We each have our own special talents, skills and experiences that set us apart from everyone else. While people may be similar, no one will have exactly the same qualifications or story that another has. This is the whole point of developing your own USP – Unique Selling Proposition. (“But Lis, I don’t sell!”) Yes you do. Every time you bid on a potential project, every meeting you have while networking, every time you write a blog post, you’re selling. If you target your selling from the standpoint of your USP (and your VSP – Value Selling Proposition), you stand a much greater chance of standing out from the crowd and getting noticed. What I’m proposing is different than what you’ll see on many networking and other business blogs. There you’ll read that a USP should be one sentence and be directly about your company. That’s fine – we’ll get to that with the VSP. I propose (and I learned this from Chris Marlow, 20+ year copywriting veteran and a mentor of mine) that your USP is really just for you and should be the basis for your VSP. This means, you USP can be longer than a sentence. In fact, it should be. But it’s just for you, no one else. But you can’t do this if you don’t have a clue as to what makes you unique. Since many writers are solopreneurs, we are our brand. I discussed this point at length in this post. While we may have a company name and logo, what people will remember is us. So, when developing your USP, you’ll want to consider the experiences and knowledge gained that have made you who you are today:

• Where did I grow up?
• What early life experiences affected me?
• What jobs did I hold?
• Where did I go to college?
• What was my major/minor?
• What adult life events have changed me?

While these questions go outside the lines of the traditional USP, there is a reason behind it. All of our experiences, good, bad, happy, sad, mold and shape us into who we are. It’s hard to escape our past, because it informs our present and future. These are things to simply note for yourself, personally, these aren’t things that will necessarily be part of your USP. Next, consider these questions:

• What have I always been good at?
• What topics am I drawn to?
• What do I love to read or study up on?
• What have people always complimented me on?
• What comes naturally to me?
• What would I do, if money were no object?
• What do I love to do?

If you sincerely answer these questions, you’ll now have more than enough material to work with to craft a USP. When I wrote out my USP, I first considered the areas I love to learn/write about:  health and wellness, fitness, home improvement and animals. I can write just about anything, but these topics get me excited. How I settled on a niche to write within was directly linked to these passions. I settled on health and wellness because I was born with severe allergies and asthma. This meant a very limited life. My mom was diagnosed with MS right after I was born, so she had her own health challenges to manage. She chose the alternative health route to help us both. So, I was reading Prevention Magazine at six-years-old and began visiting a chiropractor and having acupuncture treatments at age 7. This was back in the late ’60′s, early 70′s – when these things were “new” to the mainstream. Fast forward to my corporate days – I was in sales and marketing working with Fortune 100 companies as well as small businesses. I was good at what I did, which was listen to client needs and create workable, affordable, successful solutions to their marketing research needs. I’ve also owned more than one small business since 2001. When I considered the above experiences, plus others I’ve not mentioned, I came up with this USP for me:

Why hire Lisbeth Tanz?

Because she’s living proof that the alternative health and supplements industry works. As a child suffering from debilitating asthma and allergies, Lisbeth was exposed to a variety of alternative therapies and supplements designed to mitigate the effects of her ailments. With her mother’s perseverance, who herself had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Lisbeth slowly transformed from an unhealthy child living a restricted life tied to medications, to a healthy adult embracing a life of fun and adventure with little to hold her back. Using her personal experience and her years in corporate sales to Fortune 100 companies, Lisbeth has honed “the art of conversation” and the ability to “listen between the lines.” These abilities have enabled her to be top in her sales field – skills she transferred easily to the written word. Lisbeth’s talent for framing people’s needs as they see them helps her connect with her audience in an intimate and personal way, which ensures the client a healthy ROI, shorter sales cycles and increased profits.

I’m not sharing this to toot my own horn, I’m hoping to illustrate that with a bit of time and consideration, you can also create your own USP that will show you how your unique talents, skills, experience and knowledge make you the best writer for your particular niche or passion. Once you have this information, it’s easy to translate it into a VSP. Which I’ll discuss in another post.

I did a search on my computer the other day just because I was curious. I typed in *.pdf to see how many PDF files I have languishing on my hard drive.

Turns out it’s 1,077.

Ouch!

Upon closer inspection of some of them (who has time to go through all of them?), I discovered some are add-ons to programs I’ve purchased and aren’t really standalone PDFs and some are things I’ve created. However, the majority of them are from other sources and in no particular order.

It’s hard for me to admit it – I’m a PDF Hoarder.

Yes, I’m the perfect person for you if you give away free things to entice someone to sign up for your newsletter, get into our webinar, get access to your RSS feed, etc.

Hmm. Let me rephrase that. I used to be.

I’ve gotten much more adept at evaluating what’s going to be useful for me, my clients or you, Dear Blog Reader. So I no longer download everything. But I do admit to being tempted at times.

Upon reflection, I think I’ll revise what I said earlier. I’m a recovering PDF Hoarder.

But if you’re like me, what do you do with all the STUFF now taking up space?

I suggest you consider what my good friend, Debbie O’Grady of Revenue Recharge did. She actually took the time to go through her entire hard drive to pull out all the training information and programs she’d either purchased, downloaded or been sent – and put them into relevant folders so she could actually find them easily. To make them easy to see, she labeled the folders with an underscore first (example: _TRNG [topic]. Now when she looks on her “C”drive, these folders are front and center.

A novel concept. OK, not really, but when your hard drive is crammed full like mine is, it seems novel.

Lucky for Debbie, she didn’t find any duplicate products. I say lucky because if you don’t know what you have available on your drive already, and you were wooed by an earlier pitch for a product you purchased, it’s not a stretch to think you could be enticed by the same product pitch again. So – organizing can also save you money.

Now that’s she’s organized, Debbie’s in a much better position to actually utilize the trainings she has available and less likely to buy anything new for a particular category until she’s exhausted her current resources. This is just smart business sense. When I asked her if there were any other upsides to organizing her training files she laughingly said, “Now I have the incentive to get my physical environment as organized as my electronic environment. It just felt so good to get that done!”

Yes, a daunting task. For me, knowing that I have 1,077 PDFs waiting for me, and heaven knows how many other documents, getting my head around it will be the hardest thing. I asked Debbie how she did it. “Baby steps. I set aside 5 minutes each day to do a little bit. Otherwise, it felt overwhelming. Then the hardest thing you have to do is remember where you stopped,” she stated.

What about you? What shape is your computer hard drive in? Are you up to the challenge of organizing it?

When you work in the corporate world, there are certain”rules” that apply to how you dress, act, manage and work within your group and company as a whole. But when you leave the corporate life (or were never in it to begin with), it’s easy to rebel against a corporate mindset and relax our standards of excellence regarding our personal brand.

Your personal brand is not simply the logo on your website or the copy underneath. Your personal brand is the way you act, speak and dress. It’s how you do business with others. Your personal brand is the face the general public and your clients see, hear and mingle with. Your personal brand is their experience.

Are you taking care to protect your personal brand? Are you projecting yourself as a competent business person? Believe it or not, your success lies in how well you do this.

Here are four ways you can ensure you’re protecting your personal brand:

• Under-promise and Over-deliver:  It’s always better to work with less and deliver more. Not only does this show your value, it gives your client something to be delighted about. Think about it. You like getting bonuses when you buy something, right? So do your clients. Surprise and delight. This will do wonders for your personal brand and create brand champions of your clients.
• Dress the Part:  I’ll admit – as a freelance writer, I’m often spotted walking my dog in the neighborhood in a T-shirt and sweats in the afternoon. I also love to wear jeans. But if I’m going to a networking event or a client’s office, I always gauge how I look as part of the equation. There’s still that expectation that I’ll look professional. Does that mean $300 suits? No. Personally, a nice pair of slacks and blouse or shirt work well for me.
• Be professional in your communications:  It’s one thing to dash off an email to your sister. It’s another to do the same to a client and have it littered with typos or misspellings. Especially if you’re a writer or editor. It only takes a few seconds to scan what you’ve written to make sure there are no mistakes. Although the perfectionist in me will read it a second time just to be sure. It’s also a good idea to check the email address you’re sending it to, especially if it’s a forward or reply. I once sent off a reply message that wasn’t too complimentary to one of the people referenced in the original email. Unfortunately, I mistakenly sent it to the person I was criticizing. While it turned out fine, that was not a fun lesson to learn. A couple of other communication points:  If you’re on the phone, don’t grunt responses. Show a little life in your voice. And in person, smile, be attentive and focused.
• Be a real person:  In other words, don’t be selling 24/7. Get to know the people you’re talking with. Yes, this even applies to networking events. People like to be talked with, not sold to (at least not until they’re ready to hear a pitch). Hard sells don’t work and will turn people away from you and your brand. This point doesn’t mean, however, to share your marital woes, financial distress or other personal information. That would be too real.
  

Remember, if you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, you are your brand. There’s no way to escape that. Which means, it’s yours to enhance – or to lose.

What other ways can you think of to protect your personal brand?

Have you had an experience where you inadvertently dinged your personal brand?

I love Copyblogger. I almost always get a chuckle from something I read on that site. I also always learn something, a plus in my book.

Today’s topic was one I was going to tackle, but Brian Clark did it with such panache and humor, that I thought I’d simply refer you to his post.

Nothing drives me crazier than reading a blog post (or anything else written) and see typos, grammatical errors and just dumb mistakes that probably could have been avoided if the writer had taken the time to review his or her work.

Programs to check spelling and grammar exist for a reason. (Although, as I’m sure someone will point out in the comments, these programs aren’t foolproof.)

It takes little time to re-read something to find those errant little thoughts that somehow made it into your copy that don’t belong. Or the misused word or the place where your train of thought derailed. Are you really in such a hurry that you can’t take a minute to re-read your text? Really?

Brian’s post deals with 5 common (but avoidable) mistakes writers can make in their copy. I hope you get a chuckle out of his dangling participle examples.

Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb

I should add that, like Brian, if I truly have a grammar question (since grammar was like a foreign language to me in school), I ask my significant other. It helps having an in-house grammarian.

Another aspect of my “Organizing for a Better Blog” quest is giving my blog the importance it’s due. It’s part of my marketing mix; it not only showcases my thinking, it also demonstrates some of my writing ability. As a writer who wants to work more in the online arena, that’s pretty important.

And yet, I can find myself doing almost anything else but blogging. It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s that I will place more importance on other tasks and minimize the affect of blogging on my business. I also put clients ahead of my own work – not a bad thing if I’m on a deadline, but if the project is more long-term, I can steal a few minutes/hours for my own work without jeopardizing what I’m doing for them.

Maybe it’s a “woman” or a “mom” thing, but I’ve always placed more importance on others’ needs than my own.

That stops today. Well, at least with regard to my blog and blogging.

A smart woman in my weekly mastermind group suggested I do what I don’t want to do first thing in the morning. That’s good advice. However, given the importance of blogging regularly, I’m going to change that to – “do the one thing in the morning that will have continued benefits for your business.” Then I’ll move to “the one thing that will make me the most money today.” (That second one might not have immediate cash benefits but could.) Then if I feel like it, I’ll tackle that one thing I don’t want to do.

There. Now I’ve made that public.

And my blog post for today is now finished.

Now, if it would only stop snowing outside and get back to the business of becoming Spring.

A note from Lis:  Tag lines can cause stress, anxiety and angst for new business owners who believe (mistakenly) that they have to have the “perfect” snappy line at the start of their business. What many fail to understand is that tag lines can – and should – be modified as the business grows and changes.

Another misconception is what I call the “cute” factor. Your tag line should be memorable, but, just like television commercials, not so memorable that the person can’t see the brand (You) behind it.

Today’s post is written by Suzanne Wesley, who posted last month about logos. In this post, she gives real, concrete ways to create your first tag line with the emphasis on its relevancy to your business. (Here’s a hint:  You need to have a good handle on your value to your client. Without this understanding, you may have difficulty framing a useful tag line.) Enjoy!

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Last month I covered how having a professional logo could make you more memorable, and save you time explaining yourself during a first meeting with a prospective client or editor. This month, I’d like to add one more promotional element to your writing arsenal that can also assist you in promoting your writing – the tag line. Tag lines are also referred to as a slogan, and are usually a phrase, of up to seven words, that is catchy and ties in directly to the first snap-shot impression you want someone to have of you and your writing style.

Tip: This is not to be confused with your elevator pitch – which is a short, 30-second description of you, what you write, and what makes you unique from other writers.

Most of us are familiar with product tag lines, such as: Nike – ‘Just Do It,’ Bounty – ‘The Quicker Picker-Upper,’ M&Ms – ‘Melts in Your Mouth Not in Your Hands’ . . . and oh-so-many more. These companies have been using the same tag-line to promote the same product for many years. For businesses and individuals it is much more common that you will change your slogan or tag line about every two years to match up with any change in direction you may be taking.  After all, if you happen to be a prolific writer, you are hopeful that the novel you are working on now will be published within two years and you will then be moving on to writing and promoting your next writing adventure! Watch for slogans everywhere you shop, or even in your kitchen cabinets. Analyze the ones that seem the most effective, or interesting to you.

Questions that need to be addressed when creating your tag line:

1. Who will see it? Who is your customer/audience?
2. What benefit do you offer to them?
3. How do you stand out from your peers?
4. What type of emotion or feeling do you want to emit?
5. Is there any action you want someone seeing your slogan to take?

While thinking about those 5 questions write down all of the words that come to your mind. You might also want to check out what tag lines your competition is using.  Pay attention to what words they use.  Make sure that you aren’t copying a tag that someone in your field is already using.  You might find some useful words, but don’t make your tag-line TOO similar to avoid plagiarizing.

At this point, dig out your thesaurus, write down even more words to choose from and then develop a list of your favorite tag line ideas.  Look them over and apply the 5 questions above to your list. Narrow your choices down to the most effective ones and then ask willing family, friends or colleagues to chime in.  If you end up with more than one top choice – either keep tweaking the words until one is the obvious choice, or use one for a couple of years and keep the other for your next promotional campaign, to keep things fresh.

Example – My First Tag Line

Aside from my personal writing projects, I run a small business performing copy writing and graphic design projects for individuals and other businesses. I regularly work with clients that have an idea of what they want, sometimes they even have some of the writing, or even logos and photos they know they want to use, but they can’t quite put their finger on how to pull it all together and make an advertisement or brochure out of it … (or whatever the project may be).  Sometimes they don’t even know how they want to advertise themselves, they simply know they have a great product and want their potential customers to know all about it.  And my clients can be everything from another writer, to a large global company.  My slogan had to be somewhat generic to incorporate a very big potential client list.

After working on tag lines for others for years, I still found it a challenge to come up with the first one to use on my own business. Because I’m a visual thinker I eventually chose to use wrought iron and ceramic tiles as elements in my advertising and I also wanted to mimic that in my slogan.  Both wrought iron and tile are raw elements that are usually unimpressive on their own, but you can use them to make items that are beautifully intricate, and often useful too.  So my brainstormed slogan ideas reflected taking raw elements and making something whole from them.

I eventually came up with ‘Taking raw ideas … and making something beautiful!’ as my first tag line.  Hopefully, my journey to my own first tag line will inspire you to work on one of your own.  I am just starting to use it on my web site and in my advertising, and I still need to add it to my e-mail signature, business card etc.  As I slowly develop all of the elements I use to promote myself I will now include my tag-line, pictures of tile, and my logo – which includes an intricate wrought iron fence.  The more I do this, the more potential for instant recognition I will have.

Are you using a tag line?  If so, please comment and share what you are using.

Suzanne Wesley is a full-time freelance writer and graphic artist from Indiana.  She has over 13 years of experience in design and corporate communications creation. She is also the mother of two preschool-aged girls who make working out of a home office very interesting. Visit her site at www.suzannewesley.com.

Today I’m pleased to introduce you to Suzanne Wesley. Suzanne is a full-time writer and graphic designer with years of experience. We met on the Savvy Freelance Writers Facebook fan page after she commented on a post. Her topic about logo branding is one that I think many writers overlook when starting their businesses.

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Maybe the simpler question to answer is, can a writer get by without a logo? The answer would be, yes – you certainly can. But, . . . you’ll be working much harder when making a first impression than writers who do have one (just like everyone in every other profession).

It is very cliché but there is definitely a bit of truth hidden in the saying that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. When you have only moments to make a first impression any advantage you can get is going to be helpful. A well-crafted logo can help you appear professional, organized, creative . . . or even reflect a particular writing specialty that is your niche. And a logo can do that, before they read a single word about your latest pitch!

First impressions matter.

In a world where everyone is inundated with too much information on a daily basis, we are left to hope against hope that someone will notice our writing, make the time to read it, and fall in love with it (and then champion it on our behalf to those with the power to say yes or no to its publication).

The font choices, colors used, and design style of a logo can say a lot about you – even without using the stereotypical ink pen, quill, book or typewriter that are often used symbols of the writer’s trade.

For instance, if you consider yourself a chic lit writer, are you a writer of warm and fuzzy romance, or do you go for edgier female topics and handle them with gusto? You can hint at your writing style with a feminine script font and your choice of color. A softer pink or rose for a romantic vs. a bolder red instantly make a statement about your style.

Or, maybe comedy is your writing genre of choice. A bright, and vibrant color such as orange, yellow, or shocking pink or green enhance an instant sense of fun being afoot! Add in a fun (yet readable) font and your logo has made an instant statement on your behalf – even before anyone has had the chance to meet you, or read your query or proposal.

My own logo is below. What first impression does it give to you?

Suzanne Wesley is a full-time freelance writer and graphic artist from Indiana.  She has over 13 years of experience in design and corporate communications creation. She is also the mother of two preschool-aged girls who make working out of a home office very interesting. Visit her site at www.suzannewesley.com.