Why do I ask? Well…..

My friends/ colleagues/ mentors Judith & Jim
(Judith Sherven, PhD and Jim Sniechowski, PhD)
spent years struggling to understand what a real business is
and what all is involved to build one on solid ground…

They realized that it MUST start with a clear Internal
Understanding of what it is you are doing –
first and foremost for your
own sake — and also for your customers.

Most people struggle with this issue big time, but
never talk about it. I know I have.
Most people just hide their desperation
and misery  –  but Judith & Jim are doing something
completely different.

They’ve realized that clear understanding needs
to start with a clear Internal Marketing Platform!

That’s why I am inviting you to attend their FREE
Virtual Workshop this Thursday –

Register by clicking here

So You Can Get Clear About YOUR Internal Marketing Platform

There always seemed to be something missing with all
the well-meaning marketing and promo advice.
It’s this internal focus that needs to come FIRST is what
I’ve realized is key.  My coaches and mentors are sharing –
for the first time in a live no-cost workshop  — a true
self-discovery experience (It’s much much more than
Judith & Jim just teaching or training, as great as that is!)

It’s really all about  YOU . . .

*** How to discover, in yourself, what you need
in order to build and stand firmly on your own
successful Internal Soft Sell Marketing Platform ***

http://budurl.com/JJInternalPlatfm

They’re calling it

“Discovering Your Internal Marketing Platform”
It’s The Foundation of Your External Marketing Success

It’s FREE  –  So give yourself this gift — and
get registered now:

http://budurl.com/JJInternalPlatfm

It’s Thursday, July 8th, at 5:30 pm Pacific/8:30 pm ET

Judith & Jim will start by clarifying what a Marketing
Platform IS,  what it is NOT, and why it’s SO important to you –

And then you’ll experience a Marketing Workshop that’s
truly different from what you’ve ever experienced before.

Because Judith & Jim will guide you, taking you deep
inside yourself to help you discover and integrate
the important values and other qualities that will
serve as the basis for your out-in-the-world
marketing platform.

Remember, if your marketing platform does not begin
within, you can only stumble and fall, losing faith
and energy as you continually jump around trying to
make things work.

So make sure you are registered for this
FREE, life-changing event -

http://budurl.com/JJInternalPlatfm

AND you can certainly invite your friends and colleagues
to get registered too! That way you can share your
discoveries and support each other in moving forward
into greater success through your Internal marketing platforms!

“See” you on the call. I’m certainly going to be there.
As I like to say, “the inner journey IS the journey.”
Hope you will join me and my mentors in Soft Sell Marketing.

Some time ago, my colleagues in an entrepreneur support group asked me about Attraction Marketing. It really comes down to marketing from the inside-out.

I’m convinced that that the inside-out way is the most powerful way to do anything!! (Start with BE-ing first, then the DO-ing)

The writing projects, workshops, coaching conversations, Vision Quests, and mapping I do are all about taking  that Inner Journey first.

I wanted to share the following questions with you so that you can start making your own Strategic Attraction Plans. Who are your perfect just-right people (tribe)? Who do you envision inviting,  joining you in your circle?  Who are the people you want to cross the bridge of your words?

This Strategic Attraction process will help you clarify and specify so that your light will be attractive to the people who are most perfect for your services and products.

Start by identifying WHO is the first relationship you are focusing on attracting with your 4-part Strategic Attraction Plan.

Do a separate Attraction plan for each of the different relationships you want to attract. Write each of the following four questions on a separate sheet of paper to give yourself plenty of room to expand your plan and NOTICE what comes up.

This plan is to attract MY perfect ________.
Select whom you want to attract:
MY perfect __________
[Sweetheart, employer, employee, customer, coaching client, reader, business partner, vendor, Virtual Assistant, investor, relationship partner, mastermind, teacher, coach, agent, publisher, donor, student, neighbor, etc.]
The process can work for whomever you want to attract, any and every kind of relationship — both business and personal.

LIST #1       DESCRIBE     The QUALITIES of your perfect _____________.
What are the attributes, qualities, characteristics, values, beliefs, and visions of your perfect __________ ?      [fill in whatever relationship you are attracting]
This one can literally fill a notebook. Or two. This is not the place to be stingy! EVERYTHING that you notice that is a perfect quality goes on your plan.

List #2     IDENTIFY        “The TICK”
What makes my perfect  [fill-in-the-blank] __________  tick?
(By the law of attraction — that like attracts like –  answer this by answering for yourself, “What makes me tick?”)
This may eventually be honed down to a very brief and powerful statement that gets at the core of who you are and why you are here.

List #3       SPECIFY         What YOU WANT them to EXPECT of you?
What do I WANT my perfect [fill-in-the-blank]  __________   to expect of me?
This is where you decide what it is you really want to experience in the relationship. What YOU WANT … to do or experience in the relationship.

List #4      DECLARE        Your BE-ing
Who do I need to BE for me to receive what I say I want?
(Another way to ask this: Who do you have to BE in order to be able to provide what you want your clients to expect of you in #3?)

Process: Notice what comes into your field in relation to the perfect relationship you are now attracting. NOTICE. OBSERVE. Make additional notes to your plan. (Even people you don’t like can be fodder for the plan. Turn it around to write down what you DO want based on experiencing what you DON’T want.)

Secret question to shift your energy of BE-ing when things don’t look/feel great:
What Would Be More Perfect?

The above attraction plan is adapted from: Jan Stringer and Alan Hickman’s BEE-ing Attraction: What Love Has To Do With Business and Marketing
Plus you can click here to  Learn more about Attracting Perfect Customers!

I am so excited to report that I am  getting certified as an Attraction Strategist (Also known as a BEEing Attraction Wizard), and going more deeply into learning this 4-question Strategic Attraction process so that I can  share it.

I invite you to play in this field of attractive magic! As one of my colleagues reported, you too will be shedding your invisibility cloak!

For a year now, I’ve saved a blog post title idea: drinking from the fire hose. It’s a physical and metaphorical image of the overwhelm engendered by the information overload that overtakes me when I consider all the information in every form: books, reports, teleseminars, courses, blogs, web sites, FB. Don’t even mention twitter, google, wiki, squidoo, amazon, ezine articles, or clickbank. It is a gushing river of — you guessed it — words.

Master storyteller Jeanne Kolenda, one of our #blog30 colleagues, recently posted about lifestyle of learning.  Jeanne concludes, “never, ever give up a lifestyle of learning.  It will keep you young, AND make you successful.” Wow. Let’s bottle some of that! I prefer to think of it as lifelong learning, but sometimes I wonder: Am I just being a perpetual student? That definitely has a nasty pejorative ring to it.

Still, the reality is you won’t get far along an entrepreneurial path without constantly refreshing, updating, refining, and expanding your knowledge and skills. You may think you need to go broad or maybe deep. It works differently for different people. But whether you do a deep dive or a cross-section, the next task for the lifelong learner is putting it all into practice, turning knowledge into embodied wisdom. That is the goal I think. To somehow metabolize what you need to know so that you can do what you need to do swiftly and easily.

Yet to understand our constantly evolving selves, we must become in some sense perpetual students to our inner selves, curiously exploring our own patterns of light and shadow. For plumbing those depths, writing is the tool of choice, at least for me. Some can get there with movement, with paints or clay, or with musical notes. Once again — for many –  writing’s eminent adaptability comes through, as the companion on an inner journey, even as it makes up the flow of all the outer forms of information as well. That is the magic and mystery of the Write Synergies Path.

Wise metaphysicians would point out, in addition to all the busy-ness of the doing,  the learning, the delving — both internally and externally — at the root of it all there’s the being. And that’s what actually needs to come first. First being, then doing.

Writing, although it may be the currency and language of the vast majority of the information universe out there, it is also a way to connect with the most profound center and heart of our being.  Although it’s gushing like a firehose to put out the fires of our ignorance, it can also become the river of our own words that carry us to the pulsing heart of our passion and contribution, then safely carries us back out.

Take a deep deep breath. Keep writing. Keep being. And sometimes, the doing will keep.

approaching the end at #blog30

Several years ago, two separate teachers informed me that I was a healer. “But I’m a writer,” I said. “And without a doubt, you’re a healer,” they both insisted. I was surprised. At least in this lifetime, I’ve stayed as far away from the healing arts as I possibly could, except when I insisted on natural, unmedicated childbirth with midwives. Twice. I credited my long-time meditation teachers, Rosita and Sandy at Arche International, with giving me the inner knowledge and training to make such feats possible. Them and the Bradley Method.

I have come to define healing in the broad terms my teachers must have meant. We are all healers at some level. It is that underlying healing intention that I uncover and magnify with my perfect clients, both in our conversations and in writing projects.  The transformational visionaries determined to shift this hinge-historical moment in a positive direction — the conscious creators, heart-based venturers, soul-preneurs, soft sell marketers, the healing visionaries and authors with intentions on a planetary or systemic level — are indeed weaving the healing with every word they (we) publish and client they (we) interact with.

My colleague in the 30-day blog challenge, Kazi (on Twitter as  @50andFit) recently wrote about entrepreneurship as path to self-healing. It’s a post full of common sense and practical tips. Kazi said, “…ensure you get the personal outer and inner cultivation you need to remain healthy and on top of your game. Your attention, time, energy and creativity are all aspects of your Chi. Your Chi is your very life force. It is the very basis of your health, wealth and wisdom.  If you allow your chi to diminish, you allow your life to diminish.”

Like Kazi, I advise care of the life force, the Chi. For my tribe, writing is the very means for that inner and outer cultivation and balancing of Chi. Writing is a way of strengthening the inner, of mining the inner gold of your own thoughts and feelings, many times discovering what you think and feel as you write. One client (who never really liked writing much even from school days) reported that she discovered things about herself that she never knew when she put herself into the process of writing.

From this inner cultivation and strengthening comes the outer development and presentations of our messages and our creations. The outer manifestation of our creation and its outreach message are all the stronger by being forged from the inner fires first.

Words and writing are the tools for the personal inner healing journey. They are metaphysical and alchemical agents of change. They are also the tools for manifesting written creations (books, blogs, brochures, articles, e-courses, even tweets); and they are the raw materials that go into creating the message that will then connect to the people who need to hear it.

Remember: Your creation, book, project, or venture cannot begin to do its healing of the heart of the world until it is out there, full and strong. YOU have to be a strong enough vessel from the inside out, without cracks, to bring your creation all the way into the world. You have to be healed and strong enough to go on helping it grow into the full flowering of the message and healing it is here to do.

Oh, yes. Words are powerful. One colleague recently received a serious wounding by words. Others came in and used words, attempting to mitigate and transform the pain, using their love in words as healing. Writing is healing when healing and wholeness are the intentions.

#Blog30 on Twitter.

Copywriting. There. I said it. It’s part of the name of this site. It’s a valuable keyword. But it’s practically invisible, rarely written about here. What gives?

In post 25, defining Write Synergies, I said I’d address the case of this missing keyword—copywriting. I started with Write Synergies, but tacking on a popular keyword seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

On my longer marketing journey from starting this site (and even before) to now, I’ve come to realize that copywriting is a tool. It remains an important tool if you want to connect with your community, your niche market.  Copywriting helps you tell the story of your product or service in a way that connects to your people.  You identify the obstacles and challenges they are facing, then proceed to engage them in a process of understanding and accepting your offer — what will solve the problem or help them overcome the obstacle — the thing that’s most present and painful relating to your topic. (And if you’re like most of my ideal clients, you’ll add lots of value and transformations along the way, what those clients need but didn’t know they could even dream of asking for.)

The old definition of copywriting was “Salesmanship in print.” You’ll still find that traditional kind of copywriting around: hard sell sales letters, fear-based mailings, screen after screen of online letters, flashing buttons and arrows, an urgency that feels false and forced. “Salesmanship” is changing even as the jaded, cynical and info-overloaded world of people out there surfing, texting, tweeting, are finally realizing they are hungry for something else, something different, something more nourishing to both body and soul.

For those of us calling ourselves soul-preneurs, conscious creators, authors, writers, artists, healers, those in conscious business or soft sell marketing or mindful service providers and messengers with a message of change, hope and transformation, we are the ones committed to contributing and serving our communities.  For us, that kind of copywriting doesn’t ring true. Our people are looking for a genuine connection. In the old regime, authenticity and genuine connection are in short supply.  Our people hunger for our authenticity to touch their hearts. We know it, yet all that seems to be available are the old tools.

My writing journey and client interactions have indicated that copywriting, as a tool for outer expression, is best partnered with an inner journey first.  Many of the posts at Write Synergies Copywriting set the stage and make the case for the importance of that inner journey, what I sometimes call your creative or marketing vision quest. In fact, if you’ve followed along the 30 Day Blogging Challenge, you’ve joined me on an inner journey here.

While I’ve said very little about copywriting, it’s not because copywriting is not important. Rather, it’s because for those of us who bring the fire and passion of service and contribution and leadership to our work, copywriting, at least in the old sense, is necessary but not sufficient.

Some of my clients don’t even like it that I have copywriting as part of the name of my site. “That sells you short. It doesn’t get close to all you do!” they cry. But it is a piece of what I do. Crazy as it sounds, the big vision at WriteSynergiesCopywriting is to literally redefine the model and best practices for what copywriting really means. Copywriting, by the way, is but one of the many pieces of magic I do with words. The point I emphasize to all my clients is the crucial role that the inner journey plays, even in a seemingly straightforward process like copywriting.

Part of the magic, in doing this inner Write Synergies work with clients (and before getting to the copywriting per se) is that we excavate each client’s inner voice. We uncover the vision at the heart of her purpose, why she is here, why she is called to share her message.  We tap into the deepest level of authenticity that he is willing and able to bring to forth at the present moment. Who knows? Maybe in the next iteration, we will go deeper.

Copywriting is a tool, a powerful tool. During its heyday in the 20th Century, it convinced us we needed things that we didn’t even know we needed.  (Maybe, as it turns out, we really didn’t need them…) Now in this paradigm-changing moment, we reshape the old tools to the new world. We reconfigure the tools to serve the highest purpose that we can manifest in our work and creations. The new reforged tools are malleable partners with you (more synergies magic!) to communicate the highest message, the conscious and mindful path that your project, venture or creation offers to your tribe. We are in the midst of a transformative and visionary moment. I urge you to reforge the tools at hand using the heat and fire drawn from your inner journey first.

There are plenty of practical tools and many great teachers. I was inspired to write about my own “missing keyword” when I read this post by my colleague Connie Ragan Green, the brilliant and diligent teacher who convened this 30 day blogging challenge. It seems keywords are a challenge for many of us.

For practical, hands-on insights around keywords for your tribe, check out Connie’s post: http://ebookwritingandmarketingsecrets.com/free-keyword-research-how-to-use-keywords-to-build-your-internet-business/#comment-4427

Hey #blog30: We are sprinting to the finish line. It’s been a blast!

Create and Implement: Sounds simple. And it’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? If you are a visionary author, writer, messenger, thought leader, or conscious creator with a mission to heal, the idea is to get the work (and its healing results) out there into the world, to start serving the people you came here to serve.

I just read a review for a creativity process book over at Amazon, and there are now comments on the comments. One of those subcomments really struck home. Do these creativity process books help you take action on making your art (whatever it may be)? Or does the process lull you into endless loops of reflecting on the process?

It’s a fine line, I think. Because the inner journey, as discussed in prior posts, is important to building a strong foundation for the outer expression of your work and gifts and greatness in the world. But at a certain  point, it’s time to just do the work, to build the house, write the book, call the clients. How can you use these “process” approaches to launch you into the doing of the actual work (art) you came here to do (make) — and not as an excuse for endless procrastination and preparation?

Note to self: Is this a potential danger of the Write Synergies Path work that I am creating? How may I structure this “process” so it’s more about moving my people forward with doing whatever is the important work/art/creation/venture?  How do I prevent myself and others from falling into the thrall of something completely impractical and tail-chasing as an excuse to avoid the work of creating?  How can I make sure there is practical traction?

My personal challenge IS in doing my “own work,” whatever that may look like. It looked for a time like poetry. And for time it looked a lot like collage/assemblage. Then photography. Now it seems to want to shape itself into a book. Or several. And collaborating with visionary thought leader clients to support and mentor them in creating their most important writing projects.

This post, “create and implement,” is really all about encouraging you in the doing of your work. To do full justice to “create and implement,” it really calls for more detail than a  single blog post here.

You ask, “Do I just start creating?”  Yes. Sometimes you just start. Sometimes, instead, the creation “starts” you–its call is so persistent that it seeps out of your pores and your pen or across the keyboard without your even being full aware of it. This is the luscious process of what I call “divine dictation.” Something comes out, flows out the pen and onto the page.  I know I wrote it, but I don’t have a clue where it came from. These are the moments of the gift. It’s important to grab the gift moments, treasure them, and build on them. They are the gold.

Then there are the other moments, when the engine is cold and it’s tough to start. These are the times when the “Just do it,” motto comes in handy. Times that call for the admonishment to be willing to write what Anne Lamott calls, the “shitty first draft.” Get something out there. Pen to paper even when you don’t really “feel like it.” (And here, a perfect time for acknowledging the gift of the 30 day blog challenge, to get stuff done and out in spite of resistance, procrastination. So thanks #blog30 community!)

Remember: It’s a stronger house with a foundation, and it’s a stronger creation when it has the grounding and foundation of having done the inner work first, tapping into the vision and building on your authenticity, gifts, and greatness.

Be grateful for the gifts and moments of golden flow. But keep on writing (creating) anyway, even if you feel like you are plugging along up a steep incline. Think of the view when you get to the top. Just make sure you are climbing the right mountain!

I came across marketing expert and coach, Tara Kachaturoff, on Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge.  Her post today, “Marketing Your Book – The strategy may be in “why” you wrote your book,”  suggests that authors and would-be authors look at the reasons why writing a book was important in the first place. Tara explains, “You can often find hints of marketing strategies that might be a good fit.”

She concludes, saying,  “I believe there is value in taking time to explore your original intentions as you may find some highly aligned and inspirational strategies that are perfect for you!”

Tara’s insights are right on the money. What she opens the door to here is the deep dive, what I call the “inner journey.”  In particular for conscious creators, visionaries, thought leaders, and paradigm-changing authors, writers, messengers, healers, and soul-preneurs, this sort of reflection creates the foundational inner work that strengthens the creator and the project. But why, you may ask, does that matter?

What I have discovered and observed over my time in corporate book publishing and a decade-long self-employment journey helping all kinds of clients with their words,  is that all the fantastic outer stuff is great.  But using those juicy marketing tools alone can result in “bright shiny object syndrome” without the foundational grounding of this inner journey.  Both creator and creation become like a tree without roots, and just as unlikely to thrive.

Think about it. Without examining your underlying motivations, your vision, aspirations, and goals, without the inner clarity that comes  from envisioning your path and ultimate destination (or at least the next few steps), then you risk traveling the road that old saying describes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Ideally this inner work and inner journey takes place before the book is published.  But as Tara observes, it can be powerful at any point in the process. I like to point out the importance of this by saying “the inner journey IS the journey.”

Safe travels to all!

Post 14 in the 30 day blogging challenge. Follow the great collegiality on Twitter at #blog30.