All Posts Tagged: Business Skills
Why I Got Certified as a Business Coach and What it Means for You
Since I started pursuing professional coaching certification in March, I’ve had many conversations with other business coaches and aspiring coaches, and they often ask me the same question:
Why did you decide to get certified as a coach?
They’re asking me, though, because they don’t think that I needed to do the program.
Most of the business coaches that I’ve met started their coaching certification before they left their previous positions to pursue coaching. Before they even had their first coaching client or conversation.
Typically before they have any idea who they will coach, how, or why.
In their eyes, they needed to have the certification under their belt to begin the process of building a business around their coaching.
So, when these other coaches or coaches-in-training see me with this little fledgling business that I’ve spent the last two years busting my butt working 16 hours every day to build, it looks like I have what they think that coaching certification will bring them.
The 37 Books I’ve Read This Year (Plus 13 I’m Still Working On)
One refrain that I’ve heard repeated over and over again in different industries (book publishing, magazine writing, business management) is the importance of “keeping your cup full” through reading.
The idea is that, if you feel like you are out of ideas or inspiration, or suffering from imposter syndrome or an actual knowledge gap between you and what you want to do, the answer is always reading.
Not the web, but actual books.
Warren Buffet famously keeps his entire schedule clear to read and think. Book editors and agents spend tons of their time outside of the office reading to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry. My friend Chris Guillebeau, a multiple New-York-Times-bestselling author himself, told me he usually reads about 50 books a year, primarily novels.
Become an Author with Our New Webinar Series on Non-Fiction Book Deals
I don’t talk so much about this side of my writing, but in the summer of 2015, I took some time off from my freelance writing work to give myself a DIY MFA in book publishing, from the craft side to the ins and outs of working with a traditional publishing house.
Over the last couple years, while I’ve been working with all of you on Dream of Travel Writing, I’ve kept my ear to the ground in those circles and continued that education, but something else very interesting has happened in the intervening years.
I’ve seen many folks I know go from book proposal to published book (and often follow-up books!).
It’s simply amazing how fast and easy it is to become a traditionally published author today. That is, if you go about it the right way.
Are You Still Waiting for that “Aha” Moment with Travel Content Marketing?
This past weekend, I had the privilege of spending three days with highly motivated, hardworking, and inspiring travel writers for our TravelContentCon retreat event.
We took our first three sessions up on the top of the Catskill’s famous Sam’s Point lookout as we explored what content marketing means today, and that’s when the magic began.
The One Place it Absolutely Makes Sense to Write for Free (Or Very Little)
Whenever the topic of writing for no or very little money comes up in conversation with a travel writer, the first thing I always do is ask why they want to do that.
You might be surprised.
I hear a startling number of people, even those who have already been writing for no compensation on their own websites for years, tell me that they don’t think that they are in a position to get paid more.
They aren’t saying that those rates aren’t out there–but rather that they don’t personally deserve them.
How Are You Getting Where You Want to Go With Your Travel Writing?
Behind the scenes, I’ve been working on something very unusual for you guys.
In a way, you could call it the map to the Holy Grail, a la Indiana Jones–that is, if becoming a full-time, well-paid freelance travel writer sounds like a worthy mission to you!
Of course, there may or may not be poisonous snakes and collapsing tunnel floors in ancient ruins in this scenario. Unless that’s your preferred travel writing topic!
Exciting Changes Coming to Our Weekly Travel Writing Webinars!
You may have seen that we have a very cool offer going right now for those of you interested in getting an all-access pass to the more than 500 magazine how-to-pitch breakdowns in our Travel Magazine Database, 300+-strong question-and-answer library, and 85+ hours of past webinars:
- When you join the Dream Buffet by July 31st, you can take 50% off your first month.
- When you join by July 20th, you have the opportunity to win a free conference pass and FLIGHT to the 2019 Women in Travel Summit.
But we have some other exciting additions to the offerings in the Dream Buffet that we wanted to let you in on.
We Want to Pay for Your Flight and Registration for One of Our Favorite Conferences
Every year, on the mainstage and in the individual sessions at this conference, we are blown away by the amount of tell-it-like-it-is and no-matter-what-anyone-tells-you-you-can-absolutely-do-this wisdom shared.
It’s an environment in which attendees are so surrounded by people who are out there both doing work they love and running a solid business around that every year we watch those who haven’t yet made the leap into full-time freelance travel writing see that it’s possible to take the plunge successfully and put a deadline on when they will do it too.
Often just a few months after the conference takes place! (Because they’re so jazzed with possibility, they can’t stand to stay in their job any longer.)
We want this kind of experience for all of you.
Want to Take 50% of Registration for One of the Top Professional Associations?
A very cool opportunity came my way this past week that I am excited to share with all of you.
If you regularly join us for our new weekly webinar, you may have heard me rave about a conference that I went to earlier this spring/late winter that was bursting with editors that were friendly, easy to connect and chat with, and from very high-profile outlets.
I also mentioned that the conference itself was very expensive for an association conference and so it probably wasn’t the best fit for many of you.
But… (there must be a but, right?)
They have a really attractive promotion going on right now for membership to the association (the International Association of Culinary Professionals), which includes recordings of many of the sessions with editors I found particularly valuable from the annual conference.
How Does Our One-on-One Coaching Really Work?
If you’re still considering whether or not our coaching program is right for you, I wanted to take a few minutes today to really spell out, in detail, what our program looks like once you get started.
As we’ve been exploring in our emails on why we offer coaching, how coaching is different than consulting, what freelance and small business coaching costs throughout the marketing, and our coaching philosophy, everyone really has very different specific needs.
But that makes it really hard to know what you’re signing up for!
So, to help you visualize what we can do together, let’s start at the beginning.