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Energy

Are you being reactive or proactive?

by peterwinick

proactive-reactive

You’ve developed great content and things seem to be moving along.  Your satisfied with the momentum you have and your work is being well received.  Sounds pretty good.  The question to ask is are you being reactive or are you being proactive?  Do you have a plan in place with goals and milestones you are attempting to reach or are you reacting to what comes across your plate  and confusing activity with progress?

Most thought leaders I get introduced to do not have a plan in place for their business.  They’re busy, life is hectic and at the surface it seems that things are moving in the right direction. They’ve got a lot of people helping them out but each person or group may have an objective that is not aligned with the overall objectives of the thought leader.  This is particularly the case when the thought leader has not clearly articulated his or her goals clearly to those around him (or her).  A publicists job is to generate publicity; a publishers job is to sell books; speaking agents book speeches, web developers develop your web site, friends and colleagues may find opportunities that they believe are viable for you;   and the list goes on.

Back to the question, are you being reactive or proactive?  Think about the last two weeks, the conference calls, the meetings, introductions that were made.  How did you spend your time?  Did you spend it executing against a plan that was created specifically for you and your work?  Did you spend it responding to others requests, approving things that seemed like they made sense and turning down other opportunities that didn’t? Did you say no to requests that while on the surface may not have been harmful but just weren’t aligned to your specific goals?  Most authors tend to be reactive, they are focused on their work and they trust those around them and when those they trust make requests of their time they tend to honor those requests.  The people that you trust  probably do have your best interests in mind and are doing what they believe is best for you.  How do you know if you are getting closer to achieving your goals or if you are being distracted and side tracked?   How do they know what opportunities to seek on your behalf? You only know if you have a plan in place and if you are proactively aligning all of your resources so that you can execute that plan.  It means communicating what it is you are trying to do, measuring your progress and when a request is being made of you having a logical and practical way to determine if it is worthy of your time and energy.  The ability to filter out the noise is incredibly valuable and you simply can’t rely on intuition alone to guide you.

I’m not advocating not being flexible or resilient, in fact the best of plans need to be constantly updated, tweaked and refined.  You should leave yourself a window of time to do things that are not part of your plan but you need to take control.  Activities that may seem fun, interesting, engaging or sexy but do not fit with your strategy are distractions and diversions.  The more distracted you are  the greater the risk that you will not achieve your objectives.  People don’t become successful by being reactive, they become successful by being proactive.

You cannot simply flip a switch and go from being primarily reactive to proactive.  You need to invest the time and energy it takes to develop a strategic plan that is right for you and your content.  I’m obviously a bit biased as this is what I do for a living but the reality is that being reactive is counterproductive and you simply can’t be effectively proactive unless you know what your trying to achieve and are able to articulate that in a detailed manner and insure that everyone around you is aware of exactly what you are attempting to achieve and how you plan on getting there.

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Taking your work from a hobby to a profession

by peterwinick

Monet-Step-6

HobbyStarterpaint

There comes a time that every author or thought leader has to ask themselves if their work and their passion is a hobby or is it a profession?  There are no right answers to this question.  In some instances its a progression from one to the other; a passion becomes a hobby and you’ve found a way to market it and serve your clients.  In other cases you’ve assumed that it can be a profession but it’s not happening fast enough. It may be a struggle to make a living at it’ it could be that the the content isn’t positioned properly or that you lack the skills needed to successfully  bring i to the market.

Let’s look at a few scenarios.  In the first case you’ve got a career that is humming along (which may or may not be related to your IP) but your content is your true calling or your passion.  You dabble with it when you can, writing an article on occasion, maybe you’ve self published a book and  maintain a blog, you may even have a few clients that you work with when you can.  You love doing the work, seeing it resonate with those that are exposed to it, solving clients solutions with your unique model, process or methodology.   In a perfect world you’d figure out a way to use your content to make a living but you need to be logical and practical.  Mortgages, responsibilities and reality keep you where you are.  What will it take to be able to do what you love and be able to support yourself doing it?  It’s a scary question, and the path is by no means any easy one but if you are aware of your personal strengths (and weaknesses) get the help you’ll need along the way it is possible.  The happiest and most satisfied people I know are thought leaders doing what they love and typically making a great living doing it.

The other scenario starts at the opposite end of the spectrum.  What if you’ve made the investment of your time, your energy and your resources to build a practice or a business based on your content and you are not where you want or need to be?  How long has it taken? Is there real momentum and traction that can be measured?  I’ve worked with several clients that are in this exact predicament and the next steps in the journey lead them to one of two possible conclusions.  One conclusion is that it’s a hobby, as much as they love the work and have the passion for whatever reason it’s not a viable business and they need to treat it as a hobby.  The other is that they need to very closely examine what they have been doing, what’s working , what’s not working, what the market for their solutions is and what will it take to grab a large enough slice of that market to make it worthwhile.

These are very difficult questions and I’ve yet to meet anyway that can truly answer them without getting some outside help or guidance.  The single biggest factor that I see is that gurus are experts at something very specific.  Perhaps masters at it and in many cases maybe even absolutely best in class.  Most are lacking the skills or experience to develop and execute a sound business strategy that will give them a roadmap, with clear expectations so that the journey will be one that isn’t so uncertain or unclear.

I’m inherently an optimist but one grounded in reality.  If you have clarity around the potential markets you can serve, a content roadmap and a long term plan as well as drive, passion and commitment you absolutely can be doing what you love and making a great living along the way.  If your work is the greatest content ever developed but you are not able to productize and go to market and ultimately get paying clients than you are not doing yourself or your work justice by continuing to struggle in vain.

Hobby’s are great, they give us a way to express or creativity, to gain expertise to experience joy and satisfaction.  Being able to monetize your content means you need to be professional, to have a solid strategy, the necessary resources and the tools that you will need to master your craft in the marketplace. Don’t confuse one for the other and don’t fool yourself that they are interchangeable or that “if you build it they will come”.  A Field of Dreams was a great movie, I’ve yet to see a Field of Dreams strategy turn a hobbyist into a professional.

Not sure where exactly you are?  Feel free to contact me, I’d be glad to help.

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Embracing confusion

April 28, 2010

Tweet We as rational, logical adults tend to avoid confusion.  It seem like the right thing to do but if your objective is to gain clarity, resolve a conflict, come up with an innovative solution or just to be able to think through something in a critical way you need to embrace confusion. If you’re [...]

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Money, Ego and Evangelism- An Important Ratio For Every Author and Thought Leader

December 24, 2009

Tweet So you’ve got a solid idea, concept, methodology or suite of tools.  You’ve been   refining and practicing it for months, years or decades. You’ve written about it and have clients that embrace it.  Maybe you’ve built a business or a series of   businesses around your work or are considering doing so.  Here’s [...]

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