Key Business Partners, LLC

Sometimes I get the feeling that people are afraid to talk with each other. I mean, most people will talk however, it isn’t talking in order to build a relationship with someone, it is to SELL them something.

Too many people don’t want to get to know each other and create a solid foundation with another person. Why is that? I mean I understand if you have a business you want to make money…we all want that…but let me ask you this, “Do you normally buy from someone you don’t know or even like?

I am sure the answer to the question is, No.

Well, I encourage you to start getting involved in conversations with others. Find out where they are from, what their interests are, what their hobbies are and I bet you will find there are many things you can talk about. Along with the fact of having common business interests as well.

And it isn’t about for just the sake of talking…it is also about being authentic in the reasoning for the conversations. During conversations, great things can be created…new ideas, thoughts, resources, contacts and best of all connecting with another person or a group of people.

I would like to grow a discussion around this question—during the last week, what is one thing that sprouted out from a conversation you had with someone?

Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Marketing and promoting books requires a continuous flow of places to be seen and known on the subject of your book.

While signing with a major publisher can afford you some “extras”, it isn’t necessary in order to make your book a success.

One of the ways to make it successful is to remember your local community to help with book sales.

Here are some ways to utilize your local communityto help raise awareness of your book and thus increase book sales.

Share with me other ways you have joined with your local community to share the message of your book.

This week I asked one of my online colleagues to share with us about her writing programs:

Please let us know more about you—where are you from and do you have siblings?
Well, one thing to know about me is that it’s very difficult for me to give a short answer to any question. And that includes where I’m from. It sounds better when I do it out loud, but we’ll see if you get a flavor recounting it with words. I was born in the back seat of a car in Mississippi, moved to Virginia, moved to Pennsylvania, moved to Oregon, moved to Texas (where I lived for fourteen years), and then moved to Maryland. Right now, I’m happily ensconced in beautiful Maryland, where I can find trees (green!!!!), mountains (the part of nature that feeds my soul), farmland, and oceans.
I have two younger brothers who are 31 and 29, although they’d be horrified to know that in my mind’s eye, they’ll always look like their kindergarten pictures (I’m 8 and 10 years older than they). It’s always a shock when I see them in person. “Wait. You grew up?”

When you are not writing, what can you be found doing with your time?
I’m never bored. ? I have a lot going on in my life and business, so I always have something to do. I do try to listen to my body and my inner self, so I will take quiet time and read, cross-stitch, or watch old movies on Turner Classic Movies.

Why did you decide to start Write Well U?
I had been a virtual assistant for several years, and, as a writer and a former English teacher, I wrote a lot for my clients. I saw that what I could do easily – not everyone could. I thought I’d just create this writing program and teach it on the side, but then the passion overthrew me (isn’t that a song lyric?), and I was hooked. I adore writing, and I love connecting with people in order to help them write well.

Please share with us what programs you offer at Write Well U.
The Writing Essentials Program – this is the big momma of them all. I think of it as a writing intensive program, which, in reality, that’s what it is. After teaching a session, *I* become a better writer. It’s all about changing your filters or adding new ones. With the Writing Essentials Program, you start looking at everything (advertisements, license plates, conversations you overhear on the bus) with a writer’s point of view – and then how to make it better.

Ready, Set, Write

– Something else I’ve found as I help people with writing is that they get stuck that there’s only way to do it – or one way that they *should* do it – or the one way that “real” writers do it. There are so many ways to create and inspire ideas. We touch on 43 of them. ?

Writing Your Voice Alive

– What makes any writing really pop is a great voice, and that’s true whether we’re talking about fiction or nonfiction. Great writing connects with the reader and the one way to do that is for the author to reach out and touch the reader, be a little vulnerable, show a bit of what makes him tick. In Writing Your Voice Alive, we look at voice (personality in writing), other writers’ voices, our own writing voice, and work on strengthening it.

Can you give writers a few of your top tips about writing?
That means I have to pick my top tips.
1. Know that writing is a process. You don’t just sit down, crank out brilliance, and then be done. You need to create, write, edit and revise. And they’re all separate stages and should be done separately, not all mashed together.
2. There is no “right” way to write. There is no one, overarching picture of a successful writer, but we do have myths! These include getting started (not everyone outlines), writing habits (not everyone has them), and extreme self-confidence (EVERY writer has doubts).
3. Let your writing sit for a few days and then go back to it. This is not negotiable. Your writing (and your readers) will thank you.
4. Writing is a creative pursuit, and there are many ways to be creative, even as it pertains to writing. Part of the problem I see is that people think that they only way to write is the way they were taught in school: outlines, five-paragraph essay, conclusions that just restate and don’t powerfully conclude… Writing can look like anything.

Do you have a few resources you would recommend to writers?
My favorite writing book of all is Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tips: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. I also love, love, love Daphne Gray-Grant’s Power Writing Tips: http://www.publicationcoach.com/.

You are also the COO at Assist U – please tell us more about Assist U.
AssistU is the premier training, coaching, and referring organization for virtual assistants. I stumbled upon AssistU back in 2001 after reading about virtual assistants in Cheryl Richardson’s Take Time For Your Life. I applied and started my own virtual assistance practice.

What I didn’t realize was that this program, which on the outside looks like a program to help you start and maintain a successful virtual assistance business, would change my life forever. I learned that relationships, which are key to me anyway, could play the biggest part in my business. That I could have sustaining work partnerships with clients *I* chose. That I would be valued for my considerable skills, experience, and even who I was. That who I was was more important than what I could do. And that I could build a business on top of all of this.

So I was already in love with AssistU, and imagine my delight when I got a call out of the blue from Stacy Brice, owner and Chief Visionary Officer, asking me to be Chief Operating Officer.

What do you have coming up in 2009 for Write Well U and Assist U?
Oh my, that is a BIG question!!! I’ve recently acquired AuthorSmart, provider of programs on writing and publishing, and on May 1, we’ll be unveiling a robust program schedule with an amazing list of faculty. I’m really able to expand Write Well U’s reach as well as offer more robust services to my clients and customers. Because if you want to write, you probably want to publish. So I’m combining writing well with being a smart author.

And with AssistU, Stacy and I will be presenting at this year’s Forum on Virtual Assistance in Canada. We’re constantly revamping our course materials to keep up with changes in technology, marketing, strategy, social media, and more. We’re always talking to people about how smart it is to work with a virtual assistant as well as how being a business owner is really the only job security you can be assured of.

How can people get in contact with you regarding your programs?
You can email me at dawn at write well u dot com
You can phone me at 301-482-2690
If you think I’m clever, you can follow me on twitter ( http://twitter.com/dawngoldberg) or keep up with me on my blog, www.writewellme.com.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk more about what I really love, words and connecting with people!

If you have any more questions for Dawn, please leave them in the comment section and she will visit and answer them.

This week the list is focusing alot on not being afraid to write and how just taking the time to write will help you grow as a writer.

I will start off with Julie Roads of Writing Roads with her tweet about Copyblogger’s post on How to Get Copywriters to Mentor you for Free. I will say at first when I started reading his first paragragh about if you want mentoring to learn do write with great prose but you don’t have the money….”get into their heads”. However, knowing Copyblogger is one of the most predominant sites on copywriting and blogging, I figured there was more to this bit of a sentence and I kept reading.
And I received some great pointers:
1) Read and learn. Be the shadow of those who write well and take notes of the words they use. Of course not word for word, but study how they choose the words and how they structure words.
2) Take the time to physically write these lessons down. By taking the deliberate action of writing these lessons down, you can retain the value much better. 3) Growth will occur by writing down and studying how others write because it challenges your memory muscle.

And Dave offers a challenge in this post to writers—-check it out!

Then I noticed this tweet by Cathy Bryant on writing character emotion on April 10th. Now, when I clicked on the link to this post, I was taken to the most current post of today, which was an interview with Cheryl Wyatt. I was thinking this was the post for the writing character emotion so I started reading it…great interview and Cathy asks some great questions about writing. Then I went to the post about writing character emotions on April 10th and it is another great post where she creates a discussion around the emotion of anger and shares her answers with you.

Through my google reader, I found this post by Rebecca Benston of Benston Blogs about The Best Advice I ever GotRebecca discusses how in the book, The Right to Write, is explains sometimes just by putting your emotions or experiences in written form helps with your writing. At least you are doing the physical task of writing something and not stopping yourself by listening to your inner voice say, “why are you writing that down, no one cares about how you got angry at the guy who cut in front of you at the grocery store.” For me, I wrote down when I took my daughter to the doctor and what she was doing while we were waiting. It helped me think about describing things using my senses at the time–what I saw, heard, smelled felt.

Next, just found this one on Twitter—from @travellinda. A forum for women writers called SheWrites. A newly created ning group for women writers to gather and support each other.

I would like to share with you an interview with a lovely lady and author, Susan Gunelius.

1) Please tell us about yourself.
I’m the President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc. (www.KeySplashCreative.com), a full-service marketing communications company, where I offer copywriting, book writing, business writing, and article writing services as well as branding, marketing and social media consultating services. I’m also a published author with three books currently available (Google Blogger for Dummies, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon) and a fourth coming in Fall 2009 (Building Brand Value the Playboy Way). Additionally, my marketing-related articles have appeared in publications and websites such as MSNBC.com, Entrepreneur.com, BusinessWeek.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, and more. I am also a professional blogger. I write two of my own blogs (www.KeySplashCreativeConversations.com and www.WomenOnBusiness.com), and I write blogs for several clients, including the New York Times as the Guide to Web Logs for About.com.

Prior to starting my own business, I spent over a decade directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. I hold a B.S. degree in marketing with an English minor.

On a personal note, I grew up in New Jersey but moved to Florida with my husband and triplets (who are 4-years old now) in 2005 for better weather and to escape the rat race of the New York City area.

2) How did you start writing?

I’ve always had a knack for writing. For example, I’d always prefer an essay test over a multiple choice or true/false test in school. My writing didn’t really take off until I began my career with AT&T though. I had been with the company for about a year or two when the executives noticed my ability to write and created a new position for me in marketing communications where I could leverage and grow that talent. I continued writing marketing communications and copy throughout my corporate career. When I gave birth to triplets in 2004, I decided to leave Corporate America. Nearly two years later, I had an idea to write a book about copywriting that would help small business owners. I started researching how to sell a book proposal. From there (and quite unexpectedly), I built a second career for myself.

3) You have written several books – how did you choose what to write about?
I chose the topics for two of my books (Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps and Building Brand Value the Playboy Way). The other two were the ideas of publishers who contacted me and asked me to write them. I enjoy writing books about subjects I’m passionate about. Marketing, copywriting, branding and social media are my career passions, so I try to think of books where I can use my expertise to share an interesting story. I particularly enjoy writing books for an academic or professional audience — books that I would have enjoyed reading in a marketing class in college or simply because I find them interesting at any point in my career.

4) How was your experience working with a major publishing house?
Great. I have worked with three different well-known publishers so far in my writing career, and all three have been a pleasure to work with.

5) Did you choose to work with an editor for your book(s)?
My publishers supply editors as part of the editing process all books go through before they go to print. Luckily, none of my books have required significant edits — yet. I hope it stays that way!

6) Do you have a preferred time to write or are you able to write at anytime?
I write at all hours of the day and night by necessity. I have 4-year old triplets!

7) What tips (top 3) would you share with other writers?
1. Write about subjects you really enjoy.
2. Start a blog and learn how to use social media to broaden your online presence.
3. Participate in the forums on AbsoluteWrite.com. That’s where I learned almost everything I needed to know in order to get started writing books.

What do you have coming up in 2009 for Key Splash Creative?
When my triplets start school full-time in the fall, I hope to be able to take on even more projects. Time is my biggest problem these days. Until then, I’ll continue blogging, writing, and working for clients. I have a new book coming out in the fall about the Playboy brand, and I’m scheduled to speak at several conferences this year. It’s going to be another busy year!

9) How can people order your books?
All of my books are available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and in book stores online and offline. The easiest way to find them is by visiting my Books page on my website. I have links there to each book’s Amazon page: http://keysplashcreative.com/portfolio-clips/book-writing/

10) How can people contact you to work with you?
I love helping new clients, so I’m happy to provide my contact information. My website is www.KeySplashCreative.com. I have a contact form on my site, or you can email me at susan@keysplashcreative.com. I’m also on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/susangunelius. If you visit my website, you can find links for my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, too.

If you have more questions for Susan, I would be delighted for you to share them in the comment section and Susan will come back to answer them.

With the news and general buzz around, the consensus has tried to get us to think about all the bad things going on and bring you down. Well, instead of dwelling on what you can’t control, FOCUS on what you can control.

Focus on Possibilities – It can be easy to join the “negative” doom and gloom, but I would like to challenge you to focus on the possibilities of new adventures, joint partnerships, connecting with people, new services. Now is a good time to go over your marketing materials such as your website, blog and focus on your message to your clients. Be sure your message is one of hope and possibilities. Convey the way you can help them, how you are solve their issues.

Focus on Motion – When people are talking about negative events, it can cause you to get frozen in your tracks and stay in one place. You can bust out of this by creating forward motion in your efforts. Don’t allow yourself to use your energy into what you can’t do, focus your efforts on positive energy. Don’t sit down and do nothing. Find ways to be doing something—write a new blog post. Ask for a post from a colleague regarding a complementary service and create a package to offer for a limited time. Don’t let the fear get the best of you.

Focus on Giving – Sometimes, when energy is low, there can be a lack of giving. You don’t want to get sucked into this vibe. Remain a giver by offering your suggestions, tips and comments for others in your networking and social media groups. When you give, you become lighter and you feel better–giving always feels good. You also will stand out as a resource for those who need you.

Focus on Blessings - This is a big thing for me and it always seems to really save me when I am feeling a little bit like things aren’t going so great. I either write down (I am a writer) or verbalize those things I have to be grateful for in my life. I then I choose to focus on those blessings. When you focus on blessings, you will feel a shift in your attitude and your vision for possibilities will appear to you much easier.

Do you have other ways to focus instead of fear? Please share them with me and others so we can help each other stay positive and focus on the good.