Lindsay Manfredi is a ghost writer/blogger and social media marketer out of Indianapolis. Her company, Linzstar Inc. currently works with an array of industries worldwide, ranging from healthcare to tech, helping them craft their message and market their brand.

I’m always amazed at how some authors consistently blog. My friend, Chris Brogan) is always writing, constantly on the road, and I see him doing amazing things for people and organizations. How he does it, and still manages to knock out a great blog nearly everyday makes me pretty much look up to him in awe. (auhhhh.)

Another author that I seem to get things from on a regular basis, whether it be his art or his blog is Hugh McLeod. I have his current book, Ignore Everybody. Both he and Brogan are excellent examples of authors who have used their past blogs as major foundations for their current bestsellers.

But not everyone can do it like they do. Not every author has time to write amazing books and have time to blog. So, for those of you who don’t have the time or don’t understand how this works, here are some tips I have from working with an array of clients who know they need to blog.

• Hire a copywriter or ghost writer – If you know you need to do it, and you don’t have the time or energy, hire someone. Outsource this. You can choose to have them write under their name, or yours (and you can do this ethically…and I’ll tell you why in a sec.) Bottom line is, don’t keep talking about it or thinking about it. Get your name out there. Get your ideas out there. Oh, and as far as budget is concerned, nearly all of my clients put me in the marketing category.
• Teach your writing style – If you are going to have someone write for you under your name, give your ghost writer a sample of previous work. This could be a past blog or a previous presentation of some sort. This helps in the entire process. The biggest reason it’s so helpful is for little things like, some of my clients prefer to not use conjunctions. Some are way more lax in their writing style. It’s little things like that, that really make a difference.
• Schedule a weekly call – Okay, sometimes it’s not always a phone call. I have clients all over the world, so AIM and email are definitely just as useful. I hold my clients accountable to sending me their ideas. Afterall, it is their blog. I typically get the idea, the main points, and any research thereafter is my responsibility. This communication should be geared toward topics, what you’re currently researching and speaking about. But the main thing…your ghost wants to work for you, so be sure to give them the points and make sure they’re asking the right questions in order to craft the post.
• Turn edits around quickly – (and please don’t be too controlling) Okay, what I mean by this is writers have schedules they adhere to. Or at least I do. I block certain times out for writing and I also have things like business development that still need to happen. The quicker you can get edits to your writer, the quicker we can get things posted, shared, tweeted, and promote what you are saying. I live by my calendar during the week. It’s my checklist. It’s extremely helpful to work with clients who are prompt and responsible. Then you become the dream client. Also, don’t be afraid to say what you like or don’t like. We need to know these things.

There is a healthy balance between giving away bits without giving away the entire book. There are many great writers out there who can help authors do that. Let us help you get your message out if you’re unable to do it. If you’re currently working with a ghost and they’re not up to par, don’t be afraid to go with someone else if you’ve had a conversation and things aren’t getting better. I hope this list helps. Any questions?

If you’re wondering how you can move from no audience to a large fan based community, here’s the 6 steps to follow that will get you on your way.

1. Engage in social media - Social media is the quickest way to start connecting with your audience.  I recommend Facebook and Twitter as the first two you sign up for.

2. Start a blog and write regularly – This is your home base and where you want everyone that finds you via social media to inevitably land.  Use it to expound on your ideas and teach what you are learning.

3. Setup your email marketing – Gain access to directly email your fans.  This is where the people that truly care about what you are doing are going to be.  Move people from blog readers to email subscribers.

4. Train your community to get involved – This is key.  Start small with things like Q&As but ratchet it up over time.  From early on, teach your fans that you expect them to roll up their sleeves and work with you.

5. Cultivate your top 1% – As you ask your community to get involved you’ll start to see a few people’s names show up over and over.  Invite them in to interact with you and start giving them tools to get even more involved.  These will be the people that will have the biggest impact on growing your fan base.

6. Connect your fans to each other – The goal is not to grow a large list of disconnected followers.  The goal is to build a community.  This means they need to interact with each other.  Give them opportunities to do this via digital and physical means.  Forums, Ning communities, workshops and book signings are all examples of this.

These are the steps that have been used over and over to start and build a community of fans that will buy your book and help spread your message.  The exciting thing is you can get started right away!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Picture via notsogoodphotography

Even though Twitter has been around since 2006 it can still be be baffling to a lot of people.

“What can I say in 140 characters?”

“Do people actually read this?”

“Why do so many people think pictures of their food is interesting?” (ok, that one is mine.)

But the truth is that Twitter can be very powerful in building your following and connecting directly with your community. It is the most filter-free mass communication tool available. There are no editors. There are no public relations. Just your words sent directly to your audience.

It is the easiest digital means of having direct contact with your fans.

But how does this help you?

Before we get into the specific advice, it’s helpful to keep a few social media guidelines in mind:

• Your top priority is helping your followers. Whether it’s news, knowledge, or laughter, your goal should be adding something valuable to your followers’ lives.
• Respect your followers’ time. Skip the mundane. Tweeting that you’re eating a burrito is alright if your followers are family and friends. But if you’re trying to build a large following of fans, make sure you respect their time and only post updates that are worthwhile (as stated above).
• Interact with people. You don’t have to reply to everyone that replies to you, but make sure you’re regularly communicating with people that speak to you. There’s nothing more exhilarating on Twitter than when somebody you’re a fan of replies to you. It will build a much stronger bond with your followers.

Now that we’ve got some general guidelines in place, let’s look at our goals with Twitter.

What is the point of an author getting involved and staying active on this platform? Here are a few things you want to accomplish:

• Establish your credibility and authority
• Build a community of fans
• Funnel people to more parts of your online platform (blog, newsletter, etc)

With these goals in mind, how do we accomplish them?

• Post links to articles that are the subject material as your book. This accomplishes two things. First, it provides interesting and relevant information to your followers. Second, it shows that you are regularly keeping up with new research and findings on your subject material which further establishes your authority.
• Post snippets of thoughts you have while researching or writing. Everybody loves previews and outtakes. By updating your audience on projects that aren’t released yet you’re giving them a sneak peak into what you’ll be releasing and also what your thought process is while in the process.
• Retweet relevant tweets. If one of your followers or another expert posts something on Twitter that is interesting or helpful in your area of expertise, post it for all of your followers to see. This accomplishes the same things as mentioned above.
• Post links to your own content. Whenever you add a new blog post or have an article published online, let your community know. Self promotion is okay when you’re helping your readers (sharing information) and when it’s balanced by other content.

By following these guidelines you’ll quickly start building a following that view you as an expert in your field and readily share your content.

Extra Links

• If you’re completely new to Twitter, check out this glossary of terms regularly used
• A large list of Twitter tools and applications

Picture by respres

• Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity – Great argument for how are school systems are setup to destroy the very skills we need to succeed.  This video got Candace and I talking seriously about homeschooling
• Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation – Really interesting argument for why normal methods of motivation in organizations (raises, promotions, etc) actually have reverse effects
• Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity – My favorite video on TED.  Extremely inspiring!
• Benjamin Zander on music and passion – One of the most fun to watch.  I’m more inspired by HOW he gives his talk than what he actually says
• Dan Gilbert on our mistaken expectations – This is the one I mentioned about people making irrational decisions.  Really interesting and fun to watch.
• Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce – Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite guys to hear speak.  He always has fascinating stuff to say and this one is really interesting about how we make choices and what makes us happy.
• Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success – Will challenge your views of who is actually responsible for your, and other people’s, success in life.
• Clay Shirky: How social media can make history – Answers the question of why social media “matters”.
• Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things for kids – A fun one… 5 dangerous things we should let our kids do
• Taryn Simon photographs secret sites – Awesome photography of interesting places

What are your favorites?

Before and After, click for big image.

Share your thoughts in the comments if you like.

Visit the site to check it out.

Our Role

Working very closely with the Portnoy Media group, we saw this project through from beginning to end. The client had a very specific design they wanted to go with, including the thermometer on the front page. The thermometer would be dynamic (change depending on specific information), and go up as people donated money.

Solutions:

The client wanted to be able to manage their donors in a control panel only accessible by the administration. As mentioned above, they wanted this to reflect in the thermometer. They also wanted to be able to easily change the Naming Opportunities page, below is a sneak peak of what we came up with.

From her site:

Penelope is the founder of 3 startups — most recently, Brazen Careerist, a web service to help companies find candidates. Her career advice appears in more than 200 newspapers and magazines including Time magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe. In a review of this blog, Business Week called Penelope’s writing “poetic.”

After reading through much of her archives, I had some questions I wanted to ask her and she was nice enough to answer them.

Me: What makes you happy?

Penelope: I don’t know. I keep trying to figure that out. I think the answer sort of comes to us in pieces. I try to put them together so they make enough sense that I can take action. Change things.

Me: I was taught there are three things you don’t discuss at work. Sex, politics and religion. This isn’t necessarily the case anymore and you seem to think this is a good trend. What initial steps would you suggest someone take to inject more of themselves in to their work?

Penelope: Make a friend. Take the normal steps toward making a friend, which do not typically involve any of the above topics. At least at first. And then add those topics once the person is your friend. Tim Rath, a researcher from Gallup, found that if you have two friends at work, it’s nearly impossible to hate your job. That’s a good endorsement for making friends. You don’t need to be close to everyone. Just two people.

Me: I see a trend of people deeply intertwining their personal goals with their career goals. Is this a healthy practice? Will this cause people to be more or less successful in the business world?

Penelope: We each define success differently. There are tradeoffs to everything. We need to acknowledge that when we decide our priorities for our goals.

Me: You’ve written about the importance of practicing vulnerability in the workplace and how this is connected with choosing silence over talking. Why is vulnerability so important? In what ways is silence connected to this?

Penelope: If we are not vulnerable then we’re not open to new experiences, and life will get boring and lonely. You can’t let new things in if you never shut up. Talking all the time is a way to put an artificial wall between you and a the world. The unexpected parts of life happen in the silences.

Me: What personal activities do you regularly do to keep yourself in check both personally and professionally?

Penelope: I go to the gym and I read a lot. I blog three or four days a week. That’s a lot of alone time in my head. If I don’t do that, I start to fall apart in my head. So probably writing is something that I need to do to keep myself steady. I’m lucky that it’s part of my job

After college I worked at a residential group home school where I started as a case aid, then became the GED Coordinator. In teaching GED math, I learned a profound lesson that would ripple through the rest of my life forever:

Most things seem harder than they really are.

The kids in my class would get so overwhelmed by fractions. When I was a teenager, I was TERRIBLE at math. I hated the subject. I hated math because I didn’t understand it, and it seemed so hard. The highest math I had ever achieved was Algebra 1 and Geometry. However, when I taught the kids in my program, it all made perfect sense. Fractions were easy, and algebra was . . . fun?

The next year, I was asked to give one-on-one instruction to a student in Algebra 2. As mentioned before, I had never taken Algebra 2, but I could read and understand the textbook better than he could, so I took on that task and found the same thing. Algebra 2 was easy – fun even. I enjoyed teaching, and wasn’t intimidated by the math because I now understood a further truth:

Everything can be understood, and thus learned.

After teaching for three years, I decided to see about designing (which was my college major) and got a job at a sign company. While I was there, we would develop custom solutions, and spend time thinking out of the box. I enjoyed this so much more than designing, that I became interested in Engineering. In the summer, I started on the Engineering track at the local community college, getting some prerequisites out of the way. I took Trigonometry 1 and 2. It was simple, something about understanding how it all works made sense. This new confidence spurred me on to realize this:

With enough Time or Effort, you can do Anything

And that’s the point I want to leave you with. Don’t hold yourself back because a task seems daunting. Every task has it’s own value of cognitive dissonance (the feeling of your brain shaking a big “NO”) that a person must push through in order to obtain control. The goal is not to obtain mastery, but competence in any area you like. Don’t hold yourself back because you’re not the best at any one thing; instead, build confidence by learning a new skill.

You’ll be offered lots of advice from other places:

• Figure out the triggers – While we can do plenty to keep stress out of our life, there will always be triggers in our life in the forms of clients and kids that can set us off. Identifying this did me absolutely no good.
• Try really hard for 30 days – This has got to be the worst. The mere fact that it’s a habit that I want to quit implies that I can’t control myself. Trying really hard only produces guilt when I inevitably fail, which helps no one.
• Accountability – People lie. To themselves and to others. Especially when they feel ashamed. I’ve found having accountability works until you fail after a long stretch of doing good. Then I don’t want to admit that I’ve failed.

Two and a half years ago when I quit my job to run Out:think full time, I had no idea that amount of bad habits I had. It’s amazing how surfing YouTube for three hours a day has a different impact when you’re paycheck isn’t guaranteed anymore.

While wasting time online is relatively harmless, I’ve also battled and defeated darker habits in my life with the process I explain below.

The problem with all of the above advice is that you’re focusing on the problem. You need to focus on what you’re life would be like without your bad habit.

Have you ever watched a tight rope walker? They never look down. Their eyes are always on the end of the rope. Looking down is death.

All of the solutions I listed above are ways of “looking down” at your current situation. Looking down is death.

This process for breaking bad habits keeps your eye on the benefits of breaking the bad habit. If you follow it, you’ll quickly stop caring whether you break the bad habit or not. The end become the focus instead of the process that gets you there and before you realize it, you’ll make it to the other side.

1. Decide that it’s acceptable to fail

You have to do this first. You have to believe it. No more beating up on yourself. No more wishing it would just go away. You’ve got a problem and you’re taking steps to deal with it. No more guilt.

You are going to fail. A lot. And it’s ok.

It’s been drilled into our collective heads that we need to move fast on everything in life and once we’ve started something it needs to move as quickly as possible. If you’ve developed a bad habit over a long span of time, it’s going to take a long time to break it.

Let the guilt go.

2. Decide that you are going to stop trying to break the bad habit

I’m assuming by now you’ve already tried really really hard to stop. It’s normal but it’s how our bodies run. For this process to work you have to give up on trying to stop from sheer will power. It’s time to try something different.

3. Write down a list of all the negative results of your bad habit

Be specific and thorough. Write down every possible way this bad habit is has a negative impact on your life. Here’s part of my list from wasting time instead of working:

1. I don’t make money which means I can’t pay my bills
2. I have to make up the time later, which means time away from my kids. i.e. I traded playing with my son for watching dumb internet videos.
3. I have to make up the time later, which means time away from my wife which causes a strain on our relationship.
4. I fill my head with useless information.
5. I come home feeling stupid and worthless.

This is not about guilt. We took care of the guilt in #1. This is about having clarity on your situation. Once this list is written down, move on to #4.

4. Write down a list of all of the positive things that will be added to your life once your break this habit

Again, be specific and thorough. Obviously most of these will be the antithesis of what you wrote in #2 but this step is still very important. Here’s part of my list:

1. I will follow through on my work which means I will get paid and have money in the bank.
2. I will be able to come home on time or early and spend time with my kids.
3. I will be able to come home on time or early and spend time with my wife.
4. I will come home with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

These are the goals we want to focus on. This is what we really want. It’s not really about the bad habit. It’s about what we are missing out on because of it.

5. Spend 10 minutes every morning meditating on the first four steps

• Every morning before your day starts, take ten minutes to be still and quiet.
• Remind yourself that today you will probably fail and that’s ok.
• Remind yourself that you’re done trying to break the bad habit. You’re trusting the process.
• Thoughtfully meditate over your lists from steps #3 and #4.
• Live your life.

Once you remove the stress and guilt you constantly place on yourself to break your bad habit and begin focusing on the positive results, your patterns will begin to change. It will happen slowly and it will be surprising, but it will work.

One of the greatest features is the ability to give your client their own login so you can have all of your communications in the same place.

After using Basecamp for awhile, I’ve found several instances that it’s not a good fit to bring your client in:

1. Their filing system is built around email – One of my clients prints out every email associated with a project and puts it in it’s corresponding folder in their filing cabinets. Since every other project is built around emails and replies, they were quickly frustrated by how Basecamp treats messages and asked me to simply reply to them in an email.
2. They see it as an extra step – While we all know having all communication and files in one place actually saves time, there are clients that will see logging into a different system only as a time waster. You can try to persuade them otherwise, but I’ve found that in most cases you need to just let the dream die.
3. Security concerns – Just as people wouldn’t buy online a few years ago, there are some people that will only trust their email. In Outlook they trust.
4. They won’t consistently use it – For Basecamp to work, everyone has to use it all the time. It is merely another layer of complexity if it doesn’t replace phone calls and email as your main source of communication. I’ve found that many clients, no matter how much you encourage them otherwise, will not do this. (Although I’ll add here, a good way to nudge someone is to start copy/pasting their emails into a Basecamp message and reply there instead of emailing back.)