Posts in Publishing

Personal Strategic Plan

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How do you create a personal strategic plan? How do you live your life with purpose and direction?

1️⃣ Determine what you ultimately want to do with your life. My Want: Travel first class, sightsee, and play golf.

2️⃣ Determine how you could get someone to pay for that, so you don’t have to. My Plan: Companies pay for a day-long visit of coaching, speaking, and training. I stay in that area for a week, sightseeing and golfing.

3️⃣ Determine what you have to look like for someone to pay for that. My Expectation: Companies will pay for a published #author and accomplished #speaker with a #PhD, strong business #experience, and #certifications, who had a strong #network of connections.

4️⃣ Determine the gap between where you are and how long it will take to get there. My Gap: No degree, never published, only experience in the military, strong military network only, just starting out with Toastmasters, and no certifications. Estimated time to close the gap: 20 years.

Developing your personal strategic plan is really just that simple.

20 years ago, I started on my journey — a journey of living my life with purpose and direction; not on autopilot.

Interested in learning more…message me.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Breakthrough Silos

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Breaking ⛏ Through Siloed  Organizations  First Requires Leadership Awareness! 類

Silos exist in practically every company, business, and organization. For profit or non profit … doesn’t matter. I’ve even identified silos in solo proprietorships.

The natural tendency of leaders is to “tear down the silos.”

Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before … maybe you’ve even said it.

Everyone knows silos are bad!!!

Right?

Unfortunately, very few know why silos exist in the first place.

Unfortunately, very few understand why and who created the silos.

And, unfortunately, very few understand why playing “whack a silo” in your company doesn’t work!

The first step in dealing with silos in your organization is to learn why they formed in the first place and why you’ll NEVER get rid of them.

I challenge you to read Overcoming Organizational Myopia and learn not only why they form, but how to deal with them.

Increase your awareness!!!

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#overcomingorganizationalmyopia

That’s your marketing plan?

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🤔 Are you considering writing a book? 📖 Start with marketing it! 📢

On Facebook, this morning, I saw someone post, “I just published my book, can someone tell me how to market it.”

Too late! ⏰

If you are considering writing a book — I mean it’s a twinkle in your eye — start marketing your book first!

If you wait…your too late!

The first step is to define and hyper-focus on your audience — write the book for them.

Build your social media connections around that audience and develop qualified leads as you write.

Close to final draft, start building excitement with updates, videos, and snippets. Pull pre-release readers to test your book. Send it to someone influential for the Foreword.

Have a pre-release party and make the book available for pre-sale and become a bestseller prior to release.

Have big social fanfare, public service announcements, presentations, and book signings at final publication.

How do I know all this? I did the same as that person in 2012 when I published One Dead Marine, my first book.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

Success takes time

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True Success … for most of us … takes time! 🏅⏰

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh

This is not a brag fest email–just sharing a personal success story. It’s about being consistent and constant, while focusing on things bigger than yourself.

For 30 years, I’ve been building my knowledge, skills, and experiences in business improvement. For 16 of those years, I’ve been following a personal 20-year strategic plan.

Three years ago, I had great conversations with a company that was doing incredible things and was faced with incredible opportunities. Our timing wasn’t right.

However, I followed this company for the past three years, watched their progress, and stayed in touch.

Two months ago, the company reached out — they had been watching me on LinkedIn too. Our conversations three years ago made more sense now — they were ready.

This week, I started working with them on a strategic engagement and it is so incredibly exciting! My 30-years’ experience is coming to bear on a company that truly appreciates me and what I have to offer.

I am looking forward to huge successes with them!

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

Winner Takes It All!

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Does winning matter … sure. I can’t dispute that. But how? 🙉🙈🙊

‼ This update is going to piss a few people off that I know. 🤬 Oh well…

People, who don’t want you to win, care how you did it.

People, who want you to win, don’t care how you did it.

Those, who don’t want you to win, see how you’re winning, how you’re getting away with it, and also how you’re being recognized for it.

So, they start doing it as well.

Case in point: “Amazon Best Seller” 🔖

This garbage started before 2010. Forever, I thought it meant that your book simply out sold every other book in its category and was number one on Amazon … for a day or so.

That category could be very obscure. But, it doesn’t have to be. Because, I learned the many ways authors were convincing a lot of people to buy their book (often a $0.99 ebook) in one day — they game the system.

I have been told many times, by both authors and friends, I should do it too.

Recently I learned that some authors are calling #2 on Amazon a Best Seller … as is #14. Basically, if someone says it’s a Best Seller, then it is. Mainly, because there is no way to disprove it.

This is what people consider “Winning.”

Not me…

Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

Steps to Writing & Publishing a Book

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Interested in writing & publishing a book? Don’t know where or how to get started?

Successfully writing & publishing is much like starting a new business. The steps are essentially the same and having a plan & a coach really helps.

Many people think that publishing is expensive and difficult, but you can publish for very little money. It does require a lot if work to do it right. Here are my suggested 13 high-level steps to get you there:

1. Define your Purpose for writing.
2. Assess if you are ready to write & what you can write about.
3. Define the Audience.
4. Determine how you plan on writing your book (ways to get it written).
5. Ideation, research, brainstorming, and testing.
6. Outline.
7. Draft – edit – draft – edit – draft – edit – final draft.
8. Publishing determinations.
9. Cover design (and illustrations if required).
10. Draft reviewers and Foreword.
11. Pre-release marketing.
12. Format, Publish, and Release.
13. Post-release marketing.

If you are interested in writing & would like help, let me know.
Crosscutter Enterprises

Innovation

Why Stop Now?

Books Meandering Genius Publishing

J. K. Rowling, the famous author who wrote the Harry Potter series states that she won’t write about Harry anymore.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bustle.com/p/jk-rowling-explains-why-there-wont-be-any-more-stories-about-harry-potter-8900613/amp

Being an author (Not of get stature), I question this. Ok, maybe Harry’s story has been told and there’s really nothing to add. However, what of the rest of the world and characters surrounding Harry Potter and Hogwarts?

In an immersive realm like Harry Potter, the opportunities are endless to expand on facets that no one ever considered. What about the Flight of Vox — this self destructing Phoenix that was owned by the Headmaster of Hogwarts is bound to have a series of interesting tales as he went through life bursting into flames and rising from the ashes.

I’m sure that there are some pretty interesting stories around the world outside of Hogwarts that Nomag’s have never seen. In Fantastic Beasts and in the Harry Potter series, we learn of other schools, which obviously have other stories.

Ok, J. K. (love the initials by the way), let Harry rest and retire. But, don’t stop now. In your mind is a world many have only glimpsed at. Bring it more to life and who knows what will happen?

Kickstarter Project: Overcoming Organizational Myopia

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Overcoming Organizational Myopia, stovepipes, sandboxes, short sightedness

At 2:30 pm, Central Time, on June 27, 2015, KS Project, Overcoming Organizational Myopia lifted off.  Overcoming Organizational Myopia will be a new nonfiction book about successfully breaking through stovepiped organizations to obtain organizational effectiveness.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1551087231/overcoming-organizational-mypoia

The Short Story: I discovered that it really does not matter what company or organization I work with, they all have stovepipes.  What I learned is that they are a product of human nature.  The problem is that everyone wants to “break down the silos” as the typical management response. Unfortunately, this NEVER works! All you do is cause confusion and drive unproductivity as the people in your business seek to rebuild the stovepipes that make them feel secure.  This book is about breaking through the stovepipes to become an effective and efficient organization.  It respects the stovepipes and teaches you how to navigate through them using a consistent and systematic application of full-spectrum strategic and organizational methods.  The book is designed to provide you with situational examples so you can self-diagnose your organization.  Across nine areas, the book helps you identify problem areas and, like a business doctor, treat the root causes with solid business solutions.

Content Marketing FAIL

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What is content marketing? I’m sure you have heard the term and some know it really well, but many are getting it wrong.

If you have a business or are a professional with a blog, then you probably are touching on content marketing. There are many other ways to leverage content marketing.

Basically, content marketing is freely sharing of good information either through your business blog, in business documents (like a statement), in a free webinar, etc.

Here are some keys to it:

1. It is free. You don’t have to pay for it, you don’t have to sign up with your email to get spammed for the rest of your life, no one is going to psycho dial you to see if you are interested in buying their product or service. It is free.

2. It is information that you can use. The article is complete and good information that someone can apply. Not only does it bring up good points, but it is complete and has value. Posting a couple of sentences highlighting a problem, but not providing any advice or detail is not content–that’s a tease. All you are trying to do is convince me to ask for more information (see item 1).

3. Weaving in your product or service as part of the content is nothing short of an advertisement. It’s spam. You haven’t figured out content marketing. Having a bio at the top or bottom with infomation about your product or service is content marketing

I have seen a lot of this non-content marketing lately on LinkedIn and Facebook. Word to the wise…you are not doing yourself a favor. People are not stupid. If you want to share information, share it, if you want to sell something stop trying to disguise it as content when it is not.

Working on One Dead Marine II

Books Meandering Genius Publishing

One Dead Marine

One Dead Marine

In May of 2012, I published my first fictional novel, One Dead Marine.

This book takes you into the world of The Savage SoulTM and Scorched EarthTM, which was created by a close friend of mine, Kevin Bogucki (Bogo).  Bogo worked on the world of The Savage SoulTM since we were kids in school.  Today, Scorched EarthTM is the planet Earth born out of an advanced society in the twenty-first century that died a painful death–and the killer’s name was Yellow Mike.

One Dead Marine follows Anthony Moon, a Native American U.S. Marine, who finds himself 150 years in the future, where old-world technology, magic-wielding demons, flesh-eating zombies, and monsters of every imagination populate the environment like the air he breathes.

Moon guides us through his journeys and experiences as you follow along in his own personal journal of his arrival to this new post apocalyptic world.  His journal outlines where Lance Corporal Moon learns to survive–barely–in a fanatical environment built out of the madness of a twisted drug and an ensuing great disaster.

The time for One Dead Marine II is upon us.

I have slowly worked on this second story, which picks up where the last book ended.  Lately, with the help of blogging, I have been getting wore into writing and this book is taking shape.

One Dead Marine II (true name yet to be announced) takes our unlikely Native American Marine hero to Las Vegas, Nevada.  Expect to see more of his struggles, to learn more about Moon, that he doesn’t even know himself, and battle lots of zombies–ugh!

This installment of The Savage SoulTM and Scorched EarthTM series will push Anthony Moon’s psyche to its limits with the madness that makes up planet Earth.

My goal is to release this installment by the end of the year.

Additionally, I’m working to reformat One Dead Marine, which was only released in paperback, in e-book format available for Kindle and Nook.  I hope to have this version released by April of this year.  It was very exciting to publish my first paperback and taught me some things about self-publishing that will help me when I release my first non-fiction business book, Overcoming Organizational Myopia.  I expect to also release that book by the end of May, beginning of April.

This second book following Moon will not be a journal, like the last book.  This one takes us into the more traditional approach to book writing by putting it in the first person view.  Also, I expect this novel to be longer than the first, which was just under 29,000 words (130 pages).

Well, back to writing…