for-real blog readership for this blog, taken from Google Analytics. The timeframe is from August 1 (of this year, 2013) through yesterday, November 19. The stats are given on a weekly basis.

You can see that at the beginning – late July and early August – readership was very small. For the second week in August, the total readership was only about ten people, over the entire week.

I kept blogging. (This was my intensive blogging phase.) You can see each blog date with the red diamond on the chart.

Slowly, readership began to rise.

Specifically (see the middle of October), people were finding my site even when I hadn’t published a blog in a week or more. See where the weekly readership is holding steady in mid-October? No blog-writing during that time; at least not for this site. (I was busy doing blogging and working Opt-In lists for my other two top sites, see the links given earlier in this post.)

Then, when I published a new post (October 23), readership spiked.

That was a very good sign.

It meant that I had a little traction.

It’s taken me a month to get back to this site and write a new blog. My attention has been on writing for my other two blogs, and reaching out to the readership base there; building the Opt-ins. (And oh yes, the Opt-Ins have been doubling every month for the sites that I’m actively working – that’s a fabulous rate – takes a whole lot of work, but is so exciting.)

But notice – on the figure above – even after the initial readership spike with the last blogpost, there’s still some follow-up reading. People are finding their way here, and I haven’t been doing anything to encourage it.

No Facebook posting. No sending out the email blasts to my existing (and/or reforming) tribes.

This is all organic, people-coming-here-of-their-own-free-will search-enabled traffic. (Plus perhaps some RSS feeds.)

Thank God for search engines. Thank God for the power of intralinking, and tags, categories, and other little blog-readership-boosting devices. (See my previous posts in this series.)

So my next step?

It’s to do for you (the reader of this blog, right now), what I’ve done for the readers of the other blogs.

Give you an easy-to-find Opt-In form.

(It’s there now. In the sidebar, to the right. See it? Right at the top? Wasn’t there a few minutes ago. I put that in right after writing this post just now.)

Why Growing Your Tribe Is So Important

Building your tribe – the most important thing you can do. Photo: Rachel Doherty. Sourced from: Jeff Goins.

When Opt-Ins increase, revenue increases.

And yes, this depends on what you have to offer: a book, an online course, a coaching program, workshops, whatever. You have to have some product or service to sell.

But industry wisdom is: your revenue is in direct proportion to the size of your tribe. Your tribe grows, and (if you’re doing things right), your revenue grows.

But for your tribe to grow, you have to do one critical thing.

Sisterly Advice: Four Simple Words

Four simple words from my sister Ann Marie summed it up: Be there. Be visible.

I was talking about what I’ve been learning with my sister, Ann Marie.

Annie has just had a summer where there were children in-house. Her eldest son. Her grandchildren. (All of them.) A somewhat step-sibling to the grandchildren.

In other words, a full house of kids. Talk about tribe? She had one!

She was living the life that my mother, who had five of us children, had lived while we were young.

I talked with Annie about learning how important it was to feed my tribe.

She said, in the context of having five children to care for all summer, that it wasn’t that a person had to do all kinds of things for them. It wasn’t a matter of constantly engaging, entertaining, or monitoring them.

Instead, the secret was in four simple words.

According to my sister Ann Marie, the secret for tribe management is:

Be present. Be visible.

That’s it.

Not everything that you do or say has to be words of gold.

Just as not every meal has to be carefully-planned and made from scratch. Sometimes, the kids get peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. (Hey, don’t we all remember PB&J? Guess what I just had for breakfast, while writing this post? Yup. It’s faster and easier than cooking. And right now, the focus is on writing this post for you.)

But even though not every meal has to be fancy, there still needs to be a meal. Five kids, every day around noon, each needing to be fed. Sometimes PB&J. Sometimes something more elaborate. But every day, same time, they need to be fed.

That’s why I call it the loaves and fishes strategy.

What Opting In Really Means

When someone “opts-in” with me, that’s a huge gesture of trust. Intimacy, even. It’s a Martin Buber I-Thou moment; not so much a connection, but a willingness to have a connection.

When someone opts-in, it’s more than saying, Yes, I’ll take your regular emails, and occasionally even read them.

It’s more like saying, Yes, I acknowledge that you’re a thought-leader, and I’m allowing you to influence my thoughts.

In essence, they’re calling you a Master Teacher. (For more on this – very important topic – see: Who’s Your Yoda?.)

That’s why it’s sometimes so difficult to get our nearest-and-dearest to opt-in with us. It’s not that they don’t love us.

They do.

They may also respect us, and agree that we sometimes have words of wisdom.

But there’s a world of difference between acknowledging that someone whom you know has helpful insights – and that you may even call this person up for a little “help-me-out” conversation occasionally – and acknowledging that this person is not only A teacher, but is YOUR personal teacher.

Opting-in with someone shifts the relational dynamics.

Opting-in means acknowledging someone as a Hierophant – a transformational teacher. (For some background, go to Dealing with Betrayal at the Deepest Level – all about the Hierophant’s own transformational journey – and check out the links at the end of that blog post.)

A whole ‘nuther realm.

And a huge gesture of trust.

So when you get those Opt-Ins, be careful, okay? Treat your people with respect.

They’ve opted-in. They can opt-out at any time, just as easily. Maybe even more so. (I’m saying this because I “fired” someone yesterday; someone whose list I’d joined on the recommendation of someone else – this person was simply way-overusing the privilege of my email address. And I sent this person a detailed note as to why I was opting-out. Needless to say, this person was not pleased.)

Some More Good Words

Seth Godin has been called the godfather of tribe-building. Check him out at: Seth Godin’s website.

Also, Jeff Goins writes a damn fine blog, and much of it is relevant to those of us in the early stages of tribe-building. I particularly recommend his post: How to Build a Killer Tribe.

My favorite suggestion?

This is hard work, no kidding. It’s very focused work. It’s constantly building and refining your own skill set and your own message.

So you have to be disciplined, self-motivated, and develop a whole lot of skill-sets. Time, attention to detail, and consistency are all great virtues.

But most of all?

Have fun with it.

Yup.

As Ron Sieh, one of my former T’ai Ch’i Chuan teachers used to say:

Relax. Be “cas”. Hang out with it.

And most of all, have fun.

To your own health, wealth, and overall well-being –

Alianna
Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D. (For more, see my personal website at: Alianna Maren’s website.

Post Script

After all of this, it would be simply rude to close out this conversation without giving you an opportunity to Opt-In with me, right?

The form’s in the sidebar, to the right. Way up at the top of this post. Do the Opt-In thing. You’ll get an email heads-up as for each new blog post, plus special offers from time-to-time. And thank you.