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Synergize Your Writing and Speaking Career

Expand your offerings and your networking to increase credibility and sales.

By John Bennett, MPA, CMC

An excellent way to do this is to understand the linkage between writing, speaking, consulting, training, and coaching, and to realize the networking opportunities that arise when you develop these different aspects of packaging and delivering your expertise. Expanding your scope in this way creates a synergy that increases the strength of your efforts -- without having to reinvent yourself or your message.

For example, everyone who picks up your book is a potential buyer of your other products and services; every person you train, coach, consult with, or hears you speak is a potential book buyer. Everyone who finds useful information, entertainment, or self-improvement in your message has someone to share it with. Everyone who reads your book or hears you speak becomes a word-of-mouth advertiser. Unless you've somehow achieved celebrity status, you have to find your customers one at a time, and creating a persistent "buzz" is vital.

Ask yourself these questions: What is your focus? What are your strengths? Who are you clients? What are your services? Study your markets and your clientele, and examine the ways in which they overlap. Does your children's book also have a message for seniors? Could your book about safe sex be turned into a school assembly program? Would companies pay you to teach their employees the methods covered in your book on effective selling?

Next, develop ways to maximize the mix of services you offer. With each new way you find to utilize your expertise, you will increase the breadth of your message, impact the market more thoroughly, and develop a new stream of income. If you've already written a book, spend time writing articles to support it. Most of your research and writing will already have been done. Develop your speaking style to increase the effectiveness of your presentations and radio interviews. If you enjoy these public speaking events and connect with your audience, you may have a new career as a professional speaker.

The "Rule of 5" is the premise that you should develop and maintain five streams of revenue in your business. Some clients will say, "I have enough trouble maintaining just one," so I help them develop the capacity in their business and personal lives to juggle all these balls at once. A good analogy is to compare your career to a table, and the more legs you can put under it, the more balanced it is, and the more it can hold. Four legs is good - five is even better. You need balance for that platform to hold your message, and for you to be able to deliver it effectively.

Set priorities according to your strengths: do you enjoy working with people, or should you stick to writing articles in your area of expertise and press releases about your book? Can you become an effective public speaker, or are you better in a one-on-one situation, such as coaching? Who do you interact most comfortably with, adults or kids, men or women, professionals or laymen?

I did this in my own career as a speaker, coach, and consultant, and it inspired me to publish a book. At first, I had no idea how to begin. Then I started noticing that I was using a particular approach in my consulting and training, so I had a message. I wrote the manuscript, and then I ran across Jenkins Group, who had the answers to my questions about how to publish a book. They handled everything from registrations, to proofreading, and printing. I learned a lot along the way, and the book increased my credibility and expanded my network, both of which led to new consulting jobs and speaking engagements.

My first book became a way to deliver my message, a way to link things together. A career is like a tree -- the trunk is your message, and a book, your speaking engagements, consulting - they're all branches coming out. Those branches are your means of delivery, and your potential revenue streams. Of course, juggling everything at once can be very difficult -- you must sort your priorities and develop ways to leverage clients, markets, and services to your advantage. At this point networking becomes very critical to the process. Independent publishing is all about having the freedom to do things your own way, so you need to make the contacts with service providers and people you can trust to get things done.

Working with professionals you can trust really means a lot, because as a self-publisher, you're working with a number of different service providers, some on design and production, others on marketing and promotion. Ultimately, you make the decisions and you are accountable for the project. You can't give away ownership. You want to work with someone who will partner with you and help you identify your publishing agenda and put solutions to it.

My second book came about when I realized that my coaching clients kept asking me, "How do you do it? How do you expand your network?" And I didn't really know how I did it, so I decided to examine the process of determining how network building happens and turn that into a book. I thought to myself, "the gods are putting this issue in your life, so do something with it." Also, I was preparing to go to the International Coach Federation meeting in a few months, and a book would be a perfect calling card for the meeting.

To get material for the book and to test the power of networking, I sent an e-mail to 500 people, asking them three things about how they expand their own networks:
1) What has worked for you?
2) What would you tell someone to do to?
3) Tell a success story

I gave them a one-week deadline, and I got sixty responses. I began writing the book, and ended up including 65 tips, 50 success stories, and 11 principles. When the book was published, I sent everyone who responded a signed copy of the book, with a hand-written note marking the page where their content appeared.

To produce the book, I again called Jenkins Group with a special request to get it finished on a very short timeline. Their production coordination and scheduling held me to task and kept things moving along. I realized then how committed they are to self-publishers and the special marketing needs we have. Jerry Jenkins is an entrepreneur, offering services to entrepreneurs. His staff brought the kind of experience to the project I needed to make it happen.

Don't let the passion overwhelm the practicality I've had coaching clients say to me "I've got this book in me, and it's got to come out." My response to them is, "How are you going to publish this book?" and the answer is often, "Oh, I hadn't thought about that!" I tell people with this frame of mind what they should really be writing is a business proposal for the book. Once you've taken a realistic look at the business of your book and it's potential market, you can move on to questions about getting it published.

By the same token, if you don't have a book in you, don't force it. I ask clients, "Why do you need to write this book?" When they say, "I want to make a million dollars," I just say, "Good luck. Don't expect the book alone to do that for you." This is another reason for working with a company like Jenkins Group, that has worked with hundreds of authors, and knows what works and what doesn't. Find experts to help you assess what your strengths are and where your potential for success lies.

I think the "40% rule" applies here: just as a consultant or coach should never dedicate more than 40% of their time to one client, the independent author/publisher needs to bring a balance to his or her career. Don't let one activity overwhelm you, even when it seems you should be marketing yourself 24 hours a day. Keep a percentage of your time free for balancing and expanding your offerings. Our efforts have the most impact when we combine our strengths and utilize all of the resources at our disposal.

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John Bennett, MPA, CMC is president of Lawton & Associates, a management consulting firm that specializes in helping individuals and organizations prepare for, excel through and improve from change. He is a consultant, coach, speaker, trainer and author of two books. Contact him at 704-660-6000 or john@lawton-assoc.com